Finders Keepers Edie Baylis (phonics readers .TXT) 📖

‘Yes, I’m sure he will.’ Lena returned the smile, but inside she was irritated. This bloke really thought he was something, but he was right on one thing – Jonah would be impressed with what she’d pulled off here tonight. Unable to resist, she couldn’t help from grabbing back a bit of power. ‘Although I assume Jonah’s happy with me considering we’re getting married in a couple of weeks.’

Blood draining from his face, Heath then noticed Lena’s hand resting on a small, but distinctive bump that he’d previously failed to notice under her jacket. Fuck.

Controlling the combination of disappointment and nerves, Heath was just grateful for his acting ability. ‘Then he’s a very lucky man. Now, where do I sign? I’ll book next Saturday, please.’

Thirty Three

‘T-THAT WILL MAKE THINGS difficult,’ Joe blathered. This was going from bad to worse.

Robert glared at Joe as they sped towards the address he’d forced from the man. ‘I don’t give a shit it if makes things difficult.’

Sweat dripped freely down Joe’s back. So much for trying to do a good turn... Look where it had got him. ‘But my housemate might insist I call the police and you as well as I know that will make everything worse.’

Robert scowled. That was probably the only thing he would agree with this waster on. He still could not quite believe what this man sitting in his passenger seat had told him. ‘Then you’ll make sure he understands not to involve them, won’t you?’

Joe closed his eyes in despair. ‘You don’t understand what you’re asking by wanting me to get back in contact with those men.’ His eyes felt like they were sticking out on stalks and could soon pop out and roll around in the dusty footwell of Robert Adams’ car. This was a nightmare – a total and utter nightmare. ‘Christ, I’ve only just got rid of them and just because I decided I should do the right thing and tell y...’

‘You what?’ Robert abruptly swerved to the side of the road and yanked on the handbrake. Lurching out of the driver’s seat, he grabbed Joe around the neck and squashed him non-too gently into the seat. ‘You decided to do the right thing?’ he roared. ‘Giving these nutters a key to my mother’s house; involving Teagan in whatever shit my mother has caused, then phoning up these bastards to tell them she’s in possession of their diamonds is the right thing? It didn’t cross your mind that something untoward might come off the back of this sequence of events?’

Robert was incensed enough to spontaneously combust. This stupid bastard; this useless streak of piss was the problem all along. After his mother, that was...

‘Wait. I-I didn’t know this was about diamonds. Your mother gave Teagan a shed load of diamonds?’ Joe gasped. He scrabbled at Robert’s fingers around his throat. This one was almost as deranged as the fucking nutters. Why did this shit keep happening?

‘What the hell does it matter?’ Robert screeched.

Glad Robert had released his grip, Joe rubbed at his neck. How was he supposed to know things would turn out like this? ‘We don’t know for sure they’ve got Teagan.’

Robert clenched his jaw. ‘No, but it stands to reason they have and that’s why you’re going to phone up and find out.’

‘W-What?’

‘You’re going to ask this person, whoever he is, if they have Teagan and tell him that she doesn’t have the diamonds, but you do.’

Joe swallowed hard, feeling that all too familiar thrumming of fear tingling in his feet and in the end of his fingers. ‘You want me to put myself up to those nutters by pretending I’ve got their diamonds?’ He thought he might gag. Gag so hard that his mouth turned inside out. ‘You can’t be serious?’

This time Robert grasped the shoulders of Joe’s checked shirt and slammed him against the inside of the door. ‘Do I look like I’m not serious? That’s exactly what I want you to do. I should add, in case you don’t quite get it, that you won’t really have them. You’ll merely be the decoy.’

‘B-But...’

‘Listen, you snide bastard, if you don’t do this, then I’ll kill you myself and these other people will be the least of your problems.’ Robert hissed through gritted teeth, his anger raw. ‘Now, let’s go in your house, get the phone you’ve told me about and I’ll wait while you call this wanker.’

‘LENA? OH...!’ BARGING into the office, Jonah eyed the dark-haired man pointedly. ‘Am I interrupting something?’

Heath’s nerves pinged as the man’s ice-blue stare penetrated every layer of his being. This was Jonah Powell?

He’d expected to feel antagonism towards the person whose family had killed his grandfather, but surprisingly he didn’t. In fact, he was unsure what he felt, apart from the nervousness being in the presence of this man engendered within him. This larger than life man exuded authority and a steely kind of magnetism which radiated from every pore of his being.

Heath’s usually overtly forward personality cringed into submission and for the second time he silently thanked his good fortune that he had escaped by a hair’s breadth of making a play for this brute of a man’s pregnant fiancée.

Lena glided towards Jonah, her arms slipping around his waist, underlining her position. ‘Hello, darling. I was just sorting out the formalities for multiple bookings for the VIP suites.’

Heath was about to introduce himself when the immensity of the danger he had mistakenly dropped himself in whacked him somewhat dead in the centre of his brain.

Oh, you stupid, stupid fuck, he thought, his mind looping around the enormity of what he’d done. Giving his name when signing up for Platinum membership? His real name? What the fuck had happened to his brain? How could it have bypassed logical thought to such an extent not to take into consideration that using a name the Powells associated with the disappearance