Everything to Lose Read Online Free Page B

President.

 
    5
     
    Southsea , Hampshire , England
     
    Laraine McSwann lay out on the sofa in her living room, staring at the television screen, not really taking in the scenes or the dialogue. Russell Crowe was giving a powerful performance as Cal McCaffrey in the movie 'State of Play' but Laraine couldn't keep her mind on the plot.
    She wore a low neck, sleeveless beige cotton top with tapered hemline and skinny jeans. Always trying to keep her youth she looked like a teenager but didn't sound like a teenager. Well it's tricky when you get past thirty. Her two bedroom terraced house in Stansted Road was cluttered, muddled, unloved but clean in essential places. It was just after nine p.m. and the rain outside was falling in sheets. She plucked and fidgeted with the neckband of her top.
    Upstairs Laraine's six-year old daughter Jessica was supposed to be asleep but she heard a car draw up outside their house. She jumped up and ran to her window. It's daddy she thought as she grabbed her pink fluffy dressing gown and threw it around her pink bird print and check pyjamas. But the two men getting out of the car were strangers. She started to turn away from the window when she saw one of the men look up at her bedroom window. She saw his face.
    "Mum. Mauumm!" Jess shouted in a voice that's every mother's nightmare.
    "What?" Laraine called back and leapt up from the sofa.
    "The men in the red car," Jess shouted from the top of the stairs.
    Laraine rushed to the front door. Pushed the lock bolt and slammed her back against the door. Keep calm , they'll go away , they won't stand in that rain she thought. Her breathing picked up pace, her heart raced and her hands trembled.
    "Mum call the police."
    "Go to your room. Close the door. Now!"
    She hadn't told Jess the landline phone had been disconnected. Her mobile was on the charger in her bedroom upstairs.
    The banging on the front door stopped after two minutes. She heard angry kicking of her refuge bins around the back of the house. Harder banging started on the glass panel of the back door.
    She darted to the connecting door between the hall and the kitchen. She grabbed a bath towel from the hall radiator and wedged it under the door. She didn't really expect it to keep the door closed. Panic kept her from thinking clearly.
    Yordan kicked the back door in the kitchen so hard she heard a loud crack from the frame. He was inside. His hair and jacket dripping wet onto the kitchen floor. One strong shove and he was through the connecting door into the hall. Laraine stood on the first two steps of the stair. She hesitated. Run to Jess's bedroom and barricade the door or stand and fight. Laraine squealed and tried to lash out at him as he walked past her to the front door.
    Yordan hit her with a vicious backhander to the side of her head and she collapsed onto the stairs. The second man Ivan was waiting outside in the rain. Yordan let him inside and he closed the door. Ivan shrugged the rainwater off his coat. He wiped his head with his hand and flicked the surplus water onto the floor. He removed a scarf from his neck.
    Ivan S Fillipovar was mid forties, five foot ten, bald, tanned, with thick eyebrows. He wore a dark grey collarless 'grandad' shirt, black soft leather three quarter length coat and black trousers.
    Yordan I Letchikova was two inches shorter with broad shoulders and he was in his thirties. He wore an oversized leather jacket that made his body look obese, a black shirt and dark trousers. His brown hair was close cropped and looked as though he had put oil or cream on it to make it lay flat.
    Laraine stayed down with her body lying across the first four steps of the stairs. Ivan walked past and went into her living room. Still shaking water from his coat. Yordan grabbed Laraine's hair and forced her to follow.
    "Sit down," Ivan said.
    They were the same two foreign men who turned up at Jess's school yesterday asking confusing questions in fragmented English. When she