A Madness of Sunshine

by Singh, Nalini

  He left her with a hard kiss and a silent warning she heard as clear as day: Don’t let down your guard. Jemima might not be as innocent as she appears.

  That, of course, was what the media hounds were baying. They wanted to scream at Jemima, ask her if she’d known. If she said no, they’d ask her how she could’ve possibly not known.

  Anahera wasn’t naïve. She didn’t think Jemima was innocent in everything. The other woman had known about Vincent’s affair but helped him create the image of a perfect family man nonetheless. But Jemima wasn’t involved in murder, of that she was certain. Vincent hadn’t valued his wife enough to bring her into his psychopathic daydreams.

  After placing her new laptop bag on the passenger seat of the Jeep, she brought up Jemima’s number and made the call. She’d already tried once, but Jemima hadn’t responded. Not wanting to put further pressure on a woman already trapped in a nightmare, she’d left it at that, sure that Jemima’s wealthy family would swoop in and rescue her. But either they were total assholes, or Jemima had frozen them out, too, because no strangers had come through the Cove except for the reporters.

  Once again, the phone rang and rang. She was just about to hang up when Jemima picked up. “Ana?”

  “Yes, it’s me,” she said. “You want company? I can bring up coffees.”

  A pause before Jemima said, “Can you get hot chocolates for the kids, too? More milk than chocolate? They’re going ­stir-­crazy cooped up in the house.”

  “Consider it done. Should I push the buzzer at the gate when I arrive?”

  “No, call me on your phone. The reporters kept pushing the buzzer so I disabled it on this end, and someone’s smashed out the security camera so I can’t see who’s at the gate.”

  Probably an unscrupulous reporter hoping to sneak up without being spotted. “I’ll be there in about twenty minutes.”

  Once in the café, Anahera placed the drinks order with the temporary barista Josie had ­hired—­one of Shane Hennessey’s groupies. It turned out the girl had been a barista in Wellington before she came to Golden Cove. And she was good. But it was unsettling to see another beautiful, lissome girl behind the counter.

  “How’s the job going?” Anahera forced herself to ask.

  Dark eyes shone at her. “It’s a little weird. People keep asking me about the girl who died, and I didn’t know her. But mostly, it’s nice. Super busy with all the out-­of-­towners—­I’m glad I’m not having to manage alone.”

  “Tania’s good company.” Josie had hired Tania Meikle to wait tables at the same time that she’d hired the barista; Josie herself was now out of commission. Her ankles had been heavily swollen yesterday when Anahera dropped by to see her before heading to Will’s place.

  “Yeah, she is. She’s just popped out to deliver an order to the B&B.” Frothy steamed milk poured onto the reduced amount of chocolate.

  “She got the sitter situation sorted?”

  “Her husband’s ­mother—­lady’s kinda ­prune-­faced, but Tans says she’s nice to the baby.” She put the lids on the children’s drinks, then began on the coffees. “You want some cake, too?”

  Memory slammed into Anahera. Of another girl and another piece of cake.

  “Yes,” she said. “Box up six cupcakes.” The kids would enjoy them and Jemima could probably do with a little sugar and comfort, too.

  She managed to get everything to the Jeep in one trip, as the barista had put the drinks into a cardboard holder that proved stable, and the cakes were in a small carry box. Drinks balanced on the passenger seat and kept from falling by the cake box on one side and her laptop bag on the other, Anahera pulled out into the street.

  She made sure all her windows were raised and her doors locked before she turned into the drive of the May estate. Halfway along and her upward momentum turned into a crawl; the sides of the drive were lined with TV vans from both national and international networks, large SUVs with radio station logos and satellite dishes on the top, even a small bus.

  Vincent’s arrest had made news headlines around the world. He’d visited a lot of towns and cities, and all those towns and cities were currently combing through their missing person files, looking for women and girls who fit the profile of Vincent’s known victims. So far, the authorities had revealed five possible matches.

  Every single face had sent a chill up Anahera’s spine.

  All those faces, all those women, they could’ve been her sisters. Different races, different cultures, but there was something eerily similar that tied them together.

  Able to see the knot of reporters up above, she kept her eyes on her goal. The vultures swarmed around her the instant she got within reach. Honking her horn, she continued to move forward. The instant she stopped, the rabid mob would take it as a cue to keep her locked in place until she gave them something.

  That’s what they’d done after Edward’s death. It hadn’t been this bad, of course. There’d been no questions around the nature of his passing, but the media had still wanted a sound bite from the “grieving widow” of “a dramatic genius taken before his time.”

  Anahera had given them nothing then and she’d give them nothing now.

  Lighting flashes through the windscreen, the photographers taking her image in the hope of somehow being able to use it. Someone would eventually identify her, but it mattered little in the grand scheme of things. This wasn’t London, a city she’d first inhabited as Edward’s “ingénue bride,” the “unspoiled” young woman who’d stolen his heart right under the noses of society beauties.

  Everyone had wanted to meet her.

  Anahera had never been comfortable in that role, but the glamour and attention made Edward happy so she’d gone along with it. It was a small sacrifice, she’d thought, when he loved it so much. Then her music unexpectedly caught the attention of a record executive and her identity was reshaped ­again—­from ingénue to “gifted pianist.” Edward had gloried in that, too, in being part of one of London’s “reigning creative couples.”

  He’d been proud of her skill, had spent hours lying on the couch on Sunday mornings listening to her play.

  That had been no illusion.

  Right then, as she fought the media, she was unexpectedly glad he’d had those moments in the sun, her flawed, talented, lying, loving husband.

  Camera crew jostled for space, trying to get better shots of Anahera’s face. She didn’t attempt to hide ­it—­she’d be in court sooner or later as a witness anyway.

  Finally halting, with her bumper only an inch from the sliding gate, she waited until one of the patrol officers reached her, then lowered her window. “Mrs. Baker is expecting me,” Anahera said. “She’ll open the gate when I call.”

  The cop said something into the radio at his shoulder, listened as he received a message back. “Give us two minutes to clear the horde from the gate. And look out for the ­dogs—­they’ll come running the instant the gate begins to open.”

  As Anahera watched, the cops got on with the job. The reporters didn’t resist ­much—­probably because the memory of that ­dog-­mauled cameraman was still fresh in their minds. Ana made the call after the officer gave her a nod. “Jemima, I’m at the gate.”

  It began to slide back almost at once.

  Waiting only until it was open just far enough, Anahera slipped through, then told Jemima to close it.

  Four huge black dogs boiled out of the trees at that moment, snarling and barking and heading straight for her Jeep.

  64

  “Jesus, Jemima.”

  “Drive,” the other woman ordered. “They’ll go for the people at the gate. Matthew assured me they know not to cross that barrier.”

  Anahera wasn’t so certain of that, but she kept on driving as, behind her, the gate slid shut again. Barely in time. One of the dogs slammed into it, its jaws wide open. No wonder Jemima was keeping her kids indoors.

  Parking her Jeep right by the front door of the glass and timber guesthouse
, Anahera opened her own door with care. She couldn’t hear the dogs, but she still moved as fast as humanly possible to grab the drinks and cakes. Jemima was waiting for her in the doorway, sea green eyes jaggedly brilliant in a face as pale as porcelain.

  “Here, I’ll take those,” she said with a graciousness that seemed habitual.

  “Those dogs, Jem.” Anahera shut the door behind herself, then took the drinks from Jemima. “I can see they’re doing a good job, but they’re vicious.”

  “Matthew’s going to pick them up tomorrow,” Jemima told her, leading them into a large living area made warm and snug by the crackling fire in the hearth.

  Her face changed as she entered, her expression brighter and happier. “Sweethearts, look what my friend Anahera’s brought! Treats!”

  The two children jumped up from where they were playing with Lego bricks on the floor. Fidgeting, their small faces aglow, they nonetheless remembered to say, “Thank you!” to Anahera before they reached out to pick a cupcake each from the box their mother held open.

  “I’m going to put your drinks here,” Jemima told the children, placing the hot chocolates on a coffee table by the play area. “You both know you have to sit at this table to eat and drink.”

  Two happy nods, faces already smooshed with pink and purple frosting.

  Putting the extra cakes on the dining table to the far right of the ­open-­plan space, Anahera following suit with their coffees, Jemima smiled at her children and it was incredible, the fierce power with which she held back her sadness and grief in their presence. “If I leave these cakes near them, they won’t be able to resist, and their little tummies can only hold so much.”

  Anahera took off her anorak and hung it on the back of the chair before taking a seat across from Jemima. “They’re sweet kids.” Well raised rather than polite robots too scared to step a foot out of line. Currently, they were giggling as they painted mustaches onto each other’s upper lips with the frosting from their cupcakes.

  Jemima’s face crumpled for a second before she slapped the cheerful mask back on. “I don’t know what this will do to them,” she said in a low tone that wouldn’t reach Jasper and Chloe. “To grow up being known as the children of a serial killer?” Her anguish was a raw wound. “Daniel’s coming back into the country tomorrow to deal with some urgent business matters. He said he’ll fly us out of here. At least I can take my babies away from the center of it all.”

  “Good. You don’t need to have that ugliness on your doorstep.” Those vultures wouldn’t be leaving anytime soon. “It’s good of Daniel to offer to fly you out.” The news choppers did the occasional flyover here, but they tended to concentrate on the activity at the Baker house and the crime scene in the bush behind ­it—­Vincent’s private burial plot. If Daniel timed it right, he could be in the air and away before anyone realized he wasn’t alone in the chopper.

  “Vincent never had a nice thing to say about Daniel, but he doesn’t want anything from us. When the police came and said we couldn’t stay in the house, I didn’t know what to do, but Daniel and Keira were there minutes later.”

  Anahera figured Daniel must’ve been tipped off by a police ­contact—­and she also figured she knew the name of that police contact. “Daniel’s not a bad guy.” Arrogant, yes, but when it mattered, he stepped up.

  Jemima squeezed her takeout cup, denting it. “My family wanted to fly in the instant they heard, but I told them to stay away. They came anyway, are waiting in Christchurch.” She swallowed. “I had to get things straight in my head first. I couldn’t deal with my father telling me what to do while my sisters organized my life.”

  Anahera sat back and let Jemima talk, and she learned that Vincent had chosen the most ­soft-­spoken and submissive of four sisters, the woman least likely to question his actions.

  “I went along with everything,” Jemima whispered. “The nights when he just disappeared, the days when he’d shut the door to his basement workroom and ignore me and the children, the way he’d be so cold to me when we were alone and so warm and affectionate when we were out in ­public—­I pretended that was the real Vincent. Because that was the Vincent who courted me. Who married me.”

  Anahera nodded. “I understand.”

  The other woman’s expression fractured, her lips quivering. “You’re the only person who can say that and that I know actually does understand. Thank you for sharing your secret with me. I won’t tell anyone.”

  It was such a stark thing to say, stripped of all pretense. “And whatever you tell me,” Anahera replied, “it stays between us. No matter what.”

  “You’re with that cop.”

  “I’m my own person.” She also understood the ugly truth that ­long-­term abuse had an insidious impact on the psyche; no one who hadn’t walked in Jemima’s shoes had the right to judge her. “My father beat my mother for most of their life together. And she stayed. She even stuck up for him against people who called him a bully. She told them he was a wonderful husband and father.”

  Jemima stared at Anahera. “Did she ever get away?”

  “Five years before she died. The first time he punched me.” Anahera could still feel her head snapping back with violent force, her body flying back. “I got into the middle of a fight between them and he went for me. I never knew before that day why he’d never once touched me even in the worst of his rages. Because that was my mother’s bright line.” The one thing Haeata would not forgive.

  Jemima frantically wiped away the tears rolling down her face, shooting a quick look toward the children to make sure they hadn’t seen. “I was getting to that point,” she whispered. “He’d started to ignore the children more and more except when he needed to bring them out for a photo op.

  “They’d run to him for hugs ­and…” She stared at nothing for long minutes. “Vincent never yelled, but he’d be so cold, like our babies were stray animals who had nothing to do with him.” Her fingers clenched again around the takeout cup. “At night, in the darkness, I lie awake and I wonder if I would have left him if he’d carried on that way. Or if I would’ve stayed while my children suffered.”

  Glancing at the two ­frosting-­smudged kids currently sitting with their elbows braced on top of the coffee table while they drank their hot chocolates, Anahera said, “As far as I can see, they’re happy and ­well-­adjusted. Whatever Vincent withheld, you gave them in spades.”

  A tremulous smile. “You think so?”

  “I’ve never lied to you.”

  The smile brightened then disappeared. “I didn’t know,” the other woman said, her voice hollow. “Those nights when he disappeared, I thought he was going out and sleeping with other women. Maybe prostitutes. It was the worst thing I could imagine.”

  “I don’t think murder is the default assumption for any wife when her husband goes missing overnight.” Anahera leaned forward. “The media are going to hound you. If you decide to do an interview, control it.”

  “I won’t be talking to reporters,” Jemima murmured. “My oldest sister, Catherine, is a lawyer. She’s always been the strongest and mostly, I try to keep out of her way, but I called her and I asked her if the children and I can disappear.”

  A long exhale, traces of her South African accent slipping back into her words as she continued. “Catherine said it’ll be next to impossible in a small country where every news channel and outlet is going to be carrying this story for months, maybe years, along with photos of Vincent and me. At least they’ve been decent enough to spare the children.”

  She took a gulp of the tepid coffee. “It’s also a huge story in South Africa because of my family’s standing there.” More whispers of the accent, more cracks in the veneer of perfection demanded by Vincent and produced by this woman who’d loved him. “My face is apparently everywhere.”

  “You need to go somewhere you can start afresh.” Some people might call that running away, but fuck those sanctimonious pricks. They weren’t living this horror. “Eu
rope?”

  “Yes, that’s what I was thinking. Vincent’s known in London, and in a few cities like Paris and Milan, but most of his business interests are in the US and China. Catherine says the story hasn’t gained much traction in Europe beyond London.”

  Jemima turned her lips inward to wet them before continuing. “I was an exchange student in Germany during high school. I speak the language and I know how things work there. It has a population of tens of millions. We could vanish in all those people, just three more blond heads in the crowd.”

  Anahera reached out a hand, closed it over Jemima’s wrist. “Go,” she whispered. “Take care of yourself and your children. Be selfish.”

  “The police haven’t told me I can’t go, but they’ve strongly suggested I stay in the country. They want me to give evidence of the nights Vincent was gone over the years.” A haunted look in her eyes. “I kept diaries.” Pressing her lips together desperately, she squeezed her eyes shut for long seconds.

  “Did you hand them over?” Anahera asked when she was sure Jemima could speak without breaking.

  “During the second interview,” was the husky reply. “After I couldn’t lie to myself any longer, after they played me a tape of Vincent confessing to the most horrible, awful things.”

  “Then you’ve done more than enough. Vincent’s happily ­talking—­he’s never again going to walk free, whether or not you testify.” Anahera knew that if Jemima didn’t get out now, she’d be caught in the endless loop of trials and appeals and ­game-­playing by Vincent.

  “He called me.” Jemima’s fingers trembled around the coffee cup. “From the prison. And he was my Vincent. Oh, God, Ana, if I stay here, I’m so scared I’ll never break free.” A harsh whisper. “He’ll always have me.”

  “I’ll help you in any way I can.” No way was Anahera allowing Vincent to claim another victim. “If the police have frozen your assets, I’ll give you my bank card for my London account.” There was plenty of money in it, more than enough to help a woman who needed to get on her feet. “You can access it all over Europe and no one will ever trace it to you.”