Path into Darkness

by Lisa Alber

  She gazed at him with violet eyes made darker by the fluorescent lighting in the room. She was so earnest in her convictions, so sincere. Danny needed to keep her talking. He’d stood here before, in this place, where his job put Ellen in danger. His inability to protect her had landed her here, but she wasn’t going to die today. Not like this.

  He cleared his throat. “How did you discover your ability?”

  “It was those fish, those poor gulping fish. Bass, I think. My dad would hit them hard against the boat to kill them.” She crinkled her nose in a dainty grimace. “On one trip, one of the fish slipped under my feet, and I decided to throw it back in before Dad could stop me. Only, his mouth was mangled from the hook. That poor mangled fish mouth. I was a baby about it, cradling the fish, wiping the blood away. Dad told me that it was more humane to put it out of its misery. I held my hand over it—protecting it, I think—and when I looked down, the mouth was no longer ripped.” She smiled. “It’s the truth, so help me. I tossed the fish back. I was over the moon.”

  “Did Nathan see what you did?”

  “Oh no. I kept it to myself for a while, because I couldn’t believe it. I needed to practice before I showed Dad.” An expression of disappointment flitted across her face. Danny suspected Nathan hadn’t reacted well to the pronouncement when it did arrive. “None of that matters now. The past is the past. I need to make it up to my dad somehow. That’s where you come in.” She twitched at the knife, sliding it on the bed cover.

  It took every ounce of Danny’s will not to lunge at her. Her behavior was all about Nathan, he reminded himself. Keep her talking about her father. He forced himself not to look at Ellen, so still, so oblivious, so in need of a healer. Helpless, as Zoe herself had noted the day before. He gripped himself from within, a tightening of control, and set the spiral notebook on the floor. Zoe was too caught up in her drama to notice the notebook.

  “I’m not sure what you need to make up to Nathan,” Danny said. “You’re a good daughter. I can see that.”

  Zoe brightened. “You think?”

  “As you said, the past is the past. You have much to offer.”

  “I know,” she said with a plaintive tone. “I do, I really do, but how can I be a good daughter if he’s locked away? You don’t understand.” She twitched at the filleting knife again. An inch closer to Ellen’s hand. “I need your help to be the daughter I want to be. I’ll prove to you that I can heal, and then you’ll see why you should help me. Because I’ll help you with Ellen.”

  She picked up the knife, cradling it. The knife blade caught the light and winked silver back at Danny, mocking him.

  He spoke louder than usual, blurting the first topic that came into his head. “Tell me about Nathan.”

  Zoe straightened with a look of mild curiosity. “What do you mean?”

  “Let’s begin with his scar and his PTSD—are they related?”

  “PTSD?” She considered the word with furrowed brow. “I thought PTSD came from fighting in war zones.”

  “Ah, but what is a war zone? A home can be a war zone. Anywhere can be a war zone. How did he get the scar?”

  “At home,” Zoe said. “But—after all these years—his odd behavior—is it because of that?”

  The knife landed in her lap as her grip loosened. Danny braced himself to leap.

  “It could be,” Danny said. “I have no way of knowing, that’s why I asked. Chronic PTSD is a serious condition. I suspect that for Nathan it went unmonitored for too long. Stress and change can trigger episodes, too.”

  Zoe stuck her legs out, turning her feet around in circles. “You mean me coming here. But this is the point I’m trying to make. I need to make it up to him, be a better daughter.”

  “Do you think there’s a connection between your arrival and his worsening symptoms?”

  “My feet hurt.” She set her feet on the ground. “I wish I could say there was no connection.”

  “What happened to Nathan at home?”

  “You’ve guessed, haven’t you?” She turned toward him, sitting sideways on the chair with one knee drawn up against the seat back. “I tried to help him. In fact, I did help him.”

  “You mean with your healing talent?”

  “It was working. It was.” She gazed at him with such appeal, insistent and a little desperate. “Please help me. All I want is my dad. I’ll show you, I will.”

  She sprang out of her chair and onto the bed. Danny knocked over his chair in his frenzy to reach her. Zoe straddled Ellen and held the knife against her neck.

  “Stop,” he said. “I’ll do everything in my power to get Nathan released. I don’t need proof that you can heal.”

  She shook her head. “I see how you look. You don’t believe me. I need to prove that I can heal Ellen.”

  Every nerve in Danny’s body exploded, but he couldn’t move—he didn’t dare move—as Zoe shifted the knife in her right hand. Her index finger rested along the top of the knife. She raised her arm and without looking at Danny sliced two inches of skin on Ellen’s neck. Not deep, and not right over the carotid, but close enough. Ellen didn’t twitch, not so much as a hitch in her breathing.

  Danny’s heart broke for her all over again. She truly wasn’t there anymore. He gripped the edge of the closest machine as much in anguish as in terror.

  “Zoe, stop.” Danny heard the begging, pathetic tone in his voice. All his Garda authority had left him. He faced Zoe as himself. “I’ll help you. I will.”

  Zoe rested the knife against her thigh. A thin line of blood dripped down Ellen’s neck.

  “You have my word,” Danny said. “I don’t need proof. I’ll help you get Nathan released.”

  One of Ellen’s monitors blared with a series of loud beeps. Zoe jerked, startled, and the knife dropped to the floor. Danny dived toward the bed and grabbed her, slinging her off Ellen.

  A nurse ran in. “What’s going on in here?”

  Danny found his voice again. “Garda business. Please check my wife.”

  The monitor fell silent. The nurse perused one of the machines. “She’s breathing fine now. Her oxygen levels are back to normal.” She frowned at them and turned back to the door.

  The knife sat on the floor on the other side of the bed, and the nurse hadn’t noticed the blood on Ellen’s neck. Danny grimaced. One of those who only had eyes for the equipment.

  As soon as the nurse left, Danny shoved Zoe against the wall, pulled up a chair, and forced her to sit. “Don’t move,” Danny said.

  She nodded, subdued. Danny grabbed the safety sheath off the floor and stored the knife in his pocket.

  “I’m sorry,” Zoe said. “I wasn’t going to hurt her. Let me heal the cut now.”

  Danny pulled up the second chair and sat facing her. His body tingled with adrenalin. “You already did hurt her. You understand that, don’t you?”

  “I just want my dad,” she said.

  “I know you do.” Danny picked up her purse off the floor. “Come with me now.”

  She bit her lip, puzzled, when he cautioned her, telling her that she had a right to silence.

  “I didn’t hurt Ellen,” she said. “I can still heal her cut.”

  That guileless expression, her perfect young skin and clear eyes. Life hadn’t imprinted itself on her face yet. Danny believed her sincerity. She wasn’t a Sid Gibson, a studied manipulator. She was like the butterfly pin on her blouse—a beautiful creature, but fleeting. Doomed. Unlike Nathan, she didn’t understand how cracked she was.

  “Maybe so,” he said. “Maybe you can heal the cut—and Ellen—but you didn’t heal Annie Belden, did you? More like the opposite.”

  eighty-two

  Thursday, 25-Mar

  Friday, 26-Mar 1:15 a.m.

  … There went the outdoor lights and now the doorbell’s rung. Oh God. My heart. Here it is, the moment I confront my terror. I have a sickness. Why would I move here, of all places, if I didn’t in some bizarre way hope to see PatientZ again?<
br />
  I suppose I have to prove something to myself. I’ve been waiting for this chance, haven’t I? To transform myself into the powerful one in our twisted relationship.

  Writing as fast as I can here before I open the door. I don’t think he will kill me—he likes me—but just in case, I shall check through the peep hole and write down who I see. Proof, see? Proof. I’ll have the last say.

  Oh my goodness, it’s Zoe. Talk about rolling over with relief. More later—I hope Nathan hasn’t self-harmed—

  eighty-three

  By the time Danny returned to the station with Zoe in tow, fatigue had laid a soft but implacable grip over him. After handing her off to the Sergeant-in-Charge, he escaped to the closest takeaway and shoveled Kung Pao chicken down his throat, taking a few minutes to gather himself before returning to find O’Neil on a smoke break. They entered the station, no need for words, and proceeded to the custody suite where Zoe waited. They peeked into the room.

  “Is she sleeping?” Danny said.

  “Out cold.”

  Zoe rested with head cradled on her arms. Even hunched over a table, she managed to appear graceful. Her lips twitched in a slight smile, and her eyeballs moved under her eyelids.

  Danny didn’t know whether to be impressed or appalled. “Does she not understand what’s about to happen?”

  “She must, but you’d never know it.”

  Just like you’d never know many oddities lurked beneath the surface of her. Danny tapped the window of the suite. Zoe raised her head and her hand in a wave. She looked as sleep-dazed as a child, but not distressed. The Sergeant-in-Charge appeared and shooed them away so he could see to settling Zoe in an interview room.

  O’Neil cleared his throat. “Sir.”

  “Sir?” Danny said. “What gives?”

  “I need to confirm a final time that you’re not bothered by my seeing Merrit.”

  “We discussed this. What you do is your business.”

  “Agreed, but that’s not the same as it being fine by you.”

  “Yes, O’Neil, it’s not a problem.” He scrubbed at his face, realizing that it could become awkward. “Do me a favor and not talk about the ins and outs of it, Merrit being a family friend.”

  O’Neil raised his eyebrows. “Oh yeah?”

  “I’ll see her socially because of Marcus. I’m also back on visiting terms with Liam, so there’s that.”

  “Ah.” O’Neil nodded. “Right.”

  Right, indeed. There’d be no avoiding Merrit now, but Danny found he didn’t care. He’d take his newfound ambivalence over active avoidance; it used up less of his scarce energy.

  They received the go-ahead from the Sergeant-in-Charge with a warning that Superintendent Clarkson would be keeping tabs on them through the video feed. “Of course he will,” O’Neil muttered.

  Zoe greeted them with an inquisitive smile. “This isn’t anything like the interview room in England. I was only a child, of course, but I remember it being stark and scary. This is almost cozy by comparison.”

  She sat in the middle of the room in front of a fisheye lens that fed into the room next door. Danny and O’Neil parked themselves at small desks facing her, out of camera range. While Danny introduced the interview, Zoe lifted her hair up and brushed it with her fingers. With a couple of twisting movements she piled it up on her head in a perfect messy knot.

  She was a confident young woman. Yet Danny had witnessed her childlike and upset in reaction to Nathan’s lock-up, and he’d seen her ruthless and unfeeling in her attempt to coerce Danny into helping her release Nathan.

  “Do you understand why you’re here, Zoe?” he said.

  “I do, but I didn’t do anything. I like to help people. That’s why I’m here, I think.”

  “‘Here,’ as in your purpose in life?”

  “Yes. My dad knows that. He would have come around. I know we’ll be okay in the end. Dad will get better—he’s a strong man—and then maybe we can move back to England.”

  “We’re not here to talk about your father,” Danny said. “You understand that, correct? We cautioned you regarding the death of Annie Belden.”

  “Yes, but that was a mistake.”

  “How so?”

  “She didn’t understand either, about the healing. I tried to talk to her—”

  “About what?”

  “About leaving my dad alone. I’d only just found him. Annie acted like she was part of our lives. She had no call to distract him when we were trying to rebuild our relationship to what it was before.”

  “Before?”

  “Before—” She straightened and settled both feet on the floor. “Before my mom’s death, before I discovered my healing ability. I sometimes wish I’d never discovered it.”

  She truly believed her personal folklore about herself. Danny was torn between fascination and dismay. “Tell me about Annie,” he said.

  “I tried to help her. I wanted to cure her of her diabetes. I knew I could do it.”

  “How did you know she was diabetic?”

  “In the bathroom in the pub. At Elder Joe’s wake a few weeks ago. I didn’t know her yet, of course. She was testing her sugar levels when I entered.”

  “Did you administer the insulin that killed Annie Belden?”

  She unwound her scarf from her neck and arranged it like a shawl over her shoulders. “It’s cold in here.”

  “When you say you’re going to help somebody, what does that mean to you?”

  She cocked her head, bemused. “Heal them, of course.”

  “Let’s return to the night that Annie Belden died. Did you offer her a deal?”

  “A deal?”

  Danny felt his tone tighten as he said, “Like you offered for my wife. Heal her in return for my help. With Annie, I imagine you offered to heal her in exchange for leaving Nathan alone.”

  “She was unconscious when I arrived,” Zoe said. “I didn’t get a chance.”

  At the other desk, O’Neil shifted. “Unconscious?”

  “Yes, on the couch. I tried to help her. I promise I did.”

  O’Neil pulled a piece of paper out of a folder. He handed it across to Danny and Danny handed it to Zoe. She read Annie’s last journal entry and let the sheet of paper drop to the floor beside her.

  “Annie was awake and well when you arrived at her house,” Danny said.

  “She collapsed right after I arrived.”

  “Why visit her in the middle of the night?”

  Tears welled up and slipped down her cheeks. “Everything will be okay. I know it will. I want to go back to the way it was before, that’s all. We all have goals in life, right? I’ll return to nursing school, and Dad can go back to sculpture. His vases are fine, but he could do so much more.”

  Danny called a halt to the interview and stepped out of the room with O’Neil. Zoe lived within a Nathan loop. Everything cycled back to him, and Danny suspected it would for a long time to come.

  “The journal’s fantastic as evidence,” O’Neil said, “but is it enough to convict her? Zoe’s appearance alone will sway a jury to believe her that Annie collapsed after she arrived.”

  Sid sat somewhere in the building, haggling for his life with the help of his solicitor. Danny knew a few things about Sid’s whereabouts the night Annie died. He’d met Zoe at a pub earlier in the evening. Later, he’d stolen Annie’s journal and mobile phone.

  “This is where Sid comes in, I think.”

  eighty-four

  Monday, 5-April

  Dear Nathan,

  Since you’re reading this page, you’ve already read Annie’s journal entries. Now you comprehend the truth of Annie’s last moments on Earth. When I whispered that Zoe was to blame for your heartache, I spoke the truth, no?

  After the paramedics carted you off, I realized what a stroke of good fortune it was that you hadn’t managed to kill Zoe. For both of us. If you’d succeeded, you’d be locked up permanently and I wouldn’t have anything to use in my nego
tiations with the guards regarding my own wee predicament—it’s looming, any day now. By the time you read this, all charges will be dropped.

  Life is funny that way, isn’t it? Turning shite into fertilizer.

  I suppose prison will have to satisfy me when it comes to your daughter. She’ll get out some day, and then we’ll see. She should not have harmed my dear Annie. Since she was your dear Annie, too, you comprehend how I feel.

  One last thing. You misunderstood the significance of the bouquet. The flowers I chose had nothing to do with Annie. Hardly! The bouquet was a tribute to what I planned for Zoe (through you, as it turned out). I was disappointed in her behavior, I rejected her, I was a danger to her. That’s all. Simple, really. It took me a day to find the blooms and let them wither, you see, so I left them the day after Annie died—the evening I texted you and Merrit. I hoped you would understand the message.

  I leave you for now, Nathan Tate. It was an odd pleasure, one psych patient to another.

  Wishing you a full, Zoe-free recovery—

  Your friend, Sid

  eighty-five

  Two days after arresting Zoe Tate, Danny drove up a gravel lane and into a development of summer cottages. The Atlantic glistened into eternity beyond the Doolin pier. The tourist season had begun in earnest now, as evidenced by the jumbo black Galway tour bus chugging past the pubs. Fluffy clouds scudded by overhead and bright blue gentians dotted the hillsides. Danny scanned the cottages for number 15. These cottages were just some of the many along the west coast that sat empty as a result of the crap economy.

  Number 15 looked identical to the others—white-washed walls and quaint chimney stacks. He bumped over a dirt track that should have been a driveway, pulling up in front of a collection of two-by-fours that should have been a porch. The engine’s idling grumble echoed against the unadorned walls and weeds and abandoned construction supplies.

  This couldn’t be right. He must have misread the address on the telephone message the Sergeant-in-Charge had handed him. Gulls floated overhead on the breeze, squawking in agreement as he exited the car and walked over the uneven ground. Danny pushed open the knob-less front door. “’Allo?” he called.