The Devil Inside, page 22
‘That’s awful.’
‘Yeah. Bev and Lexi are pretty shaken up.’
‘Do they know when he was killed?’
‘Looks like around the time he disappeared.’
‘So before that other one?’
‘Yeah. The body was pretty decomposed. The only reason Karl knew it was Gavin was because he had on his nurse’s uniform with the rosellas he’d sewn on for Cat.’
‘She’s going to be so upset.’
‘Yeah. Lexi’s trying to figure out the best way to tell her now.’
‘What the fuck is going on?’
‘I don’t know, but Karl is going to up the guards again.’
‘Good.’
‘Look, I’ve got to get back up there. I just wanted to let you know a bit more about what had happened.’
‘Thanks, mate, I appreciate it.’
When Phil came back into the room, she tried to pretend she hadn’t heard them, but it was impossible. ‘You okay?’ she asked as he joined her side.
‘Yeah.’
‘I think you should take Bev’s advice of earlier and rest up.’
He stared down at the baby in the crib before saying quietly, ‘I don’t want to be alone. Will you rest up with me?’
‘Sure.’ A little buzz flared to life inside her chest that he’d actually asked her for help. It made her feel not quite so much like flotsam; made the insidious voices whispering of murder fade away.
They lay down on the bed that was in the baby’s room—she had a feeling Phil often slept in here given the sheets smelled a little of him. He put his arm around her. She settled her head on his chest and he began to stroke her hair. The stroking slowed after a while, then his hand flopped to the bed—he was asleep. She lay there, listening to the sound of his heart and his breathing, filled with the warmth of him, the delicious scent of him, this man who was surprisingly her husband. Although, perhaps not surprisingly. Perhaps the Melissa she’d been had known what she was about when she’d fallen in love with him.
She shifted a little so she could look up at him. His beautiful face was pale and shadowed. He was so tired. She’d noticed it before but hadn’t really seen. He’d been so busy taking care of her and Arwen, he’d not been taking care of himself. Worse, he couldn’t drum—the thing that gave him so much pleasure and made him feel whole. She didn’t need to remember him to know at least that much about him. She just hoped that agreeing to let him concentrate on the mystery her parents left for her was the right thing to do. Maybe, as they worked, she could make him open up about what was going on in his head. Yes. It was a plan.
She drifted off to sleep and the visions found her in the dark.
‘I’m so sorry, Aleksi. He got him.’
Sobbing. ‘How do you know it was him? Marat always cuts their hands and feet off and burns them. How do you know it’s him?’
‘He doesn’t burn their faces. You know this to be true. You’ve seen it too often not to know.’
‘Natan. Natan.’ His name, cried over and over in keening pain.
She startled awake. Her breath hitched into short gasps, but she managed not to jerk up and wake Phil, forcing herself to lie still, mind whirling.
Martin, Gavin and now this Natan of her memory, all killed in the same way. How was this related? It couldn’t be, right? A memory from her past with a similarity to what was going on now? It was coincidence, surely.
Yet, as she lay there in Phil’s arms, she became certain it wasn’t. That somehow there was a connection and it was tied to what was in the boxes and trunk downstairs because the woman in those photos had been crying over someone called Natan, who had been killed, his hands and feet cut off and his body burned.
She shivered.
Phil moved, muttering. She stilled, not wanting to wake him. He really needed more sleep. Slowly, she moved his arm from around her waist and carefully edged off the bed, holding her breath until she was free and standing. She held back the overwhelming need to kiss Phil’s full lips—she couldn’t take the chance of waking him—instead, walked over to peep at Arwen. She was sound asleep and so dear. She pressed a soft kiss to her daughter’s head and then went out to the kitchen. She knew she should head downstairs, but couldn’t make herself go there without Phil. But maybe there was something in her drawings that would give her more of a clue.
She started to flick through her paintings, her fingers trembling as she looked at the ones of the dark room. So much terror in these paintings and drawings. Of what had happened before it and what had come after. She staggered, catching the edge of a bookshelf as another vision hit her.
She was so frightened with the darkness closing in, the only thing keeping it at bay the flickering of the torch Mamochka had pressed into her hand. But then it flickered one last time and went out. She clenched Krolik and the blankie Mamochka had given her, trying not to whimper as the darkness pressed in all around her.
Screams and yelling filled the air.
‘You killed him. You burned him and took his feet and hands. You won’t take me that way.’ Mamochka’s voice was a shrill shout, loud even heard through the wall between them.
‘Stop her.’
A loud bang.
Angry shouting. Thumping. The scent of smoke. She whimpered.
Then silence.
She trembled. It was so cold.
Cold turned to heat and the room filled with smoke. Smoke that made the darkness writhe and whisper, stealing into her nose, her mouth, making her cough even though Mamochka had told her that to win the game she must stay silent. Then the door opened and in the flickering orange and yellow light that flooded in, she saw …
‘Hey, Melissa. What are you doing there in the dark?’
She blinked as a light flickered on, illuminating the gloom around her. She’d been standing in the dark? When had it got dark? She looked out the window to see the afternoon darkened into almost night with bilious dark grey clouds covering the sky to the horizon. She’d been so lost in the vision, she hadn’t noticed the storm coming in. Or the fact Lexi, Dae and Craig were standing in front of her.
She blinked again. ‘What?’
Lexi took a step towards her. ‘Are you okay?’
She bobbed her head quickly, sucking in a shaky breath. ‘Fine. I just—’ she touched her temple, ‘—I had a vision.’
‘Really? Anything interesting?’
‘Yeah. I think so. I need to go down and look through my parents’ things to be certain. I just didn’t want to go down there by myself. Phil is sleeping and I didn’t want to wake him up.’ She was rambling. She snapped her mouth closed.
‘Well, then let us help you with it?’ Craig raised hopeful brows her way.
‘You don’t have to do that.’
‘We offered earlier,’ Dae said. ‘And we meant it. We want to help. Besides,’ he shrugged, gaze going to Lexi and Craig. ‘We kind of came here hoping you would let us look over it with you or for you. Uncovering the mysteries of your past will help distract us from … you know … Gavin.’ His gaze went to his wife and Melissa noted Lexi’s red-rimmed eyes.
Of course. They were looking for a distraction. She understood that. ‘Okay.’
They accompanied her down to the garage, Dae and Craig walking in front so the lights flickered on, illuminating the gloom, the oncoming storm having stolen the light that normally came in through the high windows. Then she was in the storeroom, the lights showing orderliness where there’d been chaos the last time she was down here. ‘Someone’s cleaned up.’ She gestured at the floor. ‘I ran out of here leaving a mess on the floor.’
‘Phil and I came down and took care of it that night,’ Craig said.
When she was asleep. She sighed. More proof of him sacrificing his health for her.
‘This is where the diaries are?’ Dae asked, pointing at the chest.
She nodded. ‘Although there’s nothing in them.’
His eyes lit up. ‘We thought maybe someone could have written in them in some kind of invisible ink.’
Melissa stared at him. ‘Invisible ink?’
Lexi chuckled. ‘My man, being a spy-book-and-movie-fan, couldn’t resist Googling recipes for uncovering invisible ink. He raided Bev’s pantry—Bev is not going to be happy.’
‘She’ll understand.’ Lexi rose her brow at Dae and he flashed her a smile. ‘And if she doesn’t, I’ll just sweet-talk her.’
She rolled her eyes and snorted.
He slung his arm around her shoulders, his smile widening. ‘But Craig and my invisible ink knowledge is only part of the package we offer you. Lexi has another talent I had no idea about. She can read Russian.’
‘You can?’
Lexi nodded. ‘I learned in the years I scouted for bands across Europe. But I wasn’t going to look at any of this without your permission. I’m mostly here to make certain they didn’t set anything on fire.’
‘We wouldn’t do that!’ they said together.
Lexi poked a finger between them. ‘You can’t bullshit me. I know the first spy-move you were going to try was to put the flame behind the paper trick to see if something appears. I could just see me having to call the CFA to put the fire out.’
‘Ye of little faith.’
Lexi patted Dae’s arm. ‘I have faith. Faith that you two would argue about who would do it best and fight over the lighter and then poof.’ She made a motion with her hand at all the flammables around them. ‘Diaries in flame.’
‘Sounds like you,’ Craig and Dae said together.
Melissa burst out laughing. ‘You two are one whole batch of crazy together, you know that?’
Craig sighed. ‘So you often told us.’ He brightened. ‘Hey, do you remember telling us that?’
Melissa shook her head, still chuckling. ‘No. But it’s not much of a stretch to figure it out.’ She ignored their ‘hey’ of protests, enjoying laughing at the two men with Lexi, the moment of friendship and camaraderie lightening the sadness that had been a shroud since they’d found out about Gavin. She smiled at them all. ‘Thanks for doing this with me.’
‘Anything for you, Melissa,’ Dae said, Craig and Lexi nodding.
She knew they meant it. Knew they’d said it to her before.
She blinked hard against the blur of wetness in her eyes. ‘That’s really sweet.’
‘So, you don’t mind us looking at the diaries?’ Dae asked. ‘We don’t have to if you don’t want us to.’
‘No. I think it’s a great idea. And if Lexi can read Russian, if you find anything hidden in them, she might be able to figure it out.’
‘Maybe,’ Lexi said. ‘Although, if it’s written in code, count me out.’
‘Code.’ Craig rubbed his hands together.
‘Idiot. Come on, let’s get this stuff upstairs.’
They each grabbed a box and headed back out. The men followed, lugging the chest between them.
‘You know both Alan and Jerry can speak Russian too?’ Melissa said to Lexi as they reached the stairs.
‘Really? They never mentioned it. Although, why would they? There was no reason for them to know I speak it. I only hope I remember enough to help you with this.’ She shrugged.
‘You’ll be brilliant,’ Dae said. ‘And if not, there’s Jerry and Alan to use as backup.’
‘And Google translate.’
‘I’ve already downloaded a translation app, babe,’ Dae said, panting a little as they breasted the stairs.
‘Brilliant man,’ Lexi said, leaning in to give him a kiss.
‘Stop that and let’s get this to the table,’ Craig said. ‘It’s bloody heavy.’ As he passed Melissa he whispered loudly, ‘You can’t let these two get started or they’ll never stop.’
Lexi dumped her box on the table. ‘There’s nothing wrong with a bit of love and affection.’
Craig smiled down at her. ‘Not if it’s in the privacy of your room where I can’t see Dae stick his tongue down my almost little sister’s throat!’
‘I love you too, my almost brother,’ Lexi said, leaning up to kiss his cheek. ‘Now put that down and go fetch the rest of the boxes.’ As they headed off, she opened the box she’d placed on the table.
Melissa put her box down, trying not to wring her hands in front of her as she watched the other woman pull out a manilla folder and open it. ‘Are these some of the files you want translated?’ Lexi asked.
Melissa leaned across. ‘Yep. There’s some stuff from home there, but a lot of it is in Russian. I think this one is a birth certificate.’
Lexi’s gaze ran over it. ‘I don’t know these words here, but the others I do. It does seem to be a birth certificate.’ She looked up at Melissa. ‘Your birth certificate.’
Melissa pulled another piece of paper out. ‘And this is my Texan birth certificate. Same dates.’ She shook her head, looking between the two documents, anger rising in her again. ‘What did they do? Why did they do it?’
‘Maybe the answer is here,’ Lexi said, waving her hand at the boxes and trunk. ‘How many diaries are there?’
‘One for every year from the birth of my father until the year my parents died. There’re fifty-seven diaries, all of them blank.’
Thunder slammed overhead and the lights flickered. Melissa caught her breath, her gaze racing to stare at the lights.
Lexi put her hand on Melissa’s arm and said, ‘It’s just a summer storm. It’s been brewing for the last hour. We haven’t had one yet, so this will be a good one. And we’re in the perfect place to watch it.’ Melissa could feel the other woman’s eyes on her, but she couldn’t stop staring out the windows at the dark grey-green clouds.
The boys arrived back, Craig wondering loudly if there was something to eat.
‘Bottomless pit,’ Lexi said, shaking her head at him.
‘I’ll put a platter together,’ Melissa volunteered, thinking if she stepped away from the hidden things in the boxes, she might feel a little better. But every time thunder rolled and thumped its age-old argument with the lightning, the lights flickered and she couldn’t stop the tremble from shaking through her at the thought of the darkness that would close in around her if the lights went out.
She didn’t think this fear of the darkness had ever been this bad. She’d thought that remembering the time when her fear might have started would have helped, but it had made it worse.
She needed to talk with someone about it. Her thoughts immediately slid to Phil, but then skittered away. No. She couldn’t burden him with this. He wanted to lose himself in the mystery in these boxes, not be burdened by more of her issues that might not be related.
Alan. Should she try calling him? But maybe it was silly to bother him this afternoon given he’d be here tomorrow. She didn’t want to make him feel he had to come out today. But still …
Her gaze flickered to Lexi as she brought the platter to the table. The auburn-haired woman was happily picking through the boxes, humming. Could she tell her? She seemed to be understanding. And from what she’d been told and overheard in the hospital, Lexi had been through a lot and was having therapy. So if anyone would understand it was her. But was it fair to expect her to take on Melissa’s shit as well? No. Probably not.
Lexi looked up at that moment and smiled. ‘Are you sure you want to do this? If you’re not up to going through this stuff yet, I can get the boys to take the trunk up to the main house and we can do this another time.’
Melissa looked down at the folders Lexi had placed on the table. She really wanted to take the other woman up on her offer, but that was the coward’s way out. ‘No, it’s time I faced this.’
Lexi nodded just as the boys returned with the last box and suitcase.
Melissa forced herself to sit down at the table and resolutely began to unpack the documents inside the box in front of her.
Chapter 21
Craig and Dae settled down, preparing their invisible-ink-revealing tricks to try on the diaries. Melissa and Lexi sorted through the boxes and the suitcase, pulling out the Russian documents and packing the rest away for her to look over later. Lexi managed to talk the men into pulling themselves away from their experiments long enough to cart the extraneous boxes downstairs, leaving only the one box, the trunk and suitcase upstairs. Then she and Lexi hunkered down and went over the documents, Lexi trying her best to interpret what she could and Melissa writing down what she said and noting where they might need more help from Alan or someone else when Google translate couldn’t help.
‘Woohoo. Look here!’ Dae yelled after about an hour.
They all jumped up and ran around the table to look at the diary on the table before him.
‘What is it?’ Craig said, staring at the strange diagram and the list of numbers.
‘I have no idea but it proves there is something hidden in these babies.’
‘What did you use?’ Craig waved the diary in his hand. ‘Nothing’s worked on this one.’
‘Red cabbage water.’
‘What? They used ammonia as the ink?’
‘Must have.’
‘That’s not very secure.’ Craig looked comically disappointed. ‘I thought it would be something cool like the Stasi’s secret ink paper transfer method.’
Dae smiled crookedly at him. ‘Lucky it isn’t. I don’t seem to have a solution of manganese sulphate, hydrogen peroxide and whatever else went into that developer fluid lying around.’ He pointed at the pinkish writing on the paper. ‘At least it wasn’t something easy to detect like lemon juice or milk.’
‘At least.’ Craig didn’t seem very consoled by the fact heat hadn’t worked. ‘Here, give me some of that.’ Craig tipped some of the red cabbage water into a bowl, returned to his seat and began to apply it to the diary in his hands.
‘Geeks.’ Lexi shook her head, chuckling softly to herself.
‘Hey!’ Dae said.
‘It’s okay,’ she said, smiling. ‘I love me some geeks.’
‘They’re a bit crazy about this stuff, aren’t they?’ Melissa asked, smiling despite how desperate she was to find answers.
