Don't Let Me Die: A gripping psychological thriller Read online

  I almost lose the ability to speak. “That would be fantastic, yes.”

  “I’ll get that sorted for you as soon as possible.”

  “Thank you,” I say, still unsure what just happened.

  “That’s all it takes, Emma. There’s no need to sneak around getting drugs from crooked orderlies. If you have a problem, tell me first. We are here to help.”

  I think about the surgical scissors in my bed. Maybe I don’t need them at the current minute, but having the option gives me a sense of control nothing else in this place could ever replace.

  Shaw is studying me as if she is waiting for an answer. “I’m sorry. I guess I got swindled a little by Tom.”

  She nods at me. “There are people in here who will try to exploit you. Regrettably, the department is always low on skilled staff, so we have to be lax when it comes to hires. It’s not ideal, but until we can land the budget we need, things aren’t going to change anytime soon.”

  I don’t respond to her slight rant, choosing to show how much I agree with her every thought.

  “Shall we begin?” Shaw asks.

  I close my eyes for a moment. “I’m ready.”

  Thirty-Nine

  Before.

  Frank is beyond pissed at us. I ask myself how we can be the ones to feel guilty when he was the fourteen-year-old boy caught with drugs. He locks himself away in his room and refuses to come out. Darren tries to barge in, but I stop him, saying we should give Frank some space.

  We take the conversation downstairs and check every door and window for signs of another break-in. After ten minutes of nothing, we head back to the kitchen. Darren and I stare at one another while the returned laptop sits between us. I decide not to press him about the choice he made. It may have been the right call. What’s bugging me more than anything else now is the folded rectangle that’s been placed back in our home through locked doors.

  “What are we going to do about this?” I ask.

  Darren shrugs as he opens the fridge and grabs a fresh beer to replace the one he never got to drink. He pops the lid and takes a swig without asking if I want anything. “There’s nothing we can do,” he says once he catches his breath.

  “What about the cops?”

  “What about them? They won’t believe us. There’s no sign of forced entry. Whoever did this has a key and put that right there where we would find it.”

  “So, what? They’re screwing with us? What is the point?”

  Darren flares his arms out, beer in hand. “Same damn reason it’s been all along: they want me to pay out for Victor’s accident.”

  “Maybe we should,” I say as I toy with the laptop.

  “What?”

  “Think about it. Our lives have been getting worse by the day. These people seem to know what they are doing. I’m starting to suspect that Victor’s family are either criminals or psychopaths. What else are they planning?”

  Darren takes a massive gulp of beer. “Not they, he.”

  “Karlo?” I ask. “You still think this is all him?”

  “Has to be. He’s the only one with a record. The rest are squeaky clean.”

  “Doesn’t mean they aren’t into some illegal things, though.”

  “No, but he fits the profile—he’s been to jail for aggravated assault, breaking and entering, fraud of all things, and a whole bunch of other misdemeanors. He’s the black sheep of the family. Of course, the others are pissed at me, but I don’t think they are capable of this kind of thing.” He gestures toward the laptop.

  I realize in all the excitement with Frank that we haven’t checked if it is working or not. I open the lid and find a note on the keyboard:

  TURN ME ON

  “Jesus,” I say, holding up the paper to Darren.

  “What now?” Darren says as he slams his beer down on the counter and heads around to my side of the island to see the screen. “Turn it on. I want to see what these pricks have for us.”

  I slowly press the power button with a shaky hand. I take a moment to center myself as the system loads up from hibernation. Darren is standing beside me with crossed arms. I don’t want to look at the display but force myself to.

  We arrive at the password screen. I tap in our basic password and curse at myself for using something so damn easy: FRANKY. I knew it was a weak passkey, but it was simple for me to remember.

  The login screen fades away to the desktop. Our background has been changed, and all the icons except one have been removed. The wallpaper has a message written on it that says “Play,” with an arrow pointing to a video file.

  “Oh, God,” I let out. I can’t watch.

  “Screw that; we’re watching this. And then we’re going to the cops again.” Darren takes over and opens the video file. It starts playing after a short delay.

  On the screen, a lone man is sitting at a table in a room devoid of detail. It has concrete walls and a single light source flickering above. It could be anywhere. Worse still, the man is wearing a black hoodie and a balaclava with a painted skull over the material. His eyes hold no color and appear black in the video. He’s either using contacts, or he’s been sent straight from hell.

  My hand finds my open mouth as I stagger back from the image. The man sits calmly at the table with his gloved hands folded together. “Hello, Turner family,” he says. His voice has been modulated beyond recognition.

  “Turn it off,” I say.

  “No,” Darren says. “We’re watching this.”

  The man continues: “As I am sure you are aware, things have not been business as usual in the Turner home. If I were your neighbors, I’d be wondering why the police keep coming to your house. They must think you are criminals.”

  Darren plants both hands firmly on the counter and leans in closer. Either he’s not intimidated, or he is trying to convince himself this isn’t that serious.

  “Turners, you have only one choice. One way to stop what is happening to your family.” The man moves in closer to the camera. “Have you worked out what it is? Yes, money. As you know, compensation is in order, and only a payment made in cash will stop the madness.”

  “Asshole,” Darren mutters to himself.

  “Two hundred thousand dollars is owed for what you did. You have forty-eight hours to get it together. You will be told soon where to bring the money. Once this is done, your debt will be wiped clean. Simple as that. But if you do anything stupid, like calling the police, then no sum of money will be able to recover that debt. A different course of action will be required to make things right. And trust me, you don’t want that.”

  The man goes silent for a moment as he stares at us with his lifeless eyes. His hand drops down out of sight and comes flying back up with a hunter’s knife that gets slammed into the wooden table.

  “Don’t think any of this is for show, Turners,” the man says as the knife stands on its own and glimmers in the light. “I will kill all three of you if needed.”

  The video cuts out.

  I stumble backward and find myself unable to utter a single sound. I turn back to the screen to see Darren frozen in the same position over the laptop. He presses play and watches the video again.

  Forty

  “What the hell are we going to do?” I repeat for the third time.

  Darren keeps watching the video, over and over. It’s as if he thinks there is some cryptic answer I’m not seeing.

  “Darren?”

  He silences me with a finger, while keeping his eyes glued to the screen. I have no choice but to wait for the video to finish again.

  “Please, Darren. Talk to me.”

  He stands straight and shuts the lid on the laptop. He turns to me and sees how shaken I am. I can’t hide behind a wall of bravado. My eyes are full of tears, and my hands and chest won’t stop bouncing. “What are we going to do?” I ask again.

  “I won’t pay Karlo,” he says, shaking his head. “Not a cent.”

  “But—”

  “I’m not
paying him, you hear me?” Darren shouts. “He thinks he can intimidate us.”

  “Yes, he can,” I yell. “You saw what I saw. This isn’t a joke. We’re talking about a psychopath who was involved in organized crime.”

  Darren stomps away from me. “That’s all bullshit. He’s no mobster; he’s just trying to scare us. Why should we lose everything for that?”

  I follow him as he climbs the stairs. I don’t know where he is going. All I hope is that Frank hasn’t heard a thing.

  “I’m not going to pay them,” Darren says. He heads into our room and goes into the walk-in closet. I catch up as he shifts a few items around on the top shelf to reveal his gun safe.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Getting prepared. These people think they can threaten my family. Well, I think it’s time I visited Victor.”

  My mouth is hanging open as far as it possibly can, and I have to close it so I can talk again. “Are you insane? Karlo will kill you. At best, his lawyer will get you on record intimidating a man who is suing you.”

  “No, they’ll back off. They’ll stop doing this shit to our family. I know it.”

  I move in close to Darren and place a hand on his tense shoulder. He flinches. I realize he is as scared as I am and is trying to find the courage to protect his family.

  “Honey, it’s okay. You don’t have to die for us. We can pull this money together and pay them off.”

  “I can’t—”

  I cut him off with a hug from behind. He stops opening the safe and grabs hold of my arms around him.

  “It’s okay,” I say. “We’ll push through this.”

  “What if we can’t?” he asks.

  I can hear the tears in his voice. The facade he had put up is starting to crumble. The real Darren is coming out.

  “We’ll send them their money and be done with this hell forever.”

  “What about the business? I’m going to have to rip it to pieces to do this. I can tell you now, it won’t be legal.”

  “We’ll worry about that later. Your uncle can fix all that up after. What’s more important is we do what they ask. Otherwise . . . ” I trail off as I think about Frank. If anything happened to him because of all this madness, I could never forgive myself.

  “Okay,” Darren says. “We can do this. We have forty-eight hours to put the 200k together.”

  “We better get started,” I say. “What’s the best way to do this?”

  Darren and I decide to spend the afternoon gutting the business. Our personal savings only covers about ten grand if we leave ourselves with enough to stay off the streets. The business will be completely ruined after we’ve dissolved the accounts, and my salary alone can’t handle our current expenses. We realize that we will need to sell the house when this is all said and done, but it’s a thought we are both putting on the back burner.

  “You won’t like this,” Darren says, “but I’ve got wages for the month coming up. I can drain the account. It means the guys won’t be paid, but we can worry about that later. Hell, they can form a queue and jump in line with Victor for all I care.”

  I chuckle at the terrible joke. What else can I do? Our lives are systematically falling apart around us. If we are lucky, we’ll come out of this mess with the clothes on our backs.

  We spend the next two hours going through every possible account we can shift around and drain. Every liability we owe will be used to make up the difference the operation money can’t cover. I feel sick taking cash that isn’t strictly ours whether it belongs to the IRS or our own employees, but Karlo has given us little choice.

  My mind drifts around as I wonder how many people in Victor’s family are in on this. Is Karlo working alone, or has he gotten as many of them involved as possible? It seems to me that everything that’s happened so far would have been too much for one man to handle. It makes me sick to my stomach that Victor could let them do this to us, but I guess becoming a cripple overnight does things to your way of thinking. He’s probably telling them each what to do, using his longstanding relationship with Darren as ammunition.

  “That should do it,” Darren says. “We just need to convert this all to cash.”

  “How?” I ask, completely ignorant to how something like that would work.

  Darren scratches at the back of his head and gives me a grin that only comes out when something not quite right is on the cards.

  “I know a guy. He’ll give me the equivalent in cash and transfer it over to an offshore account. He’ll then cook the books for us so we can declare the business bankrupt. Beats me how he does it, but we lose ten percent for the service. I’ve accounted for that, though.”

  I shake my head and look away. It dawns on me that I should be asking him why he knows such a person, but we are well beyond that point in the process. I figure Darren has wanted to, for reasons I may never know, liquidate the business illegally to whisk us away from this life. But how could he not tell me about the contingency? Was he afraid of my reaction? Or just ashamed?

  More doubt circles in my head as I wonder what Darren has put his team through in the past. Victor had been there since day one. How many projects had he worked on without being paid what he was owed while Darren pretended everything was fine?

  “I’ll give the guy a call and get the ball rolling,” he says as he heads for the front door.

  “Where are you going?” I ask as I squint at a piece of paper covered in figures.

  Darren is already playing with his cell, tapping away to drown me out.

  “Honey?”

  His eyes level with mine, both brows raised. “Ah, sorry. This guy doesn’t like to be screwed around. I need to be ready to meet him with the figures ASAP. I don’t know when I’ll be back.”

  “But what about me and Frank? We’ll be here by ourselves while those psychos stalk the house.”

  Darren’s head drops down as he realizes what I am saying. “Shit,” he mutters.

  I want to tear strips off him for thinking of us last in this entire ordeal, but there is no point. He has too many problems on his plate as it is.

  “Maybe you guys can come with me. It won’t be fun or exciting—”

  “But we will be together,” I say, finishing the sentence he should be saying.

  “Right. Exactly. Get Frank ready. I’ll contact this guy.”

  “What do I tell him?”

  Darren looks at me with skinny eyes. “Who?”

  “Frank,” I shout.

  “Right. Nothing. Just tell him we have an important business meeting, and he is not to be trusted on his own. Make it part of the punishment, I guess.”

  “Okay,” I say as I head for the stairs. I try not to let the lies I am about to put upon my son nauseate me.

  Forty-One

  Frank comes along with Darren and me without argument. I could get used to his defeated state. Typically, such a request would be met with complaints before, during, and after the question. But now, well, let’s just say Frank has nothing left to do but silently hate us for ruining his friendship with a drug-dealing teenager.

  Darren drives us across town to a small diner we haven’t visited in a long time. He asks us to stay in the truck while he meets with his contact inside. I agree, but I don’t feel safe waiting out in the parking lot.

  I distract myself by trying to work out which of the few customers the diner holds is Darren’s guy. There are three men to choose from: a stocky, balding man in a cheap suit reading the paper, a thirty-something laborer ordering some food, or a big hulk in the corner with a shaved head and tattoos on his neck. If watching movies has taught me anything, it’s that the guy with the tattoos is too damn obvious. My eyes fall back to the quiet businessman. Darren sits down with the criminal hiding in plain sight.

  “Knew it,” I mutter to myself.

  “Knew what?” Frank asks from the back seat.

  “Nothing,” I reply, while looking away from Darren.

  “Why is Dad meeting with so
me guy inside a diner?”

  “He’s a potential client,” I say. “He might be able to help your father out with a new contract.”

  “Okay,” Frank says, sounding somewhat convinced. “So why meet here? And why did we have to come along?”

  I swivel in my seat and cross my arms. I give Frank the Mom stare to push him off the scent of the meeting. “Was that a complaint?”

  “No, Mom, I—”

  “It better not be one, because I can tell you now, your father and I are not happy with what we found in your room. I wouldn’t be surprised if a discussion about military school came up over dinner tonight, you get me?”

  “I’m sorry, Mom. Happy to be here. Dad’s got my full support.”

  I give Frank a forced smile laced with sarcasm. “Well, thank you, Frank. It means the world to us both that you are always eager to please.”

  He lets out a fake chuckle. “You know me, Mom. Just part of the team.”

  I shake my head as I turn away from my son’s nonsense. I don’t know where I pulled that line of BS from, but it worked.

  Frank goes back to playing with his cell. We’ve taken away his Internet, but the device can still run some of the apps he had installed. I’d rather he does that than question why his father is meeting with some dodgy businessman at a diner of all places.

  Fifteen minutes later, Darren heads back to the truck with a small bag he didn’t walk into the diner with. Frank’s mouth goes to ask what’s in the pack, but I shoot him a glare that silences him before he gets the chance.

  Darren says hello to both of us and starts up the car.

  “How did your meeting go, Dad? Do you think he will give us a new contract?”

  “Contract?” Darren asks.

  “Yes, dear,” I say. “A new building contract to replace the one we lost.”

  “Oh, right. Yeah, it sounded promising what he had to say, Frank. Things will be okay soon enough.” Darren stares off into the distance as he grips the steering wheel.