Wicked Ways (Dark Hearts Book 1) (17 page)

I bet. I nodded. I didn’t think I could speak again without choking.

He pressed play and I sat there watching, my stomach churning, trying not to vomit.

The firing squad went much as expected.

They sacked me. I walked out, went down the elevator, and said goodbye to my past. I’d never get employment at a university again.

We won’t press criminal charges on any participants involved in this disgusting affair if you agree to dismissal without defending yourself in any way.

I should’ve protested that. What a chance to get Reuben up before a court. Public indecency? Probably. And I’d found I couldn’t. My tongue had seized up, like always.

My future was becoming darker and narrower, moment by moment.

I was in that compactor, garbage-disposal thing with Han Solo and Luke. The walls were closing in and I had no one to turn any of this off.

Reuben was right. Life wasn’t worth living. My chest hurt. Guess my heart had been beating too hard for too long.

My life flickered past in fits and starts where I awoke then forgot, then awoke...

Five forty three PM.
Soon it would be night.

I tried still. I tried hard. But three nights later, I was on the roof of a tall building, swaying. Down past my legs was the edge where my bare toes wriggled. Past that was a lot of air and then the street below full of little people and lights and cars. Tiny cars. The briefcase sat on the edge, beside my foot.

This was public, wasn’t it? It would count.

The wind pushed me forward and I swayed some more, feeling giddy.

I shouldn’t be here. I knew that. There was a part of me screaming
step back
, way down deep inside.

I could step off or step back.

One way Reuben won, the other way, who did? Me? Would I ever lose this need to die that he’d implanted? I’d just be up here again tomorrow.

“Maybe.” I whispered that, and barely heard the word over the wind humming about my ears.

A whimper from behind made me turn to look. A shaggy, gray mongrel slinked across the flat rooftop and stood panting a yard away.

A dog.

A reminder of life beyond this darkness that had me.

I blinked, feeling a miniscule need swirl in – the beginning of a trail of cards, of string, of memories that led me to...

Lower myself and pick up the briefcase.

Life, even one extra second of life, drew me as much as death beckoned. I clicked open the case and was almost too late to grab the square of paper inside before it blew away. It was a photo, lying face downward.

I turned it over, slowly, and it fluttered, struggling to get away. Since I had this notion it was important, I pinned the photo between finger and thumb.

What was this? Somehow, even the first glimpse of color in the overhead light, gave me back a piece of me.

I was so close to death, that the smallest chunk of life was as juicy, exuberant, and fertile as a slice of orange. Bite down on this, said the photo.

Pelagia.

This was a picture of Mister Black’s dog, Pelagia. With the sight of her, standing there in the bright sunshine of Greece, all shaggy-haired and panting, and smiling in that dumbass doggy way, hope came rushing back. There was a little crack in the monstrous wall created by Reuben and I’d found it somehow.

I clung to that notion with all of the worn-down faculties of my recently disintegrated mind.

I didn’t know the why or the facts or the mechanism, but I’d found a crack.

Sobbing, clutching the photo, I lowered myself and sat down with my back to the concrete parapet.

Hesitantly, the dog crept closer. Specks of rain pattered on my hands and the photo where I held it up to the light.

This, Pelagia, was possible. Life was.

I needed to stop being a stupid, complacent bitch.

I could do this again, I
could
live. I bit down on my lip and felt the pain, tasted the blood, and I was happy.

Wagging its tail, the dog nudged at my hand.

“Hello,” I croaked then I patted her. “How did you get up here?”

She sat on her haunches soaking up the pats I continued to give her, staying with me despite the strengthening rain. I tucked the photo away. I remembered leaving the door propped open when I’d come up here, as if afraid I wouldn’t be able to open it again and leave. Even then, it seemed I’d hoped I might not jump.

Something in me wanted life.

I focused on that, I curled imaginary fingers around that concept and I did not let it go.

I would keep this new need for life. It was a seed from which I could grow my future.

“You seem well fed and you’re very, very friendly. You must have an owner,” I told the dog. “Maybe you should go home before you get too wet?”

After a few licks at my hand, she trotted off toward the door.

I didn’t need her anymore, but I was so thankful. If she’d not been here, would I have remembered the briefcase? Had Mister Black planted the photo on me somehow? I tried hard and caught glimpses in my mind of me removing the photo from his wallet as I took the money.

My doing. I wanted it to be mine, not some creepy instruction of his.

I needed this to be my action, not anyone else’s. I remembered sitting in his hotel room staring at the photo of Pelagia like she was some sort a key.

Had my instinctive fascination with that photo made this possible? I dearly hoped so.

The picture had led me down my memories, like a trail of dominoes falling – one, then the other then the next.

What Reuben had inflicted on me would never go away completely but I could climb above it and survive. Water ran down my face but I was smiling.

The rain petered out and I stayed there, only sitting on the edge. With my legs dangling, I was admiring the view and marveling at being alive, when a new exultant feeling crept upon me. The feeling was to do with Reuben. I explored it as carefully as one would probe the raw socket where a bad tooth used to be.

Nothing was there.

Reuben...

Was gone...

From this world.

He was dead. Doornail dead. Dead parrot dead. I was making internal jokes about a once alive human being and I didn’t care one jot.

I knew I was right with the surety of someone who’d been away, journeying far from their country, descending the steps of their plane, then stomping their feet on the tarmac and knowing they were home.

“I’m free!” I screamed that one, and waved my arms wildly while grinning. Who cared who knew I was crazy? Dancing in the moonlight might come next.

I’d possessed an awareness of him and it had waned suddenly. I hadn’t been
aware
of my awareness until it vanished. So strange. Yet the asshole was terminated. By whom? Grimm?

Another tendril of awareness sneaked inside me and I looked down. Reuben’s death had perhaps awoken a new sense? Another mesmer seemed close.

Only this one didn’t instill fear in me. There was a longing.

Was Mister Black down there in the street?

I drew up my legs and swung to the side. Longing? I shut my eyes. Yes, it was true. Didn’t make any difference. I was free of one of them and I wasn’t about to let this other one make me his weapon.

If his death wasn’t an innocent accident, I needed an alibi. I waited for a safe moment and knocked the briefcase off the parapet. People noticed.

When they came for me, it wasn’t difficult to summon back some of the sadness I’d so recently shed. I had to take care, in fact, that I didn’t let it overwhelm me again. Standing on the edge and acting suicidal for them wasn’t all act. My life would forever be a minefield.

When I stepped down into a woman’s arms, my heart was thudding.

They took me away and I found I was grateful for the drugs to stave off depression. I made sure to keep the photo close.

For the moment, this was my key to sanity. I guess they saw that because they let me keep it under my pillow and in my pocket – anywhere I went in that ward for crazy people.

Grimm

With the recognition of Zorie’s scratched word on the bench had come both triumph and doubt. I did know people who knew people but I hadn’t been sure how much I could get them to do for me.

Lots, it seemed.

Over the years, while I was a bouncer, I’d become acquainted with several biker gangs, and some of them knew me already from Tom’s days as an enforcer. He was a tough bastard and the way he’d been taken out by a teenager had become a bit of a legend. A laughable legend, but still, he was remembered. When I told them what I needed done, the word had been passed along, fast. I had my answer in a day, handed over half the cash the next.

The results were in my hand.

“Satisfied?” The sharp-toothed grin from Rack said he knew I had to be, or else. The vid on the disposable phone was incriminating evidence and, if shown in court, we’d all go down for twenty years. “I need to make that phone toast. Seen it? Pay up the other ten K, Grimm.”

“Sure.”

The cash was from a time when I’d ventured into small deals, like delivering illegal goods or driving boosted cars to addresses that I never asked for details on, because I knew the cars were stolen. I left them and got paid. It was cash that’d made me feel dirty when making it then too dirty to spend, so I’d kept it aside. Sometimes in life, you just know you’re doing something wrong, or I had anyway. I figured helping Zorie was the best reason I’d ever get to use it. She’d be rich as hell now and could repay me if she wanted, though she hadn’t told me to spend my illicit savings on her. That had been my decision. Any man who would hypnotize and rape a woman, like Reuben had, deserved to die. Bastard.

“One last look,” I murmured and I pressed play. The light was dim but somewhere in the city at night. Not near a club, I’d bet, as those would have cameras. “Did this just happen?”

“Close to it. Fresh news. No one will be ID’d. No trails leading from that to me or to you, except that video.” Rack sniffed hard and waited, legs spread, a solid man in jeans and shirt, maybe trying to look incognito. People walked past this wall we stood near and noticed neither of us. This was a side street in the city with nothing special about it.

The vid reached the time when it happened. Six men walked past three other men, bumping them, surrounding them and when they left, three lay on the ground. Knives, I’d guess. Something dark pooled under one of the bodies.

“I can’t tell who it was.”

“It’ll be on the news tomorrow, if not tonight. They ID’d him, one hundred percent from the car rego and photos.”

Still, I hesitated.

“If you can’t trust me, who can you trust, man?” Rack raised his brows.

True. When my stepbrother, Tom, had died, this man, and some of the other bikers, had helped Mum get back on her feet. He was a cross between good and bad, like most people.

“Okay.” I gave him the plastic bags. Average, supermarket-variety, gray bags, only they didn’t have cans of dog food in them. “Thanks.”

“No worries.” He took the phone from me and removed the sim card then dropped it and the disemboweled phone into a coffee cup he carried. Whatever the fuck was in there, it steamed. “All done. Give me a call whenever you need things done. Just not for a while.”

Then he walked away with his faux coffee and his bags of money to a nondescript black sedan.

I watched him drive sedately down the street.

There went my innocence. Cue mock laughter. Tom had always asserted I was bad underneath, like him, but I figured this was me being good.

Reuben and his men had deserved to die. They were face down in the dust, or in the morgue by now. As a result, I had Zorie in my debt. Once the fuss blew over, I could move in on her, get the relationship alive again. I liked her a lot and she’d liked me. What a complex woman she was; it made the past seemed less relevant.

I guess I’d sensed from the start that she was something, someone, special. She’d intrigued me from that first day, years ago, when I’d seen
Zorina Brown
on the lecture timetable. I’d told myself to avoid her, but after a while my curiosity and my attraction to her had overwhelmed my reluctance. There weren’t too many people in the world with that first name. Even less with Brown as their last. From day one, I’d known it had to be her.

Zorie

I wasn’t quite crazy anymore, I think, but they kept me in the psych ward anyway.

For a day I was evaluated and kept on suicide watch – followed by staff wherever I went – before they dared to tell me Reuben, my husband, was dead. I guess that’s what happens when they think you’re off the deep end already. I tried hard not to break into a grin. I’d been right. My feeling had been right. Madoc and Dirke were dead too, though. I hadn’t expected that and wondered if that had been accidental. If on purpose it was disturbing, no matter how much I appreciated them being gone. I didn’t feel any remorse. What they’d done to me had been terrible on any scale. They’d wanted me dead. An eye for an eye.

The psych ward at the hospital varied from people wandering about saying mantras and rocking in corners, to quiet times, long quiet times, and loads of group sessions. So boring. They kept me in a strictly segregated bed until the police were done with their first interview. From the tone of voice and the questions asked, the police were a combination of puzzled, concerned, and suspicious.

Sandra was the only friend who came to visit me. Not Grimm, certainly not any of my other university friends. We talked, though she skirted anything that might be related to my ex-marriage or the sexcapade at the underground car park. The strain showed in her eyes. That she would even come to the ward touched me.

At last I took her hand. “Sandra. I’m fine. Really. I’m not as crazy as they think. Reuben was not a nice man and it was...fortuitous that he was killed, really.”

I prayed she didn’t have a police wire on her, or whatever they used nowadays, because that sounded a little incriminating.

“Okay. Look, Zorie.” She frowned at my bare feet for a moment as if there were answers down there. “People told me not to come see you, but I believe in you. Whatever happened, I know it wasn’t your fault. Okay?”

“Yes.” I cleared my throat while I fumbled for the right words. “I’m very lucky to have someone honest and loyal like you are. Really.” A few tears were shed but it was true and what she’d said had helped me.

Sandra only grimaced and held my hand tighter. I think I embarrassed her. I imagine that was a common reaction when visiting a psych unit.

She’d highlighted what I needed to remember. Not my fault. Not me. I clung to that when real depression sidled in and got me down. There were days like that. I guess that was to be expected. My life had been shredded, crushed, and flushed down the toilet. Gathering the pieces and sticking them back the way they had been was impossible.

On the very eve of my discharge, the police asked me some more pointed questions.

Days had passed by, maybe a week or two. Time had become a bit squidgy. I wasn’t normal even if I was normal-ler than most in there. How could I be?

Reuben’s last wife had suicided under unusual circumstances, the stern-faced cop told me, after only two months of marriage to him, and the police had had suspicions about my mental state when neighbors had complained of strange smashing noises coming from my terrace house.

“Oh.” I leaned forward. “Really?”

“Really. When a constable checked, you came to the door and said you were fine. He did look through a window prior to knocking on your door, and reported that your house was in a state that could only be described as wrecked.”

“Ah-huh.” I hadn’t the fucking tiniest memory of this. “And?”

“We couldn’t do more at the time. No one except you seemed at risk, and you denied it.”

I nodded. “I was upset at certain things.”

“Yes. The university informed us of those things. Your late husband was involved?”

I must’ve looked shocked.

“We believe he was ID’d from the video?” The man sat back. Perhaps thinking he was jeopardizing my mental health?

“I didn’t know that.”

“It triggered alerts due to previous suspected incidents. Never mind.” He shook his head. “Thank you for your statement and your time. I believe you’re being released today?”

They’d known about Reuben? He’d been on some sort of watch list?

They’d known.

“I am.”

That concluded the cop interview. It left me stunned. They’d known Reuben was dangerous and yet there I’d been in his grasp for weeks and no one had warned me. Perhaps I was jumping to conclusions but it seemed logical. I guess they couldn’t act without concrete proof and they certainly couldn’t go around accusing him.

My psychiatrist was the final hurdle after the other staff had completed their assessments. We sat on chairs in my room while she went through the procedure. I waited for her prompts and answered questions while trying to look cheerful and sane. She appeared unconvinced that a suicidal patient could recover so fast. The reasons for that I couldn’t divulge, so I acted as happy as a wife minus a new husband might be. During my stay, I’d sometimes broken out into tears and trembling, which would’ve reinforced my act. A pity that part was real.

Finally, she sat back, placed her biro on her neat white notepad, and looked at me.

I wasn’t sure of her name and the name badge was askew. Susan Slade? Sue Blade? Who knew? She had said. I gave up on trying to read it and smiled.

“Yes. I am feeling as if I could cope with life again. I’ve had no serious problems since I came in, you know this.”

She drummed her fingers slowly on the paper. “You’re going to be released today, Zorina.”

Always the proper name.

“Yes.”

“Make sure you keep up the prescription until it runs out.”

I nodded.

“You’ll be due for a checkup in one week.”

I nodded again, praying this would all go fast.

The government system meant those of low priority were discharged ASAP. Though in a private hospital, I was having the basic charges covered. I had become one of those of low priority, even if she had suspicions.

“I have suspicions that you’ve...”

Knew it.

“...been gaming the system somehow. You’ve never been truly ill, have you, Zorie?”

Wow. I was wrong.

“I –”

“I apologize. Disregard that.”

Mouth open, I nodded. No therapist ever should say what she just had, surely? Tsk. Someone was jaded by years of work. I didn’t blame her, though. I wasn’t the average person ready to slit her veins. I’d rather slit someone else’s, most days. Only my prime target was gone.

I was feeling cheated, I realized. I wished I could’ve been the one to knife him, to see him bleed. I shook myself out of my reverie. Act too strange and maybe this woman would decide to keep me in here longer.

“Hmmm. Normally we’d make sure you had support when you arrive home. Your sister is going to be there, but it says her flight is delayed and she’s not arriving for a few hours, and that she’s only here for three days?”

“Yes.” I shrugged. “She has kids. It’s not easy for her. She certainly can’t stay long.”

“Okay. I’ll get her to tell me when she arrives, though. After that, I’d like her to help you organize for another person to support you.”

“Sure.”

Going home and seeing Amelia again would’ve been a huge cause for celebration before this. That she’d only skyped with me while I was here...a little disappointing but I understood. My marriage had been out of the blue. That he’d then died and I’d ended up in a psych unit would’ve astounded her but that didn’t mean she could drop everything on the spot. Her husband worked on oil rigs overseas and, with three young kids to wrangle, coming to Sydney would be a huge undertaking.

Her unhappiness at not being able to come see me had been clear when we’d talked. That connection had been enough for me. I’d reassured her that I was on the mend anyway.

“Good luck, Zorie.” My Susan Blade, psychiatrist extraordinaire, shuffled some paperwork and blessed me with a neat smile.

“Thank you.” That was genuine. I rose and held out my hand to be shaken. Surprisingly, she took it.

“You too. I learned, watching you. You’re a perfect case of –” She halted, obviously caught by the realization that she’d nearly crossed that patient, doctor line again.

“Not a problem. I enjoyed my stay.”

I’d have set back advances in suicide prevention by decades, if she’d used me as a test case. Because I was cured wasn’t I?

Going home was as healthy as smashing my face into bricks.

Yeah, I wasn’t normal. I couldn’t face cleaning up my house. The mess in there... Stepping in the front door had panic climbing up through my throat in seconds, piling higher, higher, until I had to step outside and shut the door or scream.

Fuck. Even in death Reuben was doing a number on me.

I’d wait for Amelia, somewhere else. The park, of course. I think subconsciously I needed to see that park bench again and to look for clues. Had it been Grimm? Was that seriously possible? And if not him, who had done it?

My bench was no longer inviolable. Someone had decided the small graffiti needed embellishing and the entire bench had been destroyed, as if by a sledgehammer – warped and bent out of shape, with the slats sprung loose at one end. The council had built a temporary plastic safety fence around it to warn parents to keep children away.

“Damn,” I murmured, but I walked closer and hopped over the fence. Though the paintwork was completely gone in some places, next to where I’d written
KILLeR
there was another small word.

done

Well then. That seemed to point a big red arrow at Grimm Heller. Who’d have thought it? I had, and yet I hadn’t, quite, believed it. So Grimm was my hero? I wanted dearly to plant a medal on the guy. I shouldn’t go near him though, not until the murder investigation faded.

In a fog of internal reflection, I walked slowly back to my house, where I sat down to wait. Never judge a book by its cover, or a man by his tattoos, his history as a bouncer, and his somewhat dominant male aura? Or name. Grimm was a man of many talents. Murder was one.

What should I think of a man who could organize a multiple hit within a few days? That he hadn’t come to collect a pound of flesh; that he’d simply performed as I asked him to – that must be in his favor?

A word scratched into a bench wasn’t absolute evidence. Maybe it wasn’t him.

“Zorie?”

I’d been so immersed in sitting on the side steps, thinking, and hugging my knees that I hadn’t heard her taxi pull up.

I swung around. “Amelia?”

“Yes!” She dropped her small suitcase.

The girl was looking pretty, with her dark auburn hair in a shoulder-length cut that managed to show her curls off as neat yet wild. I wasn’t sure how she did that. I returned her hug, amazed at how narrow her waist was beneath the linen dress.

“Thank you
so
much for coming.”

“Not a problem. I’m getting you happy before I leave. Hope you know that?”

“Sure.” I hugged her again, smiling with my chin on her shoulder. “Absolutely.”

Amelia did her best.

We cleaned up the house, bought new stuff to replace the old. Cooked meals, reminisced over everything except my recent events because she figured it was best for me, and she was right. I’d had enough of people examining what had happened – not that my tongue would work when it came to the deeper truths. I smiled over her many pictures of her family though I ached inside to see how well her life had worked out. Even before Reuben, mine had been stagnant. Except for Grimm...I’d almost made something happen there.

My sister was a whirlwind of energy compared to me, but three days was a tiny amount of time when you’re busted up inside.

As predicted, three days from when she arrived, I waved goodbye to her at the airport and turned away to go find my car.

Who was I now? What had I become? I had a few more pills to take, but after that the structure was gone. My body was feeling the fatigue of not understanding where I would be resting my head in a year’s time.

I came to the conclusion that going to psych had been exactly where I should’ve gone, but now it was time to haul myself up by my bootstraps...whatever those were.

I’d told Susan Blade and Amelia that Sandra was going to come over regularly, but she wasn’t. I wasn’t someone she should associate with. Though my orgy hadn’t ended up on YouTube, some text messages I’d received had confirmed gossip was circulating. Being the good friend of a psycho slut, as I gathered I was being called, was the last thing Sandra needed.

So, my next helper wasn’t who I’d thought it would be. Which should have been no one.

On the same steps I’d sat on waiting for Amelia, was a big man with tattoos. Grimm Heller awaited me.

Facing him was...scary. He was the past, while I wanted to aim for the future and, I’d never been three feet away from a multiple murderer before.

If he’d done it?

He must have.

With my graffiti, I’d begged him to kill Reuben, but seeing him now, knowing he’d carried through? It was the weirdest feeling of dislocation.