Chapter 2 A Knife's Edge

"Please don't kill me," he begged. "I'm not here to kill you, though I could easily do that if I wanted to." The knife's edge pressed deeper into his flesh. "All I want is your uncle's address. I need to make sure that I have the right Finn Maxwell." "27 Rue des Hibiscus, Cayenne" he stuttered. "His house got a green door." "Who does he live with?" She stared down at him, the tip of the knife pressed firmly against his neck. "He lives alone. His wife is in London. He ain't like the cold." "Perfect. I need him alone." "Please," he croaked. "Please don't kill me." "Relax. I told you that I wasn't going to kill you," she soothed, like a mother to a child who had awakened from a nightmare. "You didn't know that he would kill my sister, my parents, and my grandparents." "N-no," he stammered, shaking his head in emphasis. The tip of the knife pierced his skin, and he felt a trickle of blood run from the wound. "I didn't even know he brought a gun." "But afterward, you could have told the police what happened though, couldn't you? You could have backed up my story." "I was frightened," he admitted. "He would have killed me." "I knew you were frightened. And I also suspected he wouldn't have hesitated to kill you too," she replied and pressed the tip of the knife deeper into his flesh, probably recalling, he suspected, the rage she'd felt at the time at not being believed by the police. "But if you'd corroborated my story, your uncle might have been thrown into jail where he belonged. He would be there now, rotting instead of living among decent people. Don't you agree?" Caleb nodded twice, forgetting that the blade was still at his throat and unintentionally deepening the small puncture wound. "He warned me that if I opened my mouth, I would be  dead!" Caleb would have been dead if he'd dared say anything. His uncle had killed five people to avoid jail; killing another, even his nephew, would have been easy. "For the last seven years I lived the miserable life you condemned me to when you didn't tell your uncle I was still alive," she informed him. " I couldn't let him kill you, too." "If you'd willingly participated, you would be dead right now." She deftly moved off him and stepped back from the bed. "My beef isn't with you. It's your uncle I want. He is going to pay for what he did." Caleb's eyes bulging, body trembling, laid flat against the bed as if he was still pinned there by her weight and watched as she stepped carefully over the clothes he'd discarded before going to bed. She turned when she reached the window of his ground-floor bedroom. "If you call to warn him or tell anyone I've been here, I will come back and cut out your tongue before I gut you like a fish." Not waiting for Caleb Grayson's response, Autumn lightly swung one leg over the wooden sill of the man's bedroom window and slipped back through the fly mesh she'd slashed to gain entry. The resentment she felt towards him was not for the part he'd played that night, but for thinking that he was doing her a kindness by leaving her alive. She owed her 'lucky' escape to him and one day she might be grateful to him. That day was yet to come.

27 Rue des Hibiscus,Cayenne It was one of the addresses she had found and memorized in her search for the whereabouts of Finn Maxwell. She had staked several of the addresses out with no luck in the three days she'd been in the country. In desperation, she'd changed tactics as her time ran out. Since the man's nephew was the only Caleb Grayson living in the capital, she'd decided to get the information from him instead. She hadn't come all this way to fail and didn't want to extend her stay. The less time she spent in the country, the less chance there would be of connecting her to the shit that was about to 'hit the fan' as Finn had once said. As she blended into the darkness of the night, she pulled off the balaclava and checked that her hair was still pulled smoothly back into its severe chignon before hurrying to the rented vehicle she'd parked two corners away. She was thankful that the night would conceal her closely-fitting black top and leggings. Women in Cayenne were slowly beginning to embrace black despite the heat, but it was more in the form of 'little black dresses'. Anyone catching sight of her in her current getup would know that she was up to no good and report her to the police. Jumping quickly into the car when she reached it, she took a deep breath and pulled away from the curb. It took a monumental effort to stay within the speed limit. All she wanted to do was press the accelerator to the floor and get to the address before Caleb got over his fright and called to warn his uncle. She doubted that he would. In his own way Caleb had also been a victim that night. He had likely been coerced by his beloved uncle, the only person who had taken pity on him at the age of nine when his mother had died of AIDS. All his relatives had shunned him for fear of becoming ill themselves, even though the doctors had confirmed that his mother had contracted the condition after Caleb's birth and that he was healthy. Finn, his mother's younger brother and a bachelor at the time, had taken custody of his unwanted nephew. Perhaps because he had lived abroad and was sophisticated enough to base his decision on proven science, not unfounded fear. He had told Autumn and her sister that he'd gone to the UK at fifteen, the only one of his mother's children young enough to accompany her when she'd left Cayenne to work as a nurse there. He had trained at the prestigious Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and spent eight years as an officer. He'd left the army and the UK soon after a tour of Iraq, leaving the cold he hated for good, he'd told them when they'd asked why he'd given up what they considered a better standard of living. Caleb had hero-worshipped his larger-than-life uncle and would have done anything asked of him, even helping to burgle the home of the parents of the girl who was his first love. He couldn't have predicted things going so horrendously wrong. No one could have. Not even Finn Maxwell  himself, Autumn suspected.