Page 18 of Better the Devil

There were three cars already parked here. Two black BMWs that both bore a striking resemblance to the one Geoff Palmer’s team was currently poring over, and a red Tesla with a “Baby on Board” warning triangle affixed to the back windscreen.

Logan had never really understood the point of those signs. Very rarely, in his experience, did anyone deliberately plough their car into the back of another due to the lack of infants inside. Generally speaking, these things tended to be accidental.

Parking up, he checked the name again on Tyler’s text, then approached the house. A dark reflection of himself followed all the way to the front door, and he got the sense that there were people standing right on the other side of those tinted windows, watching his every move, faces pressed up against the glass.

The doorbell chimed somewhere deep within the house when Logan jabbed the button. It was a slow, mournfulding-dong—the sort of thing Castle Dracula might get fitted during a refurb.

The glass in the door was just as opaque as the windows. Logan ran a hand down his face, like he might wipe away the dark bags under his eyes. No such luck, of course.

The door opened, revealing a sleek, minimalist hallway, and not a lot else. It was only when a movement drew his attention downwards that Logan spotted the boy. He was around four or five, dressed in pyjamas that were a bit too long on the legs, and holding a partially peeled banana.

He had wide eyes, curly hair, and two lines of snot that formed a glistening number eleven on his top lip. As he stared up at Logan, he brought the banana to his mouth and bit a chunk off the end.

‘Is, eh, is your mum in?’ Logan asked.

The boy chewed thoughtfully, like he felt the question deserved serious consideration. Then, without a word, he stepped back, fully opening the door, and beckoned him inside with the remaining banana.

‘Cheers, wee man. But, it’d be better if you went and got?—’

‘Oh, God. Just come in.’

Logan looked along the hallway to where a young blonde woman in a pink velour tracksuit stood bouncing a baby on her hip. She shot him a look of irritation, then disappeared through a doorway on her left.

She returned a moment later. ‘Oh, and Jack? Make sure you shut the door.’

Hearing her call him by his name like that knocked him off his stride for a moment. She was gone again before he recovered.

‘How the hell did she know that?’ he muttered.

He looked down at the boy like he might be able to shed some light on the matter, but he was too busy trying to get the last half-inch of banana by mushing the whole thing, skin and all, into his face.

With a glance back over his shoulder, Logan crossed the threshold of the house, and closed the door behind him.

CHAPTER EIGHT

‘Victor’s not here yet.The boys are through there,’ the woman with the baby said, tilting her head towards a set of heavy double doors at the far end of an open-plan living and dining area. ‘He shouldn’t be long.’

Logan didn’t say anything. Not right away. There were often things to be learned in moments like these.

She appeared to be in the dark about Victor’s current condition, or was at least pretending to be.

She thought he was someone else. Someone Victor and “the boys” were meant to be meeting, presumably.

And yet, she’d called him by name.

‘Why are you just standing there?’ she demanded.

Her accent seemed reasonably local. She’d married into the surname, then.

Whoever it was she’d been expecting, she wasn’t afraid of him. ‘You deaf, or something? They’re through there.’

She was young. Early twenties at a push, with carefully styled silver-blonde hair, porcelain-white teeth, and a full face of makeup so thick it’d make a clown blush. Although, presumably, it would be hard to tell.

The baby, seven or eight months old at most, gnawed on her sleeve as she bounced and rocked from foot to foot.

She looked Logan up and down. Her eyes took on a frowning sort of appearance, but there was so little sign of movement from her eyebrows and forehead that it was difficult to read the expression for sure.

‘Hold on. Who are you?’ she asked.