Page 26

Calisto

Today had been a lot, my head swimming with thoughts of demons, Ben, and O’Reilly. When the opportunity arose, everyone too busy debating what was to be done without reaching any useful conclusions to notice, I slipped into the bedroom to grab a few minutes of blessed peace away from all the heightened emotions.

I’d been in there five minutes and was gearing up to reenter the fray when my phone rang. Thinking there was a high probability of it being my mother wanting to know when we’d be back, I brought the phone straight to my ear. “It’s not a good time,” I said. “Can I call you back later?”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” an unfamiliar voice said. It was a woman, but it wasn’t my mother. “I apologize for calling you on what seems to be a trying day, but I think it’s way past the time where we should speak directly. Don’t you?”

O’Reilly! The realization came with a heavy dose of lead that settled in my gut. My immediate impulse was to hang up, but it wouldn’t make her go away, and would do nothing but postpone the inevitable showdown between the two of us. I concentrated on breathing evenly, forcing down the panic that wanted to come to the fore. I could still hear the murmur of conversation from beyond the bedroom door, the world out there suddenly seeming very normal compared to what was happening in here.

Three slow breaths, and then one more for good measure. “How did you get this number?”

She laughed, the sound almost pleasant. John had told me she looked and sounded like a librarian, and hearing that soft laugh, I could well believe it. “Is that the question you really want me to waste time answering, Calisto?”

My name on her lips said with such serenity made me want to pitch my phone across the room. I settled for gripping onto it for dear life instead. “No, not really. Did you take Ben?”

“Hmm… let me think. Why don’t you describe him to me, and I’ll see if he sounds familiar?”

“Don’t play games!”

“No?” She sounded surprised at the vehemence in my tone. “That’s a little unfair, don’t you think, when you’ve been playing them yourself?”

“What games?”

“Disappearing into secret passages in the wall. Gathering your family so tightly to your breast that I can’t get anywhere near them. Taking up with a new boyfriend with more money than sense who can cover any gaps in your little security measures to thwart me.”

“Pardon me for not wanting to get kidnapped.”

She did the little tinkling laugh again. “There’s no need to make it sound so dramatic. Coming with me on that first night would have ended all of this. I have no interest in you beyond what you can do for me.”

“Which is?”

“You know what I want you to do.”

“Spell it out.”

She gave a little sigh. “Fine. I can be accommodating when the situation requires it. I want you to bring my daughter back.”

“It’s not possible. She’s been dead for too long.”

“It is possible. You and I both know that.” There wasn’t a lot I could say to that, the silence stretching on and on before O’Reilly spoke again. “Look… I’m a reasonable woman—”

I couldn’t help it; I laughed. “You kidnapped John at gunpoint. You threatened to shoot John if Bellamy didn’t do what you wanted. You killed an innocent man just to send a message to me. And then you kidnapped Ben, so you had something to hold over my head. How is any of that reasonable?”

“I do have DCI Weaver,” she admitted.

“Is he alive?”

“Of course. What good would he be to me dead? And as long as you do what I want, he’ll stay that way. I know what you’re thinking, that I harbor a grudge against him for the trouble between him and my son.”

“Do you?”

“Not at all. That was between Flynn and him. Flynn has always been… How shall I put this? A little highly strung.” I was sure they weren’t the words Griffin—or Ben—would have used to describe the serial killer. “And as for Jimmy, he was far from innocent, but that’s another story. So how about you save me the trouble of having to send any more messages?”

Blood roared in my ears, my heart beating so rapidly that passing out seemed like a real possibility. “What are you suggesting?”

“A simple swap. You for Ben. If I was unreasonable, I’d ask for more. I’d ask you to bring that double-crossing necromancer with you as a little sweetener, but I’m not asking for that. John Averill can think himself lucky that I have neither the time nor the inclination to go after him. I did what I did. He did what he did. Our aims were not aligned. You will suffice. So what do you say? You come to me of your own accord, you do what needs to be done. I release Ben, and everyone is happy.”

I squeezed my eyes shut and leaned my forearm against the wall, trying to think over the roaring in my ears. “And if I don’t?”

“Then Ben will be useless to me, and I might decide I have a grudge against him, after all. I could film whatever I do to him as a present for my son when he gets out.”

“He’s not getting out. He killed multiple men in the most brutal fashion. He’ll die in prison.”

“We’ll see.”

Jesus! Was that what was next on her agenda? It made sense when you thought about it. If she’d go to such great lengths to get her daughter back, then there was no way she’d let her son rot in prison. “I don’t know if I can do what you want.”

“But you’ll try.”

“I’ve done it once, and it went wrong.”

“But you’ll try,” she repeated, with an undercurrent of steel in her voice.

“I’ll try,” I said, because what else could I say when the alternative was leaving Ben to his fate? We could pass it to the police to sort; he was, after all, one of their own. But by then it would already be too late.

“Marvelous!” O’Reilly said in a voice that sounded more like I’d just agreed to attend her birthday party. “I knew you were a sensible man. Shall we say tomorrow? I’m sure DCI Weaver won’t want to be a guest for any longer than he needs to be.”

“Tomorrow,” I echoed dully, the prospect seeming simultaneously too far away and too soon. “You’ll need a…” I swallowed, the word I needed sticking in my throat.

“A body,” O’Reilly finished for me. “I’m aware. Don’t worry. I already have a suitable candidate picked out. Is there a limit to how long they can have been dead for?”

“I don’t know,” I said, aware that by even discussing this, I was condemning someone to death. “I told you I’ve never done this.”

“We’ll work it out,” O’Reilly said cheerily.

“I need to speak to him,” I blurted, before she could bring the call to an end. “Ben, I mean. I need proof he’s still alive.”

“I somehow thought you might.” A conversation, too faint for me to hear followed, a long pause, and then just as my nerves had reached screaming point, another voice came on the line. “Calisto, is that you?” He sounded groggy, like he’d only just come round.

“Ben? Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m okay. Listen… don’t do what she wants you to do. It’s not—”

His voice cut off, the phone presumably snatched away before Ben could finish what he’d been about to say.

“There you go,” O’Reilly said. “You have your proof. I’ll see you tomorrow. Let’s say six p.m. Don’t be late.”

And then she hung up.

A sixth sense had me turning to find Baxter standing in the middle of the bedroom, his expression grave. “How long have you been there?”

“Long enough.”

“Right.”

“You’re actually going to do what she wants?”

I laughed. “What choice do I have? She’ll kill Ben if I don’t. And then after Ben, it will be someone else. John. Bellamy. Griffin. Asher. My mother. My father. Take your pick.” Baxter’s nod was slow and considered, and I was relieved he wasn’t going to argue. “Will you help me?”

He didn’t hesitate. “Of course. I’ll do whatever you need me to do.”

“Thank you.”

Baxter jerked his head toward the closed door. “They won’t like it.”

“No,” I said softly, “I don’t suppose they will.” Now everything was decided, I felt calmer, like the worst was over, even though really, I knew it was still to come. Even if I did what O’Reilly wanted, there was no guarantee I’d get to walk away. That would have been obvious even without Asher’s vision, but it added an extra certainty to the whole thing. There was nothing to be done about it, though, except throw the cards up in the air and see how they landed.

Asher was by the door when I opened it a crack. Perhaps he’d been on his way to check on me and got waylaid. “I need to talk to you,” I whispered urgently. “Alone.”

He didn’t hesitate to follow me into the room, his gaze searching. “What’s wrong?”

I tried for a smile, but suspected I hadn’t been wholly successful in making it convincing. “Well,” I said as breezily as I could, “we’ve found out what makes me go into the tower block of my own accord.” I spent the next couple of minutes filling him in on my conversation with O’Reilly, Asher’s expression growing stormier by the second.

When a knock came at the door, we both turned to stare at it.

“I can’t get it,” Baxter quipped, having stayed silent while I’d spoken to Asher.

The door muffled John’s voice. “Normally, I’d make a joke about you two having sex in there. But in news that will probably come as a surprise to everyone, even I’m concerned enough about Ben to rein it in. Griffin’s calmer, but calmer in a way that suggests he might burst into tears instead of kicking off, so if you’ve got any suggestions on how we’re going to come out the other side of this shitstorm, it would help.”

“Can you give us five minutes?” I called out.

“You’re not having sex, are you?”

“No, we’re not having sex,” I said. Once footsteps retreated from the door, I turned to Asher and studied him. Despite him being his usual stoic self on the outside, there were subtle signs of strain if you knew where to look: a set to his jaw that hadn’t been there previously, and a slight reddening of his usual pale complexion. “I know what you’re going to say.”

“Do you?”

“Yeah… You’re going to tell me not to go. Just like you did yesterday when you had the vision.”

“We didn’t have all the facts yesterday.”

I stared at Asher, surprised by how easily he’d agreed. “So, you’re fine with it?”

“Of course, I’m not fine with it.” He wrenched his gaze from mine, his throat bobbing. “I’m a very long way from being fine with it. I’ve only just found you. I can’t…” His voice cracked, and he took a deep breath, the process of battening down the hatches to slide his professional persona back into place happening right in front of my eyes. He squared his shoulders and his gaze fastened back on mine. “You’re right that doing nothing would condemn Ben to his fate. He’s nothing to her.” He pulled a face. “Actually, it’s worse than that. She has more reason to kill him than just about any other person on the planet after what happened between Ben and her son.”

“She said she doesn’t bear a grudge for that.”

Asher’s snort left no doubt how he felt about that. “She lies, and you shouldn’t forget that.”

“Yeah…”

“You’re not capable of writing Ben off. It’s not in your DNA.”

“I’d never be able to look Griffin in the eye again,” I admitted. “It would be worse than carrying the knowledge of how I desecrated Edmund’s body by shoving someone else’s soul into it around with me.”

“We work on changing what happened, though,” Asher insisted. “It doesn’t end the way I saw it.”

“We?”

“I was there,” he said, his gaze sliding momentarily away from mine. “I was with you.”

“Why didn’t you tell me that?”

“Because… I didn’t see what good it would do at the time. You were insistent that nothing would get you in that building, and I felt the same way. But a lot can change in twenty-four hours.” He palmed my cheeks, bringing our faces close together. “We change it,” he repeated, his tone brooking no arguments. “You stop hiding from what you can do, and you find a way. Do you understand?”

“Yeah,” I agreed, and I meant it, nothing else existing in this moment except Asher. “We’ll get Ben out of there, and we’ll get ourselves out of there as well. She doesn’t get to win.”