How About Seven? ✔

33. Velocitron

"Father," I heard Kaylan said calmly. "You're back early."

Bollocks. Carefully I squeezed myself into the cavity beneath the desk. Heart thudding in my chest, I crouched down in an awkward position, peering between the crack near the floor to get a better look at Kaylan's father.

Mr Hood looked weary. It was the same dark blonde hair and pressed office wear, yet now the shirt was slightly rumpled near the collar, and the eyebags beneath his eyes more prominent. Even though this man was a criminal lawyer, he was no criminal. He wasn't a man who could steal or murder without remorse, and no doubt the knowledge that he had caused his family to be caught in the middle of a bloody feud must be eating away at him like a maggot chewing through a rotten apple. 

Mr Hood stepped into the room and I watched his eyes swiveled around the space. "Were you ... going through my stuff, Kaylan?"

There was the usual shock and outrage in his voice, along with something else - a tension. So this man does have something to hide. I shifted a little bit more, and that was when my knee pressed down on the clothes hook that I had discovered earlier. The metal piece embedded in the floor of the study gave way, and a square panel of about five inches by five swung open on well-oiled hinges. Just enough space for someone to put a hand through.

I gaped.

"Yes," Kaylan was admitting, after a long stiff silence. "I was. I was trying to find our travel documents. For when we leave the country."

"How did you find out about that?"

Peering through the opening, I was unable to see what was down there. So with a deep breath, I plunged my hand inside. Almost immediately I felt something. Pulling it out, I saw that it was a folder. With trembling fingers I unwound the rope and pulled out the documents within.

Jackpot. 

Kaylan avoided the question and asked instead, "Does Mother know about this?"

A pause, then the clunk of a briefcase being placed on top of the desk, the very desk I was now hiding beneath. "No. I was planning to tell her tonight."

"She won't be happy."

"She doesn't need to be." Was that my imagination or was that a threatening growl in Mr Hood's voice? "And what were you planning to do with the travel documents when you found them, young man?"

It occurred to me there might be other stuff down there in the secret hidey-hole, so my hand went back into the opening. The bottom was the same size as the square panel, and as my fingers explored they brushed up against something else. Something cold and hard. Metallic.

With bated breath I pulled out a Beretta 92. There was nothing in Mr Hood's profile that had indicated any gun training or record of some sort. Which meant this gun was recently purchased, perhaps shortly after Eric came to steal the will. Taking no more chances, are we?

I heard Kaylan step closer to desk and he said, "Throw them away. Burn them, maybe?"

"What? What the hell for?"

"You want to leave the country, you do it, Dad. But me and Mum? We're staying here."

"Are you insane? A local crime syndicate just tried to take your thumb off and scared the skin off your mother - you want to keep staying here? No! It's not safe! For any of you!"

"And whose fault would that be, dear old Dad?"

I couldn't take the papers with me. If Black and Tan found out we were on their tail again, they would run, and we would never get that will. Spreading the papers on the ground, I took out my mobile, set it to silent and began snapping photos.