A Glimmer of Hope (The Avalon Chronicles #1)(12)
“That’s excellent news, and should make finding both it and her easier. Thank you for your help.”
“You’ll let me live?”
Elias shook his head. “No. You die today, and there’s nothing I can do about it. But I can make your death quick and painless, or lengthy and drawn out. I do have a few more questions, though, so maybe you’ll be able to convince me to let you go.”
Blake nodded in agreement.
“She applied for a credit card using this address. So tell me, why doesn’t she live here?”
“Bianca and me, we used her old address details to try to blag a credit card.”
“Ah, that makes sense. How’d that work out for you? It wasn’t exactly smart, was it?”
Blake shook his head. “I didn’t know she’d moved house, and when they called the phone number we put on the application to confirm her address, I gave this one. I panicked.”
“Doesn’t explain why you used the name Layla Cassidy instead of the one she was using. Cassidy is her real surname.”
Blake appeared confused. “She used a fake name? I used to go through her things when I had the chance, to make sure she wasn’t doing anything she shouldn’t have been. One time, I found some old letters that Layla had hidden in a drawer. They were addressed to her mother, but used the last name Cassidy. I assumed that was her mother’s maiden name, that’s why we used it.”
“Her mother’s maiden name?” Elias chuckled. “This is quite an impressive level of screw-up on your part. You thought you were being clever, but in reality you gave us the information we needed to find her. And you got yourself and your lady killed too. Not anyone’s finest hour.” Elias stood, preparing to finish the job and leave.
“So, you’re not human?” Blake stammered out, clearly looking for more time.
“A redcap. I wear neither a red hat nor a cap. Although the latter was true once. The name is meant to be more symbolic than anything else, I think. And that’s all I plan on telling you. I’d like to say it was a pleasure, but according to these memories, you’re a nasty little toad of a human being, and frankly the world is better off without you in it.”
“You’re going to kill Layla?”
“That’s not the plan.”
“She needs taking down a peg or two. Thinks she’s better than me.”
Elias placed the tip of the stiletto against his jugular. “From everything I’ve seen, she probably is.” He pushed the blade up with incredible force, killing Blake instantly. He stepped aside, removing the blade as he walked, avoiding the inevitable blood that left the wound.
Elias would need to spend a few hours cleaning up after himself. He wanted to leave as few clues at the scene as possible. The police wouldn’t have a chance of finding him, but he did consider leaving evidence to frame the friend, Rob. Bianca’s memories showed him to be even worse than Blake, a man with few morals. Maybe a man like that would be better off punished too. Elias smiled at the thought and pushed it aside. Maybe later.
He removed the phone from his pocket and dialed the rest of the team.
“Yes?” a woman asked.
“Dara, it’s done here. I’ll be back soon. I need details on a train depot near a football stadium.”
“There’s an American football stadium in the city?” She sounded confused.
“No, a normal football stadium. Soccer, as you like to call it, much to my chagrin.”
“I’ll get on it.”
He ended the call. Dara Kanevsky was a valuable member of his team. Born in America in the mid-1950s, she’d lived with her family in San Francisco. That was where, at the age of seven, she’d discovered a talent for hurting people. Something she had seemingly inherited from her parents. Her father was quite the celebrity at the time, having killed several people in and around Northern California. That had stopped when Dara killed them both in 1975, after deciding that her parents were getting too sloppy. Taunting the press and police was a pointless action. Grandstanding for the sake of it.
Elias remembered meeting Dara for the first time, and realizing whose daughter she was. He’d been genuinely starstruck. People like her father had spread terror all over, and it was something that Elias had always been impressed with. He hadn’t liked her father’s taunting, though, which was just a step too close to idiocy for him. Like all members of Elias’s team, Dara wasn’t human, but she was the one he felt the most akin to. He knew she’d do what he asked.
Elias glanced down at Blake’s body and sighed. Tomorrow night they’d go after Layla. But tonight, well, tonight he had less fun things to deal with. It couldn’t all be about getting his own way.
5
It had been nearly two days since Layla had talked with Chloe about her father and she’d felt as if a weight had been lifted from her. That night, the entire evening shift had flown by. But now that she was driving back out of the electric gates of the train depot for the second time in two days, she began to wonder how much longer she really had to work in this place.
It wasn’t that the job was hard, or that the people were bad; it was just a combination of boredom and a complete and total apathy from those in management. It was as if they didn’t care what happened to the majority of people who worked for them, and it created a “them and us” scenario that made work feel like she was constantly trying to do a good job for no reason whatsoever.