“I’m fine—”
“We have cold tea, cola, filtered water? Or Kombucha? Kombucha is popular with the backpackers.”
“Cold water would be nice.”
Reaching past her, Sophie closed the door that Megan had just opened. “Sorry, we have to maintain a certain humidity for the orchids. I’ll radio Freddy to bring us some drinks. And a pen for you.”
Just before Megan had turned back, she’d glimpsed Tate’s house. Two people had been exiting a room on the top level. Through the all-glass frontage, she’d seen a tall man in a white shirt and a young, slightly-built girl. He’d had his hands on her shoulders, her dark hair sweeping low as she dropped her head. For that moment, Megan could have sworn the girl was Gemma. The house was a short distance away and she couldn’t see facial features, but there was something distinct and familiar in the uneven way the girl sloped her shoulders and lowered her head. Megan was well-trained in body language, and this girl was so… Gemma.
36
Gemma
Gemma stepped ahead of Tate into the service elevator at the back of the house.
Dead girl walking.
That’s what she was.
She had blood roaring through her veins and breath in her lungs, but not for long. Megan arriving at the farm was a brief reprieve. Tate couldn’t have a dying girl lying on the floor of a room upstairs while he was busy with a visitor. It was too risky.
They rode to the bottom floor, and Tate opened the underground room again.
Gemma avoided Hayley’s eyes as she entered. She couldn’t bear to see the hurt and accusations she knew would be there. She wished Tate had just gone ahead and given her the injection upstairs.
Tate crossed the room to Hayley, bending to cup the side of her face with his hand. “Why so sad?”
Hayley raised her head to him. “I’m just… confused. Gemma was never a friend.”
“Gemma just wasn’t one of us, that’s all,” he said. “Some people simply can’t learn. They’re too wild. But you’re one of us. You’re a very special hothouse orchid.” His hand lingered for a moment, trailing across her temple. Then he turned to Eoin. “Both girls need to relax. The hothouse orchid and the wild orchid have had a rough time. Please administer these sedatives.” He set the kit that he had brought from upstairs on a sideboard. He then pulled out a small drawer in his kit and handed two vials to Eoin. “This one for Hayley, and this one for Gemma. You know how to inject these safely, right?”
Exhaling hard, Eoin nodded. “Anything to shut them up.”
“Do it quickly. No messing about, okay?” Tate told him. His gaze swept over Gemma, and he walked back to her. He touched her hair. “Do this for me. Life doesn’t have to be such a struggle, you know.”
Gemma stared back, swallowing.
It was an insanity, but somehow, it would have been easier to die knowing that he loved her. But he didn’t. He never had. You don’t kill people who you love. You don’t intentionally hurt them. She felt the dizzying light that had been Tate go completely dark.
In the hollowness that opened up inside her, she was ready for death. She deserved this. He was right—she’d been loyal to no one.
The smile faded from Tate’s face, and he strode towards the door of another room. He tapped numbers onto the keypad and retrieved something from the room that Gemma couldn’t see.
He left quickly.
When Tate was gone and the bunker was closed again, Eoin turned to them, a smirk indenting his cheek. “I get to shut two women up at once. Usually that only happens in bed.” He carried the kit over to Gemma. “You first. Maybe I’ll like you more when you’re asleep.”
Gemma eyed the two vials that he held in his right hand. Her breath stilled. “They both have the blue label.”
“Yeah. Blue.” He shrugged.
She licked lips that had gone dry. “The blue is just for me. The yellow should be for Hayley.”
He shot her a wary glance. “I’m not playing around with The Chemist’s drugs. These are what he gave me, and I’m using them. Can’t wait to put you to sleep.”
“Forever,” she said. “Because you’ll be putting us asleep forever with those. The one with the blue label is lethal.”
Hayley gasped then shook her head vehemently. “That’s crazy. She’s lying again. You can’t trust her, Eoin. I don’t know why Tate brought her back here.” She walked to the furthest corner of the room, balling herself up on an armchair.
“Yeah. That’s a load of old shite, Gemma.” Eoin gave an incredulous grin. “Tate didn’t ask me to kill you.”
“He didn’t have to,” Gemma told him. “The drug will do that all by itself. It takes about fifteen minutes to put you into a deep sleep and about half an hour for your heart to stop beating. Tate didn’t have time to wait for me to die upstairs. He has a visitor.”
Eoin rolled his eyes. “You’re saying Tate took you away to murder you?”
It seemed such an ordinary thing, to hear it like that. It was an ordinary thing, to Tate. “Yes,” she replied in a dead tone.
“Bollocks.” Placing the kit on a table nearby, Eoin drew liquid into the syringe from a blue-labelled vial. “They’re just sedatives. Sit tight, and you’ll be sleeping like a baby in no time.”
Desperation welled inside her. “Hayley wasn’t supposed to die. He promised me. Eoin, you have to believe me. There are three different types of drugs in that kit. The one with the yellow label is a sedative. The one with the blue label is lethal. The one with the green label is the memory drug.”
“What the fuck is a memory drug?” he scoffed.
“The memory drug makes you forget bad things. Tate doesn’t like us to have bad thoughts. He even gives us bad memories and then takes them away. I don’t know why.”
Eoin started laughing. “You’re off your nut, you know that?”
“It’s true,” Gemma insisted. “Clay had nightmares about the cold room. The drug failed to work completely on him. Same for Ellie. You’re one of the successes. Congratulations.”
He made a mocking sound from between his teeth. “Yeah, right. Tate had nothing to do with the cold room. The people in the freezer got snap frozen by Rodney White. The guy was gone in the head.”
“That’s what Tate wants you to believe. But Rodney was just Tate’s assistant.”
“Shut it,” Eoin hissed. “Hold still, and let’s get this over with—like the good little girl that you’re not.”
She whirled around to face Hayley. “I swear I’m telling the truth. Look, I’ll tell you what really happened three months ago, the first night we were taken to the cold room.”
Hayley refused to look at her. Gemma took a few faltering steps towards the back of the room, where Hayley sat with her arms wrapped around her knees.
“Tate had Rodney take us there,” Gemma told her. “We were made to stand and look at dead people. We saw Clay and Ellie, dead in their chairs. We managed to escape, but not for long. Rodney forced us back into his van, at gunpoint. He took us to his property and put us in his aviary, in the shed at the back of his house.”
Hayley’s eyes were cold and angry as she raised her head. “I remember the aviary, but that’s not how we got there.”
“It’s exactly how we got there,” Gemma said. “You don’t remember because Tate stole your memories afterwards. Tate didn’t know Rodney put us in his birdcage, so he didn’t take that part of your memory away.”
She unlocked her arms from her knees, fingers trembling. “It doesn’t even matter. What matters is what Rodney did. All the things he did. In that cage. I don’t remember everything, but I can still feel his disgusting hands on me.”
Gemma shook her head. “No, that’s not what happened—”
Jumping to her feet, Hayley’s hands formed fists. “Don’t tell me none of that happened. Don’t you dare—”
Tears wet Gemma’s eyes. “Yes, Rodney did those terrible things to you. That’s true. But not there. Not in the cage. We were in t
here for just a few minutes. Not months or weeks. Minutes. Tate called and demanded to know what was taking Rodney so long. Rodney was forced to bring us straight back to Tate. He didn’t touch us. We were at the farm for the whole three months.”
Hayley was crying now too. “Then where… where did Rodney do those things to me?”
“In the house. In Tate’s house. Under Tate’s direction.”
“No,” she cried out. “Stop. Just stop. You’re nothing but a liar.”
Gemma turned as Eoin moved up alongside her, his expression dark. “You’re sure of that?”
Gemma nodded.
His breaths came short and sharp as he seemed to struggle with his thoughts. He kicked out at a sideboard, the wood cracking into a deep dent. “I’ve had it,” he raged. “I’ve had it with everything. This is where my loyalty to anyone on this damned farm ends. I’m looking out for number one now. And I’m not staying down here like a sap any longer.”
“You really think there’s a way out of here?” said Gemma. “Tate wouldn’t be so careless.”
“Well, he wasn’t careful to cover up his key presses when he opened the supply room,” said Eoin. “I watched his code. 197890. Like I said, I owe no one my loyalty anymore. Not even The Chemist.”
Gemma stared as Eoin marched up to the keypad on the supply room and punched in the numbers. With a click, the door unlocked.
He strode into the room.
Gemma ran in behind him.
He turned. “I didn’t tell you to follow me, you damned sheep.”
Ignoring him, Gemma scanned the room. If they could get away, it would be her only chance to save Hayley—and herself. A mere moment ago, that was an impossibility.
Eoin cursed as he stomped about, messing up Tate’s careful order. “How the hell do we get out of this hole? I can’t find anything. I thought there’d be a remote control or something.”
Gemma kept frantically searching.
The supply room was crammed full of large lab equipment on the floor and files on the shelves. A small fridge held vials of drugs. A computer and monitor sat on a high desk, the screen showing that Tate had been looking up flights to America earlier. He’d obviously been in a rush today, leaving his computer switched on. Gemma knew that he was normally so vigilant with everything.
Eoin was right. There was nothing here they could use to get out. They were essentially entombed until Tate returned.
Frustrated, Eoin stormed out of the room.
Gemma peered inside a file filled with more USB computer drives than she could count. What does he keep on all of these?
Taking out one of the drives, she inserted it into the computer. The drive contained digital folders that were labelled with dates and cities. Sydney, Melbourne, London, Rome, Amsterdam, Baltimore, New York, San Diego.
Does Tate document all his travels?
She clicked on a file in the folder that was labelled Baltimore.
A video flicked onto the screen.
Tate sat at a table in an upmarket hotel room. An older man sat across from him, dressed in a well-cut suit. A girl slept on a sofa across the room—thick dark hair splayed across a cushion. She looked like a teenager, maybe about fifteen years old, with high cheekbones and childlike smooth skin.
“Are you sure she won’t remember the event?” the man asked Tate.
“There’s no guarantee for a hundred percent wipe,” said Tate, “But she won’t remember enough of the details to be convincing in court. And she’ll contradict some of her earlier statements to the police. That’s all you need. Judge Mitchell’s son is safe.”
“Will she remember anything about the rape?” the man pressed.
“She’ll no longer consider it rape,” Tate said.
The man shook Tate’s hand. The video ended just as the man opened a suitcase on the table. Gemma caught a glimpse of wads of money inside.
Was this what Tate had done all those times he was away from the farm?
He’d told her that in the end, his testing and research would be for good. He’d said that because of him, anyone who wanted to rid themselves of a traumatic memory would be able to do it. She’d known his methods were wrong and that people died.
But he wasn’t helping people.
He was doing it for money. And more than that, he was obsessed with power. Power in the business world. Power over his farm. And power over the victims he kept in his cold room. She’d been to the cold room with him a handful of times. He’d killed his victims with a slow poison, arranging them into a sitting position as they finally lost consciousness, so that rigor mortis didn’t make it impossible to pose them afterwards. He’d sit with his frozen victims, speaking to them like they could hear him. It was as if they had been witnesses and confidantes to all his misdeeds. And then he violated them again, using them as objects of horror to shock people with—his test subjects from the farm.
A cold shiver passed through her body.
Gemma looked through the other USB drives. A drive labelled Ellie caught her attention. She inserted it into the computer.
There were dozens and dozens of video clips of Ellie in folders, stretching back twelve months.
She clicked on one dated six months ago.
It showed Ellie walking into the cold room. Gemma instantly knew where it was, even though none of the dead people were shown. The camera focus remained on Ellie.
Gemma watched as her eyes lit on the scene in that room.
Screaming.
Covering her face.
Trying to run.
The video stopped. When it started again, Ellie was in the meditation room, struggling, restrained by Rodney.
Tate injected her with a syringe. Rodney left the room. Tate gently sat Ellie sat on the armchair. She seemed suddenly dazed and confused.
“I want to go home,” she whimpered.
“Why do you want to go home?” Tate asked her.
“I don’t remember. There was a circle… people… chairs. I feel… scared.”
“A circle? What kind of circle? Were they people at a meeting, perhaps? It’s normal to feel scared when meeting people for the first time. It was a meeting, wasn’t it? At the job you had before you came here? Yes, you told me before. You worked for a tourism company. Was that the first time they held their meeting in a circle? That must have been a little disconcerting.”
Ellie nodded vaguely. “I’m glad I don’t work there anymore.”
“Me too,” Tate said. “It’s much better here for you, with everyone who loves you.”
“Who loves me here?” she mumbled.
“I do,” he told her. “And so does everyone else. We’re your family. We’re here for you.”
He held her, stroking her hair. “Ellie, you are the most fragile of orchids. You need a lot of care. It’s lucky you found your way here to us.”
Gemma stopped the video, browsing through the Ellie files until she came to the one with the most recent date. She played it.
Ellie was sleeping in the reclining position on the white armchair in the meditation room. Her long dark hair hung damp around her shoulders. Her wrists were wrapped in gauze, blood seeping through.
Gemma inhaled a deep, silent breath. It was the day Ellie had cut her wrists. She remembered that now. When Tate had used his drugs to make Hayley forget the suicide attempt, Gemma had made herself forget too.
Someone else walked into the view of the camera. Sophie. She was clad in gym gear, her blond hair pulled back in a severe ponytail. She put a hand to Ellie’s forehead. “She has a high temperature. I’m guessing the knife she used was a bit rusty.”
Tate sighed. “This wasn’t supposed to happen. I miscalculated and pushed her too far. But it’s not a waste. She taught me a lot. I’ve refined my treatments because of her.” He paused, shaking his head. “We’ll have to dose her with antibiotics and see how she does.”
“Tate,” said Sophie, looking alarmed. “We can’t. She’ll want to go home for sure after this. An
d we can’t predict what she’ll do or what she’ll remember.”
“You’re right of course. But I hoped that if I kept trying, I’d find a way to completely remove those memories.”
Sophie didn’t look convinced. “Better to try it on someone new, right? The treatments are only meant to be one-time events. Not multiple. I mean, it’s impressive that you’ve managed to remove Ellie’s memories so many times, but it’s become too risky. And maybe… choose your test subjects more carefully.”
Tate frowned deeply. “What do you mean by that?”
“Someone’s got to say it. So far, your formulation has only worked well on very young, very vulnerable people. And even then, the subjects have breakthrough memories. It’s not ready for the market, yet you’re selling it as if—”
“I didn’t expect that kind of disloyalty from you, Sophie,” he said tautly, his expression growing hostile.
She softened her tone, a hint of fear sending a quiver through her voice. “It’s not disloyalty. I’m just worried. About things like this.” She gestured at Ellie. “I know, Tate. Much more than you think I do. I know about the orchid formulation. It’s just hype. It’s just what you tell your clients to make it sound like you’ve created a unique drug. I’ve known that ever since you hired me to work in your lab. You’re just using the same brain protein inhibitors that other researchers already know about.” She took a deep breath before continuing. “The only thing you’re doing differently is you’re experimenting on humans.”
He clutched her arm. “Stop there.”
She wrenched her arm away. “I’ve been loyal to you, Tate. I wasn’t long out of uni when I came to work for you. But I applied myself to being a damned good lab assistant. And when I found out what else you were doing, I didn’t run to the police. I came on board. Through thick and thin, Tate. Thick and thin.”
“You’ve been an excellent assistant. But you’re stepping way outside of your role here.” He enunciated each word from between his teeth, obviously incensed.
“Am I? I think I’m taking on a huge share of the risk. And I think it’s fair that I have an opinion on what happens. You know I didn’t agree with Gemma coming back here.”
Poison Orchids: A darkly compelling psychological thriller Page 29
