by H Elliston
A large red X flashed onto the screen, literally painting our failure onto the puzzle. A wicked cackle grew loud through the speakers.
I jerked away. “At least someone’s having fun.”
“Maybe we could print it out and see it the shapes actually make a square,” Lee said.
“I’m out of ink.”
To add to my mood, Lee wheeled his chair back and the castor ran over my big toe. “Ouch! Watch what you’re doing,” I yelled, clutching my foot.
“Sorry, Chelsea.”
I hopped over to the sofa for a breather. My last thoughts as I drove away from Laura’s house pinged into my mind. Why had Lee ignored my suggestions? Did he have any intention of solving the puzzle? I stared in wonder at the back of his head. But then, he sighed. He sounded disheartened, too.
Still seated, he wheeled closer to the desk and then looked over his shoulder. “We’d better check the timer. Are you ready for this?”
I signalled okay with a nod. “How long do I have?” Toe still throbbing, I staggered to his side.
“They sure know how to keep us busy,” he complained.
The timer was different again. Four circles were positioned in a row across the screen like car dashboard dials. The first represented days, the second hours, then minutes and seconds. I wondered why they’d gone to so much trouble when a digital clock would have done the trick.
We watched, unspeaking, counting the markers around the circles with our fingers touching the screen.
I faced Lee. Like looking in a mirror, my jaw flopped down when his did. “One day.”
“Jeez!” He turned, stared unblinking at the screen. “The deadline is nine, forty-three tomorrow night, precisely. That soon?”
“Oh, hell!” I stumbled backwards and collapsed onto the sofa.
Lee was wringing his hands awkwardly, swivelling in the chair. “There’s still time to sort this out. Don’t panic.”
I dragged the all-important question from my throat. “On a scale of one to ten, how convinced are you that Daryl was murdered?”
Lee pressed a finger over his lips and drew a deep breath, as though needing a cigarette before answering. “Nine.”
“Why?”
“I think we can presume that Daryl received more than one email, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“The emails come late morning, right?
“Mine and Laura’s do.”
“Daryl’s email, the one I showed you, was sent the day before Phillip discovered Daryl’s body.”
“And...”
Lee clenched and unclenched his jaw. “Phillip found Daryl just before noon. If whoever is sending these emails, didn’t know he had died, then they’d have sent one that very morning, wouldn’t they?”
I gulped.
He stuck the end of a pen into his mouth, bit down and then whipped it out. “Besides, it’s got to be more than a coincidence to receive a death threat and then—”
“Plunge to your death?”
“Exactly.”
“I agree. Sorry for... you know.” I didn’t need anyone to connect the dots. I was next.
I stood, and paced in and out of the kitchen. The unrelenting wall clock reinforced my terror, with every heartbeat marked by an obnoxious tick that I ached to silence. I was in over my head and wanted out.
“Don’t give up,” Lee said. “Giving up means failing, and we’re not going to fail.”
“Don’t give up?” I stopped pacing and faced him. “Someone’s planning on killing me tomorrow night. We don’t have the faintest idea why. If I knew, I’d go to the creep’s house and sort it out this very second.”
Lee walked over. He tilted my chin up with his finger. “I’m here for you. You’re not in this alone.”
I looked at him, desperately searching for something beyond the problem in his eyes staring back at me. The quiet room felt still and we didn’t speak. For a moment, it felt like he had managed to pause time.
He stroked my temple with his thumb. It left a warm spot. I began looking at him in a new way. Then, as though he’d released his finger from a pause button, my mind joined real-time again.
“I’m calling the police,” he said, his voice distinct and clear.
I nodded. “We should’ve done it sooner.”
“I’ll try to get put through to the officer who was in charge of Daryl’s case.” He pulled out his phone and dialed. “Police, please. Yes, I need to report…”
CHAPTER 11
“How’s your toe?” Lee asked. “Want me to rub it?”
“What?” I replied, sitting on the sofa. “Yes. Er, no. Forget the toe. What’s taking the police so long?”
Lee pressed his lips together in a barely-there smile, and returned to the kitchen. I thought he was trying not to laugh.
Rub my toe? I guessed he was trying to take my mind off things. It worked for about ten seconds.
There was a knock at my front door.
“That’ll be them,” Lee said, washing our lunch plates in the sink.
“Finally. I’ll get it.”
I greeted two male officers, directed them along the hall and into the dining room. I stood in the doorway.
Lee entered the room from the kitchen side, drying his hands on a towel and chewing gum. “Oh! I was expecting... never mind. Thanks for coming so soon.”
The policemen fiddled with their radios. When the muffled voices and crackling died down, they introduced themselves as Officer Baines and Richardson.
“Someone is threatening me,” I announced, scared that talking to the police would make it even more real. “I’ve been getting threatening emails. There’s a timer counting down and—”
“Let me take some details from you first. Your full name?”
“Chelsea Denham.”
After ten minutes of questions and answers, the shortest officer flipped his notepad closed and looked across to me. “Can you show us the emails?”
I stepped over to the computer, logged in and brought up the latest one.
The police officers stepped forward. They read the words, heard the ticking…
“I see. How many have you received?”
“Three. I may have had more, but deleted them. My friend has been getting them, too. Laura Harris.” I gave them Laura’s details.
“Do you have any idea who could be sending them?” the taller Officer asked. “The sender’s email is titled ‘No fool.’ Does that mean anything to you?”
“Not really. Well, I know a guy named Carl Sanderson. It’s possible he’s trying to get back at me over something that happened last year.” I shrugged. “But I’m really not sure.”
They scribbled in their notebooks again.
I stayed quiet, listening to the slow scratches their pencils made on the paper. I swapped a curious look with Lee. I think he was wondering the same as I. How seriously are they taking our story?
“What makes you think it’s a death threat?” the tall officer asked. “There’s no direct mention of this in the message.”
Lee shoved his hands in his pockets and stepped forward. “Because my brother received them, and he’s dead. I no longer believe it was an accident.”
The officers shared a long and serious look. “When was this?”
“Two weeks ago.”
“I’ll need your brother’s name and the officer who was in charge. We’ll look into it.”
“Okay.” Lee gave details about Daryl. “I want you to re-open his case. I don’t believe his death was accidental. He hasn’t received any more of these emails since he died. That’s got to mean something.”
The officer nodded while scribbling.
“What should I do now?” Hope hung off my words.
“Did Carl Sanderson know your brother?” the officer asked Lee.
Lee shook his head. “I know most of his friends. He could have been a client though. His colleagues could answer that.”
The second officer left the room. I heard his muffled
voice and his radio crackling in the hall. The tall officer pocketed his notepad then crossed his arms behind his back. His stiff pose made him look even taller.
I tilted my head up.
“Do you have a friend or family member you can stay with?” he asked.
The picture of an idyllic hotel popped to mind. I nodded.
“In the mean time, we’ll start making enquiries.”
I figured immediate answers were not on the horizon. I don’t know why, but I expected more. Helicopters, bodyguards… Well, maybe nothing quite so dramatic, but something.
I gave the officer my account details. Then, I glanced with dread at the clock on my computer screen. Every second that passed dragged me closer to danger.
“You know there’s not much time left until the deadline, don’t you?” Lee said firmly, as if reading my thoughts. “The timer on my brother’s email is on zero. And the fact that he’s dead… Like I said. That’s got to be bad.”
“We’ll get on it right away.” The officer faced me. “As soon as you know where you’re staying, Miss Denham, phone the station. Ask for Officer Baines.”
“You can stay at my place.” Lee crossed the room and draped his arm around me. His breath was a mint wave over my face. “If you’d like.”
I managed half a smile, but all I could think about was the danger I’d be putting him in.
“Have you noticed anything else out of the ordinary?” the officer asked. “A car outside your house, peculiar phone calls, or has anyone been paying particular attention to you, recently?”
“Well, no. It’s just the emails.” I nibbled my lip, wondering at his question. “Oh. My car was scratched on Saturday.”
“I see. Anything else?”
I shook my head.
“Okay. This could be a number of things.” The Officer nodded at his colleague in the hall, then continued. “A computer virus, software to hack into your computer files, or…”
“I hope that’s all it is,” I muttered.
“We’ll be in touch, but if anything else happens, let us know right away,” the officer said on leaving. “I’d suggest not opening your emails again until we know what they contain. We’ll get the tech guys onto it. Try not to worry, Miss Denham.”
I doubted I could do that.
As soon as I shut the door behind them, Lee turned, and marched into the dining room.
“Do you think they’ll find anything?” I caught up to him and met his eyes, desperate to see a glint of hope in his expression.
“Fingers crossed. There’s got to be a way of finding out who’s behind this. I’m convinced I’ll come up with a good plan to catch them out if I have some time to think. We’ll trick them into showing themselves. Someone else could dress up as you, or... Just trust me.”
I held my palm out. “You’re here. So I guess I do.”
CHAPTER 12
I sent a quick text to Laura to say I was going to go to Lee’s house, and tagged his address on the end. The phone beeped as I put it, along with the charger, into my bag and dropped it in the hall. “I’ll charge my phone at your place. I think it’s about to die.” I went up the creaking stairs and, unsure of the dress code for a death threat occasion, I decided just to grab basic toiletries and a change of clothes, seems as I didn’t own a bullet proof vest.
I entered the bathroom first, and headed forward to the shower. I collected shampoo and gels from the rack inside and held them in my arms. A cap popped off and landed on the floor. While nudging the glass shower door shut with my elbow, I must have squeezed the bottles. A zesty-lime fragrance filled the air. Shampoo seeped over the rim and slid like neon slime down the side of the bottle to my top, and then blobbed on the thighs of my jeans.
“Damn!”
I dumped the bottles, grabbed a flannel from the edge of the sink, wet it and wiped. The stain only spread. Dampness soaked through to my bra. I kicked the bathroom door shut and stripped down to my knickers. While waiting for the sink to fill with hot water, I wrapped myself in a towel.
Keys jangled from the hall below. I assumed Lee was getting impatient. So, I dunked my top in to soak, and left my jeans and bra on the floor.
My face cream and toothbrush were in the mirrored cabinet on the wall above the sink. I opened it and grabbed the tub of cream from inside, vaguely aware of having seen something which didn’t belong.
Lee shouted, “How long will you be?”
I closed the cabinet. Stumbling, I backed away. My fingers had wiped a clear patch in the steamed-up mirrored door.
Through the patch, I saw it clearly.
My palm fell open. The tub rolled off my hand and thumped on to the floor. I blinked, shifting my focus to the left of my scarlet-faced mirror image.
Five red words reflected in the mirror from the wall behind me. Steak knives were sticking out of the plaster.
I whirled around and stared at the wall above the toilet. I jerked my head up as though I’d taken a punch under the chin. It read:
‘TICK TOCK. SLAG. YOU’LL PAY.’
Standing two metres away, heart thumping faster, I followed the trail of letters with horrified eyes.
The red curves and tails of the giant-sized handwriting looked almost friendly, but the meaning, for sure, was not. The words, written in deep red lipstick across most of the wall, were no less frightening for not having been written in blood. Seven of my own steak knives had been rammed into the plaster, sticking out of the wall at different angles. They circled the word ‘slag,’ like a clock face. I scanned the floor. Where’s the eighth knife? The end of the lipstick had broken off and was squashed on the wall creating a full stop.
I screamed. The towel slid off my body. I caught my toe on it, stumbled and twisted around.
Rapid footsteps pounded up the stairs. Thump, thump. The door flung open so violently that its handle crashed against the heated towel rail. The rattle caused two knives to drop out of the wall.
“Chelsea, Chelsea. What’s wrong?” Lee grabbed my shoulders from behind. He spun me around to face him.
Disorientated, I stood with my face an inch from Lee’s, my legs so weak I expected to drop to my knees.
“What happened?” he said. His hand squashed against my bare breast as he leaned back to look at me. His eyes ran up and down my body.
With a quivering finger, I pointed over his shoulder at the wall. “L... Look!”
A beat later, Lee turned his head. “Bloody hell!” He gathered me into his arms and stared at the writing.
“Exactly.” I couldn’t breathe deep enough, like woolly cobwebs were smothering my face. “Oh, God. Oh, God. What the hell’s going on?” Cloaked in terror, but little else, I stood in shock, held up by Lee. Tears poured down my cheeks.
How did someone get into my house? The doors weren’t kicked in, the windows weren’t smashed – not in the rooms downstairs. Did someone have a key? While clinging to Lee, I tried to think of the last time I’d been in the bathroom, or at least looked up at the wall above the toilet. Surely I didn’t pee with my eyes shut? How long had this been here? Who did it?
I felt violated, and totally exposed as though the letters had eyes that were scrutinizing every inch of my naked body. With those kinds of thoughts making my head spin like a washing machine, I pulled away from Lee and crossed my arms over my chest. As he stepped forward to examine the writing, I turned my back to it.
“Takes some force to ram those knives in. The plaster on these walls must be pretty thick.”
“It is,” I said. “Keeps the room warm.” I dashed past him, grabbed my dressing gown from the back of the door and left the bathroom. Breasts bouncing, I raced down the staircase so fast that I practically slid off the edge of each step. When I landed on the floor at the bottom, I gripped the banister rail to right myself, wiped my eyes then looked up. “Come on. Let’s get out of here!” My screaming words sounded too big for the house. I slid my arms into my dressing gown and pulled it closed. “Hurry! What the hell are you
doing up there?”
In five seconds Lee made the bottom of the stairs with my jeans and bra bundled in his hand. I grabbed my bag and a random pair of shoes from the hall. We shot one by one through the front door. I moved barefoot like a runner in a race after the starting gunshot.
“Your keys?” Lee said.
“Stuff that.” I threw them to him anyway. “Let’s take your car,” I said, as he locked my front door. “That’s what people do, right? Switch vehicles when they’re being tailed.”
Lee pointed a fob at his Leon. It beeped and the headlights flashed.
I slammed down into the passenger seat. As soon as Lee opened his door and sat down, I banged the dashboard with my palm. “Step on it!”
Lee threw my clothes and keys onto my lap and then turned the engine on. A dreadful thought leapt into my head as he released the handbrake. I gasped and turned, expecting to find a balaclava-wearing madman waving the missing steak knife in the back.
It was empty. Phew. I slammed back against the seat.
Tyres screeched on tarmac as he shifted into first and sped off.
“Hold on tight,” he rasped, skidding out of my street.
His daredevil driving had me clamping the seat, although I didn’t want him to slow down. He took the second corner at high speed. Packets of gum slid off the dash and a bottle rolled around in the footwell.
“Anyone following?”
I looked behind. “Er, no. I don’t think so.”
All I wanted was to be somewhere else, somewhere safe. Now that my home had been invaded, I felt more vulnerable than ever. A nightmare was closing in on me, like the whole town was one dark room with fast shrinking walls.
While we raced through the streets, I saw death on every corner. The words may as well have been stamped across my inner eyelids like a logo. Someone in a smart suit was swinging a long slender object.
“What’s that in his hand?”
“Relax,” Lee said. “It’s just an umbrella.”
It looked like a sawn-off shotgun. A child threw a tennis ball into the air, it seemed like a hand grenade at first. I didn’t need any more reminders that I was in trouble. The message in my bathroom had done enough. Something inside the car beeped, making me jump. I scanned the interior of Lee’s car, wanting to hide my face under some ingenious disguise. But there was little even the most creative of people could do with a packet of gum and Bart Simpson air freshener.