by Belle Brooks
Shit! Just bring in the shackles and lock me up already.
Two more chairs rest across from mine, a basic table between me and them, and now I’m alone in here, left to wait.
My fingers tap against the table’s surface in an attempt to control the tremors. It doesn’t work. Slipping them downwards, I tap against my soaked checked pyjama bottoms, and stare at my thumbnail moving to an uncoordinated beat. Grass and mud stains cover both the knees caps on the material covering my legs, and thoughts of what tonight has entailed causes me to swiftly place my hands back up onto the table. Without permission, my fingers again resume a nervous beat, against wood.
Detective West enters, followed by another man. He is in dark-washed jeans and a navy shirt too, and is about three inches shorter than his counterpart, who seems to be my height of six-foot-two. His hazel eyes have a spark of kindness in them. His features are much softer and more cared for than West’s, so I believe he’s younger. His skin is dark in colour, as is the stubble covering his chin. I’m guessing good cop … bad cop.
My eyes dash around the four white plain walls. A bolted down chair, a brown-topped table, me, and two detectives—this should be fun.
“Mr Banks, this is Roland Gleaton. He is another detective in our unit and will be assisting me on your wife’s disappearance.”
I lean back into the chair before showing my palm in a half-hearted wave. It’s going to be a long night. A worried moan escapes my lips as they begin to stare at me like a man on trial. How quickly the atmosphere in this small room changes.
Detective West shifts his eyes downwards focusing on some crisp white papers he has laid out in front of him. “Mr Banks, we will go through some of the formalities first, collecting essential data from you, and then we will have a chat,” he says, as his eyebrows rise and his grey-blue eyes stare hard into mine.
A large lump fills my throat and prevents any sound passing its non-existent lodgement. I nod to indicate I understand his intentions.
“Mr Banks. Can I call you Reid?”
“Please,” I reply with a clearing of my throat.
“What’s your wife’s full name?” He poises his pen over the papers.
I cough to clear my throat once more and then hesitantly begin to speak. “Morgan Amelia Banks.”
“How old is Morgan?” He crosses one foot over his knee, his expression relaxes as if he is more than comfortable sitting across from me and we’re having a leisurely chat.
“She’s thirty-five.”
“Your address, please?”
“168 Potter Road, Norman Gardens.” My jaw begins to ache as I clench my teeth.
“Beautiful property. I believe it’s the one with the tyre swing in the front yard, yes?” His calm and relaxed demeanour mixed with his sudden cold, stony glare is confusing and overwhelming all at once.
“Yes.”
“Lovely part of town, too.” He cocks his head to the side, his banter delivered in a friendly manner.
“Yes, it is.”
“You have two children, Reid?”
“A son, Brax, and a daughter, Aleeha.”
“Ages?”
“Twelve and ten,” I croak.
“Your full name, please?”
“Reid Elis Banks.” He writes down everything I’m saying, and as I watch the cap pressed to the end of the pen forming inkless patterns in the air, the lump in my throat grows more constricting, leaving me slightly short of breath. Why isn’t the other detective speaking? What is he thinking? Why does he look so disinterested?
“Age?” West says, snapping me out of my observation.
“My age?”
His eyes scan upwards as I point to my chest. “Yes.”
Moving uncomfortably in the chair, I rub at my face to calm myself. “I’m thirty-five as well.”
“I see ... Reid, can you tell me in your words what happened tonight?”
I go to speak, but he raises his hand to stop me and turns his head, whispering something into his colleague’s ear. Detective Gleaton nods before promptly standing and then exiting the room.
Confusion fills me.
“Is everything okay?” I ask, my voice shakes on my words.
West returns an arrogant smile.
What’s their game?
Gleaton re-enters not long after he left. He’s holding a small audio machine to his side. Placing it to the middle of the table, he fiddles with it until he nods and steps back.
“Reid, we’re going to record your statement. You don’t have an issue with this, do you?”
You ask me now, arsehole, after so much effort setting it up?
“Nope.” I roll my eyes.
His expression shifts to irritated. “Okay, continue.”
“Where do I start?” I’m unsure as to what part of tonight West is referring to.
His glare, and his manner, tell me he is looking for a shortened version of events, over a long-winded and drawn-out one. Or is this what I think he wants?
Watching West inhale, has me following him and repeating his very act. Do I plead my case now?
“Start at the beginning.”
I place my hands on my head, and as I fold them on top of each other, I take another large mouthful of air, puffing out my cheeks. Slouching farther into the chair, which is as uncomfortable as a boulder below my arse, I take a moment to close my eyes and think back to the call Morgan made. The one where she would have been drenched by the rain. The one where she was on the side of the road with a flat tyre. She must have been so mad at me. Why was I such an arsehole to her?
“Mr Banks,” West says, dryly.
“Huh?”
“What happened tonight?”
“What happened?” I repeat.
“Yes. Reid.”
“Morgan …” One word. My wife’s name echoes through my mind.
“Morgan. Yes. Tell us what happened with Morgan.”
“Well … She … We…”
“Do you need something to drink, Reid? Would you like to step outside for a cigarette? Calm your nerves?” West seems caring in asking.
“No. I’m good. I’m okay. I just needed a minute.”
“Okay. Well, when you’re ready, tell us what you remember about tonight.”
Left. Right. Up. Down. My eyes travel in a bounce from the white walls and roof with nothing pinned to them. Not a picture, or a poster—not even a memo. Eight times I find myself sucking down deep breaths through my nose. I count as I try to remember what happened. “Morgan had to stay late at work tonight.” I pause. “I had to pick the kids up from vacation care. Afterwards, I cooked dinner. Morgan had told me she’d be late. I think we had a bit of a disagreement about it.”
“You think?”
I shake my head. “No. We did. We disagreed. It was her turn to pick up the kids.”
“Okay.” West raises his hand again, his indication for me to stop talking. Then he begins writing something down, but I can’t see what it says.
“It—it’s—well, it’s not like that,” I manage to finally spit out.
“It’s not like what, Mr. Banks?”
Fuck, this man is intimidating. “It’s not like we were … Can I start over?” My tongue ties.
“Just keep going please. You had a disagreement. What type of disagreement?”
“The married type,” I spew out with force. He knows he’s rattling me, and I believe he gets further satisfaction when my hands curl into fists and then drop down loudly against the table. “Stop.” My throat is strained from desperation.
After a few lengthy inhales, I straighten my posture to sitting stiff and upright and glare as the corner of his mouth rises slightly. It’s as if he wants to smile. I blink, and by the time I look at his mouth again, he’s reined back his need and is displaying a completely neutral expression. How does he do that?
There’s complete silence. A standoff of wills as I try to calm myself again.
“Look … Morgan had to stay late for the third tim
e this week. I’m not going to lie. I was pissed about it.”
He nods.
“I didn’t yell at her or anything … I only let her know I was upset by another late arrival home. Come on, you must know what I mean. Wives, they piss you off sometimes.”
“Okay,” he says, in an understanding tone.
“I cooked dinner for the kids, like I said. They were having showers. We were waiting for Morgan to arrive before eating. But she called. She said she’d blown out a tyre. Fifteen minutes away. She was only fifteen minutes away, she said this. There was some guy, she called him a Good Samaritan, he stopped to help her with the flat—”
“A man stopped and was with your wife?” West has one eyebrow shoot upwards as the other stays in place.
“Yes, but he left. He left before I even hung up. I heard the mumblings, but I swear she said goodbye and thank you before we ended our call.”
“Okay, continue.” His eyebrows sit squared to each other again.
“Morgan and I had some words. You know how it is. Well, maybe it was just me being annoyed because she didn’t call me to come fix the fucking tyre. She normally calls me for stuff like this. I got a bit riled up, and I let her know she needed to be home more, she needed to stop working back so much. Of course, Morgan bit back at me. She said to start dinner without her…but when I hung up, we had both calmed … actually, Morgan might have hung up.”
“Okay, what happened next?” West rotates his neck, which results in a cracking sound, and I watch him until he focuses his attention on me once again.
“Nothing happened. She didn’t show up. I cleaned the kitchen, poured a glass of wine for each of us, and waited.”
“You were drinking?” West seems surprised as he leans forwards, hovering further over the table.
“It’s not illegal to have a few nightcaps.” Why did he react this way? My shoulders involuntarily lift in a shrug. “It was a couple of glasses, you know?” My palms move outwards, gesturing that his overreaction to a few glasses of wine is borderline ridiculous.
“Are you under the influence of alcohol, Reid?”
Is he kidding right now? Of course not. I squeeze the back of my neck, shaking my head, dumbfounded by West’s question. “Nope. I’m not. Breathalyse me.”
“When did you start to worry something might be wrong?” he asks, matter-of-factly.
“Well, I don’t know, I guess—” I stop studying the two officers across from me. “I thought maybe she had gone back to the office, maybe she had forgotten something—”
“Or maybe she was lying and didn’t have a flat tyre at all, and it was a ploy to be elsewhere.” West’s words are so calm when he delivers them, I know my reaction is shocked, due to the fact he just read my earlier thoughts.
I lower my head before moving it from side to side.
“Am I right, Reid?”
I nod.
“Do you think your wife is having an affair?”
“No,” I whisper, unsure if I believe it myself.
“Are you sure that’s the truth, Reid?”
Jolting upright, I shoot fire daggers from my eyes as anger pumps through my veins. Clenched fists result as steam builds, threatening to explode from my ears and nose. “Morgan’s not cheating on me. She’s not. Do you understand?”
One punch hard into the desk causes me to grimace. Neither West or Gleason are startled by my reaction or the sound my fist makes hitting against the wood.
“This is fucked.”
Morgan
You can’t sit here and wait to die, Morgan. If this is your destiny, then at least have the courage to die fighting. Move, will you? My thoughts fire rapidly.
Rage surges through my blood as a result. I turn to the next page in the book and write.
Thursday, December 18th
I sigh with sadness as the realisation I’m probably not going to make it through day one becomes my only belief. I wasn’t built tough. I was built to nurture.
With a broken heart, I place the book and pen into the backpack and slowly stand up on uneven ground. My visually battered and bruised body aches, and my buckling ankles almost see me fall. Somehow, I manage to find balance on the thin pegs of my shoes. One drop of what I hope is water skirts the length of my nose, causing me to look upwards and straight at a moon much larger than its normal size. The storm once blocking its exquisiteness is now all but a distant memory. Reid would have loved the moon tonight, with its shades of pink …
Reid.
I search for his ocean blue eyes and when I envision them, they’re a welcome imagery. I wish he could hold me securely right now. I’m alone and frightened and most likely going to be killed if I don’t move out from this open area. Right now, I’m a sitting duck, waiting to be slaughtered.
I have no strength––I’m so tired. Acid burns a path from my stomach and up my throat before latching onto the back of my tongue, causing me to swallow hard. I don’t have the strength to even vomit again. “Please, I can’t be sick.”
Closing my eyes has me managing to distract myself and with thoughts of Reid and I, sitting on the porch swing at home together after another long day, it finally disappears. The visions of soft swinging bring much-needed peace and have me ready to play a game I have no desire to play.
“Find me, Reid,” I whisper before turning towards the bush I have no doubt will house spear grass and a horror I have no choice but to accept.
One step. Two steps. Three steps make me shudder, so I stop moving. I twist my head over my shoulder and look back at the long dirt and gravel track we drove down. I’ve been sitting in the same spot for a while, and he never came back. Why? Maybe he won’t and he’s gone, and the game is already over. My mind begins to tick at a rate so fast I have trouble keeping up with its thought patterns.
He’s gone, Morgan. Surely, he can’t see you. Maybe the reason the twelve women who came before you didn’t win was because they should have walked back the way they came in. Maybe this is the way to win the game—never enter it in the first place. I stay planted on the spot, running this theory over and over in my mind. Could it be this easy?
Shaking my head, I whisper it aloud. “Can it be this easy?”
Surely not, but I’m liking this idea much more than the one that has me walking into the overgrowth of death.
Cautiously, I shift my body to turn back towards the path we came in on. One step. Two steps … it’s a tiptoe at first, almost creeping. Three steps. Four steps. Five steps. My pace quickens. Surprisingly, I’m balancing well on my heels and growing more confident as my momentum builds and with it speed follows. What started as a creep soon turns to a jog, and then to a run. How I’m accomplishing such a mission is beyond me. The only plausible explanation is my supermother powers are beginning to kick in right in the nick of time.
Run, Morgan, run, or he will gut you like a pig. My feet heed these words, and I find a faster gear.
The sound of crushing gravel and a car engine in the distance has my heart sinking and my stomach following. I was never alone whilst I sat there—he was indeed watching like promised.
Oh shit!
Morgan, you weren’t supposed to do this. You should have entered his maze, allowed the hunt to take place and played his game … It was never going to be so easy. My stupid mind lets me down and I halt immediately, shivering as my lungs try desperately to draw oxygen into them. A spray of gravel followed by clumps of mud are slung in my direction, successfully catapulted against my face. It stings something fierce on impact.
Morgan, you didn’t even make it past the beginning. You are pathetic.
My heart sprints as I close my eyes and I wait for the ultimate moment ... my end.
Tears rush silently down my cheeks as I welcome images of the people I love to flash behind them. This flickering imagery removes all the hellish visions of what could possibly happen to me during the last moments of my life.
The sound of cracking pierces my eardrums, and I jump. My eyes sprin
g open with the force of my fear only to be confronted with a masked man, who has his arm hanging out of the open car window and is holding a bull whip that flashes my sight, not once, but twice. It rises into the air a third time, and I can no longer see it whipping towards the ground. Where is it? I run.
Another loud crack has a piercing screech erupting from deep within my soul. It’s so loud it brings the taste of blood into my mouth. The bridge of my back burns, like a fire being lit with a single spark of a match. I scream again. This time the projection echoes throughout the empty space surrounding us, bouncing between the different natural elements that currently house my hell.
Another loud crack has me flung with such vigour, my cheek skids along the path, my flesh tearing until I come to a complete halt. My back burns like a thousand fire ants are biting at my skin and I growl to contain the scream wanting to explode through my lips.
Then there’s quiet. It’s so quiet all bar an untimed thudding in my ears. Every pulsation causes the pain to shoot through delicate nerve endings that send hurried messages to my brain. It’s the most excruciating agony I’ve ever felt in my life. I sob and the previous silence I feared is kept at bay by me, by the noises being forced from my mouth. They are so unfamiliar to me, I can’t believe they’re even mine. The last attempt to call out my agony is not heard, as my voice fails me and becomes hoarse.
I lie motionless, listening to a squeaking noise which reminds me of an old rusted hinge being worked. There’s a loud bang, one I suspect is caused by the closing of a car door.
It starts out softly, yet becomes more powerful—the awful whistling belonging to the man who has taken me. Each one of his footsteps has me trembling with fear, and as they draw closer his whistling intensifies.
Warm liquid runs down the insides of my legs alerting me to the fact that I’ve just wet myself. I have to stay still. Stay still Morgan, runs through my mind. I need for him to believe I’m dead so he leaves and I can get away. I take one large inhale and hold my breath. It’s all I can do, and I hope to god I can hold it in long enough.