I feel the heat rising inside of me.
“Isabel…”
“No, don’t touch me. You obviously don’t understand a thing I’ve been through.”
“I do understand! I just want what’s best.”
“That’s the problem with you, Deacon Frost. You always think you know best!”
My eyes blaze with fury. But instead of rising to my anger, a smile tugs at the corner of his mouth.
“You’re so sexy when you’re angry.”
“Shut up! This is hardly the time. I could throw a chair at you!”
But my anger only fuels the flame.
“That’s it. I have to have you right now!”
“What, here? Pressed up against the kitchen sink? With her watching?”
“She’s asleep.”
“Are you sure?”
I can never figure out if her snores are real.
“Quite sure.”
He tugs at the tie at the side of my wrap dress and it falls wide open.
I try to look outraged and indignant, but I make no move to cover up. He does not touch me. Not yet. Instead, he takes a step back, his eyes drinking in the first glimpse of me in my underwear. My nipples harden under the intensity of his gaze and he licks his lips in anticipation. His fingers trace the soft straps of my bra, toy with the clasp at the back. I am not even aware that he has unhooked it until my breasts spill out and they are in his hands. I kiss his lips, his shoulders, stroke the muscles that define his chest. if Alicia were to wake up right now, I would not, could not stop.
“Do you…want to go upstairs?” he asks tentatively. “Unless…you want to wait?”
Wait? Wait for what? Alicia? She doesn’t deserve our consideration. She doesn’t deserve anything.
“Let’s go.”
I glance at her as we pass, but Deacon has tied her securely to the chair. Even if she does wake up, there’s no way she can escape.
We make it to the hallway before we start kissing again, tugging at each other’s clothes. We start our way up the stairs but fall into a heap on the second step.
“Your legs are so smooth.”
“Hmm…”
“What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking how glad I am that I shaved them yesterday.”
He smiles, and his hand disappears between my legs.
Clothes go flying; shirt, dress, trousers and underwear litter the staircase and the hall. By the time we reach the bedroom we are both naked. He takes my hand in his and kisses it tenderly, before leading me over to the king-size bed. The warmth of our bodies contrast with the unexpected coldness of the room. I pull back the cover and lie down, waiting expectantly as he crawls on top of me, careful to avoid pressing on my bandages.
“You don’t know how long I’ve waited for this.”
“Shh!” I press my finger to his lips.
But he is insistent. “I’ve wanted to do this since the first night we met, when I threw you out of Millennium. You were so brazen, so stubborn.”
“And you were such a pig!”
He refuses to take offence. We laugh like idiots and the duvet forms an envelope around us, like the warm embrace of invisible hands.
“Is this OK?” he asks softly.
“It’s wonderful.”
My stomach smarts a little, but I kind of like it.
“I don’t ever want this to end. You’re so beautiful.”
“I know.”
He smiles with amusement as I roll him off me and climb on top. I sit astride him, look deep into his warm, intelligent eyes and rock gently back and forth. The bed creaks with each motion. I don’t know if Alicia can hear us downstairs, but a voyeuristic part of me hopes she can.
“Oh, that’s so good…”
I grip the headboard with both hands, as my pleasure grows more and more intense. I can’t speak. His touch sends a shiver through my soul.
We tremble together.
It’s…unbelievable. And yet, I am filled with an overwhelming sense of foreboding, like the evil outside is waiting to be let in. That, by this very act, I’ve let it in. I lie down by his side; feel his big strong arms around me, protecting me.
“I wish we could stay here forever.”
“Me too, but we have to go back down before Alicia wakes up.”
“Just a few more minutes?”
I close my eyes.
As I start to drift off, I picture the little robin who visited me yesterday morning. He hops up onto the kitchen table, looking for more crumbs, but the table is sticky and he gets his feet stuck. The poor little thing is unable to fly away, and the more he struggles, the more the goo sticks to his feathers. I’ve no idea what to make of this image.
Maybe it’s just the residue of whatever Alicia used to drug us.
I wake up with a jolt.
“Deacon!”
“What?”
“I thought I heard something.”
He rubs his eyes. “I can’t hear anything.”
“I’ll just go downstairs and check.”
I am already out of bed.
“Wait. We’ll both go.”
We pick our way down the stairs, pulling on our clothes as we go. To my relief, the living room is just as we left it. Alicia still curled up in her chair in the corner.
“See? She’s still sound aslee…”
And that’s when a hand reaches out of the shadows and grabs me. I feel a metal blade, cold against my skin. Its jagged edges nibble at my throat.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
“Help!” I splutter.
The figure in the chair sits up and opens her eyes. But it isn’t Alicia at all.
“Jody!”
I thought you were in prison!
She must have arrived while we were upstairs and set Alicia free. The door was bolted, but it would take more than a lock to keep her out. Even a prison couldn’t keep her in. I should have known that.
And they switched places just to mess with me.
Oh how could we be so stupid? We should never have let Alicia out of our sight. Not for a minute.
“Let her go, Alicia!”
Deacon draws himself up to his fullest height, but he daren’t come any closer. Not while she holds the blade so close to my neck.
Alicia laughs her irritating little laugh. “So – the lovebirds return. Though you took a lot longer when you were with me, Deacon.”
Deacon goes red in the face. Is that anger, or is he hiding something?
After all, she is young and beautiful – would he really have been able to resist if she’d thrown herself at him?
Maybe.
Maybe not.
But this is hardly the time to be thinking about that - I daren’t swallow, the blade is so close to my throat.
“I told you to let her go!” Deacon says, moving closer.
“Shut up!” Alicia snaps. “You’re going to do exactly as I say.”
She turns to Jody. “Don’t just stand there gaping. Go and bring the car round.”
She must have parked further up the road, so we wouldn’t hear the sound of the engine. She trots off obediently. You’d think she was the younger sister, not the older one.
Alicia wastes no time.
“Deacon, there’s some lighter fluid in the cupboard under the sink. Go and get it.”
Deacon does.
“Good, now empty it all round the room. More vigorously, Deacon. You’re not watering the garden.”
She doesn’t move the blade an inch from my neck while she barks out these instructions. Alicia was always dangerous, but now she’s doubly so. Holding her hostage has both heightened her anger and wounded her pride. She’s got more to prove now, a new score to settle. Instead of saving ourselves, we’ve only succeeded in poking the bear.
I’ve got to do something - quickly, before Jody returns.
I take a deep breath and jab Alicia hard in the ribs. She yelps in surprise. Before she has a chance to recover, I stamp down hard on he
r foot, and twist round, pulling myself out of her hold. It’s a dangerous move, but it works. The blade clatters noisily to the floor and I kick it safely under the TV cabinet.
“Give me that!” she says angrily, snatching the lighter fluid from Deacon’s hand.
“Isabel, watch out!” Deacon cries, as she aims straight for my face.
But I am fast as lightning these days. I dart deftly out of her way, and she gets lighter fluid all down her skirt.
Just at that moment, Jody walks back in, seemingly oblivious to the change in dynamics. Before anyone can do anything, she produces a pack of cigarettes from her top pocket.
“Here, you want one?”
In one fluid motion, she lights it and tosses it to her sister. The cigarette floats like a feather through the air. Then womf! The flame ignites, right at Alicia’s feet.
I don’t quite know how I get away. One moment I’m by the window, the next I’m crashing through the open doorway, Deacon and Jody and I all landing in a heap at the door.
Alicia lumbers after us. She is a ball of flames.
“Help me!” she shrieks.
I watch in horror as Deacon reaches out to her, pulling her out of the now burning Tumbledown Cottage.
“Deacon - it’s too dangerous! You’ll catch fire!”
“We can’t just leave her!”
The doctor in him takes over. He throws her to the ground and rolls her over and over in the damp grass, quenching the flames.
“Release me!” she croaks, her words barely audible.
We all watch to see what happens next. For a moment, she lies limp as a doll. Then, all at once, she starts coughing, then vomiting. Molten ash spews from her lips like hundreds of tiny insects. Her eyes are yellow marbles as her whole body convulses. Her arms and legs jerk wildly, and she froths at the mouth. Deacon waits until the seizure abates and then places her in the recovery position. She lets out one last horrific roar and then there is complete silence. Not even the birds in the trees make a sound.
He leans over her prostrate body, feeling for a pulse.
“Anything?”
He shakes his head.
“There’s no way an ambulance will get here in time,” says Jody, standing behind him.
Why doesn’t she do something? This is her sister!
Because she doesn’t want to, I realise.
She doesn’t want Alicia to live any more than I do.
As long as Alicia is alive, she can’t be her own person.
The three of us look at each other.
“We can’t just…let her die.”
It feels like the right thing to say. Not because I want Alicia to live, but because I don’t want to be like the monster she’s become.
I watch numbly as Deacon goes through the motions of trying to pump life back into her body, but we all know it’s too late. Her face is drained of all colour. Even her eyes have lost their darkness.
She lies so still, so tragically beautiful, as Jody leans down and kisses her blue-tinged lips. She brushes away the ash from her sister’s kohl-smudged eyes and closes first one and then the other. I’m glad she’s done this.
Someone once told me that if a dead person’s eyes are left open, they’ll find someone to take with them.
I shiver at the thought.
Jody takes Alicia’s hands and places them together, as if in prayer. She looks angelic, peaceful even. Ready to move on to the next place, wherever that may be.
I look at Jody. “You saved us.”
“She saved herself,” Deacon says, his arms folded.
Jody bites her lip. “Go ahead. Call the police. Just give me a head start. They’ll never understand what happened.”
She takes a Swiss army knife from her pocket. I watch as she hacks off a lock of her sister’s hair, so dark and wild - so like her own and slips it into her wallet.
Something to remember her by, I suppose.
She gives Alicia one last glance, then walks way. Her gait is a little unsteady as makes her way to her dirty white escort, registration F-R-Y. I watch as she drives off down the rocky mountain road.
I look at Deacon. “It’s over!” I sigh. “It’s really over!”
I know I should feel sad and sombre and maybe even a bit guilty for my part in all this, but I don’t. I feel…incredible. Invincible, even. This is the best thing that could possibly have happened. Deacon seems to feel it too. He lifts me up and swings me round and round, and when he sets me down again, we share a long, passionate kiss. This isn’t the time and it’s hardly the place but we just can’t help ourselves. For the first time in over a year, I feel free. Much freer than the night I was released from prison. Because this time, the freedom is real. No more running, no more hiding. No more worrying about who’s lurking in the bushes, who’s waiting in the shadows. Who’s planning to torch my house while I sleep.
“I’m sorry. This isn’t how it was supposed to be,” he says, as he sticks his phone in his pocket. Neither of us can get a signal up here, and even in our excited state, we know we need to get help, before the fire spreads to the forest behind.
“This is exactly how it should be,” I contradict him. “A new beginning.”
Because from this point on, everything is going to seem wonderful, if only in comparison to what’s come before.
“Don’t you see? She can’t hurt us anymore. We get to live our lives again, as if she never existed. Well, maybe not quite the same…” I reach for his hand and give it a squeeze. He squeezes back tightly, and does not let go as we begin the long descent down to the village, under a strangely purple sky.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
I’m no stranger to police interviews by now, so I’m not particularly alarmed when we are taken into separate interview rooms at the police station. The long walk down the mountain has given us plenty of time to concoct our story. We’ve decided we’re going to tell the truth – just not the whole truth. We’ve agreed not to mention the part about keeping Alicia hostage.
You’d be forgiven for thinking that I’d be nervous, after all, I just got out of jail and I’ve suddenly got a dead body on my hands. A dead body and a burning cottage. But now that we’re here, I feel a strange confidence that I’d never have thought I’d possess in such a situation. I’m almost casual as I sit in my plastic chair, sipping my watery cup of coffee. Calm enough to ask for more sugar. Calm enough to request a sandwich.
“There are a couple of inconsistencies we’d like to clear up,” the DCI says, after he’s finished listening to my account.
“Yes?”
Like the fact that we kept Alicia hostage for two days before she died?
I resist the urge to clench my fists. It’s imperative that I remain calm, show no outward sign of nerves. Prison has made it easier for me to lie, easier to live with untruth. Being surrounded by thieves and liars all day certainly taught me a thing or two in that department. Even if the DCI suspects what we did, he’ll never be able to prove it. Deacon and I are safe, home free. Just as long as he stays as strong as me.
Oh god, what if he’s confessed?
The DCI purses his lips. He looks perplexed, as if he’s trying to work out a complex mathematical equation.
Come on, out with it!
“Isabel, we’re having trouble locating Alicia’s body.”
My heart skips a beat.
“What? Alicia…the body is right in front of Tumbledown Cottage! You couldn’t miss it. Unless it was cremated by the fire?”
The DCI scratches his chin. “No, the fire had virtually fizzled out by the time we got there – in fact, most of the cottage is still standing. But there was no sign of a body. We’ve got police scouring the mountain, but there doesn’t seem to be any sign of it.”
I grip the table, trying to stop the world from spinning off its axis.
“I have to ask you again, are you absolutely sure she was dead?”
“Absolutely! I mean, Deacon’s a doctor. He ought to know!”
; “So where is the body?”
I think fast.
“Jody must have gone back for it!”
It’s the only explanation I can think of.
“Why she would do that?”
I shake my head. “I don’t know! To hide the evidence? Or maybe she just needed a bit longer to say goodbye? It all happened so quickly, maybe she wasn’t in her right mind?”
“Hmm….” He doesn’t seem altogether satisfied.
“Excuse me, I have to take this,” he says as his phone starts to pulse.
I nod and he steps out of the room, leaving me to stare into space. Even in death, Alicia is taunting me.
What the hell is going on? Are they lying about the body to make me confess?
The DCI returns, looking extremely sombre. I’m no longer feeling casual. I need to know what’s happening, and I need to know now.
“What? What is it?”
“They found blood, lots of it, daubed on the walls of the cottage.”
“What?”
“It spelt out a word, FRY, all in capitals. Does that mean anything to you?”
“Yes, yes it does, but I don’t understand how it got there!”
I think my brain might be splintering in two.
It has to be Jody. But why would she write on the walls in her dead sister’s blood? I don’t know how, or why, she’s done all this but I have to believe she was overcome with guilt and grief. Because if I consider of any of the alternatives, I may never sleep again.
Chapter Thirty
“Isabel!”
Sonya embraces me with a big bear hug. I feel like I’ve aged ten years since I’ve been away. My face is more lined, and an alarming number of grey hairs have crept onto my head. But Sonya looks younger, somehow. Happier, more at ease with the world.
“You’ve changed your hair,” I say, admiring her glamorous new do. Her hair looks really thick and glossy. I pat my own tangled locks a little self-consciously. My beauty regime went out of the window while I was inside and it’s going to take a while to repair the damage.
“I’ve always wanted to go blonde. Do you like it?” she asks.
“It really suits you. What made you take the plunge?”
“Oh, you know – new job, new look.”
Fry Page 24
