I can hardly repeat what Elizabeth told me….
Does she realise I’ve not repeated it?
Charlotte looks between James and Michael, then her eyelids lower. “I thought I was in trouble then, that they were going to gang-rape me. They knocked me about a bit.… That’s where I got some of the bruises.… But Klempner said he had a buyer for me. For Beth too….”
Elizabeth beside me, is reacting to Charlotte’s words. Sitting close to her, her breathing grows ragged. She’s perspiring, and she doesn’t smell so sweet as she normally does. Taking her fingers once more, I rub my thumb over her palm.
“…. though I’m not sure he wanted to sell her after what I’d told him about who she is. At any rate, I don’t think they wanted to leave too many visible marks on me if the buyer was going to be seeing me….” Charlotte knocks back half her remaining wine in a single swallow.
Is this too much for her?
But she ploughs on. “Anyway, Klempner’s phone rang. It was weird. He listened for a minute to whoever was on the other end, then he looked like he’d seen a ghost. He hit me across the face, knocked me down, and told me he knew about the tracers…”
My mind is racing. Clearly, this is why Charlotte sent the message not to let anyone outside our immediate group know she was returning.
Treason from within?
Within the police?
Someone close to Will?
Will himself?
“…. He told the others to find some different clothes for me ‘cause the ones I was wearing had to go. He took the locket that had one of the tracers…. and my rings…. Then he…. He told me to…. um… empty my body cavities... Or he would do it for me….”
I try to keep the smile from my face. “You had a tracer…. inside you?”
Michael looks unamused, but James is also fighting a smile, and Elizabeth looks anywhere but at me.
“Mmm. Yes, inside a condom to keep it dry… Um…. it’s a bit embarrassing, now I tell someone else….” With an air of huge relief, she shifts the subject…. “Actually, the whole changing clothes thing solved my biggest problem…”
“Which was?”
have to run to escape, and there
finger rubbing his forehead. “And by then you’d
trackers, they decided to move out immediately. I’d already warned Beth that we needed to run when they took us out of the building. If we could get out into the open, so the tracer on her could operate properly, you’d be able to find us again. I told her to behave very meek
Elizabeth is nodding agreement.
to know more about this traitor on the
this phone call to Klempner…”
someone in the police. Or someone getting the information
Stanton is my friend of years. “Who indeed?”
to have this building watched. That’s why I didn’t want any of you coming out for me, and why I came in
Michael’s face hardens again….
she made the
damaged that she took that
of
with
woman in a
A warrior….
…
James is her
I can ponder the implications of that. “What happened after you and Beth split? We picked up
wine is working its magic on Charlotte. She’s
because we’re not talking about Klempner and her
heard the gunshots. And there were all those police around, and I didn’t know who to trust. So I just made my way in the dark back to the main highways, and to the nearest town. I wanted to contact you. That’s when I went into that electrical store. I needed the phone so that I could download all those plans I’d scanned, to try to find a way back into the City, and here, without
You planned it….
You planned it all….
Right from the beginning….
you do that? What route did you take?” I
sewers first to