F Paul Wilson - Novel 05

by Mirage (v2. 1)

  Eathan didn't laugh. "You were crying, though. It was a nasty gash. I ran down to the ice, picked you up, and carried you here ... close to the fire."

  "I remember the cocoa."

  "I bandaged your leg. You didn't need stitches___ You remember that, eh?"

  "How could I forget."

  "When you were little, I never wanted you or Sammi to be hurt. And it's no different now, Julia..." Eathan came close to her. "I said ... I said I'd call a halt if I thought anything would happen to you."

  "Nothing happened to me."

  Eathan studied her. "You mean to tell me that you weren't frightened when that fire came for you ... that—that you didn't think you'd get hurt?" He took a breath. "I'm sure your Dr. Siegal is concerned."

  And how, she thought. She'd already had an argument with him this evening. The only reason he agreed to let her keep going was he didn't suspect she had sensory participation in Sam's 'scape. If he knew that, if either of them even guessed ...

  She'd been expecting a similar argument with Eathan, but she didn't want to engage him now. Better to wait till tomorrow. Right now she was wiped, completely drained.

  "Eathan, I was never in danger. And even if I were, safety is always just a 'click' away. But can we discuss this tomorrow?"

  "Of course. But I don't see why you have to go back in again. I mean, isn't it clear that O'Donnell is the one?"

  Nothing's clear, she wanted to say. The more I see, the less I know.

  "But how do you imagine he did this to Sam?"

  "Maybe drugs, maybe something psychological. I don't know precisely. But I do know he was there."

  "What does Alma think?" she said.

  "Oh, she's still poking through the entrails of that tape."

  "I wish she'd come up with something."

  "If anyone can, she will. But you... you need rest."

  "Right." She pushed off the railing and headed for her room. "Good night, Uncle Eathan."

  I'm just like a little girl again, she thought.

  "Good night, Julia. Oh, by the way. I'll be heading for Edinburgh at first light. I have to clear more time with my department head and take care of some paperwork. See you for dinner."

  3

  Julie took a shower and ran into Alma on the way back to her room.

  "Have you found anything?"

  "Hard to say," Alma said. "I'm getting bits and pieces. But I've been reviewing all the tapes, especially the last one. And, well, I think I'm onto something."

  For an instant, Julie's fatigue slipped away.

  "What is it? What did you find?"

  "Well—" Alma seemed wound to the breaking point. "There are so many pieces, the fire, your sister's troubles, her relationship with Eathan, and now—well, your father and mother obviously had a problem."

  Julie had a feeling she was holding something back.

  "Is it Liam? Is he behind Sam's coma?"

  "He's no doubt a big part of this. As I said, I don't have the whole picture yet, but the pieces are fitting together. I mean, I've seen things that neither Samantha nor Eathan would ever tell me."

  Alma folded her arms across her chest. She rubbed her upper arms. How could she be chilled? It was warm in here.

  "I'm sure we're only beginning. But you get your rest." She raised a finger to Julie. "And we're going to help your sister, you and I."

  Julie smiled. "Good. I'm glad you're here."

  She stepped into her room and shut the heavy door behind her. Then she fell into bed, completely exhausted.

  Twenty-Three

  We forget far more than we remember.

  —Random notes: Julia Gordon

  1

  Morning. A murky sky waited beyond the thin curtains.

  Julie stretched. She still felt tired, achy, as if she'd been working out after too long a break. She sat up in the bed and rubbed her eyes. She was hungry; she'd kill for a cup of coffee, maybe a piece of crumb cake.

  Julie slid out of bed. She peeled off her flannel nightgown and dressed hastily in the jeans and turtleneck she'd dumped on a chair the night before. Her clothes felt cold and damp.

  She opened the door and headed for the first floor.

  The maid told her that Eathan had already left for Edinburgh. After two rolls and three cups of coffee—enough caffeine to make Julie feel nice and edgy—she decided to go for a walk.

  She skipped the gardens. The strong salt wind drew her toward the sea, and she decided to take the path that led to the cliffs.

  Above her, the clouds steadily darkened from pale whitish gray to a gunmetal color. The wind cut at her as she stepped over a fallen rail of the rotten fence.

  When was the last time she'd visited the edge?

  Sometime when she was a teenager, she guessed. Maybe when she was thinking about leaving Oakwood forever, and wanted another last look at the North Sea, the rocks, and the waves crashing below.

  Even when she and Sam became teenagers, Eathan never failed to warn them: Don't go near the cliffs. The rock is always crumbling. The cliffs are falling into the sea.

  And he'd been right, of course. Why, just a couple of years ago, only a few miles down the coast, a hotel in Scarborough—an entire hotel—had tumbled into the sea.

  But Julie was always careful, and it was such a beautiful spot. She liked standing near the edge, looking out at the turbulent water, dreaming of all the other shores lapped by the sea waves.

  Her right foot landed on some loose shale that gave way. In a flash she went down, smacking her knee hard against a rock.

  "Damn!" she said. And she looked around. For a queer moment there she'd thought someone was behind her, trailing her.

  She remembered how Liam had popped out last time. He wasn't going to leave, and as long as Julie kept his secret, why should he?

  She looked back along the path but saw no one, just the brambles and heather and bits of scraggly bushes hugging the rocky crevices as the wind tried to pull them away.

  Julie got up and dusted at her banged knee. Her jeans weren't ripped but her kneecap had taken a good shot.

  Another glance down the trail.

  "Nobody here but us ghosts," she said.

  She tried to be more careful as she neared the cliff edge.

  * m not sixteen anymore, she thought.

  But then the sea loomed ahead, a giant, dark expanse dotted with white pinpricks of churning surf. Smugglers and free-tooters used to own these waters. And Dracula landed a short way up the coast from here in the novel.

  She moved closer to get the complete, unfettered view and* lost herself in the primal, exhilarating moment of attaining something wonderful, the whole North Sea spread out before her like a mural, a wonder of wonders.

  She stopped a few meters from the edge. When she was a kid she'd taken small steps closer and closer to that edge, ignoring Eathan's warning.

  Of course what Sam used to do made that seem timid.

  Sam would run right up to the edge and giggle when the sand and shale began to crumble under her feet. She'd waved her arms back and forth like a giddy tightrope walker who couldn't care less that there was no net—unless you considered a cluster of jagged boulders a net.

  Julie could almost picture Sam at the edge, daring her sensible, cautious sister, Julie of the Measured Steps: Come to the edge. Look down at the rocks, the surf. Hang here ... and: dare a good stiff gust to blow you off the edge.

  Julie took another step closer to that edge. The sandy soil" felt mushy.

  A sudden blast of air pushed against her chest, as if trying to keep her from the precipice.

  Why am 1 doing this?

  Then she had an answer.

  Too much unreality, too much time at play in an unreal world that seemed to be growing real and dangerous.

  This was a corrective. A good, healthy bite out of real experience.

  Half a meter to the edge.

  She had a wonderful view of the water. It felt as if she could spread her arms and the wind w
ould lift her off her feet, a human albatross riding the thermals.

  She inched a bit closer.

  Then she remembered her feelings from before. The sensation of being followed, that she wasn't alone.

  She turned around. She could see the top floor of Oakwood, a thin plume of smoke trailing from the chimney to be quickly carried off by the steady breeze. It looked small from here, like a dollhouse—

  Kind of what it looked like in Sam's memoryscape.

  She'd come out to the sea to think, to let the air blow on her face, to get away. But everywhere—even here—there were reminders of Sam.

  Poor, lost Sam, stranded in her own sea of jumbled memories.

  "And who the hell knows what they mean," she said aloud.

  She turned back to the sea, and the idea of challenging the cliff lost its appeal.

  The moment had passed. That sort of stunt was more suitable to Sam. She was the risk taker.

  Still, she gazed at the sea for a few more moments, girding herself for the work to come, before she'd have to go back into the mine.

  She wasn't quite at the edge. Yet her eye could trail down and catch the jagged rocks below, the waves crashing and—

  Something among the rocks down there.

  Perhaps a bit of driftwood, or a tire that got hung up on the rocks. She saw only a bit of color flapping about.

  The cliff overhung the beach, jutting its edge into the wind like the prow of some great vessel. To see the rest of the rocks she'd have to go a little closer to the edge.

  She inched forward, and even that little movement brought more of the object into view. Didn't seem to be a tire, no, and the things moving around were—were—

  A bit closer ...

  The sand squirmed under her feet.

  She saw the color, the shape; recognition came and she froze.

  "Oh, God. Oh!"

  The two things flopping around in the surf below, playfully whipped this way and that by the waves—they were legs. And hung up on a jagged V made by two massive chunks of rock, Julie saw a torso, facedown in the water, its arms wrapped around the rocks as if embracing them.

  Sickened, she turned away. God! How awful! Some poor soul—a fisherman maybe?—washed up from the sea.

  She lurched away from the edge. She'd have to call Bay—they had a crack lifeboat squad there. And then she stopped, drawn back to the edge.

  She dropped to her knees—the right one was still tender—and leaned over for a better look.

  Oh, no. That wasn't a fisherman. That was a woman. Julie couldn't see the face, but... her fingers dug spasmodically into the sand—Oh, God!—she recognized the color of the tweed skirt, the tan blouse.

  Moaning, Julie crab-crawled backward and crouched with her face buried in her arms. She retched.

  Alma. That was Alma down there.

  An awful thought lanced through her mind like lightning.

  Who pushed her?

  No reason in the world for her to think that. The edge was treacherous and maybe Alma had been out here in the fog. An accident was the most likely explanation.

  So why was her first thought of foul play, and her first suspect—?

  Julie bolted to sitting and turned, half expecting to see Liam standing there ready to hurl her down on the rocks too.

  But she was alone.

  She breathed easier.

  And heard a crumbling sound. The world began to tilt backward. No, not the world, only this little piece of it. The overhang was collapsing.

  Julie dove and rolled away from the sagging shale. Her forearm scraped along the razorlike near edge of the crack as the overhang broke away and slid out of sight. Seconds later she heard the splashing clatter as it hit the rocks below.

  She lay in the dry grass, breathing fast, puffing like a maniac. Had the falling rock landed on Alma's body? Someone else would have to look and find out. Not her.

  She got up on all fours and rapidly crawled away, like a frightened infant.

  When she stood she could see only the sea, none of the rocks below, or Alma's terribly twisted body. She stood there until her breath sounded normal.

  Alma had said, "I'm getting bits and pieces...."

  And now she was gone. Like Sam, only more permanently.

  Julie turned onto the path and broke into a stumbling run back to Oakwood.

  2

  The police inspector from Whitby, a man named Stephens, looked as if he had seen too many detective shows. He wore his trench coat with the collar up, and he kept nodding to himself as Julie spoke.

  Eathan sat beside her on the living-room couch. She'd called him at Edinburgh and he'd rushed back. Usually an oak, unflappable, he now appeared distracted, almost disoriented, and his eyes looked puffy. Had he been crying? She knew that he and Alma had more than a professional relationship. Of course, Eathan would never say anything about that.

  Now Stephens pointed a pencil at her. "I'm sorry, miss. Excuse me, I may have forgotten ... but you said you went up there to—?"

  "I just wanted to walk ... get some air."

  The inspector rubbed his jaw. This was potentially a big case for him, a moment in the sun.

  "But you didn't know, then, that Dr. Evans had gone up there?"

  "No, I didn't."

  A uniformed policeman came into the room, leaned over and whispered something to the inspector, who nodded, listening, looking at Eathan and Julie.

  As the policeman left, Stephens said, "And tell me about your sister."

  Eathan briefly explained Sam's mysterious coma.

  The inspector scribbled more notes. "And you suspect... foul play, eh?"

  "We don't know," Eathan said.

  Stephens stood up. "Right, then. I'll tell you what we're going to do here. I'm going to walk back to the cliff, make sure my blokes aren't missing anything. And while I'm doing that, perhaps you want to think about any enemies that Dr. Evans—"

  Julie glanced at Eathan, with his red eyes and his drained took. And now—he had to listen to what Julie was going to say.

  But how do I say this? And what don't I say?

  "Th-there's something I have to tell you."

  Stephens had already taken a step to the door. He turned, eyebrows lifted.

  "Oh? And what's that?"

  Already Alma had been recovered from the rocks below. Already the body was in the undertaker's van heading into town.

  "There's been somebody here, somebody who may have—"

  She felt Eathan turning, looking at her.

  "There's a man—I believe"—she hazarded a look at Eathan—"I believe he's wanted. His name is Liam O'Donnell."

  She felt Eathan's eyes locked on her, boring into her.

  The inspector nodded. Leaving it to Eathan to speak.

  "Julie, what on earth do you mean?"

  Now, slowly, she turned to meet his gaze. When secrets are revealed, there's pain, she thought.

  "He was here. Two nights ago he showed up. He surprised me outside.... He told me how much he loved Sam."

  Was it Julie's imagination, or were Eathan's lips curling in disgust?

  "O'Donnell was here? At Oakwood?"

  Julie nodded. "He asked me to tell no one.... He told me he loved Sam, that he didn't—"

  Eathan stood up. He walked away from the couch, rubbing his beard.

  Julie turned back to the inspector, who called over one of his men and handed him a slip of paper.

  "We'll check on him, miss. But what is your sister's connection to this man?"

  Eathan spoke before Julie could answer. His voice sounded hollow as he filled the inspector in on Sam's relationship with O'Donnell... and his suspicions. And Julie couldn't feel more stupid, less worthy of trust. What could she have been thinking?

  Stephens scribbled more notes furiously.

  "If he's around, if he's still here, we'll pick him up." He looked at Julie. "Though I don't know why you didn't tell someone, miss."

  Neither do I, Julie thought.
/>   She kept picturing Alma Evans's body flopping around in the tidal tumult.

  Eathan seemed to be keeping his distance from Julie, standing apart.

  God, I should leave, Julie thought. Get on a plane and get the hell out of here, for all the good I'm doing. Someone's dead, maybe because I was stupid.

  And befuddled. What sort of spell had Liam cast over her?

  She guessed that somehow—via Sam—he'd touched her. He'd made her feel... something she'd never experienced before, and that had compromised her judgment, left her vulnerable.

  But why couldn't it have been a simple accident, just like what almost happened to me?

  The inspector shut his notebook. "Well, we have some work to do here, eh? We'll keep you posted."

  Eathan nodded absently as Stephens put a hand to his brow, and then turned and left the room.

  Julie stood there in the lengthening silence, keeping her eyes on the door, not daring to look at Eathan. She wished he'd shout, scream, throw something, for God's sake. This silence was killing her.

  Eathan could get mad, she knew. But she feared his disappointment more. Julie never wanted to disappoint him. He'd had more than enough of that from Sam.

  She heard steps. Eathan leaving or—

  And then he was close to her. She set her jaw.

  Here it comes.

  "Why, Julia?" His voice was low, thick, filled with pain. Worse than a shout. Much worse. "Why didn't you tell me about O'Donnell?"

  "I—I wish I had an answer," she said, her voice as low as his.

  "Why on earth would you keep something like that from me? A known terrorist, a threat to my niece, your sister, on my property." His voice rose. "What were you thinking?"

  "I wasn't thinking. So stupid not to tell you, I—"

  "What else haven't you told me?"

  More secrets. Should she come clean? Admit she'd been digging in Eathan's secrets, that Sam wanted those secrets, had even asked Liam to—?

  She turned to him and opened her mouth. "I—"

  No. She couldn't. Not with that wounded look in his eyes. He'd been battered enough today.

  Or was she rationalizing again?

  "If only I'd seen the things we saw yesterday sooner, I'd have turned him in immediately. But Sam seemed to trust him and—"