Page 62 of Slayer

“Thank you.” My voice trembles and I almost lose my composure. I don't really think I want to leave, but I need to know Annie is free and being home will help me put everything in perspective. Most of all I just want him to bring me back. To show me proof that this could be real.

“Caeo, please have someone drive him home.” Knox says as we exit the basement.

“Right away, sir.”

forty-two

Knox

There'saknockonmy office door, drawing my gaze from the meadow and the deer absent from it. Just like Porter is currently absent from my life.

“Come in.”

Freddie opens the door, always acting like the butler when Dad strolls into my life.

“Mr Edward Thayer, Sir, and a lady companion.”

My father is here, and my mind hasn't gone with the usual 'oh shit what have I done wrong'. I'm too busy wondering if Porter is home, and if he's thinking of me. I've inherited most of my father's genes, the only real difference between us is my hair being darker. It just looks like age now he is greying out, but it's my mother's thick dark locks that cover my head, not his. He's also opted for a full beard in recent years, it suits him enough for me to consider it an option when I reach his age. Not that I could accuse him of being old in his mid-fifties, despite the hair colour.

“Dad, come into the office.” It isn't the office, but it is set up to look that way. And it just happens to be the room under my bedroom. Everything in this room is disposable, the balcony above makes it dark and protected from any prying eyes.

It's my murder room; my intentions to finish what I started are clear as day, as are Dad's, considering he brought the bloody woman with him. Mrs Derik Whoeverhewas.

“I don't mean to be any trouble,” she whispers.

Of course not.

She knows that her husband was skimming off my profits, and she has a damn good idea what happened to him when his activities were discovered. She doesn’t want to be here.

She went to my dad with a sob story, thinking she could blackmail him or myself and tried to get me in trouble. It didn’t work out like she thought and now she’s the one in trouble. She should have packed up, took the money, and left the minute she heard Derik was caught.

Dad wants to see what I'm going to do with her. It's a test. One I don't have the answer for. Should I kill her for her part in the theft, as she has little loyalty to the family and could cause trouble? Or does he want me to show clemency as a potential innocent in this and show everyone that family matters.

“So, to what do I owe the pleasure?” I stand at the desk, all smiles and warmth. Inside I am as dead as the second hand wood I'm leaning on.

“Mrs Marley is worried her husband has gone missing.”

“Ah, Mrs Marley.” Well now I have a name. I should have been on the ball with this, but investigating Derik, and the other one that with him, was just a secondary windfall in a fruitless investigation. “Why would you be so worried about your husband?”

“He didn't come home last night,” she smiles.

She knows far more than she is letting on. Working for me isn't exactly nine to five.

“And that takes you straight to the boss, does it? Not to Roland or Tony?” That's what I'd do. Go to the men in charge of him. Even in a legal legitimate company, someone wouldn't go to the CEO if their husband didn't come home for a single night. “Isn't it more likely he was sleeping around with another woman? To go straight to my dad seems like overkill.

“I was just worried about him.” Her words are calm, but her face says it all. She knew. “I know how good Mr Thayer is-”

“No, you weren't worried for him.” I argue firmly. “My father is certainly not a good man, even if it is reputation alone. You are worried for yourself. You know what he was doing. You know he was stealing, so when he disappeared, you knew he'd been discovered. You went to my father to beg for your life, but when you discovered he didn't know about Derik, you changed your plans.”

“I… uh…?” Mrs Marley looks at Dad. He looks at me. Now we all know the truth, I have to decide. Does she live or die?

Porter has changed me; in the two days I've known him. Guilty by association doesn't feel like such a crime anymore. That goes in the desperate woman's favour. But Porter has made me vulnerable. I need something to assure my people that he hasn't made me soft. But do I use a woman to do it?

“Do you have children, Mrs Marley?”

“Uh…”

That's a no then. If she had kids she'd be milking that fact for her life.

---