‘What are you talking about?’
‘You said Victoria. Her name is Charlotte Burke.’
Baker stared at Harvey, trying to figure out if the guy was taking the piss or if he really had no idea who Vikki was.
Of course he knows. He’s been playing her all along. Using her to get to me. Well two can play at that game.
Police sirens wailed like angry cats in the night. There was very little time left to act.
Baker’s fingers closed around the newly acquired pistol in his pocket, his decision made.
‘Of course I know my own daughter when I see her.’
‘Your daughter?’
‘Yes, my fucking daughter. But you already knew that, didn’t you, Harvey?’
‘How do you know my name?’
‘Don’t play dumb with me,’ Baker said, pulling the pistol out far enough to ensure Harvey saw it. ‘And don’t even think about getting any bright ideas because believe me, I will have no problems blowing your goddamned brains out. Now walk.’
William never expected to see Damon in Sydney let alone being forced at gunpoint into a commandeered boat by Paul Baker. The kid was supposed to be on the run with his comatose sister – safe on the other side of the world not in the middle of Armageddon.
Bill was right. Damon had a serious knight-in-shining-armour complex, always getting himself in trouble chasing damsels-in-distress.
It was going to get him killed.
Now twenty minutes later, William watched from the shadows as a second family member was marched away against their will.
This time it was Carl getting manhandled into a car by Campagni.
Bloody fool. I told him not to leave the house. Doesn’t anyone listen to me anymore?
Involving Carl had always been a long shot. William hoped Carl’s remoteness from Bill and BJ would play to his benefit. Possibly even take Bill by surprise.
Unfortunately, William was the only one taken by surprise – again.
Where do I go now?
Returning to the apartment was out of the question. If Carl had spent any time with his father – if Campagni was in town, he had to assume Bill was too – then Bill already had the address.
For the second time that evening, William found himself worrying about a grandchild. He was never going to win Grandfather of the Year but that didn’t mean he wanted them dead.
But there was a very real danger of that, for both Damon and Carl.
For all he knew, Damon could be dead already; his body dumped at the bottom of the Sydney Harbour.
He couldn’t blame Baker for wanting revenge. Not after everything they had taken from him.
As for Campagni...
The man was a monster – an attack dog, assassin and garbage collector all rolled into one. He did the jobs nobody else had the stomach or the inclination to do.
William couldn’t feign innocence. He knew full well how many lives Campagni had ended. He’d even ordered some of those deaths himself. There was plenty of guilt to go around.
Well it stops tonight. It’s time to dance with the devil.
If William were lucky, only one more person would die for his secret.
Charlotte ran, half blinded by the tears that stung her eyes, blundering through the crowded streets.
But she refused to cry. She refused to give her father that satisfaction.
‘Hey, watch where you’re going?’
‘Are you all right?’
‘Can I help you miss?’
She ignored all the concerned and angry comments, pushing through the never-ending sea of people, hoping only to get lost among them.
Five million people in Sydney and she couldn’t avoid the one man she hoped to never see again?
How did he find me?
More to the point, why?
What did he want? Did he really think she would ever forgive him for what he’d done?
He ruined her childhood, drove her mother to kill herself and murdered her best friend.
Something buzzed in her handbag. Her phone.
Was it Damon?
No. It wasn’t the iPhone Damon had sent her. It was her normal phone.
Besides, she’d left Damon with her father; left him alone with a madman who had already shown he had a deep-seated hatred towards the Harvey family.
Charlotte answered the phone, her hands shaking as she did. ‘Hello?’
‘It’s Highgrove. I have that information you wanted. I’ve done some digging on this end. Looks like you were right. Jacqueline Harvey was murdered.’
Just like Damon suspected.
The gears inside her brain squealed in protest as her mind struggled to take it all in, to process this new information on top of everything else.
‘Murder.’ She laughed.
‘What’s so funny?’
She laughed again, louder this time. More manic. She was starting to draw a crowd.
Everyone come and look at the crazy woman lose it all.
There was too much to deal with. The fragile layers of her mind were beginning to unravel.
Warring brothers, demons and ghosts and the horrors of the past, murdered best friends, suicides, a fifty year old conspiracy that could very well point to time travel, the reappearance of her father. And now, to top it all off, the confirmation that Damon was right. His mother had been murdered.
That meant Miranda was killed to cover it up and Charlotte...
She could be next.
Charlotte expected an appearance from her megalomaniac boss; she expected anger. What she got instead was kindness.
‘Are you okay, Charlotte?’
He’d never called her by her first name before. There was such tenderness and compassion in his voice that it broke the dam wall.
The laughter turned to tears.
‘Something is wrong. I’m getting on a plane and coming out to Sydney.’
‘No. It’s...’ Her voice shuddered as she tried to get the crying under control. ‘No, I’m fine. I’m just tired.’ She sniffed, wiping her face. ‘It’s been a long couple of weeks. I just need a good night’s sleep.’
Yeah. Like that’s going to happen any time soon.
‘Okay.’ Highgrove didn’t sound convinced. ‘You have any idea who murdered her?’
‘My first bet would be Bill Harvey but I need proof.’
‘Ah, yeah you might want to have some of that before you go accusing the world’s richest man of murder. Are you... is it safe – you’re not in any imminent danger, are you?’
‘I’m always in danger but I’ll pull through. If you don’t hear from me, you know what to do with the information.’
‘I’d better hear from you. You’re the best damned journalist I’ve got. Bye, Charlotte.’
It was the closest Highgrove had ever come to complimenting her.
‘Bye.’
The second phone rang – Damon’s hotline to her.
‘Hello?’
‘Where are you?’
There was something scratchy and uncertain about his voice.
‘I’m at The Waterfront Suites. Why?’
‘We need to talk. It’s urgent.’
‘Look, when I ran... those things I said... I wasn’t saying them to you...’ She wanted to say that she loved him too but maybe he had changed his mind. Maybe that was what he wanted to talk to her about.
‘I’m not angry, Charlotte. But I do need to speak to you. Can you meet me tonight?’
Relief swept through her like summer rain. ‘Of course,’ she said, her throat choking up with tears. ‘Where and when?’
‘Now. Don’t talk to anyone – especially not BJ or my father. Tell Mark Barclay to leave too if you want but you have to get out of there. Get your things and meet me at Circular Quay in fifteen minutes.’
‘Okay. And Damon?’
‘Yeah, what is it?’
‘I love you too.’
She hung up the phone, happier and more elated than she’d ever been, floating
up the elevator in a daze.
Her exuberance dried up the second she opened the door.
A cloud of hedonistic Poison enveloped her and then she noticed the mess. Someone had trashed her room; smashing bottles, scattering clothes, overturning furniture.
Charlotte’s scalp prickled uncomfortably and her subconscious screamed its warning.
Run. Get out of there. Forget your things. Just go.
Too late.
The door slammed shut with the finality of death.
Chapter Fifty:
Damon put the phone back in his pocket, an incredulous smile spreading across his face. It didn’t matter that his whole universe had just been tipped upside down and forever changed. The only thing that mattered was that Charlotte loved him. She was coming to him. Together, they could fight anything.
‘What are you grinning about?’
‘She agreed to meet me.’
‘Yeah, I noticed you didn’t mention me.’ Baker’s voice was raw with pain despite the bravado.
‘You wanted her to come. If she knew I was with you...’ Damon let the rest of the sentence hang.
‘Point taken. You still think I’m lying?’
‘I know what my family are capable of. Murder, conspiracy, corporate fraud. Yeah, I can buy all that. But time travel?’ It gave a whole new meaning to the activities of The William S Club.
‘I showed you the proof. What more do you want?’
Damon shrugged.
His family was a lie and his heritage was built on a house of fraudulently played cards.
Where did that leave him?
Where did it leave his siblings, and the rest of his family – those not a part of The William S Club?
Their future was out of his control. It was in the hands of Charlotte and her dad.
Those four little words – I love you too – were music to Damon’s ears but would Charlotte still feel that way after she found out the truth? Would she still love him once she discovered his family had torn hers apart for their own selfish gain?
‘Do you have any idea what this information will do to her?’ Damon knew he was being selfish but he couldn’t deny there was a part of him that wanted to keep the truth hidden. He had always known who he was and where he had come from.
Not anymore.
Now he knew nothing. Had nothing.
The only thing he could cling to was his futile hope that she would still love him when all the cards had been dealt.
‘It will give her back her life. For too long my daughter has lived in shame - believing that her mother took her own life, that I was a criminal who abandoned her. She spent her childhood in a foster home because of your family. She changed her name to escape that shame. Left her home country because the media hounded her for dirt on her infamous parents. And none of it was true. Nothing. Your family ruined my daughter’s life. They stole everything from us.’
Damon could understand the man’s bitterness. He could even understand how he had become the font for an outpouring of that animosity. He was a Harvey who had lived a life of privilege and comfort while Charlotte - Victoria - had nothing.
Bile rose in his throat as the disgrace of that knowledge burned his insides.
‘If there is anything I can do to make this better…’
Words, they were all just words. How could he make it better?
‘Honour our agreement and prove to me that you’re nothing like them.’
Swallowing hard, Damon nodded his head, hoping with all in him that those words were true. If there had ever been a time in his life when he wanted to be different to The William S Club, it was now, in the harsh reality of terrible truth.
‘Let’s go and get my daughter,’ Baker said, slipping the gun into the waistband of his jeans.
‘What do you want?’ Charlotte said, her brown eyes flashing annoyance.
She acted like he was keeping her from an important date.
‘You already know what I want. What I’ve always wanted from you.’
BJ stepped closer, caressing her face, his hand tracing down her cheek to the fullness of her lips. He bent down, kissing her, forcing her lips apart, his tongue probing inside her mouth.
This was her one chance. If she gave herself freely to him, there was still hope that they could have the future BJ envisaged.
‘NO. Get off me.’
She pushed him away, wiping her hand across her mouth as if she could wipe all traces of him away.
The action broke something inside him – a monsoon of pent up rage and fury, her ongoing rejection a firebrand on his already bruised ego.
His fist flew out, connecting not with cheek or nose but the middle of Charlotte’s neck.
She clutched her throat, making a series of low, guttural sounds as she tried to suck air into her lungs.
The sound excited BJ, turning him on harder and faster than any drug. He circled behind her, dragging her immobilised body backwards towards the bed - a proud lion returning to the den with his prey.
‘Can you feel that? It’s all yours,’ he said, pressing the hardness of his groin against her soft, supple buttocks.
She coughed and spluttered, her body trying to regain some control beyond its desperate need for air; a situation BJ was only too ready to take advantage of.
Lifting up her dress, he groaned. A dental-floss-thin strip of black lace sliced between her ass cheeks, barely covering her.
He threw her onto the bed, unzipping his pants as he climbed on top, forcing her thighs apart with his knees.
She tried to speak, to beg him to stop, to say this wasn’t him – as if she had a clue - but her bruised vocal cords could only elicit the harsh whisper of an oesophageal patient.
And so she did the only thing she could. She fought. Bucking, kicking, trying to slap out at him.
The struggle only increased his excitement, the bulge now a raging hard on.
BJ pressed one hand against her throat, squeezing, cutting off her airway even further - autoerotic strangulation in reverse – her lack of air increasing his erection.
Charlotte stopped fighting his body, her need to breathe, to survive, far greater than any puritan need to protect her sexuality.
With a deep thrust, he broke through the final barriers, gaining access to her Holy Grail.
Mark rubbed his eyes, arching his back across the ill-designed desk chair to regain some feeling in his spine and shoulders.
He had been working non-stop since meeting with Charlotte, poring over genealogy documents and missing person reports, still out of his depth but getting a better feel for what he was looking for.
Something rumbled like an earthmover hitting bedrock.
His stomach.
I’ll never get to sleep with that thing growling at me.
He closed the lid on the laptop, wondering if the kitchen would be open yet.
Surely a hotel this size can cater for a late night craving, or is that an early bird in need of a worm?
Grabbing his room key and wallet, he headed out the door. It was quiet out here. No wonder. Normal people were in the deep stages of restorative sleep by now.
He passed Charlotte’s room, surprised to hear movement inside. Voices followed by a loud crash. Glass breaking. A muffled scream.
Maybe she’s watching TV.
He paused, his hand raised, ready to knock, listening for any other noise.
If she’s awake, maybe she’s hungry too.
Idiot. She might have fallen asleep with the TV on. If you wake her, she’ll think you’re a moron.
You are a moron. Who invites someone to breakfast at 3am?
He was just about to leave when something thumped up against the door, scaring the shit out of him.
Not something. Someone.
Forgetting all caution, Mark knocked on the door, his mind already spinning into overdrive.
‘Charlotte. Are you okay?’
No answer.
‘Charlotte, open up. It’s me – Mark.?
??
Nothing. He tried the handle. It was locked.
Maybe she was asleep. Maybe his mind was playing tricks on him. This conspiracy theory shit was getting to him, making him imagine monsters where there were none.
‘Mark, help.’
That wasn’t the television.
Mark had never considered himself the caveman type but the cry for help triggered something base and primeval deep inside him.
He rammed his shoulder into the door, gritting his teeth as a wave of pain jarred through his body.
Another attempt; another jarring stop. The only thing moving was his brain rattling around inside his head.
They made it look so easy in the movies.
One last try and then I go get security.
He stepped back, taking a run at the door, lowering his shoulder like a battering ram.
Just as he reached it, the door swung open, carrying his body deep inside the hotel room.
The place was trashed. Clothes everywhere. Furniture overturned. A lamp smashed against the wall. A giant hole in the middle of the television screen where someone had put a foot through it.
‘Holy fuck.’
He had no idea what he had expected but never in his wildest imagination was it Charlotte naked and bound in the centre of her bed. Her face was as messed up as the room - eyes swollen shut, lips smeared in blood, cuts and abrasions crisscrossing her cheeks. An ugly purple bruise had already formed across her throat and something silken and red had been rammed into her mouth – a crude but efficient gag.
Mark’s eyes took everything in but his brain needed a second longer to catch up.
He spun around, trying to see her assailant but he wasn’t quick enough.
A hard object connected with the side of his head and everything went black.
‘She should have been here by now. Something is wrong.’
Damon paced in front of the Circular Quay turnstiles. His heart was in hyper drive, hammering like Speedy Gonzales on methamphetamines and the sweat that covered his body had nothing to do with the overbearing humidity.
‘How long has it been?’ Baker leaned against the ticketing machine, his cap pulled low over his eyes.
They had taken a huge risk agreeing to meet in such a public place when half the police force in Sydney was still searching for Paul Baker. The longer they stayed here, the more at risk they were.