Obsession (The Talisman series)

by Sofia Grey

  This sentiment was echoed by our second witness, the duty maid from Jon’s floor that night. Leia appeared more nervous as she took her seat, not quite scared but definitely anxious.

  Dev tried to put her at ease. “We’re just trying to understand what happened that night. Would you please tell us what you saw?”

  She glanced down at her hands and I noted her well-chewed fingernails. “The lady from the newspaper, La Monique. She asked me where I could find Room 316.” Jon’s room. We all waited patiently while she fidgeted a little. Dev spoke again, his voice gentle. “Did you see who opened the door?”

  “Yes.” Scared eyes looked at each of us in turn. “It was the other man, Monsieur Bridgewater.”

  There was a stunned silence. I spoke first. “Mr. Bridgewater opened the door to let her in?” She nodded. “And did you see Mr. Craigowan?” A small shake of her head, eyes downcast. Why was she so nervous?

  Dani reached out to touch her arm, an encouraging smile on her face. “Please, Leia, it’s very important you tell us everything.”

  “He said you wouldn’t believe me.” We barely heard the whisper. Her eyes, huge and worried beseeched us. “Mr. Bridgewater saw me in the corridor and spoke to me. He said nobody would believe my word against his.”

  She told the truth, I’d swear to it. Stepping forwards to her chair, I crouched in front of it. “We do believe you, Leia. Thank you for telling us.”

  Already, Gabriel’s story was in pieces. I felt jubilant. Dev made arrangements for both women to come to his office the next day to sign testimonies. It was a job well done and I eagerly relayed the news to Jon. As well as paying Dev for his professional duties, Jon had offered tickets to the next race. Dev and Danielle were both excited at the prospect of meeting him.

  We held a phone conference from Dev’s apartment, talking to Jon and Anita.

  “So let’s recap,” I announced. “We can prove Gabriel bought the phone, even if we can’t prove he sent the text to Jon. We have a written statement to confirm Aimee arrived with the group of paparazzi, and this means they were tipped off in advance, in readiness for something happening. We have a written statement that Gabriel opened Jon’s door to let Aimee into the room and we know Gabriel has access to Suki’s tranquillisers.”

  “It’s still largely circumstantial though,” Jon pointed out. “Unless we can find this Aimee, it’s still my word against his. And since I was drunk and doped up, nobody is inclined to believe me.”

  I stayed the night in Dev’s spare room, before heading back to Manchester the next morning to claim my car. I timed it so that I could meet up with Jon and Anita on their way to Belgium. We arranged to meet in one of the cafés at the airport. They arrived first. I saw their heads together as they pored over a newspaper spread across the table. On closer inspection, it was a picture of Gabriel kissing Suki. Anita gazed at me, her brown eyes sympathetic. “You’re in love with her, aren’t you?”

  I stared at the picture, the grainy shot taken the day before. Suki looked in a dream world, her eyes staring down while Gabriel played for the camera, his lips pressed against her face. It turned my stomach to see them together.

  I tried to speak lightly. “Like I said, I have to respect that she’s married, even if I don’t like it.”

  “Josh,” she chided. “That’s not answering my question.”

  I took a deep breath. “Okay, let’s say I am. Even if she left him, and even if she was crazy enough to want some kind of relationship with me… I’ve got nothing to offer. I’m not cut out to be a boyfriend or a husband, or anything in between.” She started to interrupt, but I shook my head. “Trust me on this. Okay?”

  Jon squeezed her hand, a silent warning perhaps and she subsided, turning to Mindy’s pushchair instead. I stared some more at the photo while Jon attended to his phone.

  The truth was ugly when you stared it in the face. My own mother abandoned me. All my foster mothers had hated me. There was something inside me that made me inherently unlovable, and that’s why the prospect of a relationship made me so bone-numbingly terrified. Every woman who should’ve meant something, had left me. I’d sworn to never become seriously involved with anyone, and I didn’t know if I had the courage to take that risk again. Even with Suki.

  CHAPTER 13

  13.1 Suki

  Gabe smiled as he doled out my next dose of pills. I pushed them into the corner of my cheek with my tongue and prayed they stayed there while I took a swig of water. He nodded, pleased, and I pretended to yawn. “I’m going to sit by the window for a little while and read the papers.”

  “You do that.” His voice was warm, approving. He caught my hand on the way past, pressing his lips to my scuffed knuckles. The scrapes from last week hadn’t healed yet, although they didn’t look as livid now. They were a tangible reminder of my temporary madness.

  A friend of mine had a cat that refused to take its worming pills. That little kitty could hold on to those tablets for what seemed like hours, spitting them out as soon as she walked away. I could manage a few minutes until Gabe was out of sight. With my back to him, I shifted them to the front of my mouth and hastily wiped them away on a tissue. My acting skills would be tested over the next few days. I knew Gabe was setting off for the gym and would be gone at least an hour, so if Linda thought I was having a nap, I might actually get some time alone. I closed my eyes to the weak afternoon sunlight, let the newspaper fall to my chest and sprawled there, quite still. There were voices in the background, it sounded as though Gabe was on the phone with Linda, then some rustling and his footsteps coming to find me.

  “I’ll see you later, darling. Mum’s in her suite if you want her.” He dropped an affectionate kiss on my forehead, not waiting for a response and disappeared, gym bag in hand. I stayed there a full minute, wanting to be sure I was alone. The warmth had made me sleepy, so I decided to make some coffee. The hotel suite had a full kitchen with an assortment of coffees and I flicked through the packets recognising the brand that Gabe had started to buy recently. Maybe it was an acquired taste? I brewed a pot and took my mug with me as I went to find my phone. I really wanted to talk to Anita. The first tentative sip was fine, I drank some more. There was none of the metallic bitterness that plagued Gabe’s attempts at making coffee. I paused, took another sip… rolled something around in my head. That metallic taste was the same as the aftertaste from my pills.

  On an impulse, I took a fresh pill, crushed it on the back of a spoon and added it to the coffee, tasting it again.

  There it was. The difference between the coffee I brewed and that which Gabe made for me.

  Shit.

  My knees were shaking. I had to sit down, collapsing into the nearest chair. Why would he do this? It made no sense. Besides, the first time I noticed the strange tasting coffee was before the panic attack in the dressing room. Before the doctor prescribed anything for me. There had to be a sensible explanation, maybe he just brewed lousy coffee? A tiny voice nagged at the back of my head, demanding to be heard. I’d been feeling ill before the panic attack, that’s why I hadn’t gone into work. Oh God, had he been sedating me? Why?

  Filled with a surge of nervous energy, I ran to the kitchen and poured away the tainted coffee, my mind spinning. I didn’t want to believe Gabe would do that, even while I admitted to myself how feasible it was. He nagged me to take the medication. He wanted me to give up work. He constantly demonstrated his need for control, to dominate me… How easy it would be if I drifted around permanently doped up like my mum.

  The tiny voice was louder, growing in intensity.

  Jon had complained about the beer he’d drunk in Paris, saying it’d been unusually bitter. What if… I swallowed hard. What if Gabe had tampered with Jon’s beer, the same way he did with my coffee? Messing with my drinks was one thing, unbelievable as it was, but deliberately spiking Jon’s drink—it could mean Josh was innocent. Of that charge, at least. I felt a shaft of guilt at the way my heart leapt at this possibility.r />
  I needed to talk to Anita, but now my bloody phone had gone missing. I rummaged through my handbag, checked the balcony, the floor beside the bed, all with no success. In desperation, I used the hotel phone to call it, hoping to hear its familiar ringtone. Nothing. I definitely had it earlier; I remembered plugging in the charger, which now dangled from the socket by the table. Gabe must have taken it, by accident or by design, so maybe he’d left his phone behind. I had a quick rifle through his laptop bag finding a phone I didn’t recognise, a cheap looking Nokia. How odd, I hadn’t seen that one before. Even more odd, when I fired it up, there were only two numbers in the directory: JonC and AL.

  There was also a single text message that I recognised, sent supposedly from myself.

  I slumped onto the floor, my back sliding down the wall, the phone held in front of me as I tried to make sense of this. Slowly, not really sure I wanted to, I checked the call log. Only one call, to AL. I gazed at the phone. I didn’t like what I was thinking, what was unfolding before me as I sat shivering with nerves. If Gabe had this phone, then he must know I hadn’t sent that text to Jon. The voice had been getting louder and it was positively yelling at me now. Oh God. I couldn’t believe this. Had he set up Jon, nearly killing him in the process, and tried to push the blame onto Josh? There had to be another explanation.

  There was one way to find out. I selected JonC’s number and pressed CALL. Four rings later, I was about to hang up when it was answered by a voice so sharp, I didn’t recognise it. “Who is this?”

  I quailed at the hostility. “This is Suki. Who’s that?”

  “Suki?” It was Jon, he sounded wary. “Whose phone are you using?”

  I swallowed. Right up to this point I’d hoped JonC would be a different Jon. Yeah and I still believed in the tooth fairy, too. Gabe was my husband. Did I have it in me to betray him?

  “I found it in Gabe’s bag.”

  13.2 Josh

  There was an urgent knock on the door of my hotel room and Jon called in a low voice, “It’s me.” I let him in, noting the tension on his face. He strode into the room, fists bunched at his sides and wearing a vicious scowl, pausing when he saw me climbing back onto a stool. He watched me silently for a moment as I installed the micro-video recorder on top of the wardrobe, carefully angling it towards the bed.

  I flashed him a half-smile. “Do me a favour while you’re here—can you sit on the edge of the bed, then say something. Anything.”

  He frowned, but complied. “If that’s what I think it is, it’s microscopic. Where’d you get it from?”

  “You’d be surprised. This gear’s really easy to come by.” I made another minor adjustment, then jumped down and went to check the image on my laptop. Turning the screen, I showed Jon the live feed as he sat patiently. He squinted up at the wardrobe. The camera was nigh on invisible. “Let’s check the audio quality.” Clicking the mouse I selected playback and listened to Jon’s voice. Clear and audible. “I’ve got a second camera focused on the table, set to a wider angle to take in most of the rest of the room.”

  He looked impressed. “Do you think you can entice him up here?” I shrugged, still concentrating on the camera set-up.

  “Suki just phoned me.”

  I stopped working and looked at him over my shoulder. “Is everything okay?”

  “Depends how you define okay. She’s found the phone in his bag.”

  That was unexpected, and good news for Jon, surely. He continued. “And she now believes Gabe spiked my beer.” He hesitated, he seemed to be choosing his words carefully. “She also believes he’s been feeding her sedatives without her knowledge, hiding them in her coffee.”

  I whirled to face him. “He what?” The bastard. Hot rage consumed me. Struggling with myself to get back under control, I sucked in a long breath. “How long?”

  Jon shrugged. “She thinks before she had that panic attack, which means he wasn’t using her prescription. He got them someplace else.”

  Stalking to the window, I leaned against the wall with one hand, flexing the other while I stared at nothing. All I could see was Gabriel’s cunning face. All I could think of was Suki.

  “She’s coming over to talk to me. They’re staying in a hotel out of town, about twenty minutes away and she sounded, ah, upset. Since Anita’s gone out with Mindy,” he offered me a tense smile, “I thought you might like to join us.” He frowned as he looked at me. “Why don’t we meet in here? It’ll give you the chance to talk to her without me hovering.”

  I took another deep breath. “Is she on her way over now?” He nodded. A myriad of thoughts ran through my head, a hovering certainty this could be make or break time for Suki’s marriage and wondering if that would mean anything for me. I dragged my confident Josh Delaney armour back in place and flashed Jon a smile. “Yeah. Thanks.”

  I finished setting up the equipment, my mind only half on the job, then stood at the window again to gaze up at the sky. It was drizzling, the clouds hanging low, the world looking grey. It’s funny how most towns look the same when it’s raining. I’d followed Jon and Anita here to Belgium at his suggestion, taking a room in the same hotel. My grand plan was poor, at best: entice a confession out of Gabriel. I’d invite him to come and see me, try a little coercion to get him to react and capture it all for posterity. Weak? It sucked, big time.

  Before flying out here I’d called home, checked my post, picked up some clean clothes and followed up on my next couple of jobs. Two assignments in the wings, two more wives to be charmed. Right now, the prospect left me cold. Maybe I just needed a break after all this was sorted out. I could take a holiday, go somewhere exotic, but then what? My career options were limited. I didn’t have much in the way of qualifications and I did need an income.

  I waited for Jon’s knock at the door, trying not to look too keen. I was unprepared for the wave of longing when Suki came in, eyes wide as she recognised me. She flashed a brilliant smile that lit up her face for a nano-second, quickly suppressed, but I saw it. It gave me hope. Stupid, really.

  I couldn’t take my eyes off her. Pale but composed, her freckles stood out in stark relief against her face, a fresh hickey brazen on her throat. As I stared, one hand rose to fiddle nervously with her collar, trying to hide the love bite. Miniscule droplets of rain clung to her hair, coating it in a glimmering sheen of moisture where it fell loose to her shoulders.

  “What are you doing here, Josh?” Her voice sounded husky and she glanced at Jon as she spoke. He answered for me.

  “I asked him to come.” He gestured to the sofa and she sat down, gingerly, on the very edge as though she were about to flee at any second.

  “I can’t stay long. Gabe doesn’t know I’ve gone out.” She dug into her bag and produced a phone, holding it out to Jon. “This is it.” Doubt clouded her eyes. “I don’t understand why Gabe had it.”

  I hungered for her. My hands itched to touch her. I could almost feel her, just with looking. The conversation trickled on, Jon asking if she’d spoken to Gabriel about the phone. I listened, trying not to stare, but silently absorbing her every detail.

  Every detail, that is, except how she felt. Her emotions were still blocked off to me. I had to guess from her nervous body language, the shifting feet, twisting hands running through her hair and then dropping back into her lap. Jon spoke. Belatedly, I realised he’d addressed me. “I said, the phone’s got a number for AL.” His eyes were sparkling. “Aimee.”

  I dragged my attention back. “The proof that Gabriel invited her, not you.”

  “And we can find her now. We can ring her.”

  Suki looked puzzled, Jon explained while I tried to show a little enthusiasm. She appeared to be relaxing and I made the mistake of dropping my guard. Her question sounded innocent.

  “I know you’re not a journalist after all, Josh. So what are you? Why did you take those pictures of Anita?”

  “I’m a kind of private investigator.” I explained the same lie I’d spouted t
o Jon and Anita.

  She frowned. “So why are you here now?”

  “Jon asked me to help clear his name.”

  Brown eyes flicked from Jon to myself. “Well, that’s convenient.” Her voice was tart. “Gabe pays you to spy on Jon and now Jon’s paying you to spy on Gabe?”

  “Ouch.” I tried an amused smile. It failed.

  “Is this how you make a living? Snooping on people? Blackmailing them with dodgy photographs?”

  She was uncomfortably close to the truth—a truth I would never admit to her. I hastened to put her straight. “I only took the photos. Your husband had them altered and he sent them to Jon. Not me.”

  Jon glanced down at his watch. “Christ, I’m late.” He caught one of Suki’s hands and squeezed it. “Thanks Suki, I really appreciate this. If Anita and I can do anything, if you need our help at all, you must ask. I owe you, big time.” He glanced at me. “I’ll see myself out. Catch you later, Josh.”

  I nodded as he left. Silence fell between us, a thick, dark blanket of confusion. I leaned back against the table, gripping the edge with both hands. Suki refused to look at me, but she didn’t get up to leave.

  “I’m worried about you.” I spoke softly.

  She looked up at me now, her eyes wide and shocked, her voice just a whisper. “I don’t know why Gabe is behaving like this. And I know you’ve lied to me. I’m on my own here, Josh. I don’t know who I can trust anymore.”

  With her arms wrapped around her chest, the body language screaming her anxiety, I moved closer, halting by the edge of the sofa. “This is a horrible situation. I can’t imagine how difficult it must be. But I’m here, for you, if you need someone to turn to. I would never hurt you, Suki.” The words unlike Gabriel hovered unspoken.

  “It’s a bit late for that,” she muttered, then scowled at me.