by Jaye Ford
‘Thanks again,’ she said as she started her car. ‘I’m sorry about your friend. I hope your weekend gets better.’
‘Yours, too.’ He smiled and she let her eyes linger on him for a moment. She liked his smile. And his eyes.
She turned the car around on the driveway and waved briefly as she drove off. She liked a lot about him. And she wondered, as she did on occasion, what different decisions she might make in her life if she hadn’t had a knife plunged into her belly at the age of seventeen.
17
Jodie stopped at the mini-market to buy four more steaks for dinner, wondering where she’d left the other ones. It was cold now but she cracked the window open as she drove out of town, worried she might fall asleep at the wheel. The adrenaline rush of fear and anxiety she’d been riding for almost twenty-four hours had caught up with her. She was exhausted and, sitting in the warm car, painfully aware that it was more than likely the result of her own demented imagination, she was overwhelmed with a bone-aching, head-pounding tiredness. She imagined slipping between the crisp, white sheets on her bed at the barn and drifting into a deep, dreamless sleep – and let out a long, tired sigh, knowing it wasn’t going to happen.
She had to sort things out with Louise and Hannah and Corrine. She had to apologise for her behaviour and the awful things she’d said before she stormed out. She wasn’t looking forward to rehashing everything – it was tough enough admitting to herself she had a problem without having to explain out loud that three filthy, sadistic men were still holding her hostage, eighteen years after she’d torn the ropes off her wrists.
Tired as she was, she had to cook dinner, too. It was her turn and even though she was pretty sure the others wouldn’t hold her to it under the circumstances, she wanted to. Like a make-up meal.
And she’d have to find a way of managing the anxiety that had lodged inside her. Even though she understood it was her imagination, the sense of fear was still there, burning in her gut like indigestion. She guessed a doctor would want to talk to her about that, probably give her some pills to help her deal with it – she’d think about whether she wanted to go down that road later – but none of that was going to fix it tonight.
It was almost five o’clock when she got back to the barn and the winter sun was well on its way down. A long, distorted shadow of the barn stretched across the gravel parking pad out front. A light was on in the main room and the glow from the two windows spilled onto the deck.
She parked nose-in to the house and took a few deep breaths before gathering up her handbag and the parcel of meat and stepping into the cold evening air. Halfway up the front steps, she stopped, frowned. The voices inside sounded wrong. She took the last two stairs and listened from the edge of the deck. Corrine’s laugh was a girlie giggle and Jodie guessed the champagne was flowing again. Louise said something she couldn’t catch and Hannah chuckled. There was silence for a couple of seconds then the muted voice of a man said, ‘I just love what you’ve done with the place.’
The hairs on Jodie’s arms stood up. Despite the fact she’d just driven thirty kilometres convinced her fear was a delusion, the anxiety in her stomach welled up and squeezed the air out of her lungs. Who the hell said that?
She stood in the shadows of the early evening for almost a minute, trying to breathe, wondering what was going on in there. Get a grip, Jodie. Get a goddamn grip. No one inside sounded the least bit worried. Stop being so bloody paranoid. She rubbed her hands down her jeans, took the four steps to the front door and pushed it open.
The big, main room was bathed in soft lamplight, a log burned gently in the fireplace, an opened bottle of wine was on the coffee table and no one was there. Voices drifted up the hallway – male and female. They’re in the bedroom? Then Louise stepped in from the hall.
‘Jodie.’ She looked relieved and concerned and unsure all at once. ‘Are you okay?’
‘I’m sorry about … I’m fine. I’ve got my car back.’ She didn’t want to get into her apology yet, not when there were other people in the barn. ‘Who’s here?’
Lou ignored her question, walked over and hugged her. She had a glass of wine in one hand and Jodie could feel it press into her back as Louise spoke in her ear. ‘You were gone for so long. I thought you might have driven home. I’m really, really sorry. Are you sure you’re all right?’
‘She’s back,’ Jodie heard Hannah say from the hallway and her tone suggested she wouldn’t be running up for a group hug.
Jodie glanced across the room as Louise stepped away and saw Corrine limp into the room behind Hannah.
‘I told you she’d be back,’ Corrine said but Jodie’s eyes were on the man leaning against the doorframe.
Short-cropped dark hair, work-style shirt, jeans, solid boots, vaguely familiar – or perhaps just another version of almost every other man she’d seen in Bald Hill. He had one arm out, leaning on the jamb, filling the doorway – casual, comfortable. Cocky. The smile on his face made her stomach tighten. She looked around at everyone else in the room. They were holding glasses of wine. So was he. He lifted it to his lips and watched her over the top. No one is worried, Jodie. Don’t be crazy.
‘This is our friend, Jodie,’ Hannah said to him. Hannah smiled at Jodie, eyebrows raised. ‘Everything okay, Jode?’ She spoke the way you do to the kids in front of guests, an ‘I’m interested but can we deal with it later’ tone of voice.
‘I’m fine. We have a guest, I see.’ She copied Hannah’s tone, smiling and meaning, ‘Who the hell is he?’
Hannah looked back at him. ‘Two, actually. Travis and Kane lived around here when they were kids. They were just driving through and they didn’t know the place had been done up so we’re giving them a bit of a guided tour.’
The man in the doorway lifted his glass in a salute and sauntered into the room. She saw then there was someone behind him. Maybe she was crazy. Maybe she’d always been crazy because, flashback or no flashback, she would never have let two strangers into an isolated B & B late in the day for a bit of sightseeing and a chilled glass of chardonnay. The second man stepped into the room and her heart stopped.
Blond crew cut, broad beefy shoulders, red-checked shirt, pale eyes. It was the creep from the pub. The one who’d pinned her against the wall.
She took a pace back, wanted to yell it out loud but he was smiling. For one brief moment, the smile was aimed right at her then it morphed into an all-inclusive, nice-to-be-here grin. The aggression from last night wasn’t there; he was polite, making nice. So was the other guy. So was everyone. Sweat prickled at her spine. She watched them, rooted to the spot, as they wandered back through the room. The girls took a sofa each, the guy from the pub rested an elbow on the mantelpiece, the other one sat cosily next to Corrine.
‘Get yourself a glass, Jodie,’ Corrine called cheerily across the room. Jodie could tell she’d had one too many already.
‘Actually, you can get another bottle while you’re at it.’ Hannah smiled, holding up the first one. ‘This one’s almost empty.’
Jodie moved her gaze from Corrine to Hannah to Louise and back to the two men on either side of the fire. She didn’t know what to make of it. Anxiety was burning a hole in her stomach and her feet felt like they were glued to the floor but everyone else in the room seemed entirely comfortable. Having a lovely time. The guy from the pub watched her across the room. The one on the sofa turned his head and did the same.
‘Jodie?’ Louise was looking at her, too. So were Hannah and Corrine.
They’d been here before – Jodie freaked out, everyone else mystified. She realised she was still standing at the front door, meat parcel and handbag clutched to her chest. Hannah’s words pulsed in her head. Symptoms of some kind of breakdown. But she had good reason to be worried this time.
Didn’t she?
That guy had tried to grope her at the pub. The others couldn’t know that, they hadn’t seen it happen. She needed to tell them. And they needed to get both men out. S
he wanted to fling open the front door, tell them to fuck off. She shook her head. Pull it together, Jodie. No one will believe you if you go nuts.
‘Wine. Yeah, sure. A wine.’ She walked stiffly to the kitchen, put her stuff on the island bar, opened and closed cupboards, searching for a glass, trying to figure out how to let the girls know who he was.
‘The glassware is beside the fridge, Jodie.’
She saw Hannah twisted around on her sofa, frowning at her.
Hannah wasn’t her first choice to explain the situation to but she had eye contact with her and there wasn’t time to wait for Louise’s attention. She lifted her chin and cocked her head in a come-over-here gesture. Hannah frowned impatiently. She did it a second time with a more pointed expression and this time Hannah rolled her eyes but put her wineglass on the coffee table.
‘I think we need some food with the wine,’ Hannah said and as she moved towards the kitchen, the man next to Corrine, the dark-haired one, put his glass on the table and stood up, watching Jodie.
Her mouth went dry. That small move, from sitting to standing, felt like a threat. It shouldn’t, she told herself, he was just getting up. But it did.
As Hannah moved past her to the fridge, Jodie looked from one man to the other. They were standing side by side now, the fireplace between them. Corrine was talking, blathering on, tipsy. The blond guy from the pub, Kane, was watching Corrine with eyes so pale that from across the room they appeared almost colourless. Travis, the dark-haired one, was watching Jodie. Pub Guy’s shirt was tucked into work-style trousers, the other’s was hanging loosely over jeans. They both had their hands in their pockets. Feet apart, chins angled forward. Something snagged in Jodie’s gut. Two stocky bodies, short necks, thick shoulders pushed slightly forward as though the bulk of their muscle stopped them standing completely upright. Like mirror images of each other.
Oh, shit. They were the two guys from last night. The ones in the dark. At the car. She was sure of it. And she wished to God she had the tyre iron handy.
‘What did you want?’ Hannah put cheese and olives on the bench. ‘Jodie!’
Jodie jumped, looked down to the spot on the bench Hannah was frowning at, where her own hands had a white-knuckled grip on the edge of the marble. She let go, grabbed her friend’s arm, relieved that she’d got Hannah’s attention. She’d seen them last night, too. ‘What are they doing here?’
Hannah shucked her hand off. ‘Keep your voice down.’
Jodie turned her back to the room and leaned close. ‘They’re the men from last night. The ones out at the car.’
Hannah stepped away from her. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. They said they were just passing through.’ She unwrapped a wedge of cheese, placed it on a plate, not even bothering to look up.
‘Hannah. It’s them. Look.’
She sighed and tipped olives into a bowl before lifting her head to glance at the fireplace. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
Jodie checked them again over her shoulder. Kane was talking about the barn – rats in the rafters, snakes in summer. It must have been a dump back then. The dark-haired one turned towards her as if he’d heard them talking. She leaned towards Hannah again. ‘It’s them. It’s definitely them. And the blond one is the guy who harassed me at the pub last night.’
Hannah abruptly pushed away, took a wineglass out of a cupboard and put it down hard on the bench in front of Jodie. ‘Have a drink, for God’s sake.’
‘What? No. We have to get them out of here.’
Hannah seemed to be making an effort to stay calm. ‘Look, Jodie, I don’t know what the hell’s happening with you, but if you have to lose your mind can you do it somewhere else for a while? See if you can not insult our guests and embarrass the rest of us.’
Jodie straightened, stiffened, as though a brick wall had just appeared in front of her face and she’d had to pull up short. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been slapped down quite so effectively. She watched silently as Hannah finished her plate arrangement, scattered crackers around and found a cheese knife.
Lose her mind?
The whirl of fear and urgency inside her stilled suddenly and she felt her mouth drop open. Was this the breakdown Hannah had predicted? Her hands were sweating, her knees shaking, blood was pounding in her head. The fear felt real, the situation felt all wrong – but now she wasn’t sure. She looked around. It wasn’t just Hannah. No one else seemed in the least perturbed. She swallowed, the tiredness she’d felt in the car swept over her again and tears pricked at her eyes.
They did look like the men by the car last night but Hannah didn’t see it. Be honest, Jodie, how much could you see out there? They were really just shadowy figures in thick coats and caps. She wiped a hand over her face, ran it through her hair. The one on the right had definitely breathed beer fumes in her face last night. But hadn’t that happened just after the flashback? When she was off balance, scared out of her wits. Maybe he hadn’t been as threatening as she’d thought. Maybe she’d jammed her hands into his stomach and stomped on his shin without cause.
The other one was angled a little towards the kitchen now, attention focused on her across the room. His face was hard and expressionless, his jaw squared, his eyes unwavering in the way they watched her. Or was she imagining that, too? Whether it was real or imagined, it made her skin crawl.
Without taking her eyes off him, she put a hand on Hannah’s arm, squeezed it firmly. She wanted Hannah to study him properly, needed to see her reaction.
‘Have a drink, Jodie.’ Hannah brushed off her hand and picked up the plate. ‘Have a lot to drink, would you? Please.’ She pushed past her into the room. ‘Cheese and crackers anyone? Jodie, bring a bottle with you.’
Oh God, she was cracking up. Eighteen years after that knife was thrust into her, she was bleeding out. Hannah was right. She needed a drink.
She got a bottle from the fridge, poured wine into the glass, her hands shaking so much she slopped it onto the floor. She carried both across the room, glad to have something solid – real – in her hands. She could have done as Hannah suggested, gone to the bedroom to lose her mind out of sight, but she didn’t want to be alone, didn’t want to sit on the bed having no clue what was real and what wasn’t. So she stood beside Louise who was perched on the arm of the sofa – furthest from the fire, closest to the front door – and took a gulp of wine. It tasted like vinegar but she made herself take another. Hold yourself together, Jodie. Just try to figure it out. See if you’re sane enough to do that.
Travis, the one who kept watching her, dropped his eyes at last and helped himself to cheese and a cracker. As he chewed, his eyes slid around the room. Up close, Jodie saw they were blue, navy, like solid discs, as dark as the other guy’s were pale, and they moved from the front door to the kitchen to the glass at the back of the barn to the women around the U of sofas. ‘So is it just the four of you up here?’ he asked.
‘Yes, just us,’ Corrine said. ‘Having a bit of girl-time.’
‘Is that right?’
‘Oh yes, we go away like this every year. Leave the kids and husbands behind. Have a ball, don’t we, girls?’
Hannah nodded, Lou smiled in agreement. Jodie swallowed hard.
Travis used his wineglass to point across the room. ‘You ladies have got a lot in your fridge there. Thought you might be waiting for friends.’
‘Oh no, we just like to eat well,’ Corrine laughed, a little embarrassed, a little proud of their catering abilities.
He flicked a look at the blond guy. ‘So you won’t have any problems feeding a couple of extras then.’
There was a beat of silence, as though the room was considering the way he’d phrased it. Jodie concentrated on breathing in and out. It felt wrong but apparently her instincts were nothing to go by.
‘Oh, hey, don’t worry. We won’t eat much, will we, Kane?’
The one from the pub, Kane, grinned like their food consumption was an inside joke
. ‘Nah, me and Travis won’t eat much.’
‘We had a good lunch, didn’t we?’
‘Sure did.’
‘Cooked up a couple of nice little steaks. Two each.’ Travis looked at the four of them in turn, one side of his mouth turned up in a sly smile. ‘Cooked up real nice, they did.’
Jodie went cold. Four steaks?
‘Yeah, real nice,’ Kane said.
‘Not big enough to feed a small dog. Probably not as good as you girls would cook ’em but you can make up for that, can’t they, Kane?’
Kane laughed. A nasty, mocking sound.
Jodie looked quickly at her friends. Louise was wearing a polite, uncertain smile. Hannah had raised an eyebrow. Corrine tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, swinging her sprained ankle back and forth, smiling coyly, tipsy.
‘So what’s for dinner?’ Travis grinned like he was cute, like his cuteness would get him a free feed. Maybe it would. Corrine was tittering. Hannah’s head was cocked to one side, undecided.
Kane laughed again. ‘Got any more steaks?’
The spike of fear that shot through Jodie was like an electric current. It was them. In the house. This afternoon. Words were tumbling out before she could stop them. ‘It was you. You took our steaks. You came in here and took our steaks?’
‘For God’s sake.’
‘Jodie?’
‘Why are you being such a bitch?’
The girls had spoken together, on cue, like a joint rebuke. She felt Louise’s hand on her leg and sensed Hannah and Corrine staring at her across the room but all she saw were Travis’s unwavering eyes on her and the amusement on his ugly mouth.
Beside him, Kane finished his wine, put the glass on the coffee table and looked up at Jodie. ‘You are a bitch.’
18
Jodie felt the tension shift. Louise and Hannah redirected their focus to Kane, anger overlaid now with apprehension. Only Corrine let it slide.