Jay was in her trust. Whatever she wanted, her hands and her lips stayed off him.
And his off her.
It was getting dark. Jay plodded along the pavement, doggedly keeping one foot in front of the other. Cars swept by, headlights fracturing the lengthening shadows. Walking to the Common hadn’t cleared his head the way he’d hoped. An hour’s sleep on Madison’s sofa had left him groggy, yet restless. He’d deserted Madison, with a half-mumbled excuse, to spend the evening alone in the studio, thinking he needed the space. But that hadn’t been the answer. His thoughts were wearing themselves towards exhaustion, grimly, ruthlessly, moving and shifting, obscured by fog. Something in there had changed. Who the hell knows what?
He trudged up the steps to the apartment block, across the lobby and into the lift. On the top floor the door to Madison’s place was closed. He hesitated, hand outstretched to knock, before changing his mind and swinging sharply towards his own door.
Once inside he tossed his jacket into a chair and took a beer from the fridge, pulling the single chair towards the long window and dropping into it. He sipped, staring out at the gathering night. The stars were coming out in the sliver of sky visible in the gap between the two buildings opposite. Jay shifted uneasily. Telepathy. He’d exchanged thoughts with Madison. She’d been right. He had his own power. Power like hers. Gingerly he explored the idea, waiting for the pain. Nothing came. Fog swirled, the aftermath of too many drugs, but no sudden flair of agony. Had he imagined a connection between prying too deep into his situation and crippling stabs behind his eyes?
Was he imagining all of it?
Maybe he was lying comatose in a hospital bed, surrounded by tubes and bleeping machines, while all this madness paraded, unnoticed, inside his head? It was a thought.
He swigged deeper from the beer. Fantasy, or memory? Had he once been that way? Everything he could see and hear now felt real. Deep in the back of his mind, everything felt … right. Progress, just as it ought to be. Which was crazy, as there was nothing in his life that could be claimed as anything near right.
Except Madison.
Her name was a shiver on his skin. Without her he was adrift in his own life, a walking, talking nothingness. But now, it seemed, he was a nothingness with power. Was that coming from her? Was it her will that was doing it, pulling things out of him that might have lain dormant? Should have lain dormant?
Carefully he set the empty beer bottle down on the floor, beside his chair. Madison was drawing stuff out of him, no question. Had it already been there? Had he known it was there? He’d had a life, and now it was gone, wrapped in steel inside his own head. Wrapped in steel. His fingers tensed on the arms of the chair. Whatever Madison had disturbed, it wasn’t enough. The barrier was still there.
The wooden arms of the chair bit into the palms of his hands. He needed more. So much more. He raised his hands, pressing hard against his eyes until lights danced, trying to force them into some sort of pattern. And felt again the tantalising hovering-on-the-edge-of-certainty that he’d felt before. Something was there, if only he could make sense of it. If only he could wrench it out of the darkness—
Defeated, he dropped his hands and rose to make his way blearily towards the alcove that housed the bed. It swung down smoothly from its position in the wall, protesting gently as he threw himself down on it. He stared at the ceiling – a pure, perfect white blank, like his mind. Your mind? Not pure, not white, not perfect.
He rolled over and hid his face in the pillow, shutting it out. If only he could think. Gather his thoughts to a point and cut through the barrier, to what was beyond. However terrible that might be?
Exhaustion was pulling him into oblivion. Briefly he struggled against it. Sometimes, like now, drifting down into sleep, he could almost sense … voices. One voice. Insistent, repetitive, calling his name. His name?
Madison is not the only one who has been inside your head.
She’d kept busy all evening – tidying her credit card receipts, shredding ancient bills, making herself a simple salad and eating it standing next to the kitchen counter, so she wouldn’t be tempted to call Jay to share it. She’d even watched some TV. Once she thought she heard the sound of a door slam and the whisper of the lift, but she might have imagined it. In any case, Jay was free to come and go as he pleased. She was not his keeper. She wasn’t anything to him. Except a friend?
She was damaging him, and he was letting her. Because he was desperate. Something had changed. She had to figure out what it was, and use it, for both their sakes.
She sighed, pulling herself up off the sofa, to close the curtains. A new moon was riding high in a navy blue sky. The colour of Jay’s eyes. Madison grimaced.
Abruptly, a yawn overtook her. She took one last look at the new moon. Hope? New beginnings? Hope?
It was dark. He couldn’t breath. The air was hot and heavy, stifling in his lungs. He had to keep running, gasping down oxygen. Muscles in his legs pumped, screaming. He surged on, one narrow space after another. There was light. The nameless thing was behind him. A long way behind. He’d got away.
No!
The wall reared up in front of him, out of nowhere, blocking his path. He heard a sound rising in his throat. It was here! No place left to run.
The dark stain splashed across the pale surface, just a few drops at first, splattering. Then a tide, running down the wall, black and viscous, obliterating the white painted surface, seeping over the floor, towards him, lapping at his feet, leaping towards him. He threw up his arms, to cover his face.
With a disjointed lurch it was all gone, sucked away. Relief made him dizzy. He turned, slowly, to make his way back.
He wasn’t alone. She was standing only a foot away from him. She shouldn’t be standing, shouldn’t be looking at him. Not any more. She was watching him but he couldn’t see her eyes, because she was dead. She was staring, with eyes that weren’t there. He looked down and his mouth stretched wide.
The screaming woke Madison. Coming from behind her head. On the other side of the wall.
‘Hold on, Jay! I’m coming.’ Oh God, could he hear her? She stumbled and almost fell as she grabbed her robe. The spare key to the studio was on a hook beside the door in the kitchen. She saw the clock. Quarter to four.
She fell into the lobby, wincing at the cold tiles under her feet, fumbled the lock, finally got it open and hurtled through the tiny hall and the open door into the main room. He was sitting bolt upright on the bed, back to the wall, eyes open but unseeing.
Sweat stained the front of his T-shirt, making it cling. He was lying on top of the covers, still fully dressed.
Heart hammering, Madison stopped beside the bed. Jay seemed to sense her presence. His head swivelled. She could see the whites of his eyes. The screams had settled into a heartrending murmur of sound. With only her instinct to follow she put her hands on his shoulders, gripping hard, and shook. ‘Jay.’
His head flopped, then snapped up. The way he swore convinced her he was awake. She put her hand to her mouth, fighting an abrupt wave of nausea. He was shaking. Without thinking, she pulled him towards her, cradling his head until the shivering stopped and he carefully disengaged himself.
Face going pink, she retreated to the end of the bed, belting her robe tighter. She had done more blushing around Jay than she’d done in her entire life. Well, since she was thirteen, anyhow.
‘I guess I was yelling?’ He had his arms wrapped around himself, shoulders hunched.
‘Something like that. What were you dreaming about?’
His eyes skittered away. He shook his head. ‘Don’t recall. I’m okay now. Thanks for the rescue.’ His lip curled.
‘Jay—’
‘I think I’ll open the balcony doors. Get some air.’ He brushed past her, still without looking at her. Madison studied his back, wonder
ing whether to … The set of his shoulders told her not to even think about it. She took her dismissal and went.
Back in her own bed she sat for a long while, thinking. Something had shaken loose today. Something frightening.
Despite herself, she shivered. Jay knew exactly what the dream was, he just wasn’t sharing. Its trails had hung in the room, like sticky spider threads. Dark – and violent. Why? Too many meds, too much emotion? Or were they finally getting close to a breach in the wall?
Madison sent a tentative probe out, seeing if she could connect. When she encountered nothing but dead air, she rolled on her side and curled into a ball, pulling the pillow under her neck.
On the balcony of the studio, Jay gripped the railing with whitened knuckles, hauling in cold, moonlit air. His heart had steadied, but the sick griping in his guts still lingered. The sweat on his body had cooled, turning icy.
He stood for a long time, listening to the noises from the street, until chattering teeth finally drove him in, to lie on the bed, wakeful.
He drifted into sleep around dawn. Dreamless. No more pounding down endless corridors. No more fetid, stifling violence. No more dead women; bloodstained hands.
His hands.
‘I think we should take a couple of days off. Go to the sea, maybe—’
‘No.’ Jay shook his head, for emphasis. ‘Thank you.’
Madison shifted until she could look into his eyes. ‘We both need a break. You scared the living daylights out of me last night.’
‘I’m sorry.’ He leaned across the table, captured her hand. ‘But don’t you see? Something is moving. You have to press on—’
‘No. And that is my considered, professional opinion. You’re over medicated. We take a week off. From everything. Let your system clear.’
The horror in his face would have been funny, if it hadn’t broken her heart.
‘I’m fine.’ His grip was nearly splintering her bones. She pulled free. His face whitened when he saw the red marks across the back of her hand. She heard him gulp. ‘Two days.’
‘Three. Best offer.’
He went still. The silence stretched. ‘All right, three days.’
Having got what she wanted, Madison could afford to be generous. ‘If we’re having time out, how would you like to go to a party?’
‘What sort of party?’ he asked suspiciously.
‘Work related, black-tie, tomorrow night. Schmoozing potential sponsors for new projects. Human face of research. Meet the scaries. Shake their hands. Eat a canapé with Mulder and Scully.’
‘That is so out of date.’
‘People who donate big money don’t tend to watch much recreational TV.’
‘Do you really put yourselves out there?’ he asked. ‘In public?’
‘You bet we do. It’s all in a good cause. We raise money, we continue to get paid. The research we do, it’s mostly pretty straightforward, except for the occasional guy with amnesia.’ She grinned. ‘The thing is, everyone secretly wants to believe that what we do is a bit creepy. Getting a little shiver with their donation seems to make people more willing to put their hands in their pockets. It’s like theatre.’
He nodded. ‘That’s quite smart.’
‘It’s all a matter of presentation. People meet us, find we only have the requisite number of heads, but there’s still that little buzz.’
As they talked she could see the tension settling out of his shoulders.
‘You going to wear that gold number?’
‘The gold number hasn’t been the same since the night we met. Oil?’ she reminded him. ‘But I have something else you might like. In silver.’
‘Sounds interesting. But you know I don’t have a thing to wear.’
‘That can be fixed.’
Madison dipped the tip of her tongue into the liquid in the wooden spoon, thought for a moment, then licked off the rest. It was spaghetti sauce. Her spaghetti sauce. It was good. This cooking thing wasn’t such a big deal. Like an experiment in the lab, a little of this, a pinch of that. With better results. Prettier. And tastier. She scrunched the pepper mill over the bubbling pan, turned down the heat, and wandered to the window.
Jay was in the tiny scrap of open ground across the street with Callum, kicking a football. They were both yelling, ducking and diving. Who exactly was the five-year-old? She raised her hand to wave as Jay spotted her. Callum waggled his arm energetically too, grinning. In the absence of his father, working in Dubai, the child had attached himself to Jay with a shy but serious case of hero worship. They looked good together, scrapping over the ball.
Madison looked over her shoulder at the kitchen. Food simmering on the hob, mum watching her son and his father play. Just like family. Any minute now the syrupy voice-over would be extolling the virtues of some essential domestic product. She smiled, self-mocking. The child wasn’t hers, and neither was the man. She didn’t do family. She ought to have learned her lesson by now. She opened the cupboard looking for the spaghetti.
‘I’d definitely forgotten how dammed uncomfortable these monkey suits are,’ Jay complained, hand to his throat, as they waited in the receiving line to greet the mayor. ‘This bloody collar is killing me. How can you forget being choked half to death by a few inches of starched cotton?’
Madison gave him a quizzical look. ‘Stop moaning, you look great.’ The suit was Neil’s, unworn. Madison pushed away the idea that he’d bought it for a wedding that in the end he couldn’t face. She didn’t know and wouldn’t grieve over it.
‘You don’t look too bad yourself.’ Jay’s eyes were scanning the silver dress. His approval warmed all the exposed skin that Madison had on show. And some that wasn’t. She stiffened, then made herself chill. These events were never going to be up there in the list of everyone’s top ten most unforgettable parties, but they were meant to be at least mildly enjoyable. And she intended to enjoy.
She wiggled her fingers at Jonathan, already past the line and in the room, glass in hand. He’d taken his demotion as escort with a droll look and a disturbingly dirty leer, but mercifully, no comment.
The mayor was getting closer. They shuffled forward.
‘Remind me again, why am I here? Strangling?’ Jay spoke out of the corner of his mouth. Madison admired. How did he do that?
‘Social integration.’ The very dark brows disappeared, almost up under the fall of hair that flopped over Jay’s forehead. He’d had it cut, but nothing stopped that wayward front section. ‘You’re going to have to get back to real life some time, whether you regain your memory or not,’ she advised primly. ‘May as well start here.’
He was studying the mayor and mayoress. Short, tubby and red-faced. Mr and Mrs Noah, in a child’s model ark. ‘This is real life?’
Madison had to control her grin. ‘Yes,’ she said firmly.
Despite the running commentary, Jay was relaxed. She could feel it. More at ease than he’d been since the nightmare. In the gym, playing with Callum, sampling her cooking, there’d been a black-edged undercurrent she hadn’t been able to unpick.
Once past the official greeting, Madison emerged thankfully into the room to find Jonathan and his partner, Ashley, waiting for them, with drinks. She’d barely got her mouth to her glass when she spotted the director, beaming and bearing down on her.
‘Madison, my dear.’ He air kissed her left ear. ‘There’s someone you have to meet.’ Short of shaking her boss’s hand off her arm, Madison couldn’t duck out of her duty to help charm a few sponsors. And it was, after all, why she was here. With an eye roll at Jay, she let herself be led away.
‘Mad’s always in demand at these affairs,’ Jonathan said as they both watched her progress across the room in the director’s wake. Jay looked round inquiringly. ‘Female scientist,’ Jonathan elaborated. ‘Still a pretty rare com
modity. Everyone wants to meet the lady spook, the beautiful lady spook, who may or may not be able to do something really creepy to you. And our director, bless his heart, has all the instincts of a top-grade matchmaker, which makes him very good at his job. That’s all jealousy, of course. Not so many people want to meet the queer spook.’
There was a flash of pain/anger, quickly suppressed, as Ashley nudged him in the ribs, with a reproving stare, and a swift apologetic grin at Jay. ‘You really want to spend the evening shaking moneybags, to see what you can make fall out?’ he asked softly. He turned to Jay. ‘Want to go find the food?’
Jay got himself a convenient wall to lurk beside, and a loaded plate, and watched Madison working the room, wondering why he was surprised at the skill with which she did it. Madison was good at everything she put her mind to. Despite the way she chose to live, she wasn’t the archetypal nerd, with the social skills of a goldfish. Her choices, the distrust of emotion, the fear of intimacy – he could understand that, given her history.
‘Madison’s parents and her fiancé?’ he said as Jonathan joined him. ‘You know much about that?’
Jonathan shot him a startled look. ‘She told you?’
Jay nodded, eyes still on Madison. The silver dress and spiky heeled shoes shimmered. So did something low in his gut. ‘A little. You know what happened?’
‘Madison is usually pretty clam-like on the subject – but hell, everyone can Google,’ Jonathan admitted, eating a piece of stuffed celery. ‘Parents – pretty nasty and a bit weird. Drive-by shooting in Tunbridge Wells, if you can believe it. Police thought it must have been a case of mistaken identity. As for Neil—’ His face darkened. ‘The spineless bastard didn’t even leave a proper explanation for the woman he was meant to marry in ten days’ time.’
‘You disapprove of suicide?’
‘I disapprove of anything that hurts Madison. She and Neil – it wasn’t exactly Romeo and Juliet, but they’d known each other since university. That’s where they met. He was a few years older, doing post-doctoral work – engineering. She was in her final year as an undergraduate. They kept in touch after she graduated. It was kind of a slow burn thing, but they were good together. He was protective, you know, but not over the top. I thought he really loved her. She was easy with him. He accepted her as she is. She had a chance of a life with him. Since then—’
Out of Sight Out of Mind (Choc Lit) Page 12