Jackson 07 - Where All the Dead Lie (20 page)

Taylor woke from her nap feeling groggier than ever. She rose from the bed and stretched, then checked the clock. It was nearly four. She went to the window and pulled back the curtains. The estate had transformed while she’d been asleep. Baldwin was right about the storm. Snow gathered in piles; there was at least six inches on the ground. It was falling fast.

She went to the television and turned it on, surfed around until she found the BBC. After five minutes the weather update came on. The storm was getting worse by the minute—there could be up to three feet of snow overnight. Airports and railways were closing throughout Scotland. Which meant neither Memphis nor Baldwin would be getting up to the estate anytime soon.

Lovely.

She turned the television back off and pulled out her laptop. It was early back in the States. Sam would be in her office, prepping for the day’s autopsies. Maybe she could catch her before she got lost in the land of the dead.

But Sam didn’t come back right away on the chat, which meant Taylor had already missed her.

Oh, this was for the birds. All she had wanted was to get away, and now look at her. She was alone in a castle in Scotland, locked up in a snowstorm, desperately trying to reach the people in her life who’d apparently gotten on with things. Like she couldn’t handle herself alone.

Maddee’s voice rang in her ears:
you’re here because the people around you don’t trust you anymore.

God, that hurt. She didn’t know whether to believe it was true, either. She knew people had been talking about her. About her actions. Asking questions. Maybe she was deluding herself. Maybe they all knew.

The truth of the matter was she’d taken things into her own hands and gotten Sam’s baby killed. There was no escaping it anymore.

There was a knock at her door.

She crossed the room and opened it. Trixie stood there, the ever-present tea cart to hand.

“Dr. James said as you may be feeling poorly. I brought ye tea to help. Will you be having dinner outside the room tonight, then?”

“Hello, Trixie.”

Taylor stepped aside and let her bring in the tea. It was a job for the serving maid. Taylor wasn’t sure why Trixie was continuing to handle it. But tea sounded good. It would wash the pills down just as easy as beer.

“You’re not looking well, lady, if I may be so bold.”

“I’m not feeling so well, Trixie. I think I’ll go back to bed. Thank you for the tea. I’m going to skip dinner.”

“Aye. I’ll have a maid fetch your breakfast. Just ring if you need anything.”

She lingered by the tea cart.

“Can I help you, Trixie?”

“Will you be needing me to draw a bath, or help ye with the tea?”

“No, Trixie, I’m fine.”

The woman was nervous and jumpy. What was going on?

“All right then. You sleep well. Make sure you drink your tea.”

God, this place and their tea.

“Good evening, Trixie.”

She saw Trixie to the door. The corridor was cold as ice. Tendrils of freezing air reached into her room, winding around her wrists as if it wanted to drag her outside. Taylor felt the ghost before she saw it. The cold became a wall between her and the hallway, then she blinked and it appeared.

The Pretender. Standing across the way from her.

She jerked back into the room and slammed the door. The red wave coming on. Taylor latched the door behind her, breath coming short. Trixie was calling out. Oh God, it was happening again. She was allowing another innocent to be tortured, when all he wanted was her.

She breathed deeply through her nose and flung open the door, ready to charge.

But the corridor was empty.

And Trixie was nowhere to be seen.

Memphis tucked his chin lower into his jacket to avoid the wind that was blowing down the back of his neck. Visiting Frankland Prison wasn’t his favorite thing to do on a good day, much less one with lousy weather. But this was all a part of the job. Standing in line, awaiting his turn to move through the security gates into the relative warmth of the prison proper. No special preferences for a viscount here.

His detective constable, Penelope Micklebury, was obviously miserable, her nose bright red and her teeth chattering. The day was raw, the snow building rapidly. The weather forecaster said this could be a huge storm before nightfall. He was worried about Taylor, all alone back in Scotland. He could fly back up there if needs be, but if the airports closed, the train was the only option, and in heavy weather, they too could stop running. She’d be lonely, and isolated, and probably mad at him for leaving her. At least, he hoped she would be.

The thought made him feel terrible. He shouldn’t be thinking of Taylor today. This was Evan’s day. He’d visited her last night, knelt on her grave, begged for her forgiveness. He hated that he was in love with another woman, hated that he was sullying his wife’s memory. But it had been three years. When would be the right time to move on? His heart already had. It was his head that was giving him problems.

And right now, he had to get his head in the game. They were going to interview a former associate of Roger Waterstone, now known as the prophet Urq. He’d offered to give information in exchange for consideration on his extensive sentence.

The queue began to move.

“Finally. Do me a favor, Pen. You talk. This fine young gentleman might open up to you more than me.”

“Of course,” she answered, cool and collected. He pretended not to see her smile. Letting her take the lead on the interview was a first for them. But she’d earned it. Pen was turning into an excellent investigator.

“Shall we?” he asked, pointing toward the gated guardhouse.

They moved past the gates and were admitted to the outer ring of the prison. They showed their identifications, signed forms. After five more checkpoints and innumerable corridors, they were led to a small room with a steel door.

A young redheaded guard unlocked it for them.

“He’s all yours,” the man-child said. “If he gives you any guff, just give a holler. We’ll get you out of there straightaway.”

Wonderful. Brilliant.

They went into the room. A young man dressed in gray was led in. His head was shaved. He looked cold.

He sat at the table and lit a cigarette.

Memphis and Pen sat across. Pen made a show of taking out her notebook, setting up her pen, before she cleared her throat and dove in.

“Mr. Madison. Thank you for volunteering to talk with us. You know why we’re here. Tell us about your friend Roger.”

The man—no, he was just a boy, really—had wide blue eyes. He smoked the cigarette as if he’d just learned, not inhaling, but pulling the smoke into his mouth, holding it and blowing a stream that dissipated the moment it hit the chilled prison air.

“You have to promise me that I’ll get out of here. I don’t belong here. All I did was steal some oranges from the take-away. There’s people in here done much worse.”

“We will make a recommendation. You have our word. Now, tell us about Roger Waterstone.”

“Not Roger. Urq. He’s batshit. He seems all fine, but once you’re in, he drops the mask. But by then, you’re on the pipe, and it’s too hard to walk away. Nothing’s free, you know. Nothing’s ever free. I wanted to get straight, so he kicked me out.”

Puff. Blow. Puff. Blow.

“Kicked you out of the church?”

“Out of the house, innit. The house on Baker Street. The one no one’s supposed to know about.”

Memphis’s cell phone rang. He cursed. He wasn’t supposed to have it in here. Pen shot him a look. He jumped up, apologizing, and stepped out of the room.

The phone number was instantly recognizable. It was the house phone at Dulsie.

Ignoring the guard’s steely glare, he answered. It was Trixie.

“I think you’d best come back, my lord. Something is terrible wrong with Miss Jackson.”

Taylor paced the sitting room, back and forth, back and forth. She couldn’t get his face out of her head. His eyes, empty and unseeing, looking right into her soul.

Taylor didn’t know what else to do. She called Sam’s cell phone, not caring that she was interrupting her work.

Sam answered on the fourth ring.

“Sorry, I was gloved. What’s wrong?”

“How did you know something was wrong?”

“You’ve got your voice back. Sounds like it hurts to talk, but that’s wonderful!”

“He’s coming for me, Sam.”

“Who is?”

“The Pretender. He’s here. He’s been following me around the castle.”

“Taylor, honey, you’re imagining things. You’re just over-tired. Overwrought. You need rest. You need sleep. Drink your tea and go to bed. Maybe back off the Percocets. They can make you a little goofy.”

“I’m not being
goofy,
Sam. I know it can’t be real. But it’s happening all the time now. It’s getting worse.”

There was a brief pause.

“What’s happening all the time? What are you talking about, Taylor?”

“It was my fault, Sam. It was all my fault. If it weren’t for me, you’d still be pregnant.”

“Taylor, honey, stop saying that.”

She did a lap around the room, stopping at the fireplace. She pulled her notebook from her back pocket and threw it in. The evidence needed to be destroyed. She had to destroy it all before it was too late.

“No, really. Maddee made me see, Sam. If I’d come straight to you, if I hadn’t waited, I could have stopped him. I could have saved you.”

Tears started down her face. She needed to confess. To be shriven. To have Sam chase all the ghosts away.

There was silence, then Sam sighed.

“Taylor. You need to listen to me. The very first thing he did was stab me. It happened hours before you knew I was missing. There’s nothing you could have done. Did you hear me?
He
stabbed me. Not you. You are not to blame for this. He was a sick man who chose to do what he did. Do you understand me?”

Taylor heard the words but they didn’t sink in. She couldn’t get her feet under her. She couldn’t erase the image of Sam, her eyes brimming with tears, the pool of blood at her feet.

“Taylor, I’ve got open bodies. I have to go back to work now. But listen to me. You have to stop internalizing all this. You have to let it go. You aren’t the only one having problems. The sooner you see that, the sooner you’ll be back to normal.”

The phone was a snake with bared fangs. She shut her eyes then opened them. It became a phone again.

Sam was right. This wasn’t all about her. She just needed to find a way to make everyone else understand that.

Sam hung up the phone, worried. Taylor had been drinking, without a doubt. She always got paranoid when she had too much to drink.

It was my fault
.

Oh, God. A wave of despair crashed over Sam. In her darker moments, she’d said the very same thing about her girl, her
best friend
.

But she knew, in her heart, that she couldn’t blame Taylor. The Pretender was the one who’d made the choice. He’d kidnapped her. He’d knifed her in the abdomen. He was responsible. Not Taylor.

But something felt wrong about this. She’d sounded…scared, for lack of a better term. And that wasn’t something Sam ever saw in Taylor. Fear wasn’t an option for her.

She picked up the phone and let it dangle between her fingers. Taylor would kill her if she went behind her back.

Some things couldn’t be helped.

Sam dialed Baldwin’s cell. The voice mail kicked in immediately. She debated, then hung up without leaving a message.

She was being irrational. This was Taylor. Probably on a bender. And off on her own, with no support system to tell her things were fine and to put down the bottle.

Sam wrote her a note, encouraging her to lay off the alcohol and pills for a couple of days, see if her headache wasn’t some sort of rebound from the opiates, and went back to work.

She couldn’t face it anymore. Not now.

Taylor couldn’t sleep.

She’d taken all the meds, dutifully, one by one. Laid in bed, fretting. Worried she shouldn’t have called Sam. Knowing she’d just dragged all the bad stuff back to the surface.

Her unique gift—shitting on the parade.

What was wrong with her? She was supposed to be getting better. Yes, she had her voice back, but Maddee’s words rang through her head over and over until they became mantra.

She got out of the bed. The snow fell in graceful piles outside her window. The fresh green landscape was gone, covered in a blanket of white.

She knew that feeling. She was being smothered.

There was nothing else to do.

She closed the drapes and sat on the chair by the bookcase. The only light came from the fire.

She invited the ghost, and let the memories take her.

When it came for her, she didn’t even flinch.

Four in the afternoon. She had no idea what day it was. She was freezing cold in the chair, the fire gutted. Her head was splitting. The detritus of her pity party lay scattered around the room. Yikes. It looked like a rock star’s hotel room, minus the furniture damage. She’d had a little too much to drink.

Chagrined, Taylor straightened up, then showered and dressed. She was sick of sitting in her room, sick of letting things happen to her. She’d never get it together like this.

She decided to go for a prowl around the castle. If she couldn’t go outside, at least she could stretch her legs inside.

When she reached her door, she saw a piece of paper had been shoved under it. It must have been delivered while she slept. The note was handwritten, and Taylor didn’t recognize the handwriting. She scanned to the bottom and saw the name Maddee signed in a flourish.

She was tempted to rip the thing to pieces, but decided to be a grown-up about it. The note was simple, straightforward.

Taylor’s first thought was
Bitch
. Her second was
Fine
. It
had
worked. She did have her voice back.

She needed to get out of this room anyway, so she didn’t just sit and pout for the rest of the day. It would be good to have some company for dinner, at least. Provided they stayed on safe topics.

She gathered her sweater and headed downstairs.

Maddee was sitting in the drawing room, right where Taylor had left her yesterday. If she hadn’t actually seen her drive off after their aborted session, she would have assumed she’d never left. Her hair was still skinned back from her face. She was reading a magazine. Taylor caught the cover as she turned the page—the glossy
Hello!
So the woman wasn’t above a little gossip.

Taylor cleared her throat and Maddee jumped.

“Wow, you’re quiet. Hey, I’m so glad you came down.” She put the magazine on the couch and came to Taylor. “I’m so sorry. I thought, well, you read the note. You know what I thought. No chance it helped?”

She looked genuinely remorseful and hopeful at the same time. Taylor forgave her. She was just trying to help.

“Yes. It did. I don’t condone what you said, that really hurt. But I can talk. So I guess in one way I owe you a debt of gratitude.”

“What about some tea?”

Taylor saw that the ubiquitous tea cart was sitting against the wall. She shook her head, she was getting sick of tea.

“What about a little whisky, then? That might help things along.”

She shook her head, vehemently. She hated whisky. But some hair of the dog wouldn’t go amiss. Her head was pounding, and it wasn’t from the aftereffects of the shooting.

“I’ll have some, if you don’t mind. I don’t want to drink alone, though. What will you have?”

There was a small bar off to the right of the tea cart that Taylor hadn’t noticed before. Maddee bustled up to it, picked out a decanter and poured some amber liquid into a cut-crystal glass. The scent of… Good grief, that was Jack Daniel’s. Her stomach turned. Ugh.

Taylor picked through the other decanters until she found one that was red. She took the stopper out and sniffed. Yes, the vintage port. She poured some for herself.

They sat opposite one another on the sofa, clinked glasses and drank.

Maddee took a slow sip, savoring, then, with a wink at Taylor, tossed the rest of the drink back.

“What the hell, right? We’re stuck here for a bit, and I’m not driving. Roland might get lucky—if he’s a good boy. What do you say, Taylor. Shall we tie one on?”

She went to the bar and poured herself a bigger shot this time, mixed in some Coke, dropped in a couple of square ice cubes.

Taylor debated for a second. It wouldn’t take much to get her back over the edge. But a beer wouldn’t hurt.

She set the wine down on the table and rummaged in the small refrigerator under the bar until she found a Heineken.

“Oh, no. Not that swill. You need to drink a real beer.” Maddee dipped down and looked in the fridge, pulled out a Tennant’s lager.

Maddee handed her the bottle, then turned to the bar and found a glass. She held up it critically to the light, then apparently decided it would do. She took the Tennant’s back from Taylor and poured it into the glass ceremoniously.

“We
are
in a castle. Drinking out of the bottle is a bit gauche, don’t you think?”

Taylor smiled and nodded. She’d had Tennant’s before. She liked it well enough. She took the proffered glass and took a sip. They settled into the chairs.

Maddee turned out to be good fun. She regaled Taylor with stories, tidbits about the estate, about Memphis and his foibles, of which there were many, and gossip about the servants. She knew everyone, it seemed. She assiduously avoided the topic of Evan, which suited Taylor just fine.

Trixie came for them at seven, to announce that dinner was ready, and found them both quite tipsy. They made their way up the stairs to the second dining room. Taylor sat heavily at the table. She was suddenly feeling the beer, was light-headed and silly. Her hands moved clumsily as they tried to secure her napkin.

Dinner was a somewhat simple affair, with only soup, Highland steaks, carrots, peas and a side of boiled potatoes, but Maddee insisted they have a bottle of champagne to toast their newfound friendship. The bell was rung, the serving girl sent off to the cellars. She returned five minutes later with a bottle of Dom Perignon, 1987. Taylor had to admit, there was something nice about having a massive wine cellar of excellent vintages at your disposal.

Maddee popped the cork and poured. She held the crystal flute high and slurred, “To friends.”

“To Scotland,” Taylor said.

They clinked glasses again, buddies, and tucked into dinner.

The food was good, a bit undersalted for Taylor’s taste tonight, but she guessed that had to do with her throat being sore. Three bites into the steak, her stomach started to get upset. She set her fork down and licked her lips. Surely she wasn’t going to get sick. She hadn’t had
that
much to drink.

It was quickly apparent that she was most definitely wrong.

“Where’s the bathroom?”

Though drunk, Maddee’s face creased in concern.

“Over there, through the cream-colored door. Do you need me?”

Taylor shook her head and bolted for the door. There was a long hall that ended in a bath. Thanking whichever earl had decided to install modern plumbing, she ran down the hall and made it just in time.

She vomited up all the drink and food. Even had some dry heaves for good measure. That wasn’t going to help her throat.

After fifteen minutes, she cleaned herself up and was able to make her way back to the dining room. Maddee was still there, but her head was on the table, cradled in her arms.

She’d passed out before the pudding.

Good grief. Taylor made a note to check the alcohol content of the beer she’d had. Even after being sick, getting all the alcohol out of her system, she still felt woozy and unsteady on her feet.

There was a bit of a commotion from the hall, and with effort, Taylor turned her head toward the main dining room door. A stocky brown-haired man came through. He took in the scene, shaking his head.

“Och, Maddee, lassie, what have ye done?” He turned to Taylor. “Ye must be Memphis’s friend. I’m Roland MacDonald, Maddee’s husband. Ye’ll no be better off than she, I see.

Trixie,” he called. “Trixie!”

Trixie appeared through the same door.

Roland was smiling good-naturedly, though Taylor could tell he was annoyed. “These lassies have drank themselves to sleep. See to the lass there. I’ll get Maddee home.”

“Och, Miss Taylor, are you all right?” Trixie’s concern was nice. Taylor allowed herself to be led from the room. She heard Maddee come to a bit as she left.

“Hiya, honey,” she said to Roland, then started to laugh. She hardly sounded drunk, just exceptionally happy.

But Taylor definitely was intoxicated. Her feet weren’t moving the right way. She had to lean heavily on Trixie’s arm, and listen to the older woman muttering under her breath.

“Not right for women to act like that. What was she thinking?”

Taylor wished she could tell Trixie that she really hadn’t had much, just the beer and a few sips of champagne, not enough to be sick, for Christ’s sake, but she settled for an agreeable mmm-hmm and let herself be led into her rooms.

“Ye’ll be needing some ginger tea, that will help with the digestion. And the headache, I daresay. Sit ye down and let me call for it.”

Taylor needed some water, that’s what she needed. She weaved her way to the bar, found a liter bottle of Highland Springs, and brought it back to her chair. She couldn’t get the lid off. Her hands weren’t working right. Her head wasn’t working right either. Jesus, she was bleeding drunk.

Deciding discretion was the better part of valor, she dropped the water, swayed upright and managed to get to the bed. She sat on the edge, hoping Trixie would come back soon and lift her feet off the floor. Her eyes just wouldn’t stay open.

She dimly heard Trixie return, heard the clinks of teacups, then the world turned dark and swallowed her.

When Taylor woke, she was alone. The room was pitch-black. The fire had gone out again, or she’d gone blind. The thought made her want to throw up, so she lay quietly in the bed until the urge passed.

Her head was pounding. She’d passed out without taking the Fioricet or Percocet. She’d be a mess until she got that in her.

Bolstering her courage, she sat up. The headache made her sway in place. She’d never felt the pain this bad, not even when she’d woken from the coma after the shooting and the halo held her head steady, the four points of the metal biting into her flesh. Thank God it was dark in the room; she couldn’t imagine dealing with light.

Her feet touched the cold floor. Good. Upright. She managed to get into the bathroom, using the walls for guidance. The pill containers were out. She didn’t know which was which, so she opened all four and extracted a pill from each of them. Fioricet, Ativan, Percocet, melatonin. Got water flowing, into a cup, into her mouth.

It took all of her effort to make it back to the bed. She got horizontal, the searing pain making her nauseous again.

Don’t be sick. Don’t be sick. Don’t be sick
.

There was a voice on the radio, or television. She didn’t know which. She didn’t know how to shut it up. How could she shut off that damn voice?

She listened. It hurt. Then she realized what it was. Maddee’s biofeedback tape.

Trixie must have put it on thinking it would help her.

She listened for a moment. The blue balloon rose to her mind’s eye. There was a knife. Her wrists. The pill bottles.

So easy. So easy. So easy
.

She had to say goodbye first.

She needed to talk to Sam. Needed to apologize again. The laptop wouldn’t stay still. She fought with the headache as she typed. It didn’t all make sense to her, but the idea was there. How many times could she apologize?

The medicine started to work quickly. The pain began to fade. She began to drift, floating, feeling lighter. She put a foot out of the bed onto the floor.

The world stopped revolving so quickly.

That was better.

Time passed.

She realized she wasn’t alone.

She was afraid to open her eyes.

A hand cupped her face. Just like Memphis from the night before. But this was freezing cold, almost like ice. It felt good. It helped the pain go away.

But then it moved, to her forehead, touching her scars. And she knew it wasn’t Memphis, wasn’t anything real. The panic began in earnest, the feeling that she was tied down, couldn’t move. Flashes from the night before invaded her mind, the long thrusts, the gentle sucking, the icy touches. It was Memphis, and Baldwin, and Roland now, all three of them crowding around her, touching her, making her gasp with pleasure, then with pain. Somehow her shirt was off, and her own hands found her breasts. She was feverish, burning up, and the icy fingers moved around her body, between her legs, through her hair. Something in her spoke, deep, insistent.
This is wrong.