Back in the Rain

by Elen Chase

  "How did we get so far in such little time?" I asked, still half asleep.

  "You've been asleep the whole time, but we've been traveling for six hours now," Bill told me.

  "I see." I looked through the window, the sea was gorgeous. Bill's apartment was in a rich building close to the sea.

  "All these apartments are second houses for people to go on vacation, so since we're still off-season you probably won't see anyone. It should be quiet," he explained. We left the car in the garage and went up by inserting a code in the elevator. Bill also passed us the passwords for the outside gate and the front door, so that we could come and go whenever we wanted. The apartment was modern and well furnished. The hallway led to a wide living-dining room, complete with a large balcony, to which access was possible through a glass door. On the wall opposite to the entrance there were three doors, leading respectively to a big bathroom with a round shaped hydro-massage bathtub and two double rooms, of which the biggest one had its own private bathroom with a shower. I couldn't help thinking that Dan would end up having to choose one of us to sleep with. "You can have one room each, I won't sleep here," said Bill, as if he read my mind.

  "You won't?" I asked, happy not to have to share the house with him, yet somehow disappointed.

  "Yup, I'll be in the facility we had that man brought in. I want to stay there to keep everything under control, just in case something happens."

  "I see," said Dan, "then I'll take the room with the bathroom if that's okay for you, Drew."

  "Well, sure" I said.

  "I'll be going now. You settle down and rest for today, I'll call you tomorrow,” said Bill, and left. After he went away, we both went to take a shower, Dan in his bathroom and me in the big one. Finally I chose to take a bath instead, and it was so relaxing it took me quite a long time to get out. After the bath I found Dan on the couch in the living room, watching the news on the Rosedeer channel.

  "What do they say?" I asked, and sat next to him.

  "Professor found dead, fire in the library but no clues. Nothing was stolen, the clerks remember the professor was lending a room to a student to work on his thesis, but there are no files that state who he was."

  “He looked like a nice boy, brown hair, green eyes, oval face,” said the secretary whom I had often met at the reception.

  "Of course the sect already knows she's talking about me," I commented.

  "They won't accuse you publicly," said Dan. "It's risky for them."

  "So I'll have a killer on my trail." That made me seriously anxious.

  "You're safe here," said Dan. "Nobody knows of your relationship with Jim's group. Nobody knows where you are." I tried to calm down holding Dan's hand for a while.

  "Oval face?" I said then, remembering the secretary's words.

  "A little bit oval, yes."

  "I’m sure my parents have figured out they're talking about me. They must be dead worried."

  "They'll remain on your side. They trust you."

  "Look, Sean wrote to me that he saw the news," I said, showing him the message on my new watchpad. "They'll be safe, won’t they? Nothing will happen to them just because they know me, right?"

  "No, I told you, the enemy doesn't want to draw any attention to you. And remember that they have their false, perfect reputation to keep. Too many strange cases would spread the fear that Rosedeer isn't a safe place anymore."

  I nodded, and Dan got me a glass of water from the kitchen.

  "How did you find me yesterday?" I asked him then.

  "I already suspected Brown, so when you suddenly went offline I ran to the library and saw you weren't there anymore. I immediately called Bill and we set up that little act to get down there."

  "How did you get another electronic key to go down? There weren't really any porters you stole it from, right?"

  "I told you, I already suspected Brown. A couple of weeks ago I sneaked into his office and exchanged his electronic key with ours, then had it copied. After that I put it back in its place. He was so sure of himself that he didn't panic even when he heard somebody getting down to the archive."

  "Why did you suspect him?"

  "The first time we met him there was something shady about him. On his desk he had a receipt of a new car, quite expensive for a normal professor. Also, when he opened the door of the study room for us, he told us the two keys he had in his hands were two identical copies, and indeed he used a random one to open the door. But he looked at them carefully to decide which one to give us. So I understood that both keys opened our door, but they were somehow different. I immediately thought of their function of unlocking different areas through the elevator, and got curious to know where his key led."

  "Why didn't you tell me?"

  "I wanted you to be natural around him. I was going to tell you before the final report. It was a mistake, and I put you in danger. I'm sorry, Drew."

  "It's alright, we are alive," I repeated to him what he had told Lilian the night before, "but tell me next time. Don't hide these things from me."

  "I won't," he said. "By the way... I haven't told you yet what I found out about the Coltens' staff."

  Right, what fish face told him. "What?" I asked, trying to put my jealousy aside for a while.

  "Ten people of the staff were in that villa. They stayed there for two weeks in preparation of a gala dinner for the guests, on February 2. They lived in the guesthouse, and worked in the villa. Two in the kitchen, three on the first floor and three on the second floor. The third floor, where the rooms of the guests were, was managed entirely by the head housemaid. All the work was coordinated by the butler, Mr. Hutchison. They stayed until the 2nd of February, and all of them left in the morning of the 3rd, as they were told they didn't have to clean up the villa, because a different company was taking care of it. Colten was known to be a strange man; he didn't want anyone on the third floor without permission. But he often called Ms. Wilson, the head housemaid, up there at least once a day, usually in the afternoon. She stayed upstairs for more than an hour, and then would come back. Some of the staff used to think she had an affair with the master, but Timothy is absolutely sure it wasn't like that."

  "How can he be so certain?"

  "He didn't tell me… I was planning to ask him again before you interrupted us."

  "So the head housemaid most likely knew something that the others didn't… She managed the third floor on her own, so do you think she knew of Shallie?"

  "It's possible. Look, I have a list of the personnel in case you're interested," he said, and showed it to me on his watchpad.

  "How did you get this?" I asked, curious, reading the names.

  "I stole it from his emails."

  "What? How?"

  "I waited for him to lower his guard and copied the data on my watchpad."

  "You..." Sometimes I was scared of him. I remembered our fight from the day before, and even if I was tempted to scream at him and ask him what he had done with that guy to get him to “lower his guard,” I forced myself to just shut my mouth.

  Chapter 37

  That day I tried to go back to the material we saved from the library, but I spent the entire time just staring at the pages without getting any result. I had zero concentration. I decided to leave the articles alone for a while; maybe I had already found out all that I could from them. Around 6 p.m. I went to my room and looked at the list of the staff of the Coltens Dan had given me. The ID number and contact of the head housemaid, Ms. Wilson, was there too. I couldn't help thinking that she was our best chance to get closer to the truth. Even if she really was Colten’s lover, it was worth trying to find out something more. I had the feeling Dan wouldn't agree with me planning to contact her, but since I had my brand new anonymous watchpad, I decided to give it a try and make a call. It rang for a while, and then the call was redirected.

  "Colten House, good evening," said a woman's voice.

  "Good evening, I'd like to speak with Ms. Wilson."

&n
bsp; "Ms. Wilson is on a leave of absence for personal reasons. Who's speaking?"

  "My name is…" I should have prepared at least that. I looked around for some inspiration. "Crunchy," I said, entrusting my new name to my emergency bag of chips. "Can you tell me where I could find her?"

  "I cannot give away any of the staff’s personal information, I am sorry."

  "I understand, but it's a very urgent matter, is there anything you could do?"

  "… Please stay on the line," she said, and put me on standby. After almost a minute a man took the call.

  "Here's Nicholas Hutchison, who's speaking, if I may ask?" Crap. I didn't think they would pass me Hutchison himself.

  "Good evening, my name is Crunchy. I was looking for Ms. Wilson over a very urgent matter."

  "Ms. Wilson has been on leave for the past three months, so for any urgent matter I suggest you call her on her personal ID number."

  Away from work since March then. Soon after they made public what happened in the villa. And my excuse was pathetic, how could I have an urgent matter to discuss with her if I didn't even know she was on a leave? No, wait, maybe I can...

  "That might be a problem. This is the only number I was given by my client."

  "Your client?"

  "Yes, I am calling from the State Rosedeer West Bank. Apparently Ms. Wilson has been giving my client a dud for renting an apartment outside of town. My client is ready to take a legal action against her, but if I could speak with the lady maybe we could clarify this unpleasant situation."

  "I understand. I am not allowed to communicate our staff's personal details to anyone, but if you leave me your email address, I'll try forwarding it to her."

  "That would help, thank you very much." That was perfect. One of the super cool functions of my new watchpad was the possibility to use different profiles with ID and email addresses not registered in the city's databases. Dan explained that was the way he kept all his correspondence anonymous and managed different bank accounts at the same time; it was basically an instrument to keep different identities.

  "I know you really wanted to find out more..." said Dan when I told him of my plan at dinner, "but she'll never write to you, why would she? Now she knows someone wants to approach her, and since you talked with that Hutchison, he knows it too."

  "Exactly," I said.

  "One of us might really be too tired to have a conversation, is it me? Because I don't understand a word you're saying."

  "She will write to me. Because they know someone is checking into them, and they want to know who we are."

  "When hiding something, you want it to stay hidden! You can't be sure they'll contact you, and even if they do, they have the upper hand."

  "If they do, why wouldn't they contact me?"

  "You know what? It doesn't matter, we'll wait and see. Whatever they do, we're gonna find a way to respond to their move."

  "Yeah… enough for tonight, I don't wanna think of anything else. I feel like watching a movie or something."

  "I'll keep you company for a while then," he said, and we sat on the couch and turned the TV on. The last episode of a series for teenagers that had started almost ten years before aired that night.

  "Was that thing still going on?" commented Dan.

  "Oh yeah, Shallie loved it. She had me watch all the seasons." She never got to see how it ended though.

  "How come I haven't watched it in seven years and the plot is still the same as before?"

  "A couple of characters died though."

  "Crap."

  "Come on, don't you want to know which of the two guys she’ll choose?"

  "She's gonna go for the loser."

  "How do you know that?"

  "Women always go for the loser when they have to choose."

  "Says the expert."

  He smiled and laid his head on my shoulder, making my heart race. I remembered when I had kissed him the day before, and how we had almost done it again that morning. Should I talk with him about it? Should I try to kiss him again? He never brought the subject up, so maybe he doesn't want to mention it anymore. The first time he didn't even respond to my kiss, but this morning… he wanted it too, didn't he? I kept asking myself those things while watching the TV show, until I noticed he had fallen asleep. I let him rest and when the episode ended I tried, with no results, to wake him so that I could go to sleep too. I thought about leaving him there on the couch, but finally I decided to bring him to bed. He was heavy, even more than I remembered, but in the end I managed to bring him to his room.

  "You must be really exhausted," I whispered to him, surprised he didn't wake up, and before I knew it I found myself caressing his hair and looking at his sleeping face. I have completely lost it in the last few days, I thought. "Can I stay here just a little longer?" I whispered to him again, and I lay down beside him, slowly closing my eyes.

  That night I was suddenly woken up by a scream. "No! Stop!" Dan was repeating in a state of confusion, half awake and half asleep. He was sweating, crying and shaking, and in his voice I heard pure terror. As soon as I was aware of the situation – for a moment I thought somebody had come to kill us – I grabbed him by his shoulders and shook him a little hoping to calm him down.

  "Dan, Dan, can you hear me?" I asked him.

  "Don't touch me!" he screamed, shaking my hands off, and in tears he started coughing strongly. Like that day at the mountain, he couldn't breathe right. I tried to get closer to him to help him, but he kept rejecting me, until I managed to hug him. Desperate, he punched my chest still crying and screaming. Seeing him like that was destroying me. I had no idea what was going on and I was scared and worried for him.

  "It's alright, you're alright," I kept telling him, hoping my voice could reach him.

  "It burns, it hurts," he told me, with a trembling voice and irregular breath.

  "What is it? What hurt you?" I asked him, holding him strong in my arms.

  "It never ends, never," he said. I decided to give up on asking questions and just listened to him. "I repeated to myself all the time… It would be over soon… but it just starts again… it never ends."

  "Dan..." I still had no clue what all that was about.

  "I just wanted… I just…"

  "It's alright, you're with me now," I told him. "Nothing will happen to you while I'm here, I swear." How could he be the same person? He was strong enough to save me from a killer by piercing his hand with a knife without showing the slightest emotion, he could use anyone and be violent if needed, and yet he could break down so easily. What happened? Could it be… He didn't take his pills. Were they so essential for him? Was it always like that when he didn't take them?

  He grabbed my shirt and tucked his face on my chest, muffling his tears. I whispered to him that everything was gonna be alright until he fell asleep again, in my arms, still holding tight to my back. Worry wouldn't let me sleep anymore after what had happened. I was extremely confused: about him, about myself, about all that was going on. Something happened to him when he left Rosedeer; Chloe said so too. Whatever it was, it was so bad that it changed him deeply. And there were fire and an unknown man involved.

  That reminded me of the address the old lady gave me, and without letting Dan go, I searched what kind of place it was on my watchpad. A rehabilitation center. Probably the one he was hospitalized in before coming back and meeting me. So the old lady did some research to find out what happened to him. She told me to go there alone, and only then I understood what she meant. I decided to go that very morning. I went out early, leaving Dan a note saying I was going for a walk.

  Chapter 38

  I found the place easily going by bus; it was a big facility close to the sea. I had called them, asking them to let me visit, and they replied nicely that I could go anytime. I was welcomed by a young doctor in his thirties who briefly introduced me to what they were doing, while we walked from the entrance gate through the park, which led to the main building. In the park there were
people walking, patients in wheelchairs and groups doing stretching. The doctor explained they were a center with a wide range of specializations that went from physical rehabilitation from an injury to psychological assistance, passing from group therapy for alcoholics and drug addicts, to even plastic surgery.

  "Plastic surgery?" I asked.

  "Yes. Sometimes it is necessary for patients who cannot accept their physical condition after an accident."

  "I see."

  "Andrew, if I remember correctly." The doctor invited me to sit with him at a table in the cafeteria.

  "Yes?"

  "Have you come visit because you think someone you know might need our center?" the doctor asked me "If you describe the situation to me I could give you some advice."

  "Actually," I said, "someone I know was already hospitalized here. I thought it was because of drugs, but now I think something worse happened to him. Only, he won't tell me anything… I came here hoping it would help me understand him better."

  "Sometimes it might be hard to talk about traumatic events, especially with people close to us. When we've worked hard to mend a deep wound, at first we would always be scared of someone opening it again. What you can do is stay by your friend's side and wait for him to be ready to tell you."

  "He won't be ready," I said. "His wound is still open and bleeding. He tries to control it with pills, but I saw what happens when he doesn't take them…"

  "Pharmaceutical treatments only work as support for the psychological therapy. Drugs might cure the symptoms, not the cause. You said your friend was our patient?"

  "Yes."

  "We strongly advise our patients to leave only when the doctors give them the okay. But we are a private facility, and we have no right to keep somebody here who willingly decides to suspend the therapy. It happens sometimes; they leave, and their condition gets worse than before."

  "If I gave you his name… could you tell me about his problem?"