by JD Nixon
He paid the bill and we strolled back to his Mercedes, hand in hand. I hoped he enjoyed these happy little snippets of non-sexual time we spent together as much I did. They didn’t happen very often.
On our way back to the Warehouse, Trent rang. “Are you enjoying your sick day?”
“Of course not. I’m sick,” I croaked, coughing unconvincingly a few times.
He laughed. “Has anyone ever told you you’re a terrible actor?”
“Yes, frequently.”
“I can believe it. I’ve seen you in that cereal ad.”
“That wasn’t me,” I denied automatically.
“Stop lying. It was clearly you.”
“Please don’t tell me it’s back on TV again.”
“Afraid so. Saw it last night. Your acting in it was cornier than a bag of popcorn.”
“Did you ring for any reason except to insult my sterling work as a thespian?”
“Why, yes I did, young madam, yes I did. I want to make sure you’ll be at work tomorrow. I have a new research job for you.”
“What is it?”
“You’ll find out tomorrow,” he sing-sang in a teasing way.
“Trent,” I complained.
“Bye, Tilly.” He disconnected.
I hated it when a boss did that to me. And I guess in that respect, though not much else, Trent was a lot like Heller.
Chapter 16
I took advantage of my free afternoon to hang with Daniel and Niq, because I hadn’t missed their plaintive glances at me lately as I rushed around between work and Heller. We played some pool, Niq thrashing us by miles as Daniel and I slowly became plonked on wine together.
Later in the hot tub, Niq confessed he’d met a girl in his online game and had shared some fairly personal details about himself with her, including about his past.
“Niq!” I exploded. “How do you know that this ‘girl’ isn’t some predatory forty-year-old man?”
He shrunk back against my strong reaction, his voice a little hesitant, “She told me she was fifteen. She sent me a picture of herself.”
“Niq sweetie, it’s the internet. People can say whatever they want about themselves! A predator could have sent you a picture of his daughter. You know better than to trust a stranger. Heller will be furious with you.”
His eyes shined, but it wasn’t with happiness. “I didn’t mean to do anything wrong. I just wanted a friend. She was so nice to me. She likes me.”
And before I could say another word, he clambered out of the hot tub, grabbed a towel and, not even waiting to dry off, rushed through the door down the stairs.
“Tilly, that was a little harsh,” Daniel admonished gently. “You’ve upset him.”
“Oh, God,” I said, dismayed. “I didn’t mean to. I just . . .”
Daniel stood. “I’ll go see him.”
I touched his shoulder to stop him. “No, I will. I’m the one who screwed this up badly.”
I quickly dried off, threw on some clothes over my bikini and made my way to Daniel’s flat where I felt pretty sure I’d find Niq. He spent most of his spare time there, even sleeping in Daniel’s second bedroom when he wasn’t in the office doing schoolwork. I tried the handle and found the door unlocked, so stepped through.
Niq sat on the lounge in his still-wet clothes, not looking at anything, the towel in a puddle on the floor, his face a study of misery. A couple of stray tears trickled down his cheeks.
“I’m so sorry, sweetie. I didn’t mean to raise my voice at you or sound so harsh.” I sat next to him and slid my arm around his thin shoulders, drawing him to me. He heaved a shuddery breath. “It’s just that I love you so much that I worry about you and I want you to be safe.”
“You sound like Heller,” he mumbled.
“I guess I do.” And I wasn’t sure that was a good thing. “We both love you and want to protect you.”
“But you’re the one who always tells us that we can’t live our lives not trusting anyone like Heller does,” he sniffed.
“That’s true – I do say that and I mean it. I suppose to you I sound inconsistent.”
The door opened again and Heller stepped through. He sat down on the other side of Niq and took one of his hands in his. Daniel must have rung him and told him what had happened.
“Niq, my sweet boy. Everything Matilda said was right, but she could have expressed herself better.” He shot me a loaded look over the top of Niq’s head, only making me feel worse.
Niq gave a watery snort. “I just wanted a friend, Heller. She seemed so nice and told me she really liked me.”
Heller thought for a moment. “I know. What if you give me this girl’s screen-name in that game and I’ll run a check on her? There’s a lot of information I can find out about her from just her screen-name, including her age and gender.”
“Heller!” I interrupted, shocked. “That means people can find out information about Niq.”
His eyes pitied me. “Not everybody can do it, Matilda. Just those with my . . . expertise.” He returned to Niq. “If this girl checks out, you may continue to talk to her. If not, you’ll have nothing more to do with her. Deal?”
Niq looked up at Heller, his pale blue eyes even bigger than usual as he thought through the offer. Heller’s face softened looking down at him, reaching a hand up to cup Niq’s cheek. Unlike most fifteen-year-old boys, Niq didn’t pull away, but leaned into Heller’s hand. I always found it so touching how much affection Heller shared with his small ‘family’. But, I wished I knew if he thought of me as part of that family or not.
“Deal.”
Heller smiled and kissed Niq on the forehead. “Good. All settled then. Email me her screen-name so I can pass it on to Sid. And now, maybe you can help Matilda make us all dinner.”
“What?” I moaned. “Why me?”
“Who’s the one who had the day off?”
“Oh boy!” I complained standing up and taking Niq’s hand. “Don’t you know I was sick? You’re a real piece of work, Heller.”
“But you still love me anyway,” he said with a confident smirk.
“I do, but I don’t know why sometimes.” I leaned over to kiss him.
“Will you two just knock off all that smoochie stuff,” said Niq. “It’s disgusting and nauseating.”
“Tell me when you stop thinking that,” smiled Heller. “Because then we’ll need to have the second ‘special talk’.”
“What’s that one about?”
“The mysterious world of women.”
I rolled my eyes. “Honestly, we’re not that mysterious, Niq. We’re just a little more complex in nature than the simple creatures that are men.”
Heller laughed. “Do you think I’m a simple creature, my sweet?”
“God no! But then I don’t think you’re human, so you’re probably not technically a man.”
“Very droll, Matilda. Anyway, as much as I’d love to discuss gender politics all day, I still have work to get through,” he dismissed, leaving.
I considered Niq. “I guess we do too, Niq. Let’s go to the pantry.”
“But you’re not supposed to –”
I held my index finger to my lips. “Shh. Heller said to make dinner, but I can’t using my food because I haven’t got any.”
He shrugged. “Makes sense to me. Let’s go to the pantry.”
We had a fun evening all together again, and I think Clive might even have cracked a smile in my direction once at some wine-fuelled thing I said. But it may have been a snarl of contempt – it was too hard to tell in the rooftop lighting.
Sid enthused – at length – about a new purchase they’d acquired for their pornography collection after a fierce auction bidding war. I held my hands over Niq’s ears repeatedly as he did, annoying him so much he stormed off to play his online game. I yelled out after him to remember to give Heller his online buddy’s screen-name.
“I know, Tilly. Geez!” he said, simultaneously rolling his eyes and throwing back h
is head to show his extreme disdain for my nagging. “You’d think I was old and had no memory, like you people.”
“I love you, Niq,” I yelled out again.
He stopped at the door to the staircase and ran back to hug me tightly. “I love you too.”
He ran off again, leaving me sitting at the table sobbing, dripping drunken tears into my wine glass. “I love that boy so much.”
Heller sighed patiently. “I think it’s time for you to go to bed, my sweet.”
I snorted with watery inelegance. “You always say that. I don’t want to go to bed. All I do these days is work. I’m finally having fun for once.”
“It doesn’t look like it. You’re crying.”
“They’re happy tears.”
“I’m sure they are, but nonetheless, it’s time for bed.”
“No. I don’t need anyone telling me when to go to bed. I’ll make up my own mind.”
I stood to pour myself another glass of wine, but Heller gently took the empty glass from my hand and placed it back on the table. “Matilda.”
I glared at him and he gazed back steadily. And in his eyes, usually so icy and unrevealing of his feelings, I saw a complex mix of tender emotions, squeezing out a few extra tears from mine.
“Okay,” I said in a small voice, letting him take my hand and lead me to his bedroom.
After a bit of stumbling around, supervised by Heller, I managed to brush my teeth and dress myself in my pyjamas. I flopped into his bed and into his arms.
“I hope you’re not too tired,” he said, commencing doing some things to me that awakened quite a few of my senses.
But the next morning, after another long night with my naked Norseman, I wasn’t feeling too sharp getting ready for work.
“Matilda, you have your t-shirt on back to front,” Heller informed me. “Here, let me help you take it off.”
“No!” I said, backing away from him. All I needed right now was for him to start touching me and deciding he needed another tumble in the hay. Then I’d definitely be late for work and at the moment, my lateness seemed more in the realm of likely possibility than anything definite.
After a reckless drive to work that had my pulse dancing with anxiety, I hurried past Brady’s office, not daring to look at him. But even though I kept my head down, I could feel a wave of disapproval flowing out from there to envelope me.
I hurried to Trent’s office, throwing myself in his visitor’s chair. He glanced at his expensive gold watch.
“Oh, so you finally decided to turn up to work again, huh? I’m honoured.”
“Don’t,” I begged. “I’m not feeling too good today. I had a late night.”
“You don’t look too good either, and I’d wager it wasn’t the late night that’s making you look so green.”
“Maybe I had one glass of wine too many.”
“It would appear so. Now, do you want to hear about this new assignment?”
“Yep,” I said, sitting forward on my chair, trying to seem engaged. “I hope it involves lying down in a dark room with a cold washcloth over my face for the rest of the day?”
Trent laughed. “Not even close. I want you to go to the committal hearing for Turbot and Tank. It starts tomorrow and is expected to last about four days.” He slid a card across the desk to me. “Here’s a media pass. They’ve only allocated a few, so guard it with your life. You know what journalists are like when they think they’re missing out on a story.”
I sat up straighter, now genuinely interested. “I know.”
“It’s going to be a huge story. I don’t want to miss out on it,” he said, missing the irony in his words. “I know for a fact that other TV station will be covering it,” his voice dripping with contempt for his rival station. “When you’ve sorted out the show for the next week, you can spend the rest of the day researching the case.”
I groaned. “That’s a lot of work.”
“Have fun.”
“Yeah, yeah.” I left his office, still grumbling and went to my cluttered, untidy desk, rummaging under the stacks of paper for my coffee cup. And with caffeine close at hand, I set to work.
Hours later, after reading through the tip-offs, emails, occasional letter and checking the online news for anything that looked as though it might make an interesting story, I had a tentative schedule. Trent, Brady, Viv, Trent’s assistant, Scottie, and I met to go over it.
Trent and Brady disagreed about a few story suggestions and as their voices grew louder and more strident, Scottie, Viv and I shot each other glances, all of us sitting quietly. I figured there were enough egos in the room without adding mine to the mix. Viv was used to them by now, so ignored them, checking her phone. And Scottie, a measured calm man, who Trent avowed he’d be lost without, was always the very model of diplomacy. We worked closely together as he often picked up the task of organising and booking people for stories when I was out of the office.
A schedule finally approved, Scottie assured me he’d take over that job again, leaving me time to research Turbot and Tank. And as Trent pre-recorded stories for the evening’s show, I sat with my laptop in the studio reading up on the notorious pair.
Drug-fuelled teenage lovers – nineteen-year-old Alice Turbot and eighteen-year-old Charlotte Tank – had been charged with a series of horrific murders that rendered the country speechless. I could still remember how I sat glued to the news, watching the story unfold months ago. They were alleged to have brutally murdered their families late one hot Sunday night in a uncontrolled, blood-splattered frenzy. Alice’s mother and older pregnant sister had been hacked to death with axes in their beds as they slept. Afterwards, high on speed and murderous power, they stole Alice’s mother’s car and drove to Charlotte’s home to give her parents and three younger stepbrothers the same treatment.
As if those events weren’t shocking and sensational enough for the media, the girls were also accused of afterwards drinking the blood of Charlotte’s mother. But to even top all of that, they had then remained living in Charlotte’s house for the next few days on a huge bender, dropping speed, smoking weed, repeatedly watching DVDs and pigging out on junk food. They allegedly had sex with each other a number of times on the blood-drenched beds of their victims, while the five viciously hewed Tank corpses remained in situ, undisturbed since their violent deaths.
The alarm had only been raised when Charlotte’s parents failed to show for work. Her father’s boss, a money-grabbing electrical contractor, had fronted at the Tank house early one mid-week morning, to angrily demand why his staff member hadn’t turned up for work for the previous two days. The young women, who were clearly drugged to the eyeballs, had met him at the door. Their bloody clothing remained unchanged since the massacre, giving him a terrible clue that all was not well with his employee. The young women had spoken to him in incoherent terms, ranting about the testing of their darkness and devotion through a blood offer, only stopping to swig from Charlotte’s father’s prized bottle of vintage whisky. The man had backed away in horror and immediately retreated to his van to ring the police.
The two uniformed officers closest to the scene received a similar welcome from the girls, with the addition of them tongue-kissing and lewdly fondling each other at the doorway. Before long the women were taken into custody for questioning and the house swarmed with cops and forensics. It was only when detectives tried to contact Alice’s mother that the slaughter in her family home was also discovered. Needless to say, it was a busy day for the police, and a frantic one for the media.
When the young women were charged, debate had raged in the media for weeks about the level of influence cast over them by an online promoter and practitioner of dark magic, Malefic. His website, which had thousands of followers, was one that various people constantly demanded the government permanently shut down. On their arrest, the women declared they were his devoted ‘acolytes’, as did many other impressionable young people, confessing to their crimes without hesitation. They prou
dly told detectives they murdered their families as part of a tribute ritual to Malefic to gain his attention and approval.
After thirty minutes on his website watching some of his podcasts, I needed to dunk myself in a bathtub filled with disinfectant. In my entire life of wasting time surfing the internet, I’d never come across a more narcissist, malevolent online presence than Malefic. Even the sight of him crept me out. Ghostly pale, his black hair hung long and straight down either side of his face. Totally unsmiling in every video, he dressed entirely in black, his fingernails longer than mine and painted black. Two similarly black-garbed, black-haired women sat silently either side of him in every podcast like some kind of sentinels as he recorded.
When I first saw him, I reeled back in shock. His irises were so inky black, he appeared to have no pupils. I reasoned to myself that it was probably coloured contacts creating the effect, but there was no denying its immediate shock value. That, combined with his sharpened canine teeth, lent him an inhuman appearance.
But the most frightening thing to me was his voice. It was beautiful, melodic, hypnotic. If I closed my eyes, I could have happily listened to him speaking all day long, no matter what he was saying. He spoke calmly, sounding the very voice of reason and logic. It was easy to see how vulnerable young people could be captured by his magnetism and message. And when I watched a couple of the podcasts where he demonstrated some of his rituals, I didn’t even want to laugh like I thought I would. Instead, a chill crept up my spine.
Trent found me still at my computer many hours later, deep in research about dark magic.
“You look a little shell-shocked,” he commented, planting his butt on my desk. “It’s late. You should go home.”
“This whole story is freaking me out. This Malefic guy is so creepy. Look at him.”
He put on his glasses and peered down at my screen, shuddering. “He’s creepy, for sure. Hmm, maybe we should do something on the topic for tomorrow night’s show?”