Wicked Ambition Read online

  There’s somethin’ I gotta tell you, Gordon had said. Somethin’ you gotta know…

  Shoot. Leon had waited. I’m listening.

  It’s big, man. I don’t know how to say this…

  Then Lisa had rung, demanding to meet at the library to run through an archive. Despite Leon’s attempts to draw it from him, Gordon had ducked out. They’d catch up next time.

  It occurred to Leon that maybe it was about Lisa. She and Gordon were close—perhaps something had happened between them. He was disappointed by how little he cared.

  He closed his eyes, willing himself to sleep.

  The problem was, there was nobody he really wanted to talk to…Except her.

  It was getting better, possibly, some days easier than others.

  Robin Ryder. Rude, opinionated, insolent, outrageous, wonderful Robin Ryder. Leon’s world was based on the notion that the mind could control the body, and power stemmed first from will and belief…So why wouldn’t his heart listen?

  The lights in the cabin were extinguished.

  Robin and he were nothing to each other now.

  Whatever happened, she was on her own.

  54

  In London, PC Joanna Priestly watched as her partner Bob Stanton wobbled back to the parked police vehicle through the driving rain. He carried a supermarket bag weighted down with sandwiches and sausage rolls: sometimes she thought Stanton had got into the job purely for how it allowed him to sit in a Ford panda all day and eat.

  Never mind protecting and patrolling the capital’s streets, every day was the same drawn-out exercise in lethargy and inertia: sitting bored with Stanton and abiding through clenched teeth his sexist, supercilious remarks. The force hadn’t turned out to be the high-octane case-crushing roller coaster Jo had imagined it to be when she had first emerged as a bright-eyed novice…far from it. Would her breakout ever arrive?

  ‘Pissing it down out there,’ huffed Stanton, ducking into the car and shaking himself like a dog. He slammed the door and rummaged in the sodden bag. ‘Crisps?’

  ‘No, thanks, I’ll pass.’ Jo indicated and pulled out into the traffic. The capital was slick with April showers, its roads darkly stained.

  ‘Where are we going?’ complained Stanton through a mouthful of food. A car in front cut her up so she had to brake hard, prompting him to mutter pointedly, ‘Women drivers.’

  ‘We’ve got a job to do, haven’t we?’ Jo said tightly, ignoring the comment because Stanton wanted a rise; her anger amused him. ‘I don’t want to sit in a car park all day.’

  ‘Why not?’ He ripped open a crackling bag, filling the car with the tang of salt and vinegar. ‘Easiest ride in the world.’

  Jo kept driving, concentrating on the road. In his day Stanton had been one of the best at the station, but after a career of accolades and awards he now saw no further reason to bother. Everyone had said when they were paired how lucky she was—Jo Priestly, quietly brilliant, the young apprentice being groomed by one of the best. She didn’t feel all that lucky today…or any other day, for that matter.

  The radio crackled. Stanton snatched up the call. ‘Yeah?’

  She fought to listen through the incessant sound of munching. They had a report from a concerned pensioner up in a block in Edmonton who hadn’t seen her neighbour in months.

  ‘Guess we’d better check it out,’ mused Stanton reluctantly. ‘Probably another batty old bag who can’t remember when she last fed her cats.’

  Jo changed gear and joined the dual carriageway. She didn’t want to agree, and always tried to stay fresh whenever a new challenge was presented, but going on previous experience it was likely to end in a few jotted notes and a cup of milky tea drunk out of an Arsenal mug. If the lady offered biscuits Stanton would be made for the afternoon.

  The block itself was a foreboding lump flanked by the grumble and whine of traffic. St George flags were pinned across balconies and windows like plasters over cuts, and dogs barked on stairwells that smelled sourly of urine. Jo led the way.

  ‘Oh, thank God you came,’ the woman wheezed gummily as she opened the door and invited them in. ‘I wasn’t sure whether to ring: when you get to my age you never know what you’re dreaming up!’

  ‘Hmm.’ Stanton was already waiting on his cup of tea.

  ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’

  Jo said, ‘No, thank you, if we could just—’ at the same time as Stanton accepted.

  ‘And if you’ve got any biscuits…?’ he hollered after her as she Zimmer-framed into the galley kitchen.

  ‘Can we just get this over with?’ Jo snapped.

  ‘You females are so uptight,’ he retorted, collapsing fatly into a cushioned armchair. ‘What’s wrong with a little liquid to oil the pipes?’

  With the tea served and Stanton greedily sugaring his, Jo withdrew her pad.

  ‘It’s down the way,’ the woman warbled, perching nervously on the edge of her chair and extending a gnarled finger to indicate the direction. She had a crocheted shawl wrapped round her shoulders. ‘Let me see…flat 39B, it is. Hilda. Hilda Sewell. Now, I’ve only met her once before and that’s why I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about, she likes to stay indoors, you understand, but I haven’t seen the daughter either…’

  Jo glanced up. ‘The daughter?’

  ‘That’s right. Always struck me as rather strange, she did. But, like they say, each to their own…’

  ‘How old is she?’

  Stanton shot her a look as if to say, What has that got to do with anything?

  ‘Mind if I help myself?’ he cut in, plunging a knife into the Battenberg cake.

  The woman was thrown. ‘Yes, dear, of course.’

  Jo gritted her teeth. ‘You were saying…?’

  ‘Oh, her age, I’m not sure, now you ask. Twenty,’ she hazarded, ‘or thereabouts?’

  Jo tapped the end of the pen. ‘And you haven’t seen the daughter at all?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Do you know her name?’

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t…’ the woman said nervously. ‘If I saw Hilda barely at all, I saw her daughter even less. They’ve lived here a long time, and as you can imagine I rarely leave the place myself.’ She looked confused. ‘I was sure I’d know if they’d moved on. More tea?’

  Stanton grunted and held his cup out. He snatched a couple more Custard Creams.

  ‘We’re going to need to take a look,’ said Jo kindly. ‘I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about, Mrs Fletcher, but you did the right thing calling us.’ She slipped the pad into her back pocket. Something about the situation—the tinkle of a teaspoon against Stanton’s porcelain china, the muffled groan of the road behind Mrs Fletcher’s double glazing, the faint discourse of a Radio 4 programme filtering through from the kitchen—sent a chill down her spine.

  Stanton was disinclined to leave the warmth of the armchair and it was only a glance at the clock—they would be knocking off shift in an hour—that prompted him to join her.

  ‘Should I come along?’ asked Mrs Fletcher, hovering at the door way.

  ‘No, thank you.’ Jo smiled. ‘We’ll let you know what we find. In the meantime, try to relax and put this from your mind. No point in worrying. Rest assured we receive plenty of calls like this one and they rarely amount to anything sinister.’

  ‘I’m not in trouble, am I?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘That’s a relief.’ The old woman put a hand to her chest. ‘I don’t want any badness.’

  ‘I’m sure it’s innocent enough.’

  ‘I’m sure it’s innocent enough?’ Stanton challenged as they made their way along the concrete platform to flat 39B. An argument was exploding several doors down, a shower of expletives straining through. ‘What is this, Midsomer Murders? This place is about as likely to carry foul play as bloody Strangeways.’

  They came to a stop by a plain door bearing the rusted number.

  ‘Here we are.’ Jo knocked.

  ‘
To hell with that,’ Stanton snorted. ‘I’ve got a pint with the lads to make.’ He battered the door with his fist. ‘Police! Anyone home?’

  No answer.

  ‘We’ll come back tomorrow,’ Stanton said.

  ‘Bullshit!’ Jo was outraged. ‘I’m getting a warrant.’

  ‘You can’t.’

  ‘Then I’m taking the door off, if I have to. That old lady’s not going to be able to sleep tonight unless we get answers.’

  Stanton waved his arm. ‘Aw, she’ll be fine once she’s tucked up in bed with a Nesquik and Poirot. Let’s move.’

  Jo shoved the door with her shoulder. Stanton laughed meanly at the futility of her effort until to both their surprise the door gave, caught on a weak lock.

  Immediately the smell assaulted them. Jo gagged, clamping a hand over her nose and mouth. Stanton muttered, ‘Christ alive, what the…?’

  The smell was worse inside. Jo had never experienced anything like it. It was metallic and foul and acrid, bitter with rot. The flat was dark and unbearably still, like a tomb.

  ‘There she is,’ Jo rasped.

  Not that Hilda Sewell was at all recognisable: a skeletal figure, upright, her mouth open, the skin decaying and sallow, the scalp mottled and visible through patches of bald.

  ‘Where’s the daughter?’ Jo asked.

  Stanton turned. ‘Hey?’

  ‘The daughter.’ Finally, she was on to something. ‘We need to find her.’

  55

  For Ivy Sewell, the best thing about working at the Palisades Grand was that she got to play out a version of the big night nearly every day of the week. As LA’s primary arena, the Palisades attracted crowds in their tens of thousands, herded like sheep, as unthinking and unseeing as those beasts as they were steered in nervous little groups towards the food counters and through the turnstiles. Yet seeing them as animals took away some of the magic: any fool could work an abattoir and Ivy was no butcher. It took something else, something different…something special to kill a human, let alone dozens. Execution on an unprecedented scale had to be planned and plotted to a margin of zero error.

  Watching the masses thread through every night cemented her timetable: the hour the doors opened, the crush that descended ten minutes before the support, the security networks that kept the whole thing carelessly, stupidly rolling according to the rules and regulations, where Ivy needed to be and with whom…

  She had already isolated her entrance point. Three guys alternated on that spot, checking the punters’ tickets and searching their bags full of gum and cameras and the occasional confiscated vodka disguised in a water bottle. Any one of them could be working that night and it was essential she made allies of them all.

  Nicki Soba was on rota this evening. Small and Asian with quick, flinty eyes, he believed he was above the menial tasks of a doorman. She stepped closer to Nicki as she spoke, flashing her smile and hanging on to every dismal word he said.

  ‘I can’t wait till the season’s over,’ Nicki grumbled, picking his teeth.

  Oh, it will be. Over for you, over for them all…

  ‘Standing here every day like a fucking ape,’ he complained, ushering another party through with a grimace. ‘Anyone could do this job.’

  ‘But I’ve seen how they respect you,’ Ivy flattered. ‘They listen to you.’

  ‘Ain’t got a lot of choice, have they?’ Nicki straightened, unable to help being at least slightly bolstered by the compliment. ‘It’s my rules or they’re out of here.’

  ‘That’s so powerful,’ she encouraged, thinking a man like Nicki Soba would never understand how it felt to be truly, absolutely powerful: to have a crusade.

  He would find out soon enough.

  ‘Guess.’ He shrugged, tilting his chin. ‘One day it’ll be me on the big stage.’ His words surfaced like relics, overshadowed by years of defeat—instead of the confidence Nicki had once imbued they flopped wearily out of his mouth, the routine claim bored by its own monotony, and which on good days still had the ability to make him feel inspired but on bad ones shot down the remaining scrap that clung to hope.

  Ivy had done her research. ‘It should be,’ she agreed. ‘I don’t know how half these acts have made it. Nine times out of ten they’re talentless. There’s no justice in the world.’

  ‘No kidding.’

  ‘Take the Platinum Awards,’ she said, ‘what a farce. All those egos in one room, and the only difference between them and us is that they got the break. Not that they’d ever admit it. Makes you wonder what the world would be like if they all got wiped out.’

  ‘Huh.’ He folded his arms.

  ‘If they all got annihilated, just vanished one day.’ She let him picture it. ‘The fans are such losers they’d probably kill themselves. It’s not like they’ve got lives of their own.’

  Nicki respected her attitude. ‘You working that night?’

  ‘Wouldn’t miss it.’

  He tilted his head, regarding her anew. ‘What did you say your name was?’

  ‘Ivy.’

  A smirk. ‘Like the poison?’

  Her lips twisted into a smile—for once, it was genuine.

  Supervisor Graham was ogling her from the burger stand, a glint of possessive jealousy in his eye. She still had the afternoon shift to get through.

  ‘Nice talking to you, Nicki.’

  She knew he’d remember her when it counted.

  56

  ‘Unbelievable!’ Jax spat, chucking back the last of his Powerade. ‘What a load of frickin’ horse shit.’ He wiped his mouth, crunched the plastic in an angry fist and tossed it with force into the trashcan. ‘What’s a guy gotta do to get a bit of peace in this goddamn town?’

  Cindy Shepard, PA extraordinaire, came to her boss and ran her hands across his muscular shoulders. Jax had recently had another tattoo done, a self-designed gold-tipped bullet at the nape of his neck, and the skin there was raised and sore.

  ‘Let them speculate,’ she offered, rubbing down his tensions. Jax’s Lamborghini had conked out on the drive back to Pacific Heights and a rampant army of questioning fans had set upon him. Was it true that a fight had broken out in Colorado? Was his Fastest Man title under threat? Could Leon Sway have what it took to beat The Bullet?

  ‘There’s no way Sway can outrun you.’ She kissed the tattoo. ‘You know that…’

  ‘Do I?’ Jax rounded on her, scowling. ‘Maybe you’re as full of BS as the rest.’

  Cindy arranged her features into a sympathetic expression. It was challenging when faced with over six feet of delicious dark muscle and the hard outline of an extremely handsome cock. ‘You wanna show me what you’re really made of, stud?’

  ‘I’m not in the mood,’ he lambasted, batting her away. ‘I say when I want you and that’s when I take you. Understood?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Jax stalked out to the patio, pausing to take a salty breath. He allowed the sea air to tease his open shirt and ripple over his broad chest, down past his shorts and over his bare legs, as he reflected not for the first time on the phenomenon of his own body.

  Was it enough? It had to be. Leon seemed to be grasping the reins at every damn public event they were invited to. Friday Later had been a shambles, not to mention the altercation at van der Meyde’s Celestial Centre, after which Jax had fired his manager for no particular reason and kicked over a thousand-dollar camera tripod that had swiftly been added to his list of incurred expenses. It was all Leon’s fault for pushing him out of shot.

  There was only one way to claw his reputation back.

  The Championships. He had to retain his gold medal.

  Nobody can beat me! Jax assured himself. I’m the fastest in the world! I’m a machine. I’m a legend. I’m Jax Jackson. I’m going down in the fucking history books.

  Sway would have to step over his stinking corpse to reach the finish first.

  ‘I know just what’s gonna relax you,’ said Cindy, joining him. She looped her arms
round his waist and lowered her hands to the main attraction, which despite Jax’s anger began to swell. He ought to resist it: the less sex he had, the more fury he’d pour into his run…

  ‘You wanna get the timer out?’ she purred, trailing over his hard-on.

  ‘To hell with that,’ he growled. Cindy’s lips were sweet and he attacked them so zealously that their teeth knocked together. His erection was about to pop. ‘I wanna get hot.’

  ‘You are hot.’ She peeled off his shirt and ran her fingers across his pecs.

  ‘I wanna get sweaty.’

  She wanted to say ‘You are sweaty’ but that didn’t sound right.

  Instead she breathed, ‘Lead the way, baby.’

  Jax moved towards the basement sauna he’d had installed a month ago, kissing his PA as they descended the stairs, his tongue forced deep into her mouth. Cindy responded by unbuttoning her shirt, wondering if she would ever be able to come to work and actually get anything productive done, and freeing the nipple-less bra she had going on beneath. As they fell through the sauna door Jax swooped for her breasts like an eagle on its prey, his tongue switching and flicking, bringing his lover closer and closer to rapture.

  The sauna was raging hot and ripe with the aroma of scented pine. Jax steered her backwards on to one of the smooth wooden benches, where he sank to his knees to taste the moisture between her legs. Cindy’s breath was shallow and frantic as she struggled to take in the heat, close as a wall, but her ecstasy was such that she couldn’t bear to stop, locking her ankles around Jax’s neck and pushing herself against him so that his tongue went deep. It was rare for Jax to go down on a woman and he quickly lost interest, rising majestically to his feet and removing the last of his clothes. Cindy gasped at the glory of his glossy, perspiring chest and the iron-solid dick rising proud from a bush of black hair.

  Jax mounted her, the gold chain around his neck trickling and twinkling between Cindy’s gasping lips as he made her beg for it.