Fight For Your Life - Catherine Holland (crime books to read .txt) 📗

Fight For Your Life

Part Three

Prologue


Poppy and Sean were sat in a crowded café, they each had a mug of coffee to calm their jittery nerves. The café door opened and both Poppy and Sean looked at the door; a tall well built man with short ashy blond hair and blue eyes walked in and made his way over to where Poppy and Sean sat.
A muscle twitched in Sean’s jaw and his face was hard, both Poppy and Sean knew the man approaching them; it was none other than Detective John Saunders, the man who’d betrayed them and given the killer the location of their camp site, resulting in the deaths of Charlie, Rashel and Detective Markus Powell. Poppy stiffened as John Saunders took a seat opposite them.
The three of them sat in silence for a few minutes and a waitress approached to take John’s order and ask if Poppy and Sean wanted anything else, John ordered a coffee and Poppy and Sean declined; the waitress moved away and John relaxed somewhat into his seat. They waited in silence until the waitress had delivered John’s coffee and moved away to tend to other customers before speaking.
“Why did you call me?” John asked coolly, “You owe us for selling us out, and we need information.” Sean replied. “I’m not a Detective anymore, so I can’t help you.” John said. Poppy lowered her voice when she replied “You may not be a Detective but you still work in the police force, we only need one piece of information and then we’ll let you be, believe me I would rather not have to come to you for help after what you did to us.”
“Then why did you come to me? I didn’t have a choice in helping that psycho; he had my wife and daughter.” John said flatly. “And six people died because of your actions, two of those people were very good friends of ours, one was your partner! I really hope it was worth it.” Poppy replied coldly. She sat back and hastily wiped at the tears on her face.
Sean placed his hand on her arm in a gesture of comfort and said “All we need from you is one small piece of information, give us what we need and you’ll never hear from us again.” Poppy and Sean waited in silence for his answer, they could see him thinking of whether to give them what they wanted. After a few minutes the waitress reappeared and all three of them ordered another mug of coffee each.
After she’d delivered their coffees and moved away John spoke “OK, let’s say that I do agree to help you, what guarantees do I have that you won’t bother me again? That you won’t just ring the station and tell my colleagues what I’ve done?” “I can’t and won’t guarantee anything; you’ll just have to take the chance.” Sean replied.
John shook his head, “Then no, I won’t help you. I can’t take a chance that big.” John stood up and took out his wallet getting ready to drop some money on the table for his drinks. “Wait.” Poppy said, John looked at her and she continued; “If we agree to not tell your colleagues or to bother you again, depending on the accuracy of the information, will you help us?”
John slowly sat back down again and looked at both Poppy and Sean, “If you keep to your word, then yes I’ll help you. But it all depends on the type of information you require.” John waited patiently for them to speak; Sean lowered his voice to a whisper and looked at John with hard brown eyes, “We’re looking for someone, we need to know everything about this someone, address, phone numbers, work place and any other information you can get.”
“I’ll need a name of who I’m looking for…” John said, Poppy looked at him sharply; “We’ll give you the name on one other condition.” John looked at her curiously as she opened a shoulder bag and drew out what appeared to be a piece of paper. “What’s that?” John asked. “A contract of sorts, my lawyer drew it up at my request, I need you to read it over and sign it, the copy underneath is yours.”
John took the papers and looked at them, it was indeed a contract basically saying that John agreed to help them with finding this person unknown and that he wouldn’t betray them to the police or the person they were looking for, it also read that in return Poppy and Sean couldn’t reveal any information on John to anybody. John looked at Poppy, “It all appears legal; you drew this up in anticipation of this meeting?”
Poppy nodded, “Yes, I wanted all the bases covered so that neither one of us could screw the other over.” At the bottom of the page were three dotted lines, one for each of them, John took out a pen and signed his name then passed the papers over to Poppy and Sean, they both signed it and Poppy tore off the top sheet and gave John the second copy, placing the original back in her shoulder bag.
John looked at them both, “So now that we’re under contract, who am I helping you to locate?” Sean tensed and Poppy put a reassuring hand on his arm, took a deep breath and said “We’ll give you a week to gather all of the information you can on him and meet you here in exactly seven days time after your shift ends at five-thirty,” Poppy and Sean both stood up, then looked at John and continued “- The man you’re looking for is my father, Paul Cosby.”
Poppy threw some money on the table and followed Sean out of the café, leaving John sitting at the table looking as though he’d been sucker punched.


One Week Later


Poppy and Sean were sat at the same table as before when John entered the café, he made a beeline for them and sat in the chair opposite them, he was wearing a freshly pressed dark suit and carrying a briefcase. He settled the briefcase on the table and looked at both teenagers.
“Did you get everything we asked for?” Poppy asked without preamble. John nodded and replied “Getting that information wasn’t easy, his file and everything else you need is in here.” He nodded towards the briefcase then looked at the teenagers “Why do you need this information? When we first met you told me your father had disbanded all parental responsibilities.”
Poppy’s hazel eyes narrowed and she ran a hand through her silver hair, “Why do you want to know? And yes he has disbanded all responsibilities.” John watched her carefully, “I’m just curious, that’s all. I had to dig pretty deep to get that information. I would like to make you an offer.” Both Poppy and Sean immediately tensed and glanced warily around them, “And what offer would that be then?” Poppy asked scornfully. John took a deep breath, “I would like to offer you my help, in whatever you have planned, and make no mistake; I know you have something planned.”
Poppy smirked, “We may have something planned, but why in the hell would we accept your help? Do you think we’re that stupid? You betrayed us once and a lot of people died, do you really think we’ll take a risk that big, especially with you?” John scowled, “I made one mistake, give me a chance to make up for it.” Poppy was shaking her head and when Sean looked at her and got ready to stand up he said “No, one mistake was enough, and we can’t afford to have mistakes where it matters.”
Poppy dropped a few bills on the table and picked up the briefcase, she then followed Sean out of the café and into the Ohio sunshine. Poppy and Sean returned to their motel room and set the briefcase down on the small table, then settled herself into one of the chairs; Sean took the chair next to her. The numbered locks on the briefcase were set in a sequence so Poppy popped the first latch whilst Sean popped the second; they both opened the briefcase together and looked at the thick file in the centre.
Poppy carefully lifted the file out of the briefcase and placed it on the table between them; she then moved the briefcase to the floor and watched as Sean opened the cover to the file. Half an hour later the contents of the file were spread out across the floor and Poppy and Sean were sat at the table each drinking a can of cola, they’d read through the file and were slightly shocked by what had been found.


Chapter One

Poppy stood up and stretched, she glanced at Sean who was once again looking through the file, “I’m going to grab some food, do you want some?” Sean nodded and closed the file, he then placed the file in the briefcase and locked it; he then placed the briefcase under his bed and followed Poppy to the door of their motel room.
Twenty minutes later they were sitting in a small café both nursing a mug of coffee, Sean cleared his throat getting ready to say something but then hesitated, instead he ran a hand through his short light brown hair and took a sip of his coffee. “Poppy, how do you want to do this?” Poppy looked up and moved her long silvery hair from her face.
“I don’t know Sean, I guess I’m still in a bit of shock after discovering he’s married again, and not only that, his new wife is rich and has a baby girl! What’s to stop him doing this all over again to get the money?” Sean took a slow look around them and lowered his voice to a whisper, “We’ll stop him Poppy, our advantage to this whole situation is that he thinks we’re dead.”
Poppy nodded slowly, “Then our best bet is to try and get more information on what and how he really is from the wife, that file doesn’t really cover his temperament.” Sean grinned at her, “The wife should be easy, she spends most of the day in a beauty parlour.” Poppy frowned, “I don’t know why you’re grinning Sean, there’s no way in hell I’m going to sit in a beauty parlour, certainly not on my own… Remember what you said back in New Mexico? We’re in this together.”
Sean’s grin widened, “Yes we did agree to that but Poppy, how am I supposed to monitor your dad if I’m sat in a beauty parlour? We know that the baby stays at a day care centre whilst her mom sits in that parlour, which leaves me to pursue your dad; besides girl talk was never my thing, you’d be better at that than I would.” Poppy reluctantly nodded, “OK, I can see the sense in that; I’m ready to go, what about you?” Sean looked at his empty mug of coffee then again at the menu, “I thought you wanted to eat?” Poppy grimaced, “I’ve lost my appetite.”
Sean shook his head, “We have to eat Poppy, especially with what is coming tomorrow.” Poppy narrowed her