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Ruby

The doorknob turned slowly.

The springs inside the mechanism taking the tension.

Click.

The door was unlocked, and instantly it was pushed open, knocking Ruby on her back.

She landed heavily, her right arm twisting behind her.

When she looked back at the door, a man stood there. For a moment, she couldn’t see his face.

His right arm was extended, and his features obscured by the gun pointed at Ruby’s head.

‘Get up, right now,’ said Brett Bale.

Ruby’s arm howled, the pain snaking up her forearm, into her triceps and the back of her shoulder. She didn’t know if it was the pain or the sudden shockwave of fear, but Ruby found that she could not move.

‘Up, now,’ said Bale. He reached over with his free hand and grabbed Ruby’s hair, hauling her to her feet as she let out a yelp of pain. Her scalp was on fire.

‘Not here,’ said Bale, and roughly turned her around, pointed her at the front door and still with a handful of her hair, shoved her forward. Ruby lost her footing, tripped and fell down the front steps to land on her back in the street.

She heard a door slamming, and managed to get her feet beneath her, ready to get up and run, when he grabbed her by her injured arm, at the wrist, and pushed her toward a Land Rover. The vehicle unlocked as he approached.

‘Get in,’ he said, and pushed the barrel of the pistol into her side, making her wince.

Ruby opened the passenger door, got in. Bale slammed her door shut, ran around to the driver’s seat, closed the door and hit the ignition button.

With the seatbelt warning signal pinging, he pulled away, steering with one hand. His other in his lap, the pistol pointed at Ruby’s belly.

‘You got a quarter of a million dollars from me. I paid it so I could find you. There’s no way you could know about me and Maggs unless she told you. Tell me exactly what she said . . .’