Chapter Fourteen
Elle’s first interview the next day was with NewsBuzz at 11:00 a.m. She was tense on the car journey there, especially since Conrad received a call from his friend Steve.
Marcus had discharged himself from the hospital yesterday afternoon, and Steve had followed him home. He’d left to catch a train early that morning, and unfortunately Steve had lost sight of him in the crowds. Marcus had also changed out of his running shoes, so he wasn’t wearing the tracker they could follow.
Steve had returned to Marcus’s house to wait for him, but he hadn’t returned home.
Marcus going off the grid had to mean that he was planning something.
David was with them that morning; he was going to stay in the town car and keep watch for anyone suspicious as Conrad and Elle entered or exited the buildings. All three were in the back because the rear windows were tinted which helped to hide his presence. It made for a snug ride, but Elle was comforted nevertheless.
David had spoken to Marcus last night and Marcus had lied, saying he was in bed and taking the next day off work to recover. While they were chatting, David “let his guard drop” and hinted at Elle not being happy with Conrad anymore. Marcus had taken the bait and practically begged for more information. David played things down, but Marcus was lapping up every detail.
He’d called Marcus again that morning on his way to meet them at their apartment, just to “check” on his recovery, and they’d chatted again. David confessed that he was worried about Elle as she’d seemed withdrawn the last few times he’d spoken to her. That actually wasn’t a lie, but it was because of being stalked and had nothing to do with Conrad.
Since it seemed Marcus wasn’t going to return home, Steve was making his way to meet up with them at the NewsBuzz offices, hoping to be an extra set of hands should the need arise. Unfortunately, Steve had been watching Marcus’s house, and he lived outside London, so it was taking Steve quite a while to get back to them through morning traffic.
Their car pulled up in front of the office and double parked so they could just walk right in. Elle tightened her hold on the hairspray canister in her coat pocket.
Her coat was a bulletproof black mackintosh that looked just like any other coat, although perhaps a little thicker. David’s contact had delivered it that morning, along with a black topcoat for Conrad. It made him look very fetching.
Conrad looked around for any dangers, then he exited the car. Elle slipped out once he told her to. He shadowed her all the way to the building, practically plastering his chest to her back to give her maximum cover.
Elle breathed a sigh of relief as she reached out for the main doors, but from nowhere, she felt her bag being tugged so hard that she lost her grip on it.
The guy who’d taken it was just shy of six feet but as skinny as a rake.
Conrad reached for him, but he was like greased lightning and slipped away before Conrad could get a firm grip on his coat.
Suddenly David was in the man’s way. The thief barreled into the older man, knocking them both to the ground. The attacker’s hood fell back as he scrambled to his feet, and Elle’s pulse went into overdrive as she recognized him from the attack outside the TV studio. She didn’t think she’d seen his face then, but she’d evidently seen enough to recognize him.
He was young, she realized. No older than twenty, although his face was prematurely aged, probably from drugs or alcohol judging by how skinny he was.
Conrad fired his Taser, but the boy stumbled, and the prongs missed, landing harmlessly on the pavement. Conrad took off running after him, and Elle went to help David, who seemed to be favoring his bad leg.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
He nodded, so Elle took off running after Conrad and the attacker, ignoring David’s calls for her to stop and come back. She heard him swear like a sailor, and she realized that he must have badly hurt his leg, especially since she couldn’t hear his footfalls chasing her.
Nevertheless, as much as she cared for her friend, she wasn’t going to miss the opportunity to catch this creep and finally end her nightmare.
They’d been prepared for an attack, but none of them had anticipated a mugging.
It never occurred to any of them to think that perhaps, in stealing her handbag, he was luring them into a trap.
Conrad was muscular and fit with a runner’s build rather than a bodybuilder’s, so he was easily keeping pace with the attacker, although he wasn’t gaining any ground.
Elle on the other hand, was falling farther and farther back. It wasn’t even that she was unfit. She was in ballet flats rather than decent running shoes, and she was a good deal shorter than both men.
She ran for what felt like miles, until her lungs were burning and her legs screaming for a rest.
She was chastising herself for not using the hairspray in her pocket. If she’d just been more ready, they could have stopped him then and there, David wouldn’t have gotten hurt, and she wouldn’t be feeling like she was about to be sick.
She turned the final corner and, with a sinking heart, realized she’d lost sight of them, but she continued running, hoping to catch a glimpse.
She was in a rundown area where all the buildings’ windows were boarded up. She noticed a couple of redevelopment signs, so someone was probably just waiting for planning permission to demolish the buildings and start again.
There were a few cars passing by, but this wasn’t a main thoroughfare and foot traffic was very sparse. Those who were around looked down when she glanced at them, their hands in their pockets and quite clearly wanting to be left alone. She pegged them as addicts or squatters, possibly both, which might explain why the buildings hadn’t been knocked down yet—the squatters hadn’t been evicted.
A chain-link fence caught her eye as it blew in the breeze, but it took her a moment to realize that the only reason it could blow in the breeze, was because it had been cut. Perhaps it wasn’t the wind moving it but the momentum from the last person to have pushed through?
She ran toward it, sparing only the briefest of glances for the traffic as she crossed the road. Then she came skidding to a halt when she heard the unmistakable sound of a gunshot.
Those around her paused for a moment, then scattered rapidly away from the area, not wanting to get involved.
Someone blasted their horn at her, and she jumped in fright, managing to land on the white lines in the middle of the road more by luck than judgment. She waited for the other lane to clear, then ran across the road and toward the factory.
Suddenly, the thug who took her handbag appeared, running straight toward her. She just had time to notice his eyes widen in shock as he saw her, then he was sprinting past her as fast as his legs could carry him.
Elle darted through the cut chain-link fence, catching her coat, which jerked her to a halt. Her hands scrabbled at the coat, fumbling to yank it free. In her frantic haste, she tore a nail off on the chain link. The pain shocked her out of her panicked, mindless rush. Drawing a deep, gasping breath, she forced herself to calm down and think.
She had to slow down now, she realized. She needed to play things smart and get the lay of the land before she rushed in headfirst. Wiping her sweaty palms on her coat, she tried to ignore the queasy feeling in her stomach and hoped that she wouldn’t actually throw up.
She just had to pray that Conrad hadn’t been mortally injured.
She went around the building as quietly as she could and found a concrete courtyard at the rear. It was surrounded on three sides by buildings and had a high wall on the fourth side. She could see only one door that had been forced open—the planks that had been nailed over it were lying on the ground. She carefully picked her way over to it.
The building seemed to be a former factory and judging from the metal window frames, it was probably from the 1930s. She glanced in through a grimy windowpane but couldn’t see any movement inside.
Luckily the building seemed to have skylights, so although the windows were grimy, she could see the interior fairly well.
Two stories high, most of the interior was one huge open space, except in the middle where a second floor seemed to almost float in the gloom—it was possibly where an overseer had kept an eye on the workers. She wondered what the factory had made to require so much height, but any machinery that might have given her a clue was long gone.
This end of the building had only one external door a large, double door that she guessed that it was the main entrance to the whole factory.
She couldn’t see anyone, so she went to the door, listening for any signs of life as she entered.
Her heart was pounding so hard that she wondered if she’d even be able to hear over the thumping in her ears, but she was compelled to carry on. Every heartbeat whispered hurry, hurry, hurry.
The floor was littered with the assorted debris of years, even decades. There was the expected, such as chips of masonry that had fallen or been knocked from the walls, glass from broken windows, and a few smashed tiles from a hole that was developing in the roof. Then there was the unexpected—wooden pallets, a few items of clothing, a couple of mismatched, rotting wooden chairs, and some drug paraphernalia.
Her ragged breathing sounded exponentially louder inside than it had in the courtyard, but she was trembling so hard that she literally couldn’t control it. She just had to hope that it sounded louder to her than to anyone else.
A raised voice caught her attention, and she could tell that it wasn’t coming from this part of the building. As quickly as she could, she crept to the other end of the room, taking care to only step on uncluttered portions of the floor. Luckily, her shoes hardly made any noise whatsoever, but thanks to her nerves, she wasn’t quite as agile as she might usually be and she misjudged a step and kicked some kind of ceramic tile fragment.
She froze, hoping against hope that no one had heard the scrape as it flew over the concrete floor. The seconds ticked by, and her legs began to cramp. Then movement caught her eye in her peripheral vision. She looked and saw a downy white feather drifting down from the rafters high above. It landed on a broken plank that had probably once been nailed over a door or window.
She looked up. Given the hole in the roof, it wasn’t unrealistic that there was a pigeon nest in here somewhere, but if so, she couldn’t see it.
She bent over and picked up the piece of wood, which was about two feet long and six inches wide, mostly split in half along the grain of the wood. Tucking the hairspray can in her pocket, as quietly as she could, she pulled each half apart. It split easily. She tried swinging one half like a bat and was sure it would do some damage.
Thanks, Mum, she thought as she got the canister out of her pocket again. She knew she was fooling herself if she thought some ghostly presence was helping her, nevertheless, the white feather comforted her.
Her palms were sweaty again, so after a quick wipe on her coat, she ventured deeper into the factory, the wood in her right hand and the hairspray in her left.
The first door she reached had been torn from its hinges. She stood to the side of it, peering around it to make sure the next room was clear. It was a corridor, not a room, which meant that trouble could come at her from any of the doorways along its length.
As she went to move, she felt something flap at her hair, and she covered her head with her arms. When she looked up, she realized it had just been the sound of a pigeon flying from one pipe to another, and what had flapped at her hair was nothing more than a slight breeze.
Nonetheless, terror paralyzed her, and she found herself literally unable to move her feet. She stood there, back pressed to the wall, shivering. She felt so helpless that tears of frustration welled in her eyes. Her heart was beating fast enough that she actually felt light-headed.
What had she been thinking? She couldn’t do this, she wasn’t cut out to be heroic! She was a singer, not a fighter!
Suddenly a roar of “She is MINE!” echoed through the building, and her heart constricted with fear.
Conrad!
The thought of him in danger gave her the rage necessary to overcome her fear and start moving again.
If anything had happened to him, someone was going to pay dearly!
Elle made her way to the half-open door as quietly as she could, making sure to stay out of sight of the room’s occupants. She risked peering through the gap by the hinges on the right of the door frame, holding her breath as if that could keep her invisible.
Conrad lay on the floor, blood pooling below his left thigh and his right arm clamped protectively against his ribs as he grimaced in pain. She soon saw why. Marcus was holding a shotgun. She clamped her hand over her mouth, holding in her moan of fear.
Suddenly it all became clear: the guy stole her purse to lure Conrad here, where Marcus lay in wait for him.
Marcus didn’t seem to be waiting for her to arrive, though. Clearly, he hadn’t expected her to follow Conrad. And why would he? In the ridiculous shoes he usually made her wear, she wouldn’t have been able to run one block without breaking her ankle!
Conrad still wore his bulletproof coat, so she was hopeful that he wasn’t seriously injured. Buckshot spread so it covered a large area, but it wouldn’t penetrate as deeply as a bullet, right? With his coat protecting him almost to midthigh, she prayed that he wasn’t as badly injured as all that blood made it seem.
Conrad appeared to be trying to rile Marcus up, which was a bloody foolish move! Even if it successfully distracted him, one barrel of the shotgun still hadn’t been fired. While it might not be as lethal as a handgun, a shot to the face could still kill.
“Ella would never debase herself with a thug like you!” Marcus yelled, his voice rising as he spoke.
“She tastes like strawberries,” Conrad prodded him.
“No!” Marcus began to pace. “No, no, no! Strawberries are a child’s flavor. If Ella tastes like anything, it’s . . . it’s . . . it’s champagne and roses and—”
Conrad laughed. “It’s her lip gloss,” he confided. “That’s why her lips are so soft. And after she’s washed it, her hair smells like apricots and vanilla; it’s her conditioner.”
“No, no, no,” Marcus began to chant as he shook his head.
In God’s name, why was he goading the lunatic? Elle gritted her teeth. If he doesn’t shut up, I’ll throttle him myself!
Something touched her foot, and she nearly jumped three feet in the air until she realized it was just a rat. She had bigger things to worry about than catching the bubonic plague, but she still had to stifle a scream.
Marcus wasn’t being quiet as he paced, the hard leather soles of his dress shoes slapped loudly on the concrete floor, but she still buried her face in the crook of her arm so she could muffle the sound of her panting until she had calmed down a little.
“I love her!” Marcus bellowed
He was about to snap, and she had to move fast enough to stop him from shooting Conrad! Honestly, did the man have a death wish? It was like he was trying to piss Marcus off!
“Ella is elegant and sophisticated,” Marcus continued. “Her shampoo is probably made from avocado or almonds. She wears Chanel No.5, she likes to bathe before bed, she sleeps in a white silk nightgown and—”
“You bought her that?” Conrad cackled with laughter, even while pretending to wince in pain. “Dude, she sleeps in Hello Kitty or Panda pj’s, and the only time she wore your stupid, impractical white silk slip masquerading as a nightgown, was when she was trying to seduce me!”
“You lie!” Marcus shouted. “You lie vilely!”
She stepped back from the door and raised the plank of wood she was holding. Since she didn’t have a free hand, she prepared to hook the edge of the door with the hairspray canister in her left hand and yank it open, then she could bring the plank down on his arm . . . except he’d see her coming if he stood sideways. No, she had to wait for him to turn toward Conrad, then strike his shoulder before he could shoot . . . although that wouldn’t much change the trajectory if he did get a shot off . . . Maybe she should just aim as hard as she could for his skull. Yes. The head. Good plan.
“They’re an off-white shade, with red piping on the hem and”—he pointed to an area just above his left nipple—“a little red emblem, just here. Might have been a VS for Victoria’s Secret, but I wasn’t really looking at the logo that night.”
How could Conrad make that description sound so filthy?
“Noooo!” Marcus swung the gun up toward Conrad, and Elle struck, moving as fast as she could. Her plank connected with his head just an instant before the gun went off.
The strike to his head prevented him from anticipating the blowback, and in the fraction of a second between pulling the trigger and the pellets leaving the barrel, the recoil forced the gun slightly higher. Conrad threw himself to the floor, so the spray of pellets mostly missed. Dear God, she hoped they missed!
When Marcus turned, snarling at her, she had her hairspray ready and let loose a stream right into his eyes. He squealed in pain and closed his eyes tightly, dropping the gun to claw at his face.
Conrad was frantically trying to lever himself to his feet, but before he got there, Elle was on Marcus, screaming like a fury.
Elle had dropped the hairspray and grabbed the wooden plank with both hands. She began to beat him with it as hard as she could.
“Love me?” she screeched. “You don’t even know me! You tried to turn me into your sick fantasy of who you wanted. You may have loved her, but you don’t love me!”
Marcus fell to his knees with a cry under her onslaught.
“And. My. Name.” She punctuated each word with a blow from her improvised bat, aiming at whatever bit of him she could reach, “Is. Elle! E-L-L-E. Not. Ell-a!”
By the time she was done, Marcus was curled into a ball on the floor, and Elle was panting.
“It’s okay,” Conrad soothed as he limped over to her, slowly taking the bat from her hand and placing it on the floor—he was worried that dropping it might frighten her. He’d been in enough life-or-death situations to recognize that she was still wound as tight as a drum and would need a while to calm down. “You’re okay. I’ve got you.”
He gently took her into his arms and stroked her hair as she began to shake so violently that he could feel her vibrating.
“Shh,” he soothed. Finally her arms rose, and she held him. “It’s over. It’s over now.”
Marcus groaned as he tried to move, but a judicious kick to his kidneys by Conrad soon convinced him that keeping still was the best option.
Running through his head were the next steps he would need to complete before he could take her home where she could be safe from the world for a little while.
Elle she leaned back slightly so she could look up at Conrad.
“What the fuck was that?” she demanded, her hand shaking as she gestured to where he’d recently been sitting. “Were you trying to get yourself killed?”
“I was trying to rattle him, put him off his game, and force an opening to attack him.”
“Yeah, because you were really in a position to attack,” she scoffed, but her anger was mitigated by the tears shining in her eyes.
“I wasn’t as badly injured as I looked. It’s an old SBS trick, appear strong when you’re weak, and weak when you’re strong.”
“Well, you were shot! You should have pretended to be strong, not an asshole playing chicken with a madman!”
“Then he might have panicked and shot me. I had to keep him going,” he answered with enviable reason and patience.
Finally, her tears spilled over. “I thought I was going to lose you,” she choked out. “Dammit”—Elle hit his uninjured shoulder—“don’t you ever do that again!”
“I’m not going anywhere,” he assured her, pulling her back into his embrace.
“What happened to your arm?” she grudgingly asked.
“I fell when I was shot, landed on it funny. It’s nothing.”
“I don’t believe you,” she said as she wiped her tears away. “Can I borrow your phone?”
“Sure.” He freed up a hand to dig into his pocket and passed it to her. “Why?”
“Because you need an ambulance, and someone has to arrest him.” She aimed a thumb at Marcus as she dialed the emergency services.
Marcus whimpered in reply but made no further attempts to move.
Marcus was actually quite seriously injured. With a suspected broken arm and possible internal bleeding, he was whisked away to the hospital under police guard.
A second ambulance treated Conrad at the scene and checked Elle out. Other than a case of shock, she was fine, so they whisked her and Conrad to the hospital where he could have the buckshot removed.
A police car followed them to the hospital. Once in the emergency room, while they waited for Conrad to be sent for X-rays, Elle and Conrad gave a joint statement to the police, each filling in the blanks that the other hadn’t witnessed.
Her handbag hadn’t been found, they told her, but the only thing of real value that had been in it was her phone. Elle honestly couldn’t remember if the thug still had it with him when he ran past her or not. Its loss was a small price to pay for everyone having come out of it safe and . . . well, mostly sound.
Considering Conrad’s injuries, they were allowed to skip the formality of giving the police full statements immediately, and they arranged to go to the station at 11:00 a.m. the next day.
Because he’d been shot in the back while he ran after the handbag thief, Conrad was lying on his stomach on the gurney, his pants off so they could reach the wound site on his thigh.
After a doctor had seen him and explained the procedure, Conrad was taken away for X-rays so they could see where the pellets were and how easily they could be removed.
While Elle was waiting patiently for his return, David showed up.
He was walking with the help of a cane, but he assured her that he wasn’t seriously injured. They’d been in touch by phone, but Elle filled him in in more depth about what had happened.
He told Elle that the story was all over the internet and that the capture of her stalker was the lead story on the news, with people speculating about who it was that had been arrested.
“Must be a slow news day,” she said with a sigh.
When Conrad was wheeled back in, he was flirting with the nurses, so Elle was confident that he wasn’t seriously hurt.
Half an hour later, the doctor confirmed her suspicions. The X-rays showed that he had thirty two pellets in his leg, but he was lucky because they hadn’t hit any vital veins or arteries. He was then taken away again to have each pellet painstakingly removed under local anesthetic.
Elle had to practically force David to go home. As much as she loved what he’d done for her, he’d injured himself, and his family was probably worried sick about him. He eventually agreed.
“I’ll cancel your bookings for tomorrow and I’ll talk to the record label when I get home, see what our options are,” he assured her.
“Options?” Elle asked.
“For the single and album release. They’ll probably want to capitalize on the publicity, but considering it’s their executive who’s been stalking you, I think you can basically ask for whatever you want. Do you want time off?”
She thought about it for a moment. She’d been under pressure for so long now that a rest sounded lovely, but what would she do with herself all day, just sit around and remember the fear and the nightmares and the contents of the awful emails Marcus sent her? That sounded pretty horrific.
“I wouldn’t mind cutting back for a day or two, but I’ll carry on,” she admitted wearily.
“You’re sure?” David’s warm brown eyes probed hers.
“I need to keep busy,” she explained. “I’m done letting that maniac dictate my life!”
“Okay, look after yourself. And call me if you need anything!” He gave her a fatherly kiss on the forehead.
“I will,” Elle assured him.
As they hugged goodbye, he asked Elle where she’d be staying that night, and she suddenly realized that she didn’t quite know.
We’ll have to collect our things from the apartment, but will we stay there or move into a hotel? she wondered. And what was this ‘we’ business? Conrad’s job is over and he’s under no obligation to remain with me.
They needed to have a conversation about what would happen next, but just the thought of him saying no robbed her of her breath for a while and made her eyes sting with tears.
Truth be told, part of her was worried that he never really wanted to sleep with her because abstaining would make it easier to end things with her.
That was probably just her insecurity speaking, though. So far, everyone she had loved had left her. Her father left before she could remember him; her grandfather had died, followed by her mother and her grandmother. And of course, all her boyfriends were now exes. She found it a little hard to believe that this relationship would have a happy ending.
Nevertheless, she was determined to take the plunge with him and see if they had something special.
“I’ll probably stay in the apartment tonight. We missed our checkout time for today anyway,” she joked as she pulled out of the hug.
“Are you okay?” he asked, seeing the tears that were threatening to fall.
“I’m fine,” she assured him with a forced smile. “Just a little emotional now it’s finally over, you know?”
“I’m sure.” He nodded his understanding, and after a final hug, she watched him leave.
Alone in the treatment bay, she had a little cry, although she wasn’t entirely sure why.
By the time Conrad was released, it was nearly seven o’clock, and they were both exhausted, so they caught a cab home despite the exorbitant cost.
They stopped at a twenty-four-hour pharmacy so Elle could fill his prescription, but she also purchased some over the counter painkillers too, since Conrad only wanted to take the strong meds as a last resort.
Finally, they made it back to the apartment. Elle went through the place, flipping light switches to make it welcoming. She brought Conrad a glass of water as he settled gingerly on the sofa. She ordered pizza while Conrad took some pills.
His thigh was sore, but he could sit mostly on the other one. Well, on the comfortable couch at least; a hard chair might be different.
They opened a bottle of wine to have with the pizza, and they put a film on, neither of them caring very much what they watched.
They were both half-asleep by the time they’d finished eating, and although it was only just past nine, they dragged themselves to bed, switching sides so Conrad didn’t have to lie on his dressings.
Elle knew that they had some serious questions to answer, but they could wait. Right now, she just wanted to make up for the sleep she’d been losing for the last three months. With Conrad’s chest pressed into her back, and his warm breath in her hair, that’s exactly what she did.