Darkest Place (23 page)

It wasn't Nate who'd used the void. Not when he could get into the tunnel through his own vent. Not if he'd made his sister ring Carly from his hospital bed to tell her there was access at the corners of the warehouse. If Carly had deciphered it right.

‘Who, Nate? Who?'

If he knew that much, he would have given her a name instead of cryptic bullet points, right?

She was almost back to her apartment now, the plume of light from her wardrobe oozing into the darkness, but she shone the torch in the other direction. Where did the void go? How could someone climb it?

The renovation plans must show it. They had to be in Nate's apartment. Bec had a key but she was at the hospital. After he'd locked himself out, Nate had told her Howard held a key for him, too. Carly could probably convince him to let her into Nate's apartment, but she was covered in dust, she'd have to clean up, change clothes and it would take time – and she was here now.

‘Photos. Police. Game over.' She turned around.

She wouldn't call the cops. She'd go down to the station and let the pictures be the proof.
Done
. She could sleep without fear, have her new life back.

Back at the void, on her stomach again, she thought about the couple who lived in the apartment below. Late twenties, renters. Maybe one or both had found the tunnel and decided to have some fun. Why scare the judge next door when he could send you to prison? When a single woman was the next one along?

She shimmied forward until the timber edge was pressed to her ribs, her head and shoulders stretched into nothingness, a waft of air feathering the sweat and dust on her face. Then she pointed the dim light of the torch into the shaft.

Straight down was dense, unyielding black.

Taking her time, working the torch beam around, she strained for details in the weak glow. Moved the light up and down the pale timbers of the stud wall on her left until something caught her eye. A dark patch, a hole.

Had someone come out of there? How? It was in the middle of an abyss. She aimed the torch at the brickwork opposite looking for another one. Then at the brickwork on her right that was above and below the timber support beam. The light was almost back to the tunnel she was in when she saw … she squinted. A strip of metal. And another. And … her breath caught.

It was a ladder. Metal rungs attached to the bricks. Evenly spaced, one after the other until they disappeared downwards into the darkness.

‘Oh shit.'

She aimed the light up. There were more rungs on the other side of the beam. The tips of her fingers tingled. The glow juddered. The earthy smell on the faint movement of air made her stomach roil.

Had someone climbed four storeys in a dark shaft to get into her loft? To lie on top of her and whisper in her ear, lick her face and shove his arm across her throat?

She closed her eyes, tried not to imagine it but her mind went there anyway – a black figure clinging to the rungs, rising slowly through the dark.

‘Who the fuck did that?' Her whisper slipped into the darkness as she saw another version – the black figure, agile and fast, scuttling downwards like a spider. She shook her head, fumbled for her phone and took photos, snapping quickly, the flash bouncing around the walls, her nerves jangling.

Then she reversed fast, bumping knees and spine as she lunged away, the hint of earthy air still in her nostrils, on her face; the solid, dense black of the void like a presence at her back. Coming after her, filled with …
him
.

 

It was mid-afternoon when Carly passed the sign to Nate's hospital ward, her skin still tingling from the heat and scouring in Christina's guest shower. She'd tossed her filthy clothes into the ensuite and told Christina she couldn't manage the stairs in her own apartment. She wasn't going to use her ensuite when there was an open doorway to her loft.

Checking beds as she wandered the corridor, Carly walked past a patient with a bandage that looked like a nun's coif, stopped and turned back, needing a couple of seconds more before she was sure the bruised face was Nate's.

The relief in his bloodshot eyes as she crossed the room confirmed what she kept telling herself – it wasn't him, he'd tried to figure it out. She wanted to feel good
about that, but the sight of him made joy seem like the wrong emotion. He lifted a hand from the blanket as she reached the bed. She took it as she sat on the edge, noticed grazes on the knuckles as she interlaced her fingers with his.

‘I'm sorry I couldn't get here earlier.' Sorrier she hadn't trusted him.

He gave a small nod. The swelling circling his left eye looked like a fat purple worm curled under the skin.

‘You can't talk?' she asked.

A shake of his head. The left side of his face was misshapen, a dark, multicoloured bruise creeping up from the bandage at the jawline.

‘Is it bad?'

He lifted his other hand, tipped it side to side.

‘Can I kiss you?'

He pointed at his forehead.

His skin was warm, he smelled of cotton bandage and antiseptic. He was wearing a white hospital gown, there was a cage on the bed under the covers protecting his knee. Tears burned her eyes.

‘I didn't get the building plans,' she said. ‘But I found the vent in the top of my wardrobe.'

A nod, relieved.

‘And I looked at one of the corners.'

Quizzical frown.

‘I got into the ceiling and saw it.'

The crease between his brows deepened and he reached for the table by the bed, stopped and grunted, holding his ribs.

‘Hold on.' Carly wheeled it to him, waiting while he used a notepad and pen.

Don't go back there
, he wrote.

She nodded. She didn't plan to. ‘The corner, it's a huge void.'

He wrote again.
Ventilation shaft. Big fans. Top and bottom.

The cool upward breath of air. ‘Did you see it?'

On the plans.

‘I thought you went up through your vent hole.'

Just shone a torch around.

She nodded again. ‘There are rungs attached to one of the walls in the void.'

Maintenance.

It made sense if there were fans. ‘It's a way in and out.'

His eyes stayed on hers: acknowledgement.

‘Where is the entrance?'

Stay out of there.

‘I intend to.'

A softening of his face, his shoulders. He looked weary, sore.

It made Carly hold back on her questions, take up his hand again. ‘Thank you,' she said. ‘For finding the plans. For sending me the message.'

He watched her a while, his eyes marbled with red veins, something more than tiredness in them. Then he wrote again.
They said they knew where you were.

‘Who?'

He pointed at his face, his knee.

‘The person who beat you up?'

Two fingers held up. ‘Two people attacked you?'

One watched.

Carly wanted to swear but clenched her teeth as her fingers tightened on Nate's. ‘Why were you in the lane?'

Someone left a message at the marina.
He used the tip of the pen to point at an earlier sentence.

She read it again.
They said they knew where you were
. ‘The message was that they knew where
I
was?'

He nodded.

‘That's why you thought I was hurt?'

Another nod.

‘They said my name?'

Said my girlfriend.

His girlfriend had drowned at sea. Carly raised her eyebrows. ‘I'm your girlfriend?'

The one who watched used your name.

Something sweaty and cold crept along her spine. Was the assault about her? ‘He said “Carly”?'

He nodded.

‘Carly Townsend?'

A shake.

‘What did he say about me?'

Don't go back to your place.

‘He said I shouldn't go home?'

Another shake. He underlined the previous sentence.

‘You think it's about the man in my loft?'

Don't think it's safe.

‘But there were two of them in the lane. There's only one in my loft.'

No shake, no nod, just a hard glare.

Were there two men in her loft? One on top of her, one watching? ‘Nate?'

Don't go home.

‘What aren't you telling me?'

Nothing.

She glared back.

A feeling. DON'T GO HOME.

Nate wouldn't expand on his ‘feeling', wouldn't tell her what he thought or what the guy in the lane had said about her, finally writing:
Please Carly. Something else
. It didn't make her feel any better but he was bruised and bandaged, he had first rights on changing the subject.

So for half an hour more they played yes or no about his injuries: it was a hairline fracture of the jaw, didn't need to be wired shut, no solid food for a month. His knee was ruined, he'd have surgery before a steak. Two cracked ribs, a few stitches in his scalp under the bandage, a dislocated finger from landing a punch. Uniformed police had been around but there wasn't much to tell – he didn't see his attackers, didn't know who'd left the message, couldn't remember what was said. Detectives would be coming later. Then Carly talked while Nate listened and by the time she'd told him about her day with Christina and meeting Christina's husband, Nate's eyes were unfocused and the lids drooping.

When she kissed him goodbye, he caught her arm, gave her a pointed stare.

‘I won't go back to the warehouse,' she told him. ‘I'll call Dakota. See if I can stay at her place.'

She sent a wave from the door, stepped into the corridor and leaned against the wall, shaken by the sight of him, horrified it might be about her. He'd gone in search of answers, he'd got hold of building plans somewhere. Maybe the man in her loft had seen Nate asking for them or caught the flash of his torch in the ceiling or … she ran a hand across her mouth. The man in her loft had never come when Nate was with her. If he'd climbed a maintenance ladder to get to her, had he beaten Nate up to keep him out of Carly's bed?

Whatever it was, she felt responsible. He wasn't dead, she had that to comfort her – but his injuries were on her account.

She wiped her eyes, manoeuvred around an obstacle course of medical equipment in the corridor and a meal trolley parked near the nurses' station. Past it was a gathering of people with clipboards, and a tall, broad-shouldered woman standing to one side. Detective Anne Long.

Carly felt a flush of humiliation as she remembered the end to their last conversation.
Get some help.
She dropped her eyes as she got closer, hoping to pass without the cop recognising her, then a patient in a wheelchair rolled into the corridor, halting Carly beside the detective.

‘Busy in here this afternoon,' the cop said.

‘Mmm.' Carly feigned fascination in the ward bed that was now blocking the corridor.

‘It's Carly, right?'

Great. ‘Yes.'

‘Thought so.' The detective sounded impressed with herself for remembering.

Carly pulled her mobile from her pocket, started tapping the screen, trying to look busy in case the cop felt chatty. From the corner of her eye, she saw Anne Long swap a notebook from one hand to the other. Carly glanced at the photo from the tunnel that was on her screen and changed her mind about ignoring the cop. ‘I'm visiting a neighbour,' she said. ‘He was expecting a detective. Nate Griffin. Are you looking for him?'

‘I'm seeing a Nathan Griffin, yes. Do you know what room he's in?'

Carly pointed down the corridor, thinking about evidence and building plans and injuries. Hers and Nate's. ‘Fourteen B.' She looked back at the cop, not sure how to begin. ‘He's got a broken jaw and can't talk but he's doing okay with pen and paper.'

Anne Long took a long look at her. ‘Are you the girlfriend?'

The girlfriend mentioned in the message left at the marina or his actual girlfriend? Carly wasn't sure on either account. ‘I guess.'

She waved a finger at Carly's face and the bandage on her hand. ‘This happen last night too?'

Carly touched the scratch on her cheek. ‘No. I fell down the stairs in my apartment a couple of days ago.'

Beside them, the wheelchair patient gave a hacking cough that made the orderly behind him check the progress of the bed still blocking the corridor.

‘So how are you, Carly?'

Anne Long's tone suggested her question was more than time-filler now, and Carly wondered if Dean Quentin had filed a report about her visit to the police station with the scratches on her arms. ‘I'm fine. About Nate's …'

‘The last time we spoke, you were going to sort out some new medical arrangements,' the detective said. ‘How did you go with that?'

Carly glanced at the patient and orderly beside them, at a nurse also waiting. No one looked at her but heat touched her cheeks like two warmed stones. She wanted to tell the cop she never did have a damn problem, but a sharp, defensive retort wouldn't help the proof she had in her hand. ‘Fine, thanks.'

‘Good result then.'

It was smug. A reminder of who was right and who was damaged. It made any boldness Carly still felt from lunging around a ceiling shrink away. She glanced at the picture of the tunnel on her screen, saw it from the cop's perspective. It could have been taken anywhere – inside, outside, on a screen stage, in the back blocks of Istanbul. And as the ward bed started to move, Carly changed her mind about showing the collection of photos to Anne Long. It wasn't enough to make a cop believe Carly was well and sane and someone else was crazy.

 

The last rays of sunlight blazed through the windscreen as Carly drove to Dakota's house, squinting in the glare and blinking back the tears threatening to spill.

Nate was in hospital, the police thought Carly needed psychiatric help and she couldn't go back to her apartment because a man could get in and hurt her. Lick her face and laugh at her. Choke her, rape her, kill her.

Stopping at traffic lights, her hands curled around the steering wheel and throttled it. Squeezed and thumped it, her heart pounding, dread building, agitation itching and biting under her skin. She wanted to get out and walk it off, block it out, but she needed to think about it. Figure it out, find a way to convince the police it was happening.

It was someone who knew about the ventilation shafts. And knew Carly. Who'd seen her or met her or crossed paths with her.

How did he do it without waking her? Did he time it so he got in and out while she was in her deepest sleep? Or did he stay up there, above her wardrobe, listening and watching and … ? Oh shit. How many times had she stood in front of her shelves in her underwear? She'd had sex with Nate in the loft. Uninhibited, energetic sex. Had the shadowy presence listened to them? Laughed or jerked off at the sounds from her bed?

Nausea swam in her gut. She wanted to be sick but that involved pulling over and getting out and she was scared – of being followed, of being alone and exposed in the darkening evening. It was trembling, anxious Charlotte all over again.

She shifted into gear, took a left turn. Made herself focus. The visits to her loft had started three days after she moved in. Maybe it wasn't about her. Maybe it was about the apartment. Or the creepy space above the lofts. Had he discovered the tunnel, found 419 empty and spent six months perfecting his silent entry and exit? Then Carly had arrived and he discovered another opportunity?

If he'd spent hours up there, he might have left something behind. Food wrappers, empty water bottles, something to pee in. A fucking bar fridge. She hadn't seen anything like that in the tunnel but it might be up there, somewhere. Evidence of him. In that dark, scary place.

She took a right into Dakota's street. You could leave, she told herself. Put the apartment on the market, get a student loan and go to university. Somewhere else, somewhere new, somewhere she could start over. Again. With rules so fate wouldn't be tempted to find her: don't buy,
don't live anywhere great, don't make friends, don't like it too much.

There, number fifteen, Dakota's place. Carly pulled to the kerb, wiped her face and sat. Scared and angry and immobilised by it all.

A knock on the window made her head snap around. There was a face at the glass, a man staring in.

‘You Carly?'

Her eyes flicked to the door, checked it was locked.

‘I'm Peter. Dakota's father.'

Thinning blond hair, ruddy face, nothing like Dakota.

‘You're staying over?' he asked.

Would the man from her loft know that? She talked to Dakota only twenty minutes ago. Carly nodded.

He watched her as she stepped from the car, keeping her distance as she reached back in for her handbag. ‘Everything okay?' he asked.

‘Just needed a minute. Been a long day.' She followed him down the drive, ducking under the branches of a tree, spooked by its shadows. They walked through a garage into a cluttered kitchen that smelled delicious. She should eat, Carly told herself. She hadn't eaten since breakfast.

‘Dakota!' Peter yelled.

Carly jumped.

Dakota appeared in the doorway, grinning, then frowning as she came closer. ‘What happened to your face?'

‘The fall down the stairs.' It was the excuse Carly had given when she called to beg a bed for the night.

‘And this?' Dakota lifted Carly's bandaged hand.

‘Yep.'

‘You did a good job.' Her voice was matter of fact but she ran gentle fingers over the bandage. It made Carly
want to cry again. Then Dakota had moved on. ‘Hope you like soup.' She lifted the lid off a pot on the stove. ‘It's lamb and beans.'

The three of them ate at the kitchen bench, Carly feeling like a teenager staying over with a friend and getting checked out by the parent. When Peter left to watch TV, Carly told Dakota that Nate was in hospital, kept the details to the assault and his injuries. Dakota got up and fetched a jar from a cupboard. ‘Eat chocolate. It'll make you feel better.' She slid it across the counter. ‘Eat Nate's share, too. No solid food for a month. Shit.'

‘Yeah, shit.'

‘Bet you didn't move here for this, huh?'

To be scared to go home? Responsible for someone else's pain? Not trusted? It was what she'd left.

‘Carly, what's wrong?'

‘It's just been a shitty day.'

‘Okay, I'm listening.'

The
shitty day
line was meant to steer Dakota away from the subject, but Dakota didn't hedge. And Carly
wanted
to talk now. She was tired of herself, of the police, of her fear. Maybe just tired. She took a breath and a chocolate, just held onto the ends of its wrapper as she spoke. ‘I came here to find a better me.'

‘Well, that's cool.'

‘Only I don't like who I found.'

‘Oh.' She frowned. ‘How did you want to be?'

‘Brave. Assertive. Happy.' She untwisted the chocolate wrapper. ‘The bits of me that I used to like.' Before she'd become brash and reckless, then damaged and anxious.

‘Personally, I think you're great. But, okay, why can't you be that other you?'

Because Carly couldn't change what was on her police profile, because Nate was hurt, because a man could get into her apartment. ‘I think it's too late.'

Dakota tipped her head in doubt. ‘You've only been here a few months.'

And she'd been Charlotte a long time. ‘I don't know how to do it now.'

‘But you remember how you used to be, right? The brave, assertive, happy bits.'

‘Yes.'

‘So be like that.'

‘I don't think it works that way.'

‘Sure it does. I mean, if you know what bits of the old you that you want to be, then when you do something, think about that and just, you know, be that.'

If it had been anyone else Carly might have rolled her eyes, but it was Dakota and Carly chuckled. ‘Just like that?'

‘Yeah. Why not?' She picked up a chocolate, plopped it in her mouth and talked around it. ‘You said it's been a shitty day and now you feel shitty too, and maybe you think the old you might have gotten through a day like that without letting it make her feel shitty. Because she was happy and assertive, right? So if you want to be like her, you could think about a better version of everything that's just happened. Your neighbour was found by those kids – yay. He has a broken jaw and not brain damage – yay. You have an excuse to keep dropping around to his place with pots of soup he doesn't have to chew – nice. He needed knee surgery anyway. And you have a very clever friend with chocolate and a spare bed and a list of career options to keep your mind off your shitty day.'
She picked up her mug and tapped it against Carly's. That simple.

 

Carly's eyes snapped open, her brain momentarily confused by purple walls and black curtains. Then she saw the bottles of hairdressing supplies and a foam head, remembered she'd stayed at Dakota's and fell back to the thought that had woken her.

Carly would climb the ladder
.

Twenty-year-old Carly would get on that ladder in the void. Without a doubt. Probably without hesitation. Possibly with a shout of
Hell, yeah!
Energetic, agile, persistent Carly. Who'd ridden trail bikes, joined the Rural Fire Service and climbed rock faces. Who wasn't afraid or anxious or ashamed. Who didn't spend her life on the verge of tears.

Be that
.

Thirty-three-year-old Carly sat up and swung her feet to the floor. She'd laughed at Dakota's simplistic advice. But maybe it
was
that simple.
If you know what bits of her you want … be that.

Climbing the ladder might give Carly everything she needed. Evidence of someone getting in, an access point that suggested who, fingerprints, signed documents, backpack, bar fridge. Proof she could take to the police, a way to make it stop and claim her life back.

And if it did none of those things, if she had to leave the apartment and start over again, climbing the ladder would still give her something she needed.

It would give her a chance to be the person she wanted to be.