Black Widow. Jessie Keane

Come on, Annie. Get a grip. You’re still fucking alive. They left you alive.

      Annie came back to herself, taking deep breaths. The room steadied. Why had they left her alive? They’d drugged her, left her to find this horror. They’d left Jeanette too, apparently untouched, unmolested. Shit, if they were willing to snatch Max and Layla, if they were willing to plant a bullet hole in poor bloody Jonjo’s head, why hadn’t they finished the job? Why hadn’t they killed her and Jeanette too?

      Annie tipped the gun out on to the bed and snatched it up. Christ, she was shaking so hard. She flicked open the chamber, as she had seen Max do. He practised shooting at a target back in the woods sometimes, and he was a crack shot, a brilliant shot, but she was nervous of guns. She’d taken a bullet herself, and that was enough to make anyone wary.

      She took out the box of bullets and removed the lid. Started loading the cold, slippery things into the chambers. Tried to, anyway. Her hands were shaking so much she could hardly get the bullets in there. She breathed deep again, steadied herself. Got the bullets in and snapped the chamber closed. Slipped her finger in beside the trigger.

      ‘It’s a hair trigger,’ she remembered Max saying when he had shown her the gun once. ‘You’ve got to be careful. One squeeze and you’ve blown someone away. Put the safety catch on once it’s loaded.’

      Annie had shuddered. She still had the scar from the bullet she’d taken; she didn’t want to go shooting anyone. She had seen what guns could do, first-hand.

       But they could still be here, hiding, waiting. And they had taken Layla. They had taken Max.

      Annie clicked on the safety and went over to the wardrobe. Jeanette was still standing there like a spare prick at a wedding. She stared wide-eyed at the gun in Annie’s hand.

      ‘We’ve got to protect ourselves,’ said Annie. ‘Now come on. Let’s get dressed.’

      She pulled out tops and jeans for them both and shoved the clothes at Jeanette. ‘Put these on.’

      Jeanette stood there, clutching the clothes to her and still not moving.

      Nearly demented, Annie hissed through gritted teeth: ‘Move, you stupid cow.’

      Annie’s tone would have galvanized a regiment. Jeanette started to put on the clothes. Annie did the same, yanking on jeans and a blue top. Then the phone started to ring in the hall.

      It would be Inez, apologising for being late with the lunch, telling her that she was coming now, Señora, she would be five minutes, only five…which meant another half an hour. Inez, with no idea that hell had been set loose. Thinking no doubt that the bang of the pool house being blown up was somebody back in the woods, hunting with a shotgun. If she had heard it at all. Inez was a little deaf, and Rufio liked a drink or two; they weren’t the brightest kids on the block and that was a fact.

      Grabbing Jeanette with one hand and clutching the gun in the other, Annie went into the hallway and picked up the phone.

      ‘Inez?’ Her voice sounded like someone else’s. Some dry old woman’s. She was breathless with panic and whatever crap they had used to knock her out had affected her voice, made her throat dry and sore.

      ‘Annie Carter.’

      Annie dropped the phone. It had been a man’s voice, low and mean and Irish. Not Inez. She hauled the damned thing back up by the cord, shaking like a leaf, and clamped it back to her ear.

      ‘Who is it?’ Jeanette bleated anxiously.

      ‘Shut up,’ said Annie. She took a breath and spoke into the phone. ‘Who wants her?’

      ‘No questions.’

      Annie was suddenly furious. ‘What the fuck have you done with them, you tosser?’

      The man was laughing. She’d amused him. She wanted to smash the phone against the wall; she wanted to crawl down inside it and come out the other end and smash this creep to smithereens.

      ‘Where’s my daughter?’ she screamed at him.

      ‘Ah, the girl. I’ve got her here somewhere.’

      ‘And Max. Where’s Max?’

      ‘You mean Max Carter?’

      He was toying with her; she could hear laughter in his voice; this was a massive joke to him—her distress, her fear, her horror was meat and drink to him.

      ‘You’ll pay for this,’ she promised.

      ‘Fine words,’ he said.

      ‘He’ll make you pay.’

      ‘That would be a neat trick. He’s dead.’

      Annie sagged against the wall. Her head was thumping with pain now, she was frightened she was going to faint. ‘He’s not dead,’ she said. She couldn’t let herself take that in. She couldn’t allow herself to believe it, not for an instant. If she did, she was afraid she wouldn’t go on. Not even for Layla’s sake.

      ‘Oh but he is. We pushed him off a fucking mountain and watched him bounce all the way to the bottom.’

      ‘What is it?’ Jeanette was wild-eyed, clutching at Annie’s shoulder, almost shaking her. ‘What are they saying? Who’s dead?’

      Annie sank to the floor, unable to hold herself up.

      ‘He’s not dead,’ she told the man on the end of the phone.

      ‘He’s dead.’ The voice was harsh. ‘Get used to it. I’ll phone back in an hour. Be waiting. Oh—and your staff, in case you were wondering, are a bit tied up. An hour. Be ready.’

      The line went dead.

      A bit tied up. What the hell was that supposed to mean? Had these bastards done something to Inez and Rufio? Their smaller villa was up by the gate—maybe they had seen the men coming in and had questioned them? Or had the men come down from the hills behind the property, to maintain the element of surprise?

      They had an hour. This bastard was on the other end of a phone, so he wasn’t lurking outside.

      No, he isn’t—but what if he’s left someone behind, someone to watch and see what you do?

      No matter. She couldn’t just sit on her arse for an hour with Jeanette bawling and screaming in her ear. She had to do something, or go crazy.

      ‘Did they say Max was dead too?’ Jeanette was demanding.

      ‘Yes,’ said Annie.

       Oh shit, why doesn’t the silly bitch just shut up? I don’t want to hear that again. Not now, not ever.

      ‘Come on,’ Annie said sharply. ‘We’re going to go and get Inez and Rufio.’

      Jeanette looked at her as if she’d gone mad. ‘But what about Jonjo?’

      ‘Jonjo’s dead for sure. We can see that with our own eyes. Whether we stay or go, there’s no help for him.’

      Jeanette flinched back as if Annie had slapped her again.

      ‘Jesus,’ said Jeanette on a shuddering breath. ‘Jonjo said you were a hard bitch, and now I believe it.’

      ‘We can’t help Jonjo,’ said Annie. ‘But we can see that Inez and Rufio are okay.’

      Jeanette’s eyes were suddenly cold. ‘I can see why he hated you,’ she said.

      ‘He wasn’t my first choice for a brother-in-law either,’ said Annie. ‘He didn’t like any woman close to Max.’

      Jeanette’s face sagged. ‘God, I can’t believe he’s dead. I can’t believe it! Did they really say that Max is gone too?’

      Annie felt a surge of hate for Jeanette, but she reined it in. Jeanette