The Devil Inside, page 25
She’d forgotten that for so long, but she remembered it now. Could recall so many times, the bitter taste of it in her mouth.
No more.
She would get to the heart of where this fear had come from and why it was working so goddamned hard to stop her from remembering.
She was certain now that was why her memories weren’t coming back. It was that fear. And that fear was attached to the memories of a frightened child.
After she’d finished feeding Arwen, she was going to get her notes and look over them and as soon as it was possible, she was going to go call anyone she could who might be able to help her figure it out. She was going to call Alan and ask him to do that regression therapy thing even if it meant hypnotising her.
Oh god! Why did that thought scare her to death?
Not that it mattered. She would do it so that all those secrets could be exposed and free her of all this.
She wanted her life back.
She let go of the edges of the basin and stepped back.
Her eyes flickered down. Damn. Her t-shirt was soaked now too. Where was Phil?
She ran downstairs to her room to change into a fresh shirt—one with buttons at the front for easier access—and another bra and some of the makeshift pads Bev had given her until they could get some proper ones. Then she headed back upstairs to the kitchen.
She was halfway up when she heard a noise from downstairs. She stopped, turning. ‘Phil?’ Why would he come in from down there? Maybe Craig had come back. ‘Craig?’
There was no answer.
Perhaps she’d imagined it. Or perhaps it was just the old barn shifting and moaning, as old buildings tended to do. That was more likely, particularly given no light filtered up the stairwell. If someone had entered the garage, the lights would have come on.
She continued up the stairs, trying to shrug off the prickling sensation on the back of her neck and concentrated on the fact she was about to breastfeed her baby again. She’d need to express some of the milk off before feeding Arwen so she didn’t choke her daughter.
Phil arrived with Arwen just as she finished off hand expressing. Her little girl was wailing. Melissa held out her arms and without a word, Phil handed their daughter to her. She settled Arwen on the pillow and, as if she’d been doing it for months, fed their daughter.
Phil’s hand ran over her head. She smiled up at him. His entire face was glowing.
She swallowed down a lump of emotion, her smile turning a little wobbly.
‘I’ll take care of this, shall I?’ he asked, reaching for the bottle of milk she’d expressed. He took it off to the kitchen then was back at her side moments later as if he knew she needed him to stay with her. He perched on the arm of the chair, close, stroking her hair, not saying a word. It was exactly what she needed.
How did he do that?
When Arwen was finished, Phil reached for the baby and expertly burped her, a cloth over his shoulder. ‘You do that so well,’ she said, buttoning up her shirt.
‘Lots of practice.’
When he was done, she helped him change Arwen and wrap her up snugly in the light blanket and together they walked down the hall to put the baby to bed. She was so content, she didn’t move or make a noise as Phil placed her in her cot and turned the baby monitor on.
‘She’s so beautiful,’ Melissa whispered. She looked sideways at Phil and took his hand in hers, swallowing down the fear that tightened her chest at even that simple action. ‘She looks a lot like you.’
Phil snorted. ‘If that were true, I’d say poor baby. Thankfully, she looks like you.’
She snorted and bumped her shoulder into his arm. Ridiculous man. Didn’t he know he was beautiful? ‘She’s got your hair.’
‘She’s got your mouth and pointed chin.’
‘Her brows and the shape of her eyes are more like yours.’
‘Hard to tell at this point.’
Melissa smiled as she looked down at her baby. ‘She’s a mix. A perfect mix.’
‘Yes. She is.’
They stood there for long moments and then Phil picked up the baby monitor and they walked out, hand in hand. They came to a halt in the hallway, staring at each other.
‘What now?’ she asked.
‘Perhaps we should try to get some sleep. It’s been a big day—and night.’
She couldn’t help blushing. ‘I’m not tired.’
‘Neither am I.’
‘We could have sex again,’ she said in a rush, pushing past the fear tightening in her chest and throat.
He tipped his head to the side, his smile crooked, thoughtful before he held out his hand and pulled her close when her fingers wound around his. ‘As you wish.’
She gasped. ‘You’ve watched The Princess Bride?’
‘Of course. I’m married to you, aren’t I?’
She pulled his head down and they kissed, tongues and lips and teeth, hands tearing at clothing, desperate to feel flesh and heat. Somehow they made it to bed and he was inside her and they were rising, rising, their passion too heated to slow down this time.
Afterwards, they lay in each other’s arms, panting and sweaty and happy. She was happy. Actually happy. She wanted to tell him, to let him know he had given her this, that she knew she loved him, but the words stuck in her throat, so she just lay there, trying to make him feel her emotions by touch and the need still vibrating under her skin.
They made love once more, slow and steady and long and he held her gaze as he drove her to her peak and they fell over the edge together.
She should have been exhausted, but she wasn’t. She needed to do something.
‘What is it?’ he whispered quietly in her ear.
She turned to look up at him, the night-light in the corner bathing his face in a soft, golden glow so he looked even more her elven man than before. ‘I can’t sleep.’
‘You never could after sex. It always woke you up.’ He sat up.
‘Where are you going?’
‘I thought maybe we could go over what you learned with Lexi and the boys last night? I’d like to be caught up.’
A rushing sigh exploded from her—she hadn’t realised how much she wanted him to say that. ‘Yes. Please. I’d love that.’
He bent down and kissed her softly, then pulled back. ‘Let’s go get the stuff.’
Lips tingling—hell, her whole body was tingling—they dressed and then she let him lead her downstairs. He waved his arm at the bottom of the steps to make sure the lights in the garage would come on quickly and then wrapping his arm around her shoulders, walked with her to the storage room.
She expected the fear to rise up as it had before, but it didn’t. It was there, but in the background. Not pushing to the fore. Progress?
The lights flickered on and they stepped inside.
She halted. Stared blankly at the space the trunk, suitcase and boxes had been in before Lexi and the boys had helped her carry them upstairs. There was nothing there.
‘Where are the boxes?’
She turned in a circle. ‘Craig and Dae took the trunk, but I thought Lexi and Jerry brought the box and suitcase down here.’
‘They did. We saw them go down the stairs. Maybe they put them on the shelves.’ He walked along the shelves, looking, but she knew it was futile. None of the boxes on the shelves were her blue and white striped boxes. And they certainly weren’t the suitcase.
‘Maybe she decided to take them up to the house with the trunk.’
‘Why would she take the other ones?’ Melissa asked.
‘What?’
Melissa waved her hands at the empty space. ‘We sorted the boxes and put everything we needed into one box and the suitcase and brought the other stuff down here. But they’ve all gone too. She wouldn’t have taken them.’ Would she? It didn’t seem like something Lexi would have done. ‘Did she mention she’d taken them when you went up to get Arwen?’
‘No.’ He didn’t have to say it—she could hear it in his voice, see it on his face—but Lexi wouldn’t have taken the boxes, let alone take them without letting them know. She knew how important they were to Melissa. Knew the trauma attached to them. She was the last person on the face of the planet who would do something so unthinking, especially if it would cause more trauma. ‘It doesn’t make sense. They have to be here. They haven’t stashed them behind the travelling cases, have they?’ She ran over to have a look but could quickly see there was nothing there. The pile was as it had always been.
Looking grim, Phil shoved the baby monitor into his back pocket and started to look in the shadows under the shelves. He got down on all fours and peered under them, making his way along the entire wall, occasionally reaching in to pull something out—never her things. Finally, he stood, brushing off his hands, brow deeply furrowed. ‘Nothing’s here.’
‘I thought I heard someone down here earlier, but nobody answered when I called out and the lights didn’t go on, so I thought I’d imagined it.’
‘You can turn the lights off at the switch,’ Phil said.
‘But why would someone do that?’ Melissa turned in a circle. She hadn’t imagined it though. Someone had been down here and taken her things. ‘If it was Craig or Dae or Lexi, why didn’t they answer? Why would they take my things without telling me?’
‘They wouldn’t.’
Her eyes slammed into his. She shook her head, not wanting to think about it, but unable to stop. What if someone had taken the boxes and suitcase and they were gone? How was she going to recover her memories, find herself again, if they were gone?
Phil came over to her, took her hands in his, stopping her agitated turning. ‘Maybe we were wrong and Lexi said she was taking them up to the house with the trunk.’
‘Then why would she go down the stairs?’
He shrugged, the consternation in his eyes matching how she felt. ‘I don’t know. But let’s go check with them before we jump to any conclusions, hey?’
‘Now?’
‘Yes. Now.’
‘But …’ She glanced towards the garage. ‘It’s the middle of the night. I can’t go barging into Lexi’s house demanding her to tell me what she’s done with my boxes.’
‘Lexi won’t mind. Neither will Dae. Not for this.’
She followed him out and across the garage but when she expected him to go out the garage door, he headed up the stairs instead. ‘Where are we going?’
‘I’m getting Craig up. He can look after Arwen while we get to the bottom of this.’
Craig woke up the instant Phil opened the door to his room, sitting bolt upright, blinking into the light streaming in from the hallway. ‘What did I do?’
‘The boxes are missing.’
‘What?’
‘Did Lexi take the boxes up to the house?’
Craig shook his head, mussing up his hair. ‘No. Why would she do that?’
‘To keep looking at them. I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking you. Did she take them up to the house to keep working?’
‘Not while I was there.’ He mussed a hand through his hair. ‘But even if she did take them, she would have put them back.’
‘But they’re not there. They’re missing.’
‘What?’
Phil threw his hands up. ‘The boxes. They’re not in the storage room.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking if Lexi took them.’
Craig swung his legs out of the bed and stood. Clad only in a pair of boxers, he grabbed a t-shirt from the floor, hauling it over his head as he said, ‘Do you want me to help look for them?’
‘No. Can you just stay with Arwen? Mel and I will go ask Lexi what she did with the boxes.’
‘Okay. Let me know what she says.’
‘Sure.’ Phil threw the baby monitor at Craig who caught it deftly, then without another word, grabbed Melissa’s hand and was off back up the hallway, through the kitchen area and through the doors. Grimly, they marched up the path that led to the main house, a prickling heaviness settling around them. She knew Lexi hadn’t taken the boxes. From the tension in Phil’s hand as he gripped hers, he knew it too. But who else knew about them? And why would someone take them? They were of no use to anyone but her. Why would someone do this to her?
‘Ty pomnit, sestra? Ty dolzhen pomnit. Ili yeshche.’
The voice from the phone calls she thought she’d imagined ran through her mind adding to her confusion. Had those phone calls been real? Or was it another clue she just couldn’t figure out from her memories? Why would her memories be important to anyone else but her and Phil? It didn’t make sense.
None of this made sense.
Expression grim, Phil put his arm around her and held her tight to his side as he banged on the door. ‘The door’s locked?’ she asked. Her mama and papa had always locked their doors but that was strange behaviour for country-folk. She’d assumed it was the same here.
‘Lexi is very security conscious,’ he said, his voice low, ringing with something that sounded an awful lot like fury. He banged the door again, this time calling out, ‘Open up!’
Lights flickered on inside and there was grumbling on the other side of the door before it swung open.
Dae rubbed his hair and blinked at them. Then he opened the door wider and beckoned them inside, not even questioning them for waking him up in the middle of the night.
‘We need to talk to Lexi.’
He looked from one to the other. ‘I’ll go get her.’
He turned to go, but the door into the hall slapped open and Lexi hurried in. ‘What’s happened?’
Once again, no recrimination for having woken them in the middle of the night—again—just concern. A wave of familiarity rose over Melissa, crashing down around her. She would have stumbled if not for Phil’s arm around her.
‘Mel?’
‘Get her to sit down.’
‘What’s happened?’
She looked up at Lexi as Phil helped her to a kitchen chair. ‘The boxes. Did you move them?’
‘What? No. Why?’
‘They’re gone.’ Melissa stared blindly at the kitchen table as questions exploded all around her, fingers clenching on the edges of her chair as she mumbled, ‘They’re gone.’
Chapter 24
For the second time in less than twenty-four hours, the police arrived.
They did a thorough search of the Barn House, fingerprinted everyone with access and dusted the doors. Then they sat down to interview those who’d had access to the storeroom. Through it all, Phil sat by Mel’s side, not letting go of her hand except when Jerry—who had been questioned earlier about where he and Lexi had put the boxes yesterday—had brought their little girl in to be fed.
The police could find no clue of who might have taken Mel’s things. There was no sign of a break-in, and they’d suggested maybe someone had left the door open. But who? Who here at Storm Haven would have let anyone in to take those boxes and the suitcase? There were far more valuable things in that storage room than boxes full of documents and old clothes. None of it had any meaning to anyone except for Mel.
Phil told them about the other missing things, the man at the hospital and Mel hearing someone moving around. The detective noted it down then looked up at her. ‘Is there anything else, Mrs Paris?’
He looked at her when she didn’t answer. ‘Mel?’
She swallowed. ‘I thought I was imagining it, but maybe I wasn’t.’ She told them about a couple of late-night phone calls she’d had. A man, speaking in Russian. ‘He called me “sister” and told me to “remember or else”.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me about this?’ Phil asked.
‘The calls disappeared from my phone. I thought I’d dreamed it or it was just one more bit of proof that I was going nuts.’
He took her hand. ‘You’re not going nuts. When Dae was going through his divorce, his ex-wife came to court with a lot of claims about cheating and abuse. Things appeared on his phone that hadn’t been there and other things—that painted her in a bad light—disappeared. Dae hired a computer whiz to figure out what had happened. She’d hired a hacker to go into his phone to put in the false evidence and had also got him to remove things from her phone and his that proved she was the one cheating. The hacker was good and it almost got missed, but Dae’s guy found digital fingerprints.’
‘But how could anyone have done that? The police had my phone and then you had it.’
‘The hacker in Dae’s case did it all without laying hands on Dae’s phone.’
‘I had no idea. I didn’t know such a thing was possible.’
He gripped her hand. ‘I can contact Dae’s guy, get him to check out your phone to look into those missing calls, track down where they came from.’
‘Okay.’
‘We’d like a copy of that too,’ the detective said before turning his frown to Mel. ‘Is there anything else? Any reason why you think someone might take those boxes?’
Mel began to shake her head then stilled. ‘I think … maybe …’ She swallowed hard. ‘There might be something in them about the murders. Of Gavin and the other guy. Martin.’
‘What? How can that be possible?’ Phil asked her. ‘The stuff in those boxes is from years ago.’
She shook her head. ‘I don’t know, but I had a memory of a woman crying and saying that they’d burned her lover and chopped his hands off. Isn’t that what happened to Gavin? And Martin?’
‘Perhaps you overheard someone talking about it at the hospital,’ the detective suggested.
‘I did. About Martin. But I have heard someone talk about that method of covering up a crime before. They were talking Russian. I didn’t imagine it. It’s real.’
The detective watched her speculatively for a long moment. Mel didn’t baulk, just stared right back. Finally, he broke and turned to his offsider. The offsider nodded and wrote something down in his pad. ‘We’ve discovered there was another body found just like these ones near Yea last year, so just in case the murders are linked to your case, until we know why you are being targeted, stay with someone at all times and don’t leave Storm Haven.’
‘Okay.’
