Page 2 of Crawl
“I’m not going to let it happen again,” Remedy says, a warning in her tone.
“This isn’t about your—”
A phone vibrates, rattling on a hard surface. The two of them scramble for the device, but it beeps and Remedy answers it.
“This is Remedy Basset,” she says. The taps of her feet are light on the hard floor as she paces the room. A bare shoulder passes in front of the hole, a lace-lined camisole sits on her frame. I rub my fingers along the inner plaster of the wall as if I can feel her smooth skin, and I imagine stroking the intricate black lace tattoo sprawling over her supple stomach. She turns around, pacing the other direction, and I suck in a breath.
“You mean Mr. Winstone at the Winstone Estate, correct?” Remedy asks the caller. She whispers to her friend, then clears her throat. “Absolutely. I’ll be ready. Thank you.”
As soon as the phone beeps again, the friend wails.
“What the hell, Remedy?” she asks. “This is bullshit.”
“It’s a job,” Remedy says, her tone matter-of-fact. “Since the Johnsons left, I’ve been out of work. You know how hard it is in the off-season.”
Another pause stretches between them. There must be some truth to that statement, even if it is convenient that the personal assistant agency assigned Remedy to the same job her friend recently left.
“But you took a job withhim?” the friend asks. “You encouraged me to transfer, just so you could take my job? What’s up with that?”
“It’s luck,” Remedy says. “Bad, bad luck. But this way, he can’t hurt you or anyone else anymore.”
“So what, he’ll hurt you instead?”
“I’m going to hurt him too.”
A pause shifts between the two women. “Remmie,” the friend says.
“It’s fine. It’s a short assignment. Temporary until they find a better match.”
“Temp for a month, right? Then he’ll sign you for a year. That’s what he did with me.”
“So?”
“Like you said. It’s fine at first. He left me alone, right? Like I was a meaningless staff member. But then he physically assaulted me. And you want to work for him? What if he does it to you too?”
“Then I’m going to get it on camera.”
“He’s got his surveillance under tight control.”
“I’ll install my own.”
“I’m telling you, he’llknowabout it.”
“And if I have to, I’ll kill him.”
Kill him?
The friend gasps. My groin tenses with sudden pressure. She’s so damn hot. Maneuvering between the walls, inch by inch, I take my phone out of my pocket, careful not to make any sudden movements. I don’t want to stir the two women into a frenzy. My associate, the same one who hacked Remedy’s webcam, gave me an app to see her webcam on my phone at any time. I want to see her face. The thick, dark brows, her shiny black hair. Her eyes beaming down her nose as she looks at her friend. So sure of herself, like she knows she’s going to kill him.
Most people say that in bluster, confident until the knife is in their hand, then they can’t do anything. Not because of the guilt at the life they’re stealing, but at the fear of getting caught. But others? We can look each other in the eye and feel it. Murder is an action and death is the result. And Remedy?
Perhaps that’s why I haven’t killed her yet.
But when I click the app, it says:Webcam Offline.She must have closed her laptop when she finished that video. Damn it.
“I’m not going to let Winstone go unpunished,” Remedy says, her voice stern.
“He’s not your stepdad,” the friend squeals out, then gasps again, like she immediately regrets it. “Winstone is more like your stepbrother than your stepdad. And you said so yourself: Brody didn’t even bother you that much.”
