Brittle Shadows

by Vicki Tyley

  “Please, I can’t think about this now,” she said, her voice shaky. “It’s not as simple as that.”

  “It can be. What about it? Forgive and forget?”

  She ducked past him. “I’ll make that coffee.”

  CHAPTER 45

  Jemma gasped. The patient’s bruised and bloodied face was almost unrecognizable, one eye so swollen he looked like a creature from outer space. She checked the name above the hospital bed just to make sure.

  “Oh dear God, what happened? Who did this to you?”

  His head turned at the sound of her voice. “Not… bad… looks,” he mumbled through split lips. Visibly pained, he tried to muster a smile.

  Careful not to bump the intravenous drip attached to the back of his hand, she edged closer to the bed. His chest and arms hadn’t escaped unscathed either, the crisp white sheet draped over his lower torso only serving to accentuate his injuries. “Oh Ross, I’m so sorry. If I had known…”

  “Not… your… fault.”

  Tears pricked her eyes. She blinked them away.

  A young bespectacled male nurse sailed into the room. “Okay, Mr Gibson, radiology is ready for you now.”

  Then they were gone. She sunk down onto the lone visitor chair and stared at the empty space left by the bed, the space where Ross had lain. If it wasn’t her fault, whose was it? If she had just let him stay in the apartment, he wouldn’t have been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  Too restless to stay seated, she drifted out into the corridor. The pungent, almost cloying, antiseptic smell gnawed at her stomach. She hated hospitals. Her last memory of her mother was in a hospital.

  Someone called her name. Striding toward her were Chris and his taciturn sidekick, DC Tait.

  “What are you doing here?” Chris asked, his tone one of genuine concern. “Is everything okay?”

  “My…” She ran a hand through her hair, pulling her fringe back off her face. “A friend of mine was mugged last night.”

  “Ross Gibson?”

  “Yes. How did you know?”

  “We’re here to interview him. You said a friend. Not Ross as in Ross-the-ex, is it?”

  She nodded, relieved not to have to go into lengthy explanations. “He’s been taken for some sort of scan. He should be back soon. Although, I don’t know how much good he’ll be to you in his current state. He can barely talk.”

  Chris took her arm and ushered her through a closed door into a windowless room. A staff lunchroom if the coffee cups piled on the draining board and the overflowing pinboard were any indication.

  He pulled a chair out from the laminate-topped table. “Here, have a seat. You look like you need it. Make yourself useful, Lee, why don’t you, and get us a coffee.” He parked himself opposite her. “What can you tell me about Ross Gibson? Anyone with a grudge against him that you are aware of?”

  “What?” She caught her breath. “Are you saying you don’t think it was an opportunistic mugging?”

  “He was unconscious when they brought him in, but he still had his wallet on him. Cash, credit cards, driver’s license, the lot – it’s all still there.”

  “I don’t understand. Why would anyone want to hurt him? God, he only arrived in Melbourne yesterday. Too short a time for even Ross to piss anyone off. Besides he was with me for most of yesterday.” Guilt roiled in her stomach. Why hadn’t she let him sleep on the floor like he wanted? Except to her willpower, what harm could it have done?

  “That’s what we’re hoping to find out. Who knew he was coming to Melbourne?”

  “No one, not even me. He turned up unannounced.”

  “Are you sure no one else knew of his movements?”

  She shook her head, halting mid-shake. Only one other person knew her ex-boyfriend was in town.

  CHAPTER 46

  Jemma paced back and forth between the kitchen and the balcony doors. Each time she arrived in the kitchen she would forget why she was there and start again. She couldn’t shake the thought that Ash’s outgoing persona might be nothing more than an act; a performance intended to lull her into a false sense of security.

  She unlocked the balcony door and stepped outside. The sun had long set, taking the day’s heat with it. She leaned on the rail. Below her, light from the glass-enclosed swimming pool spilled across into the deserted tennis courts and cobbled thoroughfare, a beacon to any late night stragglers. A siren sounded in the distance. Police?

  Chris had told her to look for motive. Had she found it? Did it all boil down to money and position? Despite denials from both father and son, was it possible that Ash had discovered Marcus squandering his inheritance on an illegitimate offspring, his first-born? Had he killed to protect what he thought was rightly his? Could the man she knew be that cold-blooded?

  Her mind kept going back to Ross lying beaten and bruised, left for dead in some dark alley. She couldn’t get away from it. Ash was the only person besides herself who knew her ex was in Melbourne. She shook her head. Why target Ross? He had done nothing wrong. She rubbed her eyes, gritty with fatigue. He wasn’t the target, she was. How better to get at someone than through a loved one.

  She returned inside and closed the door behind her, the silence immediate. Dare she voice her thoughts – and that’s all they were – to Chris? What if she was wrong? What irreparable damage could she do accusing Tanya’s half-brother of something he didn’t do? Besides, what did Ash gain by killing Sean?

  CHAPTER 47

  Jemma poured herself another nightcap. Anything to help her sleep. She almost envied Ross his drugged slumber. The phone rang. She jumped for it.

  “Finally,” Gail said when she answered. “I was beginning to think you were avoiding me.”

  “I did try to call you, but if you think I‘m hard to get hold of, you’re worse.”

  “At least I don’t switch my phone off.”

  “Hospitals don’t like it if you leave them on—”

  “Hospital!”

  Jemma brought the phone back to her ear. “Not me – Ross. He got beaten up last night. And before you panic, he’s okay.”

  “Good Lord, is he really? What happened?”

  “I don’t know all the details and Ross doesn’t remember much, but it seems that a gang of thugs kicked and punched the living daylights out of him. It could have been worse, they could have used knives. As it is, he’s sustained contusions to the kidney, a ruptured spleen and cracked ribs amongst other injuries,” she said, reeling off what the doctor had told her. “I spent today with him and I’m heading back there first thing in the morning.”

  “Poor boy.” A lightness returned to Gail’s voice. “At least he has you ministering to him.”

  “I notice you didn’t ask why Ross was in Melbourne.”

  “You know I’m a softie for a sob story. He asked for your address. What was I to do?”

  “Not give it to him.”

  “But Jemma, love,” Gail said, “he really loves you. He made a mistake, that’s all.”

  “I know.”

  “Does this mean you two have kissed and made up?”

  “Seeing him again made me realize I can’t turn my emotions on and off. But I’m just not sure what they are at the moment? We’re comfortable with each other. Too comfortable perhaps. I don’t know. Either way we have some major issues to work through.”

  “Good, good. So when do the doctors say you can bring Ross home to Perth?”

  Jemma laughed. “Give the poor bugger a chance.”

  “I just think you should both be here where I can look after you. There’s something else I need to talk to you about, but I don’t want to do it over the phone.”

  “What are you not telling me? You’re not ill or anything?” She held her breath.

  “No, nothing like that.” Gail coughed. “Oh dear…” She coughed again.

  “Thank God for that. So what is it then? C’mon out with it. I’ll tickle you if you don’t tell me.” A reminder to her aunt of what she used t
o do when, as a youngster, Jemma clammed up.

  Gail didn’t laugh. “Oh dear, where to start?”

  Jemma tensed. “The beginning, Gail.” Her words came out clipped. She didn’t care. The last time she had heard her aunt say those words, her life and everything she had believed in had been torn apart.

  “I didn’t tell you the whole reason—”

  The intercom buzzed. “Hang on a sec.” She pressed the door-release button for Chris. “Sorry, Gail, where were we?”

  “It’s time you heard the truth, the real reason why I sent Tanya to Melbourne. I don’t want any more secrets between us. They do no one any good. I know—”

  “Gail, stop. Whatever it is, just give it to me straight.” She swigged her whisky, the raw liquor burning her throat.

  “Jemma, love, this isn’t easy.”

  Another swig. “You told me you exiled Tanya to Melbourne because she was running amok and you couldn’t control her. Are you telling me now that’s a lie, too?”

  “Your sister wasn’t exiled.”

  “It must have felt like that to her. How old was she? Sixteen? Seventeen?”

  “I did what I thought was best. Maybe you’ll understand more when I tell you it wasn’t just the drinking and partying.”

  Chris appeared at the door, still dressed in his work clothes from that morning. She waved him in. “I’m listening,” she said to Gail.

  “She was pregnant, not to mention in a most unhealthy relationship with the young man.”

  Jemma couldn’t breathe. “Pregnant?” she gasped.

  “I know, I know, I should’ve told you about it before now, but it really wasn’t my place to tell. I thought Tanya would confide in you when she was ready.”

  “And the baby? What happened to the baby?”

  “Oh dear, didn’t I say? There was no baby. She had an abortion…”

  Jemma cupped her hand around the phone and lowered her voice. “The father, Gail, did he know?”

  She heard a soft whirring and looked up to see the balcony windows’ semi-opaque blinds dropping.

  A fist came out of nowhere, smashing her hand. Her phone flew from her grip and landed at his feet. He stomped on it and then slammed her against the wall. Pain ricocheted through her body. She fought back.

  He whacked her across the face. “It didn’t have to come to this. What’s wrong with you that you can’t take a hint? Too subtle?”

  “You!” Blood spat from her mouth. “You sent the flowers, the letters, everything. And the phone calls. You lied about tracing them back to the Bartletts, didn’t you?”

  He bared his teeth, his top lip twisted in a sneer. “Give the girl a prize.”

  She squirmed and bucked. “You’ll never get away with this.”

  “Get away with what?” That ugly smile again. “So much tragedy in one family. How sad.” He traced her lips, smearing blood.

  She swallowed. Hard. “Why?”

  “Poor guileless little Jemma. I did warn you that you were too trusting. It didn’t need to come to this.”

  “You loved Tanya once. How could you hurt her?”

  His face softened for a split-second. “We were soul mates. She shouldn’t have done it. She shouldn’t have run away. She shouldn’t have killed our baby.”

  “God, she was only sixteen. Our mother had just died. We were both so screwed up.”

  “For years I searched for her. I wanted to tell her I forgave her, wanted to make it right. I never gave up. I knew one day we would be together again…”

  “The school reunion.”

  “Clever girl. How ironic that we were living in the same city. It was meant to be. Except I hadn’t realized until then that she had been living under her married name.”

  “But she was engaged to Sean.”

  “A minor impediment, especially when I found him shagging her boss. He didn’t deserve her, I did. I would never have cheated on her like that prick.”

  Jemma tasted bile.

  “The fool never saw it coming,” he continued. “For all his pumping iron, he didn’t put up much of a fight.”

  She lashed out, her fingers clawing at his eyes. “You fucking bastard,” she screamed. “She wasn’t yours to take.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong. She was mine and only mine.”

  His forearm crushed her windpipe. She struggled.

  “I was there for her. There to hold her. There to mop her tears.”

  The pressure on Jemma’s throat eased.

  He stared straight through her as if she wasn’t there. “How could she not see that?”

  She tried to wrench her hands from his grip.

  His hold on her bundled wrists strengthened. “Then I discovered she was pregnant. We had another chance. But she told me she wasn’t keeping it, that she didn’t want our baby, didn’t want me. That it had all been a huge mistake. I pleaded with her, even got down on my bended knee and asked her to marry me. Do you know what she did?”

  Jemma sucked air in through her mouth. He was going to tell her whether she liked it or not.

  His nostrils flared, black nose-hairs vibrating. “The bitch laughed at me, told me she had never loved me.”

  She tasted his sour breath, tasted the hate in it. “Oh my God, she rasped, “you killed her because she laughed at you.”

  “I loved her. Why couldn’t she love me back? We could have been a family. All of us.”

  “But…but… how did you get Tanya to swallow all those pills without leaving a mark?”

  “Oh, darling Jemma, so innocent.” He stroked her cheek. “A goodbye drink, a few drops of GHB in her wine. After that it was easy. I just kept feeding her pills and she kept swallowing them. No more pain. It was what she wanted.”

  He started kissing her face. Little intimate pecks. He pressed his body against hers. She felt the hardness of his erection against her abdomen. She screamed. He laughed. Unless someone was standing in the corridor outside, no one would hear her. With the windows and doors closed, the apartment was effectively soundproofed.

  The door burst open. The security guard’s stocky build filled the frame. In a flash, he had Chris in a headlock, wrestling him to the floor. Fists flew.

  Jemma scrambled from under the ruck on all fours and leapt to her feet. Her phone lay in fragments on the tiles. She grabbed the nearest weapon to hand: a bottle of wine. Wielding it like a club, she swung it at Chris’s head. She heard a crack, her mouth opening in horror as the wrong man crumpled to the floor.

  In less than a second, her attacker was up, coming at her like an enraged pit bull. Adrenaline surged through her body. She smashed the bottle against the wall, spraying red wine everywhere. Brandishing the broken bottle, she backed toward the study to where Tanya’s mobile was.

  “You’re going to pay for this you murdering bastard,” she screeched at the top of her voice.

  She lunged.

  He ducked, feinting with his left before seizing her with his right. Panic exploded in her chest. She kicked and punched and clawed. He held fast.

  In the next instant, unseen forces yanked him backward. His head connected with the corner of the doorframe. He stopped moving.

  It was then she realized that the man she had inadvertently knocked out with the wine bottle had recovered. “Quick, grab his ankles,” Gerry said, as he pulled plastic ties from his back pocket and cuffed the recumbent man’s wrists together.

  She did as instructed. “Am I pleased to see you.”

  “Wish I could say the same.” He rubbed the back of his head. “Talk about pack a wallop.”

  She pulled a face. “Sorry.”

  “That should hold him until the police arrive. Let’s hope they’re not all like him.”

  She studied her unlikely guardian angel for a moment, a man whom she had been at odds with from the start. “I don’t mean to sound ungracious, but what are you doing here? How did you know I was in trouble?”

  He yanked at the ties around Chris’s ankles, avoiding he
r gaze. “Marcus Bartlett employed me.”

  “To do what?”

  “Keep an eye on you. For some reason he thought you needed protecting. Your sister died here – I guess he didn’t want the same fate to befall you.”

  She glanced around the room, checking for somewhere a camera could be concealed.

  “Not watching, listening.” He indicated a power point on the wall under the breakfast bar.

  Before she realized what was happening, a squad of burly police officers had descended on the apartment and manhandled her out into the corridor.

  “About bloody time,” she heard Gerry say.

  EPILOGUE

  Flight QF775 from Melbourne landed right on schedule. After what seemed like an eternity, passengers began to flow into the arrivals hall.

  Jemma scanned the sea of heads, the fluttering sensation in the pit of her stomach intensifying. Six months had passed since she had last seen either of them. Six months since that eventful night.

  Then she spotted the pair: the muscular, blond Ash hand in hand with the petite, dark-haired Fen. Jemma smiled. The party girl finally had her man and she couldn’t have looked happier.

  Jemma waved. The distance between her and the visitors soon closed.

  Ash swept up Jemma in a bear hug, crushing the air from her lungs. “It’s good to see you, Sis.”

  She laughed. “You too, Bro.”

  “Where’s loverboy?” Fen asked after Jemma embraced her. “After what happened, I didn’t think he was ever going to let you out of his sight again.”

  “He’s at work. We reached a compromise. I promised to stay away from strange men with murderous tendencies if he promised not to take on a gang of thugs again. Amazing what a brush with death can do.”

  “Pleased to hear that,” Ash said. “Any news on when the trial is?”

  Jemma shook her head. “No, but so long as they don’t let him out in the meantime, I don’t care.” Detained in protective custody, the ex-detective Chris Sykes had yet to face trial on two counts of murder and one of attempted murder. Though he had pleaded not guilty, the police prosecutor had assured her it would be a minimum of thirty years before Chris was a free man again.