Bonbons and Betrayal: Book 3 in The Chocolate Cafe Series Page 7

  And it was going to be an impressive display, indeed.

  As Mac maneuvered Brie’s bike carefully down the already rain splattered streets, she couldn’t help but notice the bank of black clouds that was making its way to shore. They reminded her of massive, furious rhinoceroses, pounding their way toward the little town.

  She had to get to Louis’ place quickly. Mac was by no means an accomplished biker – she could barely get from one place to another without a panic attack. Getting there in hurricane force winds however, that was going to be another story.

  She turned the bike off of the main roads toward what they townsfolk referred to as the ‘old roads’. There was a generalized mixture of affection and wariness whenever this area was spoken of, like it was better to whisper the name than say it out loud.

  Once a haven for Mackenzie Bay’s miniscule hippie population in the 60’s, the old roads were home to a few ‘off the grid’ places that managed to survive long after the non-conformists had been driven out. Louis’s home was the best example of the kind of eccentricity that had been unable to thrive in such an old money community.

  The house hung over the cliff that led down to the beach, held up by a series of pillars that always seemed to sway a little too much when the wind hit. Everything was raw wood and hand blown glass, carefully constructed by the kind of people who cultivated their own sprouts, fermented things and painted murals on bathroom walls.

  Mac approached the turn off to Louis’ house. The closer she got to the sea, the more gnarled and sparse the trees became. The ones that surrounded Louis’ home were so warped from years of furious storms that they were practically bent backwards, stripped of their bark like penitent monks.

  She slowed the bike down as she hit the gravel driveway and rolled to a stop beside the Toyota. Mac frowned as she pulled her helmet off her head.

  The front door of the house was open, yawning wide and dark like a mouth frozen in a scream. Alarm bells immediately went off in Mac’s head and her heart began to beat harder. Stay calm and don’t be silly, her rational voice scolded her. You’re reacting strongly because of the last month’s dramas. He’s a bit absent minded, he probably just left it open by accident.

  But he wasn’t absent minded. He was as nervous as she was and there was no way he would leave the door open. He had given her a guard dog for heaven’s sake.

  Mac walked to the open door, tightening her grip on the helmet nervously.

  “Louis?” she called out into the silent house. There was no radio on, no television, and no podcast blaring out from his stereo as usual. The blonde wood of the floors was smeared with rainwater. Her heartbeat increased. “Louis are you home?”

  Silence. Not a thump. Not a cough.

  Mac walked into the living room, which was suspended above the beach. The floor to ceiling windows that faced the water flooded the room with a grey light which seemed to be decreasing every second as the menacing black bank of clouds drew closer.

  Louis’ jacket hung on the back of a chair, long and limp, the hem pooling on the floor. He wouldn’t have gone anywhere without it, not in this weather.

  She walked further into the room toward the windows, scanning for any indication of where he might have gone. And then she stopped.

  The coffee table they had spent many a night resting their feet upon was overturned in the center of the room. The glass had smashed on impact and millions of pieces glimmered in the dying light like constellations.

  Mac stopped breathing. Her head felt as if it would pop right off her shoulders, as panic forced adrenaline through her system.

  “Louis!” she shouted, her voice tight with concern. “Louis where are…”

  His gun was there on the floor. She’d barely ever seen it outside of its holster, let alone abandoned in the middle of a sea of shattered glass. This wasn’t good. This was so far away from good it was ridiculous.

  Without thinking, she crunched across the glass and picked up the gun. That rational voice in her head was as silent as the house around her. There was most certainly something wrong and she had a feeling Louis’ gun might come in handy.

  The gun in her hand, she looked down at the beach from the wall of windows in front of her.

  Her heart, which she was certain had stopped, burst into life again. Her blood began thumping in her limbs like a frenetic drum beat.

  There was a second driveway on the beach that the former tenants had used to bring boats down to the water in the community’s heyday. What was happening there now, however, was far more sinister.

  A man, not much bigger than she, was stuffing what were unmistakably Louis’ stockinged feet into the back seat of a car. His teeth were gritted with the effort, his dirty white t-shirt stained with sweat. She could almost make out his grunts as he practically folded Louis into the subcompact. From the limpness of Louis’ limbs, he was obviously unconscious.

  Horrified, Mac slammed her hand against the glass and screamed at the man below to stop.

  Not the most sensible move. He looked up at her sharply, hunched like a gremlin against the increasing winds and rain. As soon as turned his face to her, Mac recognized him immediately.

  Randall Eisenhower, the troubled genius and so called innocent madman from the newspaper.

  For a moment they were frozen, staring like animals about to launch at each other’s throats. Then, as smoothly as if they had orchestrated it together, Randall turned to leap into the front seat of the car as Mac tore from the house.

  She scrambled across the gravel and jumped on Brie’s bike. She could hear the engine of the car squealing as Randall drove it at full speed up the steep hill that wound from the beach to the main road. She didn’t have a second to lose. If she was going to catch up to him, and she most certainly was, she had to get moving.

  She awkwardly stuffed Louis’ gun down the front of her jeans and kicked the bike awake with more force that she knew she was capable of. It roared beneath her.

  Spraying a fan of gravel behind her, she wobbled out of the driveway. She had forgotten her helmet back at the house, but barely noticed. Without the shield to keep her dry, the rain plastered her hair to her face and made it difficult to see.

  She pulled the throttle back as far as she could, feeling the full power of the bike beneath her. Thank god Sabrina didn’t mess around. She had no idea this thing could move this fast and even less of an idea of whether or not she could handle it.

  Did she have a choice? Hardly. She would make this work. She had to get to Louis. She had to stop this murderous little creep before he took the one man that had meant anything to her in decades away.

  Her anger made her forget about the how the rain was turning to blades against her bare face. Her rage made her fearless, even as the bike threatened to slip beneath her on the soaking pavement. Even as the wind, much stronger now, seemed to do its best to make a plaything out of her – she wasn’t stopping.

  Where was the car? Surely she was going fast enough to catch up to it now?

  She wiped the water out of her eyes impatiently.

  Finally, as she tore around a particularly tight corner, she found herself directly behind the taillights of Eisenhower’s unassuming car. In the blur of the rain, she focused on the red glow of those taillights. Just catch up to it. She told herself. Just catch up to it and then you’ll figure out what to do next.

  The rational voice was back.

  And what are you going to do Ms. Catharine? How can an inexperienced biker, on a rainy, winding seaside road, do a damned thing to stop a car? What are you going to do, pull up beside him and politely motion to him to pull over? Do you think that will do the trick?

  Well, no…Mac thought. It won’t do the trick.

  The car was only a few feet away now. Her frenetically whizzing front wheel steadily encroached on the back bumper.

  What will do the trick? Mac carefully took one hand off the handlebar and removed Louis’ gun from the front of her jeans where it had been
pressed against her skin, pinching her flesh with its cold steel.

  The chaos maneuver.

  Terrified, but knowing it was her only option, Mac awkwardly unlocked the safety on the pistol.

  She squinted in the downpour. Her left arm ached as she fought to control the bike, moving closer still to the car.

  Just don’t breathe. Hold your breath and fire. If Brie could pull it off, why couldn’t she?

  Because you’ve hardly ever held a gun, let alone fired one. Because Sabrina has this kind of thing in her blood while you…you’re made of designer fragrance and true crime novels.

  Mac gritted her teeth and fired.

  The kick from the gun caused her arm to jerk back. Her ears seemed to explode with a sharp hum. Frantically, she shoved the gun back into its spot and swerved dangerously on the soaking wet roads.

  Did she hit it? Did she pull it off?

  The brake lights of the car shone bright red in the growing dark and the car began to rapidly slow. It took the same swerving, erratic path that Mac was struggling out of and came to a sudden stop at the side of the road. She saw the shadow of Eisenhower's head jerk forward and back as it bounced off the steering wheel.

  Mac let out a yelp of triumph and brought the bike, now under her control, to a stop beside the still purring car. She leapt off, pulling the pistol back out of her soaking wet jeans, gripping it tightly in her hand.

  Without hesitation, she ran to the driver’s side of the car and yanked the door open. Her ears still ringing from the gunshot, she pointed the pistol at Eisenhower where he was hunched over the steering wheel, cradling his head in his hands.

  “Get out of the car.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Randall Eisenhower didn’t get out of the car so much as he poured out onto the concrete. His limbs were so limp he reminded Mac of how a jellyfish, once out of water, was reduced to nothing more than a quivering pile of goo.

  Here was the New York Times’ up and coming tech giant, reduced to the same state. He was sobbing at her feet, loud enough to be heard even over Mac’s damaged eardrums and the roar of the storm.

  “What did you do to him? I swear to god, if you hurt him…” Mac hunched down, still pointing the gun with a steady hand. “How much did you pay the landlady to lie for you, you maniac?”

  Eisenhower shook his head, his hair plastered in snaky ropes against his face.

  “He’s going to steal my idea. He’s going to steal it and use it, just like Paul did. Just like they all will...”

  “What are you talking about?” Mac grabbed him by the collar of his wet t-shirt. Now that she was closer, she could tell he hadn’t bathed in quite some time. His face was covered in scabs where he had picked at his own skin. When he looked at Mac, there was little behind his eyes except panic. Panic and insanity.

  “He came to my house. He saw what I was working on. Did he plant anything? Did he plant bugs? Paul did. Paul is probably still listening. They’re always listening. Even after I killed him. Did I kill him? Is he still alive? He’s still listening. Just like the detective. Planting bugs in my skin. Nano technology. Listening and waiting for me to finish, so they can swoop in… like… vultures.” The young man spat out his words, saliva dripping from his mouth like a furious toddler.

  Mac felt sick. He was disgusting – a figure that should’ve been pitied, if not for the blood lust contorting his ruined face. She just needed to get him secured and check on Louis.

  “Get up.” Mac said, pulling at his collar.

  With a sudden swiftness, Eisenhower grabbed Mac’s hand holding the gun, and pressed it against his forehead.

  Despite herself, Mac gasped and tried to pull away. She couldn’t. Although he wasn’t any bigger than her own petite frame, he had the wiry power of desperation in him.

  “Kill me!” he hollered through his sobs. “Kill me now. Get it over with. Just do it.” He continued to scream at her, yanking at her arm and doing his best to bypass Mac’s hand and squeeze the trigger.

  The wind roared around them now, Mac’s hair stinging her face where it whipped like wire.

  “I can’t do this. I can’t do this. I can’t…” He screamed, the tendons in his neck bulging.

  Mac yanked her hand back as hard as she could, finally freeing herself from his wet grasp. Without a thought otherwise, she flipped the gun around in her hand and brought the butt of it down sharply on the side of the screaming man’s head.

  He was abruptly silenced and folded neatly to the ground.

  Her own sobs burning a path in her chest, Mac turned directly to the still running car and tore open the back door.

  His long limbs were crumpled at odd angles and he was bleeding from a gash on his forehead, but Louis was alive. Thank god he was alive.

  Now shaking violently, Mac scrambled into the back seat and began to pull at the duct tape that Eisenhower had wrapped across Louis’ mouth. Without his glasses, his eyes looked bigger than ever. However, they only got wider when Mac managed to finally yank the tape off his face, taking a good portion of his new beard with it.

  “I’m so sorry,” Mac said, her voice trembling as much as her body. “Are you ok?”

  She set to work on his hands, squeezing her soaking body between his and the back seat to rip at the tape with her teeth.

  ‘I’m fine,” Louis said, between gasps for air. “How did you… ?”

  The tape finally gave way. With a single yank, Louis freed his hands. Sitting up, his head bowed in the compact back seat, he immediately took Mac into his arms. Mac resisted, desperate to check him for any injuries. She took his face in her freezing hands, wiping the blood away from the cut on his forehead.

  “What did he do to you? Tell me you’re ok...” she said breathlessly.

  “You shot out of the wheel of the car,” Louis said, his voice steadying through his gasps. “You hunted us down on a motorbike and shot out the wheels of the car. You didn’t call anybody? You just came after me?”

  She certainly had. She had pulled off the chaos maneuver.

  “He’s out there…” Mac said, her throat suddenly grew tight and tears threatened. “He wanted me to kill him. He was going to kill you, too, just like he killed...”

  “Like he killed Creed. I heard it all.”

  Remembering Eisenhower’s body in the middle of the road, Mac felt another unwelcome wave of panic. “We need to get him back in the car before he wakes up…”

  She went to get out of the car but Louis grabbed her arm. He pulled her to him wordlessly, and smoothed her hair out of her face.

  He looked so much younger, almost vulnerable, without his glasses. Mac was momentarily stunned by how beautiful he was, even with blood on his face and a half-harvested beard.

  “Absolutely infuriating,” he said and kissed her. His lips were warm, tenderly embracing hers and sending a jolt through Mac strong enough to make her almost forget about the unconscious criminal in the middle of the road.

  They parted breathlessly, their foreheads, bloody and soaking wet, respectively pressed against each other’s.

  “We should probably get him out of the road,” Louis said quietly.

  “I think that would be wise.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  “To rebel girls and their motorbikes, long may they ride!” Louis lifted a pottery mug that had been left behind by the previous owners in a drunken salute. Brie laughed and raised her own badly made mug.

  “To the chaos maneuver,” she said triumphantly. Louis and Mac cheered loudly, almost drowning out the incessant battering of the wind against the windows.

  The three of them were sitting on the floor in Louis’ oceanside crow’s nest. The storm that had ushered in the drama three days ago had only just died down before another rolled into town. This one had the courtesy to turn out the power however, and what had begun as a wine infused chocolate feast had been transformed into a candlelight celebration.

  Between the three of them was a selection of Sabrina’s n
ewest works of art. Cleared entirely of obsessive relationships, her creative mind was back and sharper than ever.

  In the candlelight, the chocolates glistened like exotic jewels. Brandied plum enrobed in dark chocolate, rose and Madagascar vanilla cream swirled with milk chocolate so creamy it coated the tongue…. there were at least six different varieties and, of course, six bottles of wine to match.