‘We’ve been trying to trace the masks – thanks for the drawings by the way – but so far no luck. A lot of those masks are sold by companies in China via eBay and Amazon, so it’s hard, but we’re trying.’
The masked faces flash in front of me. It keeps happening. I’ll be in the middle of a conversation when BOOM, one of the masks appears in my mind’s eye. Each time, though, new things are being revealed. I just wish I could see the whole picture now. I know I’m missing something vital and Nate seems to be probing to find that missing piece. What does he know that I don’t?
‘OK . . . one more thing,’ Nate says. ‘When you went upstairs with the gun and entered June’s bedroom, can you tell me in more detail what you saw? Have you managed to remember anything else?’
The breath leaves my body in a whoosh. I reach for my glass of water and nearly knock it over.
‘I’m sorry,’ Nate says quietly. ‘I have to ask.’
‘No, no,’ I say, gripping the glass as I’m assaulted by the memories. ‘I’m sorry. It’s just . . . it’s hard to remember. It was so fast. Everything’s a blur.’
June’s face flashes in front of me. The man’s too. His gun coming up. Why didn’t I manage to shoot him?
‘It’s my fault, isn’t it?’ I say suddenly.
‘No,’ Nate says, and he sets his notepad down and reaches across the table. Without thinking, I reach forwards too and put my hands in his. He squeezes tight.
‘Ava, this is not your fault at all. And I promise you I’ll find the people who did this. They’re not going to get away with it.’
My face crumples and I bow my head again, so grateful for the words even if I don’t fully believe him. He strokes the top of my hands with his thumbs and out of nowhere I feel a shudder of desire travel up my spine. It’s so completely out of the blue and disturbing that I find myself leaping to my feet.
‘I need to get back to the hospital,’ I stammer, throwing my bag over my shoulder and turning for the door.
How can I be feeling desire at a time like this? What is wrong with me?
Nate gives me a fleeting smile and stands slowly from the table. ‘Let me see you out,’ he says and, with his hand on my back, he ushers me out of the room and towards the exit. That hand, that same imprint. Just one touch. It’s all it took the last time and I find myself slowing my pace, leaning back into his hand, feeling it like a metal brace giving me strength and support.
When he says goodbye there’s an awkward moment where we stare at each other and it looks like he wants to say something but before he can, I turn and rush off.
I hurry over to the Tesla. Robert’s in the driver’s seat, waiting for me.
‘Everything OK?’ he asks me, as I gingerly get in beside him.
I hesitate, feeling the imprint of Nate’s hand like a branding iron on my back. ‘Yes. They . . . they found my jewelry.’
Robert turns to me. ‘They found it? Where?’
‘He wouldn’t say.’
Robert frowns. ‘What do you mean, he wouldn’t say? Why not?’
I shake my head. ‘I don’t know. Something about it being an ongoing investigation.’
‘Why wasn’t I allowed to come in with you?’ Robert asks, narrowing his eyes at me.
I think about Nate’s questions about Robert putting out the trash and failing to set the alarm. What was he getting at? Does he think Robert is somehow involved? ‘He wanted to ask me some more questions about my statement,’ I say. ‘Verify something.’
Robert looks annoyed. He runs a hand over his face, which looks almost as rumpled as his shirt. The bruise from where he was hit is turning a vivid, grotesque puce color. How can he be in on it? It’s a ridiculous thought. Look at what the men did to him. I’m being paranoid. All the stress and anxiety are taking a toll and God knows what all the drugs I’m on are doing to my mind.
‘So, if they’ve found the jewelry does that mean they’ve got a suspect?’ Robert asks, and I wonder at the forced casualness of his tone. It’s as if Nate’s laid little maggots of suspicion in my brain and they’re starting to burrow. ‘Are they going to arrest anyone?’
I shake my head, studying him. ‘I don’t know,’ I say.
Robert purses his lips. ‘Did he say anything useful?’ he asks irritably. I shake off the horrible thoughts popping into my head. He’s as tired and stressed as me, probably more tired as he’s been sleeping in a chair by June’s bed for the last three nights.
‘No,’ I admit. ‘But he promised me he’d find the people who did this to us, to June . . .’
Robert huffs in a way that reminds me strangely of Hannah, and then puts the car in drive and tears out the parking lot.
Chapter 16
The fingerprint ink on the kitchen counters won’t come off. I’m scrubbing it with a scouring pad, understanding how Lady Macbeth felt with her damned spot, when Robert walks in.
‘What are you doing?’ he says, grabbing the scouring pad out of my hands. ‘You don’t need to do that.’
‘It’s stained the counter,’ I tell him.
‘It doesn’t matter, Ava,’ he says, throwing the scourer onto the side and taking both my hands in his.
‘Laurie said she’d organize cleaners.’
‘I told her not to,’ Robert admits.
‘Why?’
‘I don’t want any more strangers in the house.’
‘Have you seen upstairs?’ announces Hannah, storming into the kitchen, a horrified look on her face. ‘The carpet’s covered in blood. Someone’s stepped in it and trailed it all over the hallway. There’s no way I’m staying here.’ She shakes her head, her eyes wide as saucers, almost hysterical.
‘You can stay with Laurie and Dave,’ I reassure her weakly.
Hannah starts to cry, quietly.
‘Where’s Gene?’ I ask, looking around.
‘He’s in the apartment, clearing up,’ Hannah says with a sniff, seemingly pulling herself together. ‘It’s been trashed too, by the way. Not that you can tell the difference. It was always a shithole. Now it’s just more of a shithole.’
I didn’t know Gene’s place had been robbed too. Did they go in there before they entered the main house?
‘Where’s Gene’s car?’ I ask, glancing out the window and realizing it’s not there.
Hannah shrugs. ‘How should I know?’
‘Oh my God, the hamster.’ My hand suddenly flies to my mouth. ‘We forgot about George.’
‘I’ll sort it out,’ Robert says, putting his arm around me. ‘You get back to the hospital.’
I nod, distracted. Yes, he’s right. I need to get back. We’ve agreed that one of us should be with June at all times. Laurie appears in the kitchen, holding my weekend bag in her hand. ‘I think I’ve got everything,’ she tells me.
‘Thanks,’ I say. I sent her up to my closet to pick out some clean clothes. I didn’t want to have to deal with seeing June’s room, or the blood.
‘Shall we go?’ Laurie asks, smiling at me like I’m some ancient, mentally frail aunt.
I nod and hurry to the front door, snatching the bag from her hand. I’m not that frail.
‘Don’t worry,’ Robert says again, as he follows us. ‘I’ll sort everything out here and I’ll see you back at the hospital later.’ He doesn’t kiss me, just waves me absently off, before hurrying back inside.
‘Don’t forget the hamster,’ I yell after him. June would never forgive us if she woke up and George was dead.
In the car Laurie looks over at me. ‘Do you want to stop for some food?’ she asks.
I shake my head.
‘You need to eat.’
‘I can’t.’ My stomach is so twisted up there’s no way I can force anything down and besides, we need to get back to June. She’s all alone.
‘What did the handsome Sheriff want to talk to you about?’ Laurie asks as she drives.
I glance at her. ‘They found my jewelry.’
‘What?’ Laurie says. ‘Where?’<
br />
‘He wouldn’t say.’
‘Why not?’
‘I don’t know.’
Laurie mulls that over then reaches across and pats my leg. ‘They’ll catch them soon. Maybe that means they know who it is.’
Maybe, I think to myself, staring out the window. But maybe the men just chucked the jewelry in a dumpster somewhere or took it to a local pawnshop, and it doesn’t explain my grandmother’s ring.
Laurie has stopped at a red light and my thoughts trail off. Right beside the car is one of those blue newspaper vending machines. The headline of the weekly paper is screaming: LOCAL GIRL IN COMA AFTER BRUTAL ATTACK IN FAMILY HOME.
June’s smiling face shines out at me. They’ve chosen a photograph they must have found in the archive – of the time her basketball team came second in the local tournament – and they’ve obviously zoomed in on her. She’s wearing her basketball shirt and is red in the face from the game she’s just played.
The light turns green and Laurie drives off, leaving me to crane over my shoulder, trying to keep June in sight.
Twenty minutes later we pull into the hospital car park and Laurie swings around to the front to drop me off, but as we get close to the main entrance we see three TV vans festooned with satellite dishes blocking the way. A small crowd of news presenters holding mics mills around.
‘What the . . .?’ Laurie whispers under her breath as she spots them.
The camera crews set up camp here immediately after the attack, peddling stories that they seemed to pull out of thin air, or more like out of their asses. But they drifted away after the first day, bored by the lack of news to report. So why then are they back?
Laurie steps on the gas, meaning to go past them before they can notice us, but too late. They’ve spotted us and are already swinging their cameras in our direction. As we drive by the murder of journalists (is that the right collective noun? If it isn’t, it should be) questions are hollered at me through the windshield, but I can’t make out what anyone is saying. Laurie is sitting on the horn, trying to make them move out the way.
‘What do they want?’ I ask, shrinking in my seat. ‘Why are they here?’
Laurie doesn’t answer. She keeps honking the horn and pushing through the crowd until she’s able to hit the gas and speed out of the parking lot.
‘What’s going on?’ Laurie asks.
The only thing I can think is that something has happened to June and the media have somehow found out before me.
I pull out my phone, my heart hammering wildly. I’m expecting to see a missed call from the hospital but there’s nothing from either the doctors or from Robert, or from Nate either. If they’d caught the guys I’m sure he would have called me. I glance at the radio dial, fighting the urge to tune in to the news. If something has happened, the last thing I want is to find out about it from a stranger on the radio.
Laurie pulls up by a side entrance to the hospital. ‘Get out here,’ she tells me. ‘I’ll throw them off by doing another spin around the parking lot. I’ll see you in there.’
I get out the car and hurry inside, pushing through a set of double doors that bring me into a giant industrial kitchen. I weave my way among the shining metal stations, ignoring the curious glances of catering staff, before I exit through some double doors and head down a series of long corridors that lead, I think, in the direction of the lobby, though the hospital is vast, like some dystopian nightmare, all concrete and glass, built in the ’70s, and I could be going in entirely the wrong direction.
I glance over my shoulder as I walk, and when I hear footsteps behind me, echoing through the empty rooms, I up my pace to a jog, even though the pain in my head becomes an ululating throb and makes me feel nauseous and dizzy. The footsteps behind me speed up too and I’m almost sprinting by the time I burst through another door and finally stumble into the lobby.
Sweating, and still glancing over my shoulder, I hurry towards the closest bank of elevators. Am I imagining things? Am I just being paranoid? I punch the call button and wait for the elevator to arrive, bouncing on the balls of my feet and glancing back towards the door.
A man wearing dark jeans and a black sweater enters via the double doors I just came through and I watch him scour the lobby, looking for something or someone. I jab the button again, earning a sideways glance from a group of nurses waiting alongside me.
The elevator doors take an eternity to open but as soon as I can I dart inside. The man breaks into a jog. I stab at the button to close the door and then hide behind the nurses who have piled in after me, thankful for the barrier they’re providing. The doors start to close – slowly, so slowly – and I’m holding my breath, panic starting to scratch at my throat, when the man appears suddenly in the gap between the closing doors. His eyes dart over the nurses and fall on me, cowering in the back. One of the nurses reaches to open the doors for him.
No, I almost yell at her but I’m too paralyzed to speak.
But it doesn’t matter because the man smiles and takes a step backwards. ‘No worries,’ he says, holding up his hands and smiling. ‘I can wait.’
His eyes hold mine as he says it and they stay locked on me right until the moment the doors finally slide shut.
I’m still shaking, my heart racing as if I’m being chased by a machete-wielding maniac, when I make it to the sixth floor and the dimmed lights and hushed atmosphere of the ICU. I walk as fast as I can manage the whole way down the corridor towards the pediatric unit, looking over my shoulder so often I almost run straight into the police guard posted outside June’s door.
I think about saying something to him, mentioning the man I saw down in the lobby, but when I start to phrase it in my head it sounds absurd. A man wanted to get in the elevator. He looked at me strangely. He didn’t get in when he had the chance. Yes, I sound like a lunatic.
He was the same height and build as one of the men who attacked us – but so are a good percentage of the population. And besides, why would either of those men come back? I didn’t see their faces. I’m no threat to them.
But what if June did? an insistent voice in my head pipes up. What if they think she saw something? What if she could identify them? I hadn’t considered that before now but maybe that’s why Nate has arranged for the police protection. Maybe that’s what he’s worried about. He just didn’t want to tell me in case he scared me.
‘Mrs Walker?’
I jump but it’s just Dr Warier coming out of June’s room.
‘Ava, please, call me Ava,’ I say, smiling in relief at seeing a friendly face.
‘How are you feeling now?’ he asks. ‘How’s the head?’
‘Fine,’ I say, looking past him anxiously. ‘June? Is she OK?’
‘No change, I’m afraid,’ he answers. ‘I just came to check in on her.’
‘It’s not good, is it?’ I blurt.
He pauses before answering. Never a good sign. ‘Her blood pressure has stabilized so that’s one good thing . . .’
‘But?’ I say, because it’s clear from his tone that he’s holding something back.
He pauses again, takes a deep breath and then exhales with a sigh. ‘Her brain isn’t responding to stimuli. And . . . well . . . She isn’t able to breathe on her own. She’s being kept alive by machines.’
‘Just be straight with me,’ I cut in. ‘I’m tired of all the crap. I want the truth. Is she going to be OK?’
The doctor studies me, weighing his answer. ‘Unless a miracle occurs . . .’ he finally says.
I suck in a breath, reeling backwards, and he catches me by the elbow and steadies me. ‘Mrs Walker.’
His voice sounds distant and far away. I fall with a bump and realize I’ve collapsed into a chair that he’s steered me towards. He’s standing over me, his brow furrowed with worry. ‘I’m sorry,’ he says. ‘Are you OK?’
I shake my head. How can I be OK? How can I ever be OK again? Why won’t people stop asking me that question? It feels like a dozen
bullets have been fired into my body at point-blank range.
‘I shouldn’t have said that,’ he says, frowning unhappily.
‘No,’ I whisper through the pain. ‘I’m glad you told me.’
He kneels down in front of me, his hand resting on my shoulder and for a while neither of us speaks. Finally, I look up at him. ‘Do you believe in miracles?’ I ask.
Chapter 17
Has she already had her one miracle? I wonder as I sit beside June half an hour later, stroking her fingertips. Did she use up all her luck beating cancer? I can’t believe she won that battle just to fall at another hurdle so soon after. How can that be allowed? How is that fair? Whatever the doctors say, I’m not giving up on her. I can’t. I have to believe in miracles.
‘Can you hear me?’ I say to June.
The machines answer. Beep. Beep. Beep.
Well, fuck them.
‘Fuck you,’ I say out loud, before pressing my hand over my mouth and glancing at June. I never swear in front of the kids. But can she hear me? Does she even know I’m here with her?
It’s a while before I realize that Laurie hasn’t appeared. And then I remember the press. What was that all about? What did they want? And that man downstairs who tried to get in the elevator. Who is he? Was he really following me or was I imagining it? Where’s Laurie? Anxiety gnaws at me.
They don’t allow calls inside the ICU so I stumble past the police officer stationed on the door and walk through the fire escape at the end of the corridor. It leads into a quiet emergency stairwell. I pull out my phone to dial Laurie and notice I have a voicemail from Nate. He left it five minutes ago.
‘Hey, Ava, it’s me. Call me when you get this. It’s urgent.’
His tone is ominous and it sounds like he’s walking somewhere in a hurry. Oh God. What’s happened? I’m about to call his number, steeling myself for the news, when I hear the squeak of a shoe on the stairs below me.
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