Lost, page 20
The first tears fell, but Mac swiped them away.
Something was sore in the feeling now, something wrong… a wound had opened, raw and bloody. A wound that he wasn't sure he would be able to fix, especially if no-one would tell him the truth.
Saul had no reason not to.
But Tom had just said that Saul wanted to hurt him…
'Hang on,' He murmured, standing upright, one hand on the rail. 'If Tom never sees anyone here, then how does he know Saul is going to lie? How does he even know the man? Unless…
Unless he went to see him with Sula. Unless Tom and Nicky Devlin turned up at his practice and asked him for treatment of whatever kind. Unless Sula asked him to come to the cabin.
Because if Nicky Devlin wasn't Mac's wife, then there would be no reason for Saul to want, or need, to hurt Mac anyway, would there?
Mac's heart was beating so fast he felt dizzy.
Saul was a psychologist, so what were they talking through together, Tom and Nicky? Their relationship? His relationship? And why so far from home? Shedding guilt?
An affair.
The music in the cabin stopped, an eerie silence flowed onto the pier.
Mac wondered briefly if Meg knew. And then he leaned over the railing and lost what little he had eaten for breakfast.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
'You lied.' Meg said, her eyes not only full of hurt, but disappointment, as she sat on her heels at the door.
Tom looked back at the phone with a tight nod of his head.
'Why?'
'He can't know, can he? You said yourself the other night, he's been through enough. I couldn't tell him. I didn't want to, Meg.' He put his head in his hands, phone between his elbows on the desk, the screen now dark.
He felt her hands go to his shoulders. She increased pressure, digging her thumbs right into the muscles at the side of his neck, just where he liked it. He groaned, but she stopped and draped her arms over his shoulders, clasping her hands at his chest and resting her chin on his head.
'Don't stop,' he said.
'I'm not sure you deserve it, Tom Macauley.'
She took her hands from him and perched back on the side of the desk where she could see him. Tom almost squirmed. The only thing he hated more than lying to Mac was the look in his wife's eyes right now.
'I didn't know what else to do,' he whispered.
Meg pursed her lips with a nod.
'But there are a couple of men out there that possibly wish him harm, and maybe you, too. Have you sorted the phone calls? Do you know what they want? Or if it's even them.'
Tom worked his jaw.
'No.'
'No?' Meg said. 'So maybe we've got it all wrong, maybe they were just silent phone calls after all then, yes?' The relief in her voice was evident, but Tom frowned and licked his lips.
'No,' he said quietly.
'No?' Meg whispered.
Tom looked at his wife, the worry etched in the lines on her forehead, the dull fear in her eyes, the rhythmic biting at her bottom lip. He wished he could take it away, that he didn't have to tell her any developments, but she would be twice as thrilled about being lied to as she was about his lying to Mac.
'The doctor at the cabin was one of them, wasn't he?' she said.
Tom nodded and ran his hands over his head with a sigh.
'I think so. It's hard to say, but how many more doctors can there be out there in the wilderness? How many that know about Sula?'
'Are you sure they're out of jail, Tom? This isn't something completely unrelated?'
'One was out around eighteen months ago or so. I waited for the backlash, but it didn't come so I thought it was over, that was it. The other one served longer, I think. I don't know when he came out.'
'So how do you know-'
'Because I saw him!' Tom said. 'I've seen him. Watching. He's been at the baths, at the store, across the damn road here.'
'You're being stalked? Tom, that is not acceptable. Call the police.'
'There's been no other contact than the watching lately. There's no crime against standing in the street, is there?' He heaved a sigh and placed his head in his hands, elbows on the table. He looked up at her.
'There must be something they can do,' she said.
Tom shook his head. 'I have a horrible feeling I know why he may have gone quiet, too.'
'Why?'
'If the other one has Mac up at the cabin, then they've put two and two together and come up with four, haven't they? They know that Sula and I had false names, and they've found out that Sula was Mac's wife.'
To Tom's surprise, Meg began to chuckle. He looked at her, horrified.
'I don't see what's so funny.'
'I don't see what bloody difference that makes Tom, you were the one who shopped them. If they want to be pedantic, you and Sula. But not Mac. Not her husband. What the hell would they want with Mac?'
'To get at me? I don't know. Mac is easier to hurt. He's alone. I have people around me down here, don't I?'
'Mac didn't do anything to them, Tom.'
Tom creased his brow together.
'But Meg, you said the other night-'
'I know what I said,' she said, holding a hand up to him. 'But now that I've thought about it, it's a silly idea, isn't it? Why would they bother?'
'To get at me!' Tom shouted, prodding a finger at his chest.
'Why would they need Mac to get at you? If they're that crooked, they'll come for you, Tom. How in the hell would they know who Mac is anyway, and how would they know he was at the cabin?'
'It's not hard to find anything about Mac, is it? If he's told the good doctor who he is, and he's googled Mac, he's surely seen Sula with him. That's how Mac knows she's been to the cabin. He's starting to pick at me already.'
'Sula saw the doctor over two years ago now. I really don't think-'
'What?' Tom said, slapping his hands on the desk as the heat ran up into his cheeks. 'That they've forgotten the faces of the couple that did them over? I don't think so.'
Meg stared at him.
'Well, in that case, maybe you shouldn't have done it, Tom, eh?'
'I couldn't turn a blind eye-'
'Why not? Because you felt guilty? What you do here is almost as bad!'
'Shhh.' Tom grit his teeth and glanced at the door before looking back at Meg. 'It absolutely is not. What we do here is for the good of the teenagers we help. Look at all the thank you cards. Look at the children we've helped. Look at them.'
He waved a hand over to a cork noticeboard full of thank you cards and photographs.
'So if I rang the police now, you wouldn't go to jail too?'
'No!' Tom said. 'This is not the same.'
Meg got to her feet, her face beetroot, the same shade as Tom's felt.
'I say it is! You know nothing about the bairns they helped up there, and that was the issue. Bairns who have got themselves into a situation they need help to get out of.'
'I deal with children that have got themselves into drugs, and got themselves into a mess, Meg.'
'As did they,' she stormed back at him.
'I do not do backstreet abortions for twelve-year-olds!'
'They are in a mess, just the same. You heard one conversation, Tom. One. If anyone listened in up here, they could charge you with exactly the same, and with the drugs you supply to bairns too.'
'I do not-'
'And where are those bairns going now? The ones who can no longer get help because you shut that clinic down? What will happen to them now?'
Tom grabbed the pen pot off the table and threw it across the room. It hit the door with a crash, pens flying across the room. Meg didn't so much as flinch.
'Where would these bairns go if you weren't here under the guise of a well-to-do private clinic, Tom? Where would your bairns end up if I shut you down?'
Tom kicked over the chair and took a step toward Meg.
'Whose side are you on?' he spat through a clenched jaw.
'Yours, Tom-'
'Could have fooled me!'
'I am, but I can't pretend I know why you've gone so deep into the things you supply, either. You started this clinic as a way to help. Not as a way to underhandedly supply to children! As much as I know that you're not a bad person, Tom, I don't agree with it either.'
'You've never said anything about it before,' he said, his breath coming in bursts.
'I trust you,' she said. 'I trust that you know what you're doing and the reasons behind it. But I think the stupidest thing you ever did was to call the police on that day, Tom. The stupidest!'
Tom swallowed hard, his anger dissipating almost as quickly as it had arrived.
'I didn't know you felt like that,' he said.
She sighed heavily and stepped toward him, winding her hands around his back, and tilting her chin to look at him.
'Now you know,' she said. 'You know what I would like, right now?'
He shook his head.
'I would like you to sort out who the hell the stalker is, find out if the doctor is any danger to Mac. Pay them off, whatever it takes, and then, Tom, I'd like you to quit.'
Tom startled, and pulled away from her.
'What?'
'Quit. Close it down,' she said, hands now across her chest, arms folded tight. Her mouth was a thin line, her eyes serious.
'Here?' he whispered, and began to shake his head as she nodded hers. 'No, Meg. I've built this up from scratch. It's the clinic I always wanted it to be, right now-'
'It's immoral.'
'It's not. I promise you-'
'I want you to quit. And then I want to move away, far away.'
'No,' he said, his face as stern and serious as hers.
'Then I will shop you in, Tom.'
His mouth dropped open. He frowned as his heart thumped.
'You wouldn't.'
'Oh, I would. I'll give you two weeks to sort this mess and quit. In whatever way you see fit, but this clinic is not what, nor why, you started it up, Tom. Get out before I start thinking you're as bad as the crooks you put in jail.'
With that, Meg turned on her heel and left, slamming the door behind her.
Tom let out a breath as he staggered back against the desk.
This can't be happening. What the hell is going on with my life? Why is everyone against me? What we do here isn't that bad…
But even as he thought it, he knew the clinic had got out of control over the last two years. Profits were up, but not for the most legal of reasons. If Meg dialled the police, he could well be in the same position as those crooks in Scotland.
Worse still, if the watcher dialled the police… returning the favour.
Tom closed his eyes and dragged his hands down his face.
Then he picked up his phone, found the number the caller had used saved under silent call in his contacts, and pressed the dial icon.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Mac smelled copper.
Blood. So much blood.
It trailed up the corridor in three pools, and Mac felt his stomach churn and gurgle. He closed his eyes and placed a hand over his nose and mouth. When he opened his eyes, they were no longer there. He shook his head, frowning at the floor, but there were no pools of darkness.
You've gone insane, Mac. Doolally.
He blinked and narrowed his eyes, but the corridor was clear, right up to the bathroom door. Where his heart almost stopped.
The bathroom light was on, the door allowing just a slit of light around its edges.
The tap squeaked off and there was the ripple of water from the small room. The smell of musk now overpowered the smell of copper. Mac gagged, his head beginning to ache.
'Mac?'
Mac looked toward the bathroom, every nerve in his body beginning to thrum and light up, charging him with a nervous energy that he thought would have carried him for miles if he would just open the goddamn door and run.
RUN, MAC!
He turned to the door, breathing heavily, wiping the sweat from his head with a shaking hand.
'Mac?'
There was a sob, and a gentle weeping. The sound so melancholy and empty that Mac had to bite on his fist to keep himself from joining her.
'Sula… I can't… I…' He said, his voice raising goose bumps, every hair on his head feeling electrified and lifted.
'Mac?'
Mac moaned and leaned against the stairs. In the bathroom the weeping increased, sounding haunted and hollow.
Mac felt himself turn and walk slowly to the lit door, the corridor seemed never ending - the door always in sight, but never coming any nearer - and yet he reached it far too soon. Mac turned to stare at the wooden door, Sula's sobs emanating from behind.
He gasped for air. His lungs so empty he thought he would die if he didn't get oxygen, and yet the breath didn't want to go in, like there was a blockage in his throat.
'Mac?'
Mac felt the terror rise as tears streamed down his face.
'Sula, No… I don't want to… don't make me look.'
He gasped sobs of pure fear, joining her soft melancholy sobs from the other side of the door. He watched his own shaking hand - at least he thought it was his own - reach forward and pushed the door. It opened with a long, drawn-out creak. Too heavy, too slow.
Shaking hard, and thinking his heart may give out at any moment, he looked inside the small room.
The dim light showed the shower curtain shut. A small pile of clothes sat next to the tub.
Red. They’re stained, red. Blood, Mac, it's blood.
A small whimper escaped his mouth as he moved forward, keeping his eyes on the clothes and the curtain.
Giddy with fear, and yet unable to stop, he reached out a hand to open the curtain, but a small, fairer hand beat him to it. Long fingers appeared from around the vinyl plastic, and drew it slowly aside with a long screech.
The bathtub was full, the water a deep red. A pair of knees appeared as the curtain drew back.
'No, Sula,' Mac whispered and fell to his knees.
The curtain opened fully, and she sat, head almost on her knees, tears falling from her mascara painted eyes.
'Mac? Why won't you talk to me?'
Mac sat aghast, trying to catch his breath.
'I… I…'
'Mac?'
Mac could do no more than stare. His knees on the white tile of the cold floor. Before him Sula rose to a stand, beautiful olive skin perfect in its naked glory, a small thatch of hair between her legs the only imperfection to the smoothness.
'Mac?'
Mac stared as she stepped from the tub. The water that ran from her body ran clear, as though the bath had been filled not with blood, but with red food colouring.
Better, Mac. The red isn't blood, it's food colouring, that’s all, see? And your dead wife isn't rising from the bath because this is all a dream, a horrible, masochistic dream. You’ll wake in a minute, and all will be normal.
He wanted to close his eyes, but he was fixated on the sight of his naked wife before him. He couldn't look away.
Sula tilted her head, and tears dripped from the end of her nose onto the floor.
She looked so sad that Mac felt his own heart swell as she spoke again.
'Why won't you talk, Mac? It's me.'
Mac closed his eyes. When he opened them, she was squatting in front of him, the smell of musk and something dead mixing to form a stench unlike anything he had never known.
'Mac?'
'Sula?' he whispered. Her eyes were black. Not the usual deep brown; jet black, with no pupils. He struggled for breath, whimpering as he tried to scoot away from her.
'Talk to me Mac.'
Now she grinned at him, her jagged teeth, rotten, yellow, and broken. Not the straight, white, wide smile that Sula had worn in life. The stench that poured from her mouth made him gag and wretch, and he turned himself onto all fours, determined to get out of the bathroom, and out of the cabin.
A hand grabbed the waistband of his jeans, and he gasped at the ice cold feel of it.
'YOU WILL TALK TO ME!' she roared, dragging him back.
Behind him, the water sloshed and splashed, and red appeared on the floor, running around him - thick, warm and sticky. It covered his hands, his knees, his shoes. The metallic stench overpowering.
Mac held his red hands up before him.
Blood. A blood bath.
Panting, he looked back to the tub. Blood was now pouring over the sides in thick torrents, pooling around him, and leaking out into the corridor. His gaze landed on Sula, next to him. Her body now streaked with red, her face a mask of rage and anger.
'YOU. WILL. TALK. TO. ME!'
She grabbed his hair with a sticky red hand, and before he could make a sound, she smashed his head onto the tile floor with a sickening crack.
Mac felt his world go dark.
It was dark when he woke, still lying on the freezing tile floor of the small bathroom, his joints aching with cold. He lifted his head, and a bolt of pain ran through it. feeling his stomach shift and grumble, he crawled to the toilet just in time to lose the contents of it into the hole. He grabbed the wooden seat to pull himself up off the floor, anything to get out of the…
He looked around the pristine bathroom. Clean white floor, clean bath, the curtain pulled to the side as he had left it last time he had been in there. No blood, no trace of water, no clothes, no Sula. It was as though she had never been there at all.
'She probably hasn't. How many did you sink last night, Mac?'
He had to admit; after the chat with Tom he had lost count at eight before he passed out on the settee.
It was a dream. No, fuck that, it was a nightmare of epic proportions, probably brought on by the beer.
He staggered to his feet and looked at his face in the mirror. The stubble was becoming more of a fully-fledged beard that covered the lower half of his face since he had refused to shave, but the skin above was pale and sallow, his haunted eyes ringed with darkness.
He checked his head and found an egg-sized lump just above his temple. He touched it with a wince.
That's the last time you drink, buddy, you obviously fell. What if you'd died right here in the bathroom?
