Stranger in the Woods: A tense psychological thriller

by Anni Taylor

  I tensed. “Rory, is it Stella? Is she okay? She didn’t—?”

  “She’s okay. She’s doing all right, considering.”

  I stared at him in relief. My legs weakened and I sat on the sofa, opposite Rory. “Thank goodness.”

  “Yeah. A big relief for all of us.” He blinked, his eyes suddenly wet. He didn’t look like someone who was feeling any kind of relief.

  “Something happened, didn’t it?” I said.

  “Yeah, something happened.” He leaned his head back on the armchair. “I discovered something this morning. My dear wife has been cheating on me.”

  “Hell. I’m sorry.” I didn’t know what I’d been expecting him to say, but it wasn’t that.

  He sighed, eyeing the ceiling. “I don’t know what to do.”

  “You so didn’t need this right now. What a kick in the guts.”

  “Yeah. I know Camille didn’t mean to tell me. She blurted it out in a fit of rage. She was angry that I didn’t support her when she had that altercation with Kelly. She thought I should have blasted Kelly. She even said it was half my fault that Stella ran away. Because no kid wants to live with a boring old schoolteacher. Ha, maybe she’s right. Maybe I’m the most boring person on the planet. Anyway, that’s when she told me that she didn’t love me. She never loved me. She’d been seeing someone else for four years. Four. Fucking. Years. Practically the whole time we’d been together.”

  I stretched across to squeeze his arm. “That’s brutal. Wish I had a stiff drink or something to offer you. But I’ve got nothing.”

  “I’ve already had enough to drink. I’ve been drinking since last night. Not a wink of sleep.” He fixed a weary gaze on me. “Camille isn’t the woman I thought she was. I mean, what are you supposed to do when you find out something like this?”

  “I don’t know, Rory,” I said softly. “I just don’t know.”

  “This is going to be the talk of Greenmire if it gets out. At the very least, they’ll know that Camille and I have split up. That kind of thing always provides a hotbed of juicy gossip. Things were already bad. I mean, I’m the teacher whose stepdaughter ran away. Now I’m the teacher whose step-daughter tried to commit suicide. I know what people will be thinking. They’ll be wondering if I’m the right kind of person to be teaching their kids.”

  “Oh Rory, none of it is your fault.”

  Tears ran in streaks from his bloodshot eyes now. “I loved Stella like she was my own. I don’t know why I couldn’t reach her. I don’t know why she does any of the things that she does.”

  “Maybe this will prove to be the turning point,” I said, trying to project a note of hopefulness in my voice.

  “Well, I hope so for her sake. Maybe if I was the one she had a problem with, then she will come back and live with her mother. Because I won’t be there in the home anymore.” He gave a sad shrug. “Anyway, you were probably in the middle of some work when I barged in here. I should leave you in peace.” He looked at me curiously then, as if seeing me for the first time since he walked in. “Actually, hate to say this, but you’re looking a bit rough yourself.”

  “A lot has been happening. I’m still in shock about Stella. And there’s…other stuff.”

  “The car accident?”

  “No. I mean, that’s added to it. But it’s something else.”

  He sat straighter, his brow wrinkling. “Okay, what are we talking about? I’ve just offloaded on you. Now it’s only fair that you offload on me.”

  I dropped my head down into my hands. “I’m still processing it all.”

  “Sounds bad. Sometimes it takes a while for everything to go through the wash. I can see something has gone pretty wrong for you. I’ll hang here until you’re ready to talk. It’s the least I can do.”

  “No…I…the last thing I want to do is burden you with my woes right now. You have more than enough woes of your own. And really, I just need to be alone for a while to sort it out.”

  Rory set his eyebrows in a way that reminded me of a teacher trying to encourage an underconfident student. “I’m not going to abandon you.”

  “You won’t be abandoning me, I swear. Look, I’ll call you a cab and get you home…I mean, wherever you want to go. You’re not in any condition to be driving.”

  “Yeah, I shouldn’t have driven over here. That was a damned stupid decision. But you’re going to tell me what’s been bothering you, whether you like it or not. Hey, I will have that cup of tea, if that’s all right.”

  “Of course it is.” Rising, I went to boil the kettle. I wasn’t ready to talk, but the man sitting on the sofa was a half-drunk, sleep-deprived guy who’d just had his life burn to ash. I wasn’t going to succeed in making him understand me properly.

  With the tea made, I handed him a cup and then sat back on the sofa.

  Rory sipped his tea with an intent expression on his face, as if he were deep in thought. “Isla, just say it. You’ll feel better for it.”

  “It’s kind of strange. Well, it’s very strange.”

  “Say it.”

  I breathed deeply. “Okay. You know the man who was found in the forest a week ago? The one who’d overdosed?”

  “Yup.”

  “Apparently, I used to date him.”

  “Say what?”

  “It’s a bit of a crazy story. I’m not sure you’re in any state of mind to hear it.”

  “Actually, if it involves a bit of misery, lay it on me. I need to know I’m not the only one in turmoil.”

  I hesitated, not knowing where to start—because I didn’t know the start of the story. I didn’t remember dating Trent. I decided to start with the afternoon at the hospital. “You know the afternoon that I met you at the café and then Aubrey showed up? Well, Aubrey told me that this guy—Trent—wanted to talk to me. He was still in the hospital then. I thought he wanted to apologise for stringing up the scarecrow outside the cottage.”

  “That’s right—he’s the Australian who hauled the scarecrow up into a tree.”

  “Well, supposedly. There’s no proof. And he denied it.”

  “Aye, right,” he said sceptically. “Then what?”

  “The reason why he wanted to see me was to ask why I was pretending not to know him. But I was sure I’d never met him before arriving in Scotland. Then he showed me a photograph of the two of us together.”

  “Wow, that’s a wee bit creepy.”

  “Totally. I had no idea what was going on. So, later, I called my mother and I asked her if she’d ever heard me mention a guy named Trent. She had. She told me that, yes, I used to date him. Just before the episode in which I lost a chunk of my memory.”

  “What kind of episode? What happened?”

  “I’m an epileptic. I get seizures sometimes. This was a big one that I don’t remember. I was sick for months.” I eyed his incredulous face. “It gets worse.”

  “I’m all ears.”

  “When I used to date Trent, it was here, in Scotland.”

  He gulped a mouthful of tea, staring at me. “But you said this was your first trip here?”

  “Yes. That’s what I thought. I don’t remember coming here before. But I did.”

  “Mind blown.”

  “I warned you that it was a crazy story. I was very ill. My mother flew over to Scotland to fetch me. She said I was in a very bad way. Barely speaking. Bruises all over me. Something awful happened to me, but I don’t know what.”

  “Oh wow. Really? So, are you thinking that it was that Trent guy who gave you the bruises?”

  “It seems that way. But I just don’t know. My memory isn’t clear.”

  He inclined his head, as if an idea had occurred to him. “Isla, how did you come to accept doing a portfolio for Alban McGregor? Who invited you? I mean, is it possible that someone got you back here to Scotland on purpose?”

  I shook my head. “I found the proposal in the ad section of a photography website. I don’t even know why I found the idea of it so enticing. I barely
ever left Sydney for jobs, let alone heading overseas.”

  “Hmmm.” He thumbed the fluff on his chin that passed for a goatee. “Maybe it was you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, maybe you needed to come back for unfinished business. Your subconscious knows what happened here, and that’s what really spurred you to return.” He gave a nonchalant shrug. The kind of shrug people give when they think they’ve said something huge but they’re unsure of your reaction.

  I stared back at him. As soon as he’d spoken the words, I realised I already knew it was true. This whole trip had simply been unfinished business. Scotland was meant to be my new start—a place to find out what I wanted out of life. But in reality, there’d been pieces of my life missing and I’d returned to claim those pieces.

  “Rory, you’re right. My subconscious memories must have had a lot to do with me coming here.”

  “And now you’ve got to find out what happened.” He nodded.

  “I have no idea how I’m going to do that. The only memories I have are so fuzzy.”

  “We need to investigate this Trent guy. Find out who knows him. Find out who his girlfriends from the past were and talk to them.”

  “We?”

  “Aye. I want to help.”

  “I could be stirring up a lot of trouble.”

  “Sometimes, trouble needs to be stirred.”

  “It feels like I’ve already stirred things up, just by being here.”

  “Might as well keep it going, eh? Do you have any memory of Trent at all?”

  “No. Except, maybe his face is starting to seem familiar to me. It’s hard to explain.”

  “Do you remember anything at all about your last trip to Scotland?”

  “It’s all just blank. Except one thing—a place. It’s just a tiny old building. I’ve been dreaming about it for the past two years.”

  “What kind of building?”

  “A church. It’s just off the main road on the way to Inverness.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “A church? Okay, well…that’s something.”

  “It’s not much, but it’s all I’ve got.”

  “So, what are your dreams about?”

  “I feel like I’m in psychoanalysis.” A nervous giggle shot into my throat.

  “As a teacher,” he said, “I’ve had to do a fair amount of that. Shoot.”

  “Okay. It’s dark. Night. I’m standing in the doorway and I can see inside to a long corridor. There are rooms to either side of the corridor. In my dreams, one of the rooms always used to be locked. But now, today, it’s wide open. I can see inside of it. There are candles. I can hear a piano. But it’s like a crazy person is banging away at it. There are rosary beads hanging down somewhere overhead. And there’s a cross with a rose.”

  His forehead creased. “A cross with a rose?”

  “Yeah. I can’t explain more than that. Probably a religious picture or something. And, I’m in pain. Someone is hurting me.”

  “Jesus. That’s not sounding good.”

  I shuddered, the sense of pain and terror floating before me.

  Downing the rest of his tea, Rory eyed me over the edge of the cup. “Isla, have you talked about this with anyone else?”

  “No. I mentioned the church to Trent, but he didn’t remember it. No one else.”

  “Ah, it’s a shame you mentioned it to Trent. He’s the one most likely to have hurt you, right? I think it’s a good idea not to tell anyone else. Until we know what we’re dealing with. Someone out there knows what happened to you. For now, it might be better that you keep your cards close to your chest.”

  “Rory, the thing is, I’ll be going back to Sydney in a few days. I won’t have time to look into this. I just…want to go home.”

  “You’re going home so soon?” He fell silent for a moment, as if mulling over what I’d told him. “Maybe that’s a good thing for you. But if your memory is starting to return, it might just drive you crazy. Seems to me you came here for a reason.”

  I nodded. It seemed odd but reassuring that Rory wanted to help me. Like we were a team and I didn’t have to do this alone.

  “Hey,” he said, “first thing you need to do is to take a look at this church you mentioned.”

  “I couldn’t ask Greer to take me there again. She’s so busy. I’ll take a peek when it’s time to leave—I’ll get the taxi driver to stop, and I’ll run down and look through the windows.”

  Leaning, he set his teacup down on the coffee table, then turned to me with serious eyes. “I’ll take you.”

  “I couldn’t. You’ve got much bigger things to worry about. With Stella. And now the thing with your wife.”

  “Stella is being looked after by a team of professionals. And she doesn’t want to see me. My wife doesn’t want to see me either.” He gave a hollow laugh. “And it’s Sunday tomorrow. My class of kids especially doesn’t want to see me.”

  I smiled at his wry joke. The last person I would have wanted to see on the weekend was one of my teachers.

  “It’s a long way to where the church is,” I told him.

  “I’ve got time. How about I swing by here tomorrow morning?”

  “Rory—”

  “It’s all booked in.” He pulled out a pretend notebook and pencil from his pocket and wrote a pretend note. “Pick Isla up at nine thirty. Go to odd little church at the side of the road. Look for suspicious candles, crosses and pianos.” He half put the pretend notebook back in his pocket, then retrieved it and wrote another message. “Isla to buy Rory a coffee for his trouble.”

  I laughed.

  All the while, threads of anxiety shot through my veins. Should I really do this? Rory seemed sure. Me coming to Scotland had been no coincidence—that much I was now certain of.

  33

  ISLA

  Cold tremors shot through me as I waited by the spruce tree out on the roadside.

  It was a pretty spot, with the blue shades of the spruce contrasting against the snow. But this place was tinged with such sadness that I could almost reach out and touch it.

  It had been Rory’s idea to meet near the spruce, away from the prying eyes of anyone at the McGregor house. He’d told me he didn’t want any more rumours being spread around about him than there already were. I didn’t know if I’d ever felt sorrier for a human being than Rory. His wife and step-daughter had turned against him and he was also haunted by the death of a young girl who’d been his student.

  I’d called my mother last night, in a last-ditch attempt to find out about the church and put off going there today—but she hadn’t known anything about it. There had been a lot of tears and apologies from her for not telling me about Scotland. But I understood. She’d just been trying to protect me.

  Rory was right on time, practically to the second.

  The road was clear of any other traffic as I ran to the passenger door and slipped inside. We greeted each other with nods, neither of us willing to talk for the first couple of minutes. The whole thing seemed almost cloak-and-dagger—a secret rendezvous in which we were going to investigate a mysterious old church. I suppressed a tense laugh and almost wanted to tell Rory to forget it. Yesterday, I’d felt like I’d fallen through the rabbit hole with Rory as he’d poured out his anguish. Somehow, I’d then been comfortable enough to share my own stuff. Actually, he’d practically forced it out of me. But maybe I didn’t know him well enough to be sharing my murky dreams with him.

  I took a breath. I told myself I wasn’t nervous because of Rory. I was nervous due to the thought of seeing inside the church. This was an opportunity I wouldn’t have gotten but for Rory, and I just had to find a way of keeping calm.

  He glanced my way. “Today’s the day, huh?”

  “Yeah. I’m sure it’s just going to be a wild goose chase, but at least I’ll know for sure. I can’t thank you enough for suggesting this.”

  “Och, it’s no bother. I’m actually looking forward to it. Get out on the open roa
d and clear my head a bit. And I’ll admit I’m a wee bit curious to know if the church is going to match those images in your head.”

  I shot him a weak but grateful smile. “How are you doing today?”

  “Feeling like I’ve had a weight dropped on my head from a great height. But apart from that, I’m fine.” He gave me a sad wink.

  “I felt so bad for you yesterday. Are you sure you’re all right? We don’t have to go today. Really.”

  “Yes, we do. Quit worrying.”

  “Have you heard how Stella is?”

  “She was a bit better last night. I’ll call the hospital later and try to find out. It’s a bit early yet.”

  The morning swiftly turned darker, snowfall sweeping across the sky.

  “That looks set in,” he remarked.

  “I’m so not used to this. Snow and icy roads.”

  “Well, I am. And I’m not Hamish Keenan.” He exhaled. “It’s going to take you a good while to get past the accident. But I’m a good driver and this car’s got good tyres on her.”

  “I’ll try to stop panicking. But no promises.”

  “Good girl.”

  Rory began telling me tales about the school at which he worked, to take my mind off the road. After a while, I could tell that the stories were as much for him, too, to take his mind off Camille.

  “Have you had any breakfast?” he asked, half an hour into the trip.

  “No, not yet.”

  “There’s a small village up a bit further. I’ll pull off and we’ll get a bite to eat. How’s that sound?”

  I told him that sounded good, but in truth, my stomach was in knots and I didn’t feel like eating. But I wanted the chance to buy him something as a token for his time and trouble, and this might be my only chance.

  Small barely described the size of the village. The main strip consisted of five buildings—a tiny café, a post office, a grocery store, a butcher and a pub. And only two of those were open—the café and the pub.

  The atmosphere inside the café was gloomy despite the quaint red-and-white decor. Shouting down Rory’s protests, I bought him sausages and eggs and a coffee. I had scrambled eggs on toast, which I picked at more than ate.