The Runaway (16 page)

Yes, he knew it was time at last. All the wait, all the patience, and his little prize in a bonnet sat in this house. In the mood to play hide and seek. The soup was still cooking, the smoke from the pot curling in white fingers reaching out towards the sunlit windows. The curtains were pulled in close, but the heater was still running.
She was here. He could almost taste the pure fragrance of her. Almost hear her heartbeat dancing in a wild staccato of her nervous rhythm. He didn’t want to kill her perhaps, but just savour that impeccable freckled skin of hers marred by his little cuts, just enough for a stream to flow out, forming little rivulets on her thighs and forearms. That look of terror and then slow understanding in her beautiful blue eyes. He didn’t like that she had a tattoo – it scarred her beauty. He didn’t think anyone else could mark her, except him. He replayed images of killing all those 11 girls – their screams, undiluted fear washing over him, as he explored their skin and body. But the release had always been temporary. He could never settle for anything less than his Brooke. His thirst was all but aggravated each time he killed those worthless girls. That’s why they had to be disposed. He just got tired of playing with surrogates. Now as he closed in on the real deal, he couldn’t imagine how they would ever measure up to her. He sniffed the air, the lingering aroma of lavenders and something exotic that could only belong to her. He caught the flutter of clothes and a slight movement in the room ahead and charged in. The sight of her blinded him in awe, as he gripped the knife in a tighter grasp. He would love to slice up that smooth neck and the back as it curved down. And that wild magnificent hair. How he loved the smell. And then he noticed the thin stream of blood flowing past her. Two steps and he was beside her, stifling his screams of agony, as he saw the tiny bullet hole. He couldn’t lose now. He couldn’t be denied of his prize. Her smile was beatific. She had escaped him. The fury was a red haze that enveloped his vision and his senses, as he lost track of time and plunged into what was left of her.

Walhalla, December, 2005

The day had been really long – Richard was exhausted by the incessant questioning of the dim wit policemen at the crime scene, Marco’s piercing looks and ergo, the constant presence of Paul in his life in some way or the other.
Not to mention, the constant buzzing in his mind, as he flashed back to his days in Applecross and his obsession with Paul. He feared for Brooke – he had to make sure she was alright and that Paul hadn’t figured out yet where she was living. He thanked the heavens that she hadn’t gone back to stay in their old home. Richard was sure that was where Paul was holding up too – he had an eerie attachment to his roses in any case. He just had to grab his jacket and make a few calls on the way, but he had to reach Brooke in time – it didn’t matter if she threw him out of her home or refused to see him, he was sure mentioning Paul would get her attention. He disliked the circumstances that were forcing him to confront her finally, after all these years – he had envisioned something else entirely for their reunion.

No one was in graver danger than her at the moment. Shaking off the ominous voice at the back of his head, he parked his car by the gate of the guest house he had taken up as his temporary abode in Walhalla – just over 5 kms away from Cooper’s Creek. Something was off about the way the door to his suite was jammed shut. He hurried towards it only to find the lock hanging at an awkward angle, and the door frame battered. He calmed himself with thoughts of mere burglary and evading what he knew was the truth. He carefully pried open the door and peeped inside. The room was plunged in total darkness. He couldn’t detect anything smelling f
ishy. .He tiptoed inside and switched on the lights. Nothing seemed to have altered and nothing looked out of its place. He looked around at the all the rooms and searched incessantly– as he was sure someone had been to his suite. After an hour’s worth of rummaging, Richard finally gave up, seemingly satisfied with the search. The exercise left him famished. He thought he’d grab a bite from the kitchen on his way out, but it was only proper that he check if anyone was around to cater to his untimely hunger. 

That’s when he noticed it – that ugly contraption hanging from the door bolt. It took him a while to adjust his eyes on the doll and its striking blue eyes. He was transfixed in its eerie stare, as if drowning in the thick blue of its stony gaze. He cautiously stepped towards the door – unsure of what it might bring down upon him.  He had almost stopped breathing; something was hauntingly familiar in those eyes, and the luscious brown hair that the doll donned. Even before he could bring himself to touch, he somehow felt a huge weight drop within him, and his rasped parched throat trying its best to scream out the pain. He didn’t want to know, he didn’t want to understand and yet he had to make sure that what he dreaded, had always dreaded since the day in Walhalla previously
would come to pass. He sucked in his breath, and ever so slowly freed the doll from the knob. It was dressed shabbily in tattered blue silk and had a fine golden thread strangling its neck. A new addition, Richard thought. Those eyes bored into him, beckoned him to an unknown land of misery and failed hopes.

His heart stopped as he slid his fingers through the mane of chocolate hair on the dolls head. He could never forget the feel of those tresses, he could recognise anywhere the silken gossamer touch of her sinful
ly mesmerising hair, the cascading thick curtain that covered her face whenever she wanted to hide her emotions. His eyes froze on the ragged shorn tresses glued to the ugly doll’s head, and he knew that all hell had broken loose. Come to think of it, he had this lingering fear since Marco’s call, he just couldn’t place his finger on what felt wrong about the day. He staggered back to his couch, clutching the doll in his hands knowing that this was the last piece of her that he could preserve – this ominous distasteful monument attributed to her memory of a gruesome death. He didn’t know how time slipped by, when he could finally muster up the strength to call up Marco and reach the morgue. Did he want to see what state Brooke was in now? Could he bear anymore? He wanted the face with that reluctant smile and twinkling blue eyes frozen in his mind – he didn’t want to know the horrified defeated stare of her lifeless face, he didn’t want to admit that she would never know that he had come back, he had come back to make a part of her impossible dream come true. He would have whisked her away from all the harsh realities, all the hurt and the woes to just be with her – with that smart mouth, her snarky replies and her joy at beholding cheesecake. He would never see her grumble over the noisy kids in the town, nor hear her curse the baker who refused to sell her bread. He laughed, actually laughed at the memories that he held dear, of her smiles, and her horror movie collection, her grisly stuffed toy called Loch – who names her toys after the Ness monster?! He would never see her eyes shine up as she opened the microwave to revel in her creation – a blueberry short cake or something else that she always busied herself with. He didn’t want to face what he had dreaded, right from the day he’d set his eyes on her in Applecross. He felt a chill settling somewhere in his heart that had nothing to do with the morgue’s sub-zero temperature, as he walked towards the fully covered body at the farthest end of the room. Marco glanced at the haunted haggard face of the man barely able to walk beside him. He knew what Richard must be going through – like he failed her. None in Walhalla had known how Brooke looked as an adult – they just remember the gangly sick kid who shied away from people. But it was a slap to their faces – the fact that Paul could come back and finish off what he had started all those years ago.

Richard didn’t look as if he was physically present with him – his far off thoughts almost reflected off his gaunt tired eyes. He could see her running about in the backyard after the squirrel, and how she’d stop dead embarrassed when she was caught being cute in any way. He could recall her pensive face pouring over a book, and that red tip of her tongue out when she solved the Rubik. No
! She would have no idea about the endless moments he’d spent just watching her from his room. She was so unpredictable, mercurial and full of surprises. And it was all his. She belonged to him and him alone. It was fate, the cruel weaver of life, that had brought him to Cooper’s Creek to save her all those years back – as if it was written that he’d save her; time and again. But he failed. He failed her so miserably this time.

“Rick?”

Marco wasn’t sure if showing him Brooke’s body was the right thing to do now– given he was acting very strangely. His hands had gone cold, and there was like a shrouded dormant fire in his eyes that made him look half crazed. Had he been seeing Brooke? Were they in some sort of a relationship? He didn’t want to pry. He didn’t want to know, as it would just make matters worse in his investigation if Richard was involved with the victim. He thought he’d best leave him alone for some time. Richard wasn’t the cowardly type, and he wouldn’t freak out in the morgue alone. He squeezed his shoulders and walked out of the chilly room. Looking back, all he could see were the broken back and bent shoulders of a defeated and lost man – none of which was atypical of the man he knew in Richard.

Richard didn’t realise that he was crying – he could just taste the salty drops that wetted his lips. He didn’t really feel like crying – she would laugh herself to death if she ever found out that Richard had been
weeping. Well, if that was what it would take to make her laugh again, he was ready to weep his eyes out. But Brooke just wouldn’t budge. And she was so cold, everything was just so frigid around her. So cold and wet. Did he want to seal her fate by removing the sheet off her face now? Didn’t he know already it was Brooke lying on that cold hard steel bed, with a chunk of that lush chocolate hair missing from her head, her eyes wide in horror or maybe at peace finally? He didn’t know. She had been so tired of running and hiding all through her short life. Life. That had left her. That she would exhibit no more. She would hold him no more. Punch or shout at him no more. They say how the world comes crashing down around you – he was sure it was nothing compared to what he felt now.

Paul had just skinned him alive, taking away all that made it worthwhile, all his light and joys. It sucked out the sun and he was hurt, bleeding and stumbling in the darkness. He could feel the jagged remains of his world scraping and bruising him. Not that he didn’t hear the crash, he didn’t even feel it until it was just wasn’t there anymore. He knelt beside her and put his head on her side. The steel surface stung and bit into his sensitive skin.

She didn’t deserve this – a life of being in the shadows, watching others go by their normal lives and looking back to find a trail of bodies. And then she ended up in one of those graves of pity and misfortune. She was a fighter, a selfless person – hurt and carrying the burden of the massacre of the lives of 11 girls and their families. Richard wasn’t sure if she was at peace now – she wouldn’t, not having died at the hands of her treacherous father. Somewhere distantly, he could make out the vague ticking of the clock. At long last, he lifted off the sheet and looked down on her face.

There was no emotions – no hurt, anger or fear etched in those delicate features, no defeat in her crystal blue eyes. All he could make out was the inevitability of her fate that somehow she was sure of. He hoped to God, that Paul had done nothing to violate her, or he wasn’t sure if he would be capable of handling that information. Her hands were folded as if in prayer – funny she would pray in her death – she didn’t believe in asking of favours from anyone, not even God. No. He wouldn’t be able to stomach the stab wounds, nor did he want to know what was done to the body during autopsy. He just gazed into her lifeless lips – missing the quiver before she broke down, missing the pout over dinner. No matter what he said, what he felt, he’d never get those back. And it was all because of him. Paul. Her hurt, suffering, all her misery was always because of him. Her life being reduced to that of a homeless refugee was because of him. The fact that he could never be with her without putting her in danger was because of Paul.

Anger like never before bubbled inside of him – mixed with the hurt and the pain. No, the pain of losing her forever hadn’t sunk in altogether – that would come later. But now, all that remained inside of him, all that blinded him was to make Paul pay, for each of those moments that Brooke had spent not living, but simple surviving. He walked out of the morgue. The warmth outside the room hit him like a blast as he noticed that it was dawn already. The sun weakly shone through the rusted railing of the station windows.

Marco had dozed off in his office. Thick lines of fatigue etched across his face, he looked positively older and defeated. Dealing with overtly stressful situations wasn’t common in the sleepy town of Walhalla. His office was in total disarray- papers strewn all over the place, police records,
and old and new surrounding him, and a huge open flask of cold coffee. He woke up with the sound of approaching footsteps, and wished to God that Richard had come to his senses. He ran his hands through his unkempt hair, and scratched his chin, pondering upon what to ask the man. He strained his ears to locate Richard, but couldn’t. He walked over to his door and peeked outside – there was no one to be seen, except the keys to the morgue kept by the coffee machine. He didn’t like the feel of it – he hadn’t liked the gaunt look in Richard’s eyes, and wished that he would stick to being the clever and smart guy that he normally was.

The journey back to the motel was uneventful, rather he could hardly notice the lush greenery that flashed past him as he drove back. He didn’t let go of the doll – it would constantly remind him that he failed, the cocky, go getter attitude that helped win him everything in life was
thrown right back at him, and the one thing that he wanted more than his life was snatched away unceremoniously. No. He wouldn’t drown himself in the loss, he wasn’t known to mope well. He was a man of action. He screeched to a stop on the highway and quickly took a detour.

When he reached Brooke’s little cottage off the highway, he parked his car in a wide enough recess amongst the adjacent shrubs and made his way silently in the cottage. He crinkled his
nose at the garden – at the rose bushes. She had eventually overcome her abhorrence for the flowers, or it was just her being a masochistic idiot. It was just like the one she loved to tend to in Applecross – where she would spend hunched up near her plants for hours on end. And she had built the picket fence, it was her handiwork. She never shied away from manual labour. Reaching the ornate front door, he stared at the heavy lock. Instinctively, he bent down and lifted the door mat. He knew he would find the key there.

As he entered a blast of familiar warmth hit him – the semblance of each element in that cottage to the days spent in Applecross was like a sucker punch. He hadn’t realized that her scent, the fragrance of lavenders would only increase the pit inside him with a piercing pain. The rooms were still warm, as if she was somewhere lurking in the house cleaning and rearranging her already sorted stuff. He walked around the kitchen- her favourite space in any house. The oven still had half baked cookies. Her essence was playing tricks with his mind, tantalizing his senses, as everything else blurred out and all he could focus was on how alive the house still felt. He almost expected her to step in from the front door and not be pleased about his presence in her abode. A scuffling at the far end of the house brought back his mind to the present. Must be a rat or a squirrel. Her bed was unmade, tangled sheets and cushions strewn all over the bed. The room looked sorted otherwise – the crime scene unit must have swept through the room for evidence. According to Marco, Brooke was
attacked in this very room. Oh! She must have put up one hell of a fight. Trained in three forms of martial arts – self-defence was one thing that she could take care of by herself. He tried to replay the scene in his mind to understand how Paul could have gained access to the house. Or could have guessed at all where she lived. With a sickening feel, he realised the only way for him to find out was through Richard himself. Paul had been on Richard’s trail for quite some time, since his escape from the prison. He must have tailed him to her cottage. He was so blind in his mission to win over her faith, that he had absolutely ignored keeping track of Paul. He knew, he had known that the reason Brooke had to leave Applecross was because Paul had discovered her hiding spot, and there was just one other person besides the police forces who knew about Brooke. It was his damned fault that Brooke died, brutally, mercilessly and in the way that she hoped against fate wouldn’t come to pass. If it wasn’t for him, Paul would never have known Brooke’s current location. She would still be living, breathing and happy. It was as if every time Richard intervened in her life, things went haywire and turned for the worse. She could have moved on, and lived for fifty more years – married, had kids and died peacefully with a grave with her untouched uninjured body. He broke down. No matter what he did to make her life a tad better than what she had to resign to, it fell apart. He snuck into the bed and snuggled into her crumpled sheets. He closed his eyes, and breathed in the smell of his salvation, and his ultimate death sentence. He could feel shadows cross over his face through the half opened window above him, could sense vaguely the soft rustle of the nearby forest trees, and the distant din of the highway traffic. He wanted to spend the rest of his waking moments just this way – enveloped in her scent and warmth – even when it grows cold and lifeless. He couldn’t face life, knowing he failed her in ways more than one.