Page 62 of Protecting Salvation

Chapter20

Peyton glaredat McCain as he shoved her into the helicopter, her shoulder hitting the edge of the door as she fell.

“Get up there, you little slut.”

Trevor chuckled darkly, his lips twisting where he sat waiting, his eyes running all over her body and making her shiver. She didn’t glare at him. McCain might be a bully but Trevor was something else. She’d been doing this job long enough to recognise true evil when she saw it. He put out a hand to help her but she scrabbled to get up, not wanting to touch him. He chuckled again as if her reaction amused him.

“Don’t be frightened, little mouse. I don’t bite….at least not yet.”

McCain grunted as he closed the door and motioned for the pilot who looked as scared as she was to take off. “Let’s go.”

“Where are you taking me?”

She directed her question at Trevor because even though he terrified her enough to make her bones shake, he was the most likely to talk. Men like him believed they were invincible, powerful, and smarter than everyone else, and they liked to talk about it.

He cocked his head and looked at her and like most things evil, he didn’t have any outward signs. He was nice-looking, clean-cut, dressed fairly well, and scarier than anything, he looked like a man you could trust. She could imagine many people fell for his charms.

“Tell me, Dr Lawson, did you always want to be a therapist?”

Not what she’d been expecting, but she went with it, deciding to see where it might lead. “Not always. No.”

“So, this isn’t your first love?”

“It is. I just didn’t know it when I was ten and wanted to be an actress.”

He smirked and sat back, his posture relaxed like he hadn’t just broken out of jail and was on the run. McCain, however, was sweating buckets.

“I always knew I wanted to be powerful. That I wouldn’t ask for what I wanted. I’d just take it and anyone who got in my way would be removed.”

He glanced at McCain who grunted and turned away. It seemed the good detective was frightened of Trevor, not that he’d let on. The man was all bluster.

“May I ask you a question?”

She knew respect and deference would work with this man. He was a narcissist and would revel in the attention she was giving him. She prayed someone noticed her missing soon and realised what had happened, but with things like they were with Warren, would he even come home tonight? If he didn’t, the first person to notice would be Aoife when she didn’t pick up her call tomorrow.

“You may.” He nodded like a deity bestowing a great honour on a subject.

“How did you end up working with this one?” She cocked her head at McCain, who glared like he wanted nothing more than to open the door and push her out. “I get you most likely met Martin on the club scene, but McCain?”

“Ah, yes. Well, you’re right about Martin. We did meet on the club scene but it wasn’t an accident. I knew my old pal McCain here long before that. He was my neighbour before he moved here. I was a child and he took, shall we say, a very special interest in me. So when I was given a new identity, I asked to be sent here so I could pay my old friend back for all the attention he gave me when I was a child. He was the one who put me on to Martin. Said he’d be a good friend and help me out. He was for a long time but, as with all things, it came to an end.” He looked pensive for a moment but then laughed. “Ah well, shit happens. Am I right?”

Peyton didn’t answer that because she was busy trying to digest everything he’d said. His implication being that McCain abused him as a child and Trevor had come looking for him and, what, blackmailed him?

“I can see that was a lot and you might be confused.” He leaned in and smiled but it was feral rather than friendly.

“A little.” Admitting that would please him and make him feel superior.

“McCain took my power from me as a child so I took his as an adult. I own him now. Don’t I, Graham?” McCain said nothing and Trevor laughed. “You think I should punish him?”

“I think he should be punished for what he did to you as a child.” Peyton felt like she was walking a tightrope. One wrong move and she’d fall to her death.

“I agree.”

Before she could even react, Trevor pulled back the door release, turned, and shoved McCain with both feet in his back. The man screamed and grappled but he had no purchase and seconds later he was gone, a big gaping space of nothing but air where he’d been. Her breath froze in her lungs, her heart skittered like a frightened animal looking for a place to hide.

Trevor closed the door and grinned at her. “Much better. Now, where were we? Ah, yes, McCain was a bad man and needed to be punished. Now, let’s talk about my wife.”

All sense of fake kindness was gone now as he faced her and she knew if she didn’t find a way out of this, her name would just end up a memory. Aoife would remember her, grieve her, and so might her friends but what was her legacy? The man she loved had blown everything up and while she knew he’d care because he was a good man, he’d move on with someone else.