The Three-Second Rule: The Rules, #1

By Jillyan Marsden

Did you ever wonder how long it took you to sum up the stranger who just walked into the room? Twenty seconds? Ten? What if it took just three? How accurate do you think that first, fleeting glance was, and more importantly, what would it take to make you change your mind?

Disappearing was the only way Monique Vachon could stay alive. It was that, or a lifetime of servitude and a protracted, painful death. A decade later, an unexpected change of plan puts Monique in the wrong place at the wrong time. Her new life is in danger of being exposed as she unexpectedly finds her husband deep in conversation with undercover cop Nate Stelling. Shocked by the connection between the two men and fearful for her safety, Monique begins to question everything she knows about the man she loves. And as his behaviour pushes her further away, her resolve to hold on to the life she's worked so hard for rapidly dissolves, leaving her no choice. She runs.

But this deal is just a way in for Nate, a gateway to a bigger score, and Monique is exactly the leverage he needs to get what he wants. Her absence isn't an option he's willing to accept, but his attempts to find her may just get her killed. From the verdant hills of the English South Downs to the untamed wilderness of Andalucía, Nate plays fast and loose with the rules as his life and the life of Monique, his best chance of success, fall hopelessly apart.

The Three-Second Rule is the first book in the suspense noir Trilogy 'The Rules', where even those you trust the most will do anything they can to get what they want, whatever the cost.

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jillyan Marsden
• Release date: Oct 29, 2021
• ISBN: 9781739910211

Book preview

The Three-Second Rule

The Rules Trilogy – Book 1

Jillyan Marsden

Copyright © 2021 Jillyan Marsden

The right of Jillyan Marsden to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

With the exception of any permitted use under UK copyright law, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form, or by any means, without the prior permission of the copyright owner.

All characters, names, places, brands and events in this publication are used fictitiously or are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance of a character to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

ISBN: 978-1-7399102-1-1

CONTENTS

Prologue

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty-One

Twenty-Two

Twenty-Three

Twenty-Four

Twenty-Five

Twenty-Six

Twenty-Seven

To commuters everywhere.

May your journey today be a little brighter.

Did you ever wonder how long it took you to sum up the stranger who just walked into the room? Twenty seconds? Ten? What if it took just three? How accurate do you think that first, fleeting glance was, and more importantly, what would it take to make you change your mind?

Prologue

Fifteen years ago

It hadn’t stopped raining all day, and the incessant tuneless tapping of the rain against the window only amplified Stephanie’s misery. She lay heavily on the bed, all too aware of the way her hip and shoulder dug into the solid mattress. Overhead, a single sixty-watt lightbulb burned brightly. It always burned.

Wide, dry eyes stared straight ahead towards the corner of the room. Given the option, darkness was her preference; at least then she would be spared the brown, threadbare carpet and pale-blue painted walls that sported strands of dirty cobwebs, and the yellowed gloss skirting, chipped with age. In the darkness she pictured a different reality and created a more pleasing picture of despair in which to exist.

The room had no toilet, no washbasin and no window, the latter now boarded up and covered by a metal grille fitted flush to the wooden window frame. The only clue to the time of day was a small chink of light in the bottom left-hand corner where the board was split, allowing only the faintest trace of light to enter. But it was enough; it had to be.

She’d no memory of how it started, of what triggered Sergio’s initial rage, no lead-up to that first volcanic outburst signalling a deterioration in the relationship; only the memory of being dragged by her hair to the small first-floor bedroom and thrown so hard through the doorway that she collided with the mantelpiece on the opposite wall and was knocked out. The gritty taste of dirt and blood greeted consciousness, as did the burning, biting pain at her temple that escalated as she staggered across the room and hammered on the locked bedroom door. Eventually the pain overtook her baser instincts and she collapsed onto the floor, surrounded by an encroaching fog and the sound of rushing water in her ears.

For the first two days she used the corner of the room as a toilet because nobody came when she pounded on the door. On the third day, somebody left a cracked mixing bowl with her food and she wept for the small mercy. The slow shutdown of her body after weeks of scraps and barely enough liquid to keep her organs functioning was a horrifying physical feeling of weakness, of being drained of life and dignity as she noticed her flesh gradually shrink away from her bones, until in the end, the impetus to eat simply slipped away.

Every day she lay for hours, listening to the sounds of the house. Sometimes it was still and quiet, a deceptive peacefulness all too often broken by the slow, measured footsteps passing outside the door, but mostly it was full of noise. Short, sharp bursts of laughter, and anger; always anger and mostly his. The visits were what scared her the most. Sometimes she woke to find him sitting on the edge of the bed, his hand cupping the now angular bone of her cheek, his thumb gently stroking away the filth from her skin, wiping away the tears that always came. Other times consciousness came from a solid slap, sometimes followed by a beating so brutal that the strength to drag herself back to the bed was something found only in her dreams.

Time passed slowly in that cramped little room, stretching out in a continuous stream of distant sounds without context or meaning, every second dragging its feet as if unwilling to give up its place in the universe to the next. She didn’t know how long she had been there; it could have been weeks or months, she just didn’t know, and in the end, simply didn’t care. Banging on the door and trying to force her way out of the room had also come to nothing, because the last time her sobbing cries echoed along the hallway, Nate held a gun to her head and told her to get back against the wall if she wanted to stay alive. He was keen and edgy with an eagerness about him that smacked of wanting to please at all costs, yet until that moment, the true depths of his depravity were never clear. She simply didn’t understand how he could be so wholly complicit in what was happening to her and not lift a finger to stop it.

That night, her last in that godawful stinking room, she knew instinctively something was wrong. Everything about the house felt different; even the air had an odd vibration. There was so much more activity than normal, with doors slamming and unfamiliar voices trading insults in overheated conversations. They were scared, she could sense it; they were really scared. Sergio wasn’t there. She knew what he sounded like, what his presence felt like; she recognised his footsteps. He hadn’t come back that evening, and now everybody was panicking and shouting at each other.

From somewhere below her came the distant sound of shattering crockery and muffled voices calling with urgency. Somebody shouted about needing a hospital, and shortly afterwards the peace of the night was broken by a flurry of car doors slamming and the liquid purr of a powerful engine. Peace ensued briefly, the hiatus triggering in her an overwhelming fatigue too powerful to fight, and so she gave in to the bliss of the silence and the comforts which lived only in her imagination.

She woke a few hours later to an unusually darkened room and the shape of a food tray placed just inside the doorway, silhouetted by the strip of bright white light from the corridor outside. She lay foetal-like, staring at it for what felt like hours, eyes open and unblinking in the shadows as her dry tongue moved over cracked lips, as her body mustered the energy to move. Easing herself off the bed she sank slowly to the floor, crawling towards the tray as would a toddler.

She pulled the tray towards her, backing into the darkness, her spine finding the hard comfort of the metal bed frame. The thin strip of light at the bottom of the door didn’t reach very far into the room, but that wasn’t a problem; she preferred the darkness anyway. Her fingers pulled at the cotton tea towel covering the tray and moved it to one side, the tips of her fingers tracing the outline of the shadowed food and feeling the familiar roughness of overcooked meat. A low moan escaped her lips.

From the room below came a burst of sound, a muffled yelling with the looped staccato rhythm of repetition. She heard the deep explosion of what sounded like doors slamming into walls, the floor beneath her vibrating from the heavy footfalls of men running along the corridor, shouting to each other as they went. She heard a sharp crack, and the shouting and vibrations grew louder as the force of multiple feet pounded the back staircase and emerged onto the upstairs landing.

She listened with terror as a man shouted instructions for somebody to start searching the rooms to ‘make sure none of the fuckers are hiding’. It was as if somebody was slowly turning up the volume, cranking it up to its maximum setting and waiting for the song to end, waiting for the ear-splitting silence and the dull hiss of static. Only, the silence came far quicker than she imagined, and when it did it was absolute. Consuming.

It came as the song ended with a furore of vocals and noise and the deafening drumbeat of gunfire, two shots announcing the finale. She sat paralysed on the floor, her mind engulfed by a thousand different scenarios running at high speed, and in that moment she slid the tray under her bed and pushed herself in behind it. She didn’t have to wait long for the door to open. Within minutes it exploded inwards in a single, sharp burst and a lone pair of black combat boots moved into view in the brightly lit doorway.

‘Nobody in here,’ somebody shouted.

‘Wait … wait,’ another voice urged as a second pair of boots came into view.

She listened to the soft, low whispers from above and watched as both pairs of feet moved slowly into the room and towards the bed. She waited, anxious and terrified as they moved to opposite sides, their black leather toes pointing towards her. They moved closer, the outline of fingers curling around the underside of the bed frame signalling their intent, and in a sudden flurry of noise and movement the bed raised effortlessly away.

‘Shhhh … shhhh …’ Second Boots urged as he gathered her towards him. ‘You’re safe, you’re safe. Shhhh … you’re safe.’

Terror consumed her as she took in the two men dressed entirely in black, their faces hidden from view by balaclavas. It was only then she realised how much she was struggling and kicking, screaming, crying, gulping for air as her throat burned with the acrid taste of bile. Arms tightened around her as Second Boots tried to stand, tried to stop her flailing, but her legs kicked out instinctively and connected with the body of First Boots.

‘Aargh, fuck!’ He doubled over.

She instinctively raised her feet again to bring the full force of her weight down on the front of his leg, hoping to kick it out from under him, only her aim was off and her foot connected with his kneecap. He cried out.

‘Hey, we’re not going to hurt you, believe me. Shhhh … shhhh …’ Second Boots soothed. ‘Please. Listen to me, we’re not. We need to get you to a hospital. We need to make sure you’re okay.’

Stephanie pushed against the arms clamped tightly around her, as Second Boots slid his hand up over her shoulder and pulled her head towards his chest. She felt them sinking towards the floor again, his grip persisting as his covered face pressed against her head, his fingers rhythmically stroking her hair. She sensed him recoil, a soft, throaty sound escaping as he breathed, and in a moment of absolute clarity she realised just how truly fetid she must smell. There was nothing to do except comply, concede to the rhythmic calm as he rocked gently back and forth. Tension ebbed from her muscles and her breathing evened out, the companionable fear and loneliness of the preceding months relinquishing their place to the deeper relief of tears, which fell silently onto the arm of a stranger.

The walk to the ambulance felt like an eternity, every face in the house, every eye, turning to watch her as she was carried past, their faces a blur of light-streaked darkness glimpsed through swollen eyes. She didn’t care about them, didn’t care who they were or why they were there. All she cared about in that moment was the feeling of the fresh, damp night air against her cheek, the longed-for sense of relief and freedom, and the comfort of the warm, sweet scent of oranges, earthy wood and jasmine as she buried her face into the crook of Second Boots’ neck and allowed the tears to come.

The following twelve months were a dark and miserable existence in every sense, the rain relentless on the day she finally left Leeds. It had turned the streets into a murky river of water that ran between the cars and around the feet of anybody brave or stupid enough to venture out. She had no choice but to go out into it, to get wet as she ran down the steps of her building and into the taxi that took her to the airport, and from there to a new life and a new start. She looked out of the window the entire journey, transfixed by the grey and bleak landscape as it slipped by, feeling every inch of it, every cold, miserable, wet inch of it, leaching into her, making her shiver and long for so much more.

The pain of giving birth had been matched only by that of having to give up her baby, each day since seeming like a torturous new technique developed by life to punish her for somebody else’s sins. The woman from the adoption service took her perfect son not long after the birth, only allowing her a few moments to say a bleary-eyed goodbye to the fragrant blue bundle of fuzzy hair cradled so very gently in her arms; the bundle with a crescent-shaped maroon birthmark on his right hand, displayed to the world like the entrance stamp to some expensive nightclub. To keep him with her would have been like ordering her own hit, and she was under no illusion that Sergio could find her if the mood took him. His was, after all, a surprisingly small world.

There was no way of knowing whether he would bother to track her down, but of one thing she was certain. If she was spotted and she was alone, she would probably be safe. If, however, she was spotted with a child? Well, he had always been a whizz with numbers; he would work it out, then find her and ask in an unfriendly manner why she had taken his child from him. Giving up her son was the only way to ensure his safety and her own, but more importantly, it was the only way of giving him a fighting chance at a decent life away from the violent world his father had worked so hard to create.

The money was almost gone, and the inevitable could not be ignored any longer. There was nowhere she particularly wanted to go, and the thought of staying anywhere within a five-hundred-mile radius of Sergio filled her with dread. So she sat in the small airport café people-watching as she waited for the Nice check-in desk to open, a finger gently stroking the Polaroid photograph of her son, a baby just minutes old – the first photo of him, her only photo of him; the photo the midwife had tucked into her hand as she lay motionless beneath white sheets, tears sliding silently down pale cheeks, soaking into the rough cotton pillowcase beneath her head. It was a photo she was never meant to have.

That day was the only time she had seen him, the day she had traded her life as Stephanie Fai Bradshaw and all her problems for an altogether more attractive and problem-free version of herself. It was a version she hoped with all her heart could start again without ever having to look back in fear and panic, but she knew the realities of life were often more cruel than kind – and the reality in that moment was that every day lived in freedom could only ever be considered borrowed time

.

One

It never ceased to amaze Nate how gullible people were. Spin them a story, talk yourself up, then show them a few photographs supposedly confirming what you’d just said, and watch them fall for it hook, line and sinker. Yes, a photograph could speak a thousand words, but only if you understood its context; if, indeed, it had actually been taken at all. As far as he was concerned, a photograph was proof of one thing, and one thing alone. Nothing.

The papers spilling out of the blue card wallet lying on the sofa said Nate Stelling was a Freelance Research Consultant; at least, that’s what was printed on his business card. In reality, he was more of a ‘risk analyst’ for those who needed to know that little bit extra about their business associates and had neither the time nor the resources to do it themselves. Researching people’s histories was the legitimate part of his job, but he had never been averse to livening things up a little, and, for the right price, he’d even arrange the disposal of any inconveniences – permanently.

All in all, it was quite a fascinating line of work, and since it kept him primarily in the background, he’d managed to make a long and prosperous career out of it – which was more than could be said for some of his less fortunate clients who were now enjoying the unfettered luxury of full board and lodge at Her Majesty’s Pleasure. Nate lost himself completely in the moment as he sat at his laptop, the dusky haze of the evening light filtering through the French windows standing open behind him. A light breeze caught the curtains in the open space and rippled through the room, carrying on its crest the subtle scent of damp earth and cut grass from the neighbouring fields stretching out along the southern banks of the M25.

The living room was sparsely furnished and emotionally sterile, the walls painted matt beige and devoid of artwork, the woodwork finished in white gloss. It was a room lacking in personality, the built-in bookshelves sporting a dozen or so well-thumbed paperback novels but otherwise bare of photographs