The Girls Club Read online

  Denise remained awake for the most part. A panic bird like chattering in her mind convinced her that of she passed out again in the face of these monsters, they would kill her. If she took her medicine, Sarah’s revenge, then she might just make it through. There was no doubt in her mind about why this was happening.

  The pain. The pain filled her mind, top to bottom and side to side. Pain. Blood roaring electrical signals of pain. Blood and tears poured down her face, each time she sagged forward the pain in her shoulders and upper back making her cry out as stabbing pain lanced down viciously.

  They hardly spoke.

  “Finish it” Blondie puffed, arming away her work sweat.

  “Wait” Brunette. Their hair colour the only real thing different about them, their black pants and white golf shirts smeared with dust and blood.

  “A, I, a”

  “Oh sweetness. You’ve been a treasure. But now its time for you to go” Blondie turned as if to walk away and when she turned back she had a revolver in her hand.

  They had their photos. They were almost through. Denise could barely make out what it was she had in her hand but knew what the end looked like.

  “Rosh…!” she screamed.

  BANG! She went limp against the post and her knees sagged. The left shoulder made a meaty gristly snapping sound. The shot rang out against the walls and out onto the hills of LA in the night chill. The shot had taken Denise at the side of the nose. The effect had been an almost total facial collapse. Brunette shot another photo and Blondie cut off her left ear. The one that had 5 earrings in it.

  Blondie then produced a can of lighter fluid and doused her with it. With one match Denise was alight. 20 minutes after the meat heads left to go get cleaned up her shoulder left her arm entirely, the cooked meat becoming tender. Her face hit the floor, the empty space made by the gun filled with dust and mites after the fire had burnt out.

  Sarah created a whole fabricated story that the police had been all but convinced it was drugs or gang related when talking to Rochelle about it. Consoling her in her time of loss, her office had actually been the first place Rochelle had come to after learning the news. In her heart she knew it was Sarah’s revenge, even if her brain wouldn’t allow the thought room.

  She’d been shot in the face, a public statement made by all manner surf gangs. She must have upset the wrong kind of people. Sarah extolled.

  Rochelle hadn’t believed it then. She didn’t believe it now. Denise had been beaten like a dog for going against Sarah and paid with her life. A more mature and slightly selfish part of Rochelle thought Sarah was now perhaps getting her comeuppance.

  She scrubbed her hands across her face. Denise was not all that long dead, it was a lesson Rochelle had thought she would only have to learn once. So why did it feel like a boomerang of bad luck, heading right back to smack her in the face?

  “Shit!” the clock said it was time she didn’t have to be here any more. She really had been on a long trip this afternoon and knew that whatever the future brought her now, in order that she get to keep Karen, she’d have to leave Sarah to sort herself out.

  And that was for the best.

  Chapter 11

  The apartment was filled with the smells of hot meat and boiled potatoes. There was some disco playing on the stereo. Rochelle’s personal favourite, Karen was more of an 80’s woman. Rochelle definitely wore the platforms in that relationship.

  “Hey there” Karen greeted her with a kiss. She was as instructed. Naked except for a frilly pink apron. Rochelle almost wet herself, she had been joking about the naked servitude. But Karen didn’t seem to mind at all. With her slippers and apron she had all her bruises on display. Rochelle scooched up behind her whilst she took the vegetables off the stove.

  “Oy now, this has to be a health and safety issue, I’m gonna get hot water on my unmentionables”

  Rochelle bit her ear and Karen slammed the pot down.

  “Now you know that’s not fair” she leaned back so Rosh could get more of her ear.

  “Putty in my hands”

  “I…” it had always been one of her most sensitive spots. The back of her ear, God bless Rosh for finding it so easily.

  “Anything that will burn” she talked against the back of her ear.

  “Er,” Karen flicked all the dials to zero, “Not now they won’t”

  “Good” she put her arms under the apron, “Because we need to have a serious talk”

  “Yessum” Karen let herself be lead from behind over to the couch where rather than put her on the couch Rochelle pushed her over the back of it. Karen’s ass wagging in the air Rochelle pushed all the afternoons sombre and painful thoughts away. She leaned over the back of the couch to see what Karen thought of this predicament she’d found herself in.

  “Ok chief?”

  Rochelle reached over and started to massage Karen’s pussy, paying attention to her clitoris with her index finger. In this position she could give Karen full coverage.

  Karen went still and gasped.

  “Ah, not so cheeky now are you? Crazy Brit”

  “Ah, er, ssst”

  “That’s it. Shut up.”

  Karen felt very strange indeed, all the blood rushing to her head and her pussy being tickled in the cold air in what felt like a million miles away. Another quality past time Rochelle had discovered. ‘Arse hang gliding’. She started to laugh, Rochelle slapped her arse and redoubled her efforts. The laugh was cut short. This was way too serious. When Rochelle felt Karen was close to her climax she took her ass in both hands and sunk her tongue into the tender pink flesh, Karen came almost at once.

  “Who owns you huh?” Rochelle pushed her legs and she went all the way over the side of the couch. Karen stayed on the floor a minute. Letting her blood find a normal level in her body again. Her head was fuzzy and her orgasm had shocked her a little, it had been sudden, the shock tactic.

  Must be love.

  Rochelle went and picked a beer out of the fridge for both of them. Karen pulled a chair out to sit down,

  “Hey!”

  “What?”

  “Don’t you dare put your wet fanny on that chair”

  Karen shook a dish towel over the chair and then sat down with a grin.

  “That was some welcome home. I’m glad I showered, had a feeling you were going to molest me”

  Rochelle sighed.

  “What” Karen took her hand across the table.

  “I, we…we should leave LA”

  Karen looked down, “Because of me, my fault, being stupid and pig headed?”

  “Not just that. Sarah’s missing. Charlotte knows about the hand in the safe, when Sarah finds out she knows about that, she’ll have you killed”

  Karen laughed.

  “Fuck off”

  “Seriously” Rochelle drained her beer and got another one from the fridge.

  “Ok so you’re not joking. How does Charlotte know about the friggin’ hand. I haven’t been in to see her yet”

  Rochelle shook her head, “She was listening when I called you”

  “Fack me” Karen drank her beer.

  “So you see, Demi can be tied back to Sarah, or whoever was with Sarah when Demi was killed. You know something you aren’t supposed to crazy Brit. That makes people nervous. And I haven’t told you everything yet”

  Karen stuck out her bottom lip.

  “Tell you what. Lets eat first while the foods warm. Then we’ll go over whatever it is you want to tell me. Then I’ll book us a couple of tickets.”

  Rochelle’s smile slipped a little.

  “Sure”

  Karen ate her dinner with her apron on, Rochelle picked at it and drank two more beers.

  “Shit!” Karen threw her fork down.

  “What?” Rochelle jumped up out of her chair.

  “I forget to text Sky and tell her good luck” she nipped into the bedroom where her mobile was.

  “Christ Karen, I thought you were having a
n embolism, shit” she got another beer from the fridge.

  “I’ll not be a sec, I want to keep in contact with her if I can. I don’t trust that Huntiminge character”

  “It’s Huntington-Wolfe”

  “Like I said”

  Sky - sorry missed you today. Enjoy yourself. Be careful. Any trouble call me. No matter what the hour.

  Love - crazy Brit.

  She hit send and put the phone down. Tidying up the plates in silence she was content enough to let Rochelle say whatever it was she needed to say before they made their plans.

  Karen had never been a domestic Goddess but prided herself on her adaptability. The way she had gone from being single and utilitarian to coupled and content really brought home to her how lucky she had been over the past couple of months. All things considered.

  She was washing up with her naked back to Rochelle when she came over and gripped her again.

  “Promise me that whatever I tell you, we still leave as planned”

  “Wha…”

  “Promise!” she squeezed her under her breasts.

  “Promise”

  “Promise me because you want me to come with you”

  Karen put the sponge down.

  “I promise because I want you to come with me, its what I’ve wanted for weeks”

  “Good”, she kissed her shoulder, “Sarah is my maternal sister”

  Karen counted to ten.

  “Right” she said levelly.

  “And she did make those marks. But it saved her life. Karen, you can take me away from all this and it won’t mean anything any more”

  “Fine. But one more thing, just answer one more thing and then we don’t have to talk about it ever again”

  Rochelle sighed. She knew what Karen was going to ask.

  “Did she, well, did she kill your last partner? The last person you were in love with?”

  Rochelle lowered her head, Karen felt the tear from Rochelle’s eye go rolling down her back.

  “And that’s why you went apeshit crazy when I got mad?”

  Another tear rolled down her back and Rochelle shook her head. Karen let her stay there, quietly weeping, hopefully the last of whatever poison tears she would have to cry for the Chain and Sarah ‘Sainted Twat’ Steiger. Karen stood there, her arms against the side of the sink, cursing herself for her stupid arrogance. Rochelle had consented to leave with her and make a new start. That was all that mattered now.

  Rochelle stood back and then placed a kiss on the back of Karen’s neck, another shivery spot she had discovered. Then she was gone, into the bathroom, shutting the door behind her. She always showered with the door closed. Noting weird about it, bathroom habits were personal to some people. Karen was a private bathroom person too, unless of course there was going to be water sport of some kind. A hot shower with a hot woman had gone right to the top of her favourite things. She shuddered, Kelsey and her amazing strap-on flashed through her mind.

  “Sweet girl” Karen muttered to the rest of the dishes. After wiping down the counters she tapped on the bathroom door.

  “You alright?”

  “Yeah. Heard from Sky?” her voice sounded even enough.

  “Dunno” she went to check her mobile.

  There was a message.

  “Yeah” she went back over to the bathroom door.

  “She says, ‘Heidi is one mean motherfucker?’”

  She heard Rochelle laugh from inside the shower cubicle.

  “Is that not bad?”

  “No. It means she thinks she rad, ace, that kind of thing”

  “Fucking weird taste” Karen typed.

  How can you shag a bitch with bbq between her teeth?

  Minging.

  She was rarely this crude with Rochelle, but she knew Sky was a little bit more robust in that sense.

  The text came back almost right away, she must have been in the restroom.

  Easy. I wasn’t looking at her face.

  “Fack shit, dirty cow!” Karen was still smiling to herself when Rochelle came out of the steamy bathroom. She looked much better for her shower, more relaxed. That was the burden of secrets, they hurt when they left you, but you felt damn fine once they were out and couldn’t fester any more.

  “You look much better my dear”

  “What else did Sky say?” she towelled her hair, looking very neat and completely ‘Goddess like’ in her white silk wrap.

  Karen was staring at her.

  “Well?” she smiled, her heart hurt for Denise who had looked at her that way too, untethered love.

  “Heh” she opened the text message again, she’d forgotten what it had said, “I asked her how she could sleep with someone who had bar-b-que between her teeth, she said that she wasn’t looking at her face”

  Rochelle scowled, “That’s our Sky”

  Karen felt a tug on her heart strings. She’d miss Sky. Owed her a lot. A fine teacher, good friend, excellent lover. Maybe she’d come too? But then again, why should everyone else’s lives be up-heaved, Sky was happy in her work and past times. It sounded like her only time of woe had been when she’d fallen for Minnie. No death and destruction in her time on the Chain.

  “Are you coming?” from the bedroom, she hadn’t seen her go through.

  “No, but you will be” she grinned. She’d wear the apron to bed, Hell. It had been fun so far.

  In bed by ten on a Friday night? Bloody hell!

  She wasn’t bothered by this in the slightest, sleep wasn’t on the immediate agenda.

  “You’re not coming to bed wearing that thing are you?”

  “What? You know this is hot” she wiggled her bare arse in the doorway. The bruises on her side from the thumping had faded a little. They were going to be alright. Really alright.

  Now it had been decided they were both eager to make the necessary plans to get away.

  Rochelle would leave it till morning to explain why leaving the country was going to be a little difficult.

  Her passport was at Sarah’s apartment.

  And Karen hadn’t remembered her own passport at all.

  Chapter 12

  “Yes. Yes. Uh-huh. Yes, I said yes! Just, just do it!”

  Charlotte Toulouse had just spent eight hours ringing the whole world and his wife it seemed. If Rochelle skipped town before Sarah was located than it might well be a burden placed at her door when she did show up. She would have Rochelle lifted and put somewhere safe. Karen she wasn’t sure what to do with. She wasn’t happy sanctioning her silence. Didn’t really think she had done anything to warrant such a harsh decision. That was why Sarah was the senior. She usually handled all the dirty deeds, she had the morality of a garter snake.

  No word as of yet. She had texted Sarah and left maybe half a dozen voice mails. The cell was on, her messages all showed as ‘sent’.

  She walked out of her office and turned left into the darkened hallway to go into Sarah’s office. The scene presented itself as desperate. Had Karen been in on the whole affair she had been very clever. If she had though it would have made zero sense not to have come into work today, that would have screamed of her guilt. Besides. She’d not been here three months. Not enough time to gain the kind of alliance required to silence ‘psycho’ Steiger.

  She absently picked up the cigar box.

  “Shit dammit” she thumped it back down.

  The firm was going to go down the pan. When the demand came in, whatever it might be, it may well be to turn over their own client list, and it wouldn’t end there. It had gone rather wrong. She toyed with the idea of calling Skylar, seeing if she could tease something out of Heidi Huntington-Wolfe, it wasn’t inconceivable that she would know something, she was top ten after all.

  Sarah’s being top ten meant she could rely on a certain amount of courtesy. She wouldn’t be killed. If she played her cards right. She might well get sent back with her tits on backward but she had pretty much asked for that over the years. Charlotte left the room
, it felt crypt like. And like all good lawyers she wondered when the shit would visit her door. She had been in on the spying. But not with what happened to Demi, Sarah had really gone OTT on that score, Charlotte presumed it was over zealous defence of her little sister. That being said though Sarah Steiger had never needed a reason to open her can of whupass. A loose cannon, full of loose screws.

  Tomorrow Rochelle would be picked up and taken to the Holiday Inn at the airport. The instructions were very clear, she was not to be harmed. Just held. Karen was to be subdued and then left, they could tie her up if necessary, but only if necessary.

  If Karen could be made to understand that Rochelle couldn’t leave, well, not at least until this silliness was cleared up and Sarah back behind her desk where she should be then it should be relatively friction free.

  Charlotte packed her briefcase with the files for the Huntington-Wolfe case, it would be started Monday and if she at least attended and made a tardy excuse for more time she’d have more chance of Sarah being back to deal with it.

  She left her cell on loud ring all the way home, she would be ready to snatch it up the second it rang. She told herself not to worry, surely she had to score points for making sure Rochelle didn’t clear off before Sarah had chance to say goodbye. Charlotte knew about Denise. That was her get out of jail free card. Sarah had blurted it out over beer in the bar one night.

  “Got her fucking clock cleaned. Fucking dyke, whore!” raising her voice and spilling beer, fading bruises on her cheeks from the licks she’d taken.

  Weeks later when Sarah had asked Charlotte to take care of a piece of business relating to a certain drug dealer getting bailed Charlotte had put her foot down. She had truly never agreed with that kind of thing. If a drug dealer got caught they deserved whatever they got.

  “You’ll do it because I can make your life a misery if you don’t”