Poinciana Road

by Margaret Way

  Good, Mallory, good. In the gloom she was able to circle Mallory more quickly, closing in on her, with always that unbridgeable space between them. She had willed Mallory to heed her. She knew Mallory was able to sense her. It was a communion most living beings would find incomprehensible. Not Mallory. Mallory heard voices no one else could. Mallory saw things no one else could. She continued to see her mother through all the long years. Her own little daughter saw her but it would only be for a very short time. Then the window would close. She draped the edge of her transparency over Mallory’s shoulder. Mallory could do what she could no longer do. Mallory would act as her earthly agent.

  The shrill sound inside her head mercifully had stopped, but the tension inside her body wasn’t abating. As she closed the bungalow door Mallory felt the same swishing sensation as before. Someone had come in with her. Someone was leaving with her. She didn’t feel fear. But she did feel curiously weak.

  What’s real and what’s not real?

  My idol, Einstein, didn’t know.

  Do spirits frequent the border regions of black holes?

  She didn’t have an answer.

  The rain was accompanied by flashes of incandescent lightning and drum rolls of thunder. It swept in from the sea like an army on the march. The enraged wind had picked up to the point when it was howling like a wild beast from the jungle threatening to pounce. The air smelled green, green, green, oozing with ozone. No fresher scent than the scent of rain. So great was the wind’s force, Mallory had a job making the journey back to the house without being blown off her feet.

  Finally she was back at the house, closing the front door behind her, locking it in case the beast tried to get in. Nothing had come in with her. She was quite alone. She wasn’t frightened of the storm, fierce as it was. She had lived through countless tropical storms. She had lived through cyclones. The house had always stood firm though she remembered many a tree being blown over, palm trees stripped of their great fronds, blossoms in multiple colours thickly carpeting the soaked lawns. She remembered with great sadness Blaine’s father had lost his life in the aftermath of a great cyclonic storm. Even in paradise there were dangers.

  Once the storm passed, the phone rang. Mallory ran to it quickly. No one answered a phone in an electrical storm; consequently no one in the town made phone calls at such times unless it was an emergency. As it turned out, it pretty much was.

  “It’s not over yet.” Blaine made short work of giving her the news. “Everything is going to hell in a wheelbarrow. Declan Burch went after Jason again. He heard on the grapevine Jason was up in the Daintree. So he took after him. I’ve just had a call from the police. Declan has been arrested for assault and Jessica has disappeared.”

  “God, I thought I could only take one catastrophe at a time,” Mallory groaned. “Knowing Jessica, why would she disappear? I would have thought she would have insisted on accompanying Jason to hospital, to sit by his bed, stroking his hand. I assume he’s been taken to hospital?”

  “He has,” Blaine confirmed, not sounding at all sympathetic. “He took a beating but Declan isn’t in great shape either. Declan did manage to break Jason’s nose, blacken his eyes, and knock a couple of his teeth out.”

  Mallory was running on empty. “Considering what Declan could have done, it’s not all that bad. He could have killed him. So where is Jessica? She must be having a major episode of some kind.”

  “According to Carl Volker, he broke up the fight by firing off his rifle—I hope he’s got a licence for it—Jessica simply took off, heading for the jungle. Sergeant Dailey’s understanding is Jason and Jessica had a huge argument.”

  “About what?”

  “Can’t help you there. Carl Volker said they’d never heard Jessica in a full-blown rant before. He thought she could have been on something. Apparently she was out of control.”

  “So Jessica takes drugs?”

  “I really don’t know what Jessica Cartwright takes,” said Blaine, his tone grim. “If she does, the Volkers are probably her suppliers.”

  “Or she cooks them up herself. Is anyone going into the jungle to fetch her?”

  “Well, she’s in no danger,” Blaine said. He didn’t really care. “She knows the area well. She’s done nothing wrong but display a degree of crackpottedness even Volker noticed. He said he would go after her and bring her back.”

  “I take it the Cartwrights have been told?” Mallory asked, wondering if that might miraculously prompt a reconciliation.

  “They have. It’s about time this family feud was over,” Blaine said tersely. “I bet you went over to the bungalow?”

  “How do you know?”

  “Just a wild guess.”

  “Nothing there, as you said.”

  Except a couple of little bottles containing unknown substances.

  Chapter Nine

  She thought it might help if she visited Jason in the hospital. He might tell her something useful. When she arrived, she found Jason barely recognisable. Indeed he looked so bad Mallory had to turn away with a sick gulp. Beyond the injuries that would take time to mend, two of his once perfect teeth would need replacing. Jason had been gutted in more ways than one.

  “I never expected to see you here, Mallory.” He stared up at her through rainbow-coloured, badly swollen eyelids. “I didn’t start out a bastard, did I?” he asked with more than a hint of self-pity.

  “You didn’t, but you certainly allowed yourself to be derailed. And you’ve paid the price.”

  “I’ll be paying the rest of my life. That bastard Burch knocked my bloody teeth out, did you see? I’ve always had good teeth.”

  “Indeed you did, Jason. Good enough to sell toothpaste. You’ll need crowns.” The lesson had been brutal but Jason had had it coming.

  “What the hell does it matter? My life has gone to hell.”

  “You still have a life,” Mallory reminded him grimly.

  “Look, I’m not bringing any charges against Burch,” he said, with a show of magnanimity. “I guess I had it coming.”

  “Hard to disagree.”

  “All right, I did.” His blue eyes looked wild. “He’s a bit of a mess too.”

  “Have you seen your parents?”

  His head pressed back into the pillow. “I’ve seen Mum.” He grimaced painfully. “The old man doesn’t want to lay eyes on me.”

  “So what are you going to do? You’ll be discharged later on in the day, I believe.”

  Jason made fevered eye contact. “Can I ask a great favour of you, Mallory? Can I go back to the bungalow until at least the worst of the bruises fade? Mum and I have agreed she’ll keep Ivy until I’m able to get my life in order.”

  Part of her felt pity. Part of her felt a stunned amazement. She knew Blaine would be far from happy if she said yes. Where was the justification?

  “Have you heard from Jessica?”

  Jason spoke with an uncharacteristic anger towards his twin. “I want Jess out of my life. All she’s done is screw it up.”

  “She’s been doing that for most of your life, Jason, yet you still kept returning to her.”

  “I can’t seem to get away.” He blew air slowly through his swollen lips. “Once Jess gets her claws into you, she won’t let go. You wouldn’t understand. I guess most people wouldn’t.”

  “You’re dead right!” Mallory felt ill she had ever become involved with Jason. “I had no idea about you and Jessica, Jason. I never thought such a thing remotely possible. I just hope to God you weren’t with Jessica when we were engaged,” she said, her stomach churning.

  He rid her of her fears. “I wasn’t. I swear. You were everything to me. Please forgive me, Mallory. You were a miracle. The answer to my prayers.”

  “I can’t forgive you for all you’ve done, Jason. I never will.”

  “That’s because you don’t understand,” he cried. “You with all your training, your insights into human nature, and you still don’t understand. Jess and I were entwine
d in the womb. Is it so unnatural to be bonded to your twin? We did make pacts to disentangle.”

  “You mean you made a pact to get out of a hellish situation, but Jessica wouldn’t let you go.”

  “She loves me, Mallory,” he pleaded. “We’re two peas in a pod. We didn’t ask we be like this.”

  “You weren’t like this until Jessica seduced you into it,” Mallory flashed back. “You’ve suffered for it. You’re still suffering and the suffering will go on until you fight your way clear.”

  “Call it mind control, Mallory,” he said, sounding utterly miserable. “Nothing changes. Love. Hate. Fear. Jealousy.”

  “Taboo makes it all the more delectable, is that it? The excitement of the wrongness. Sex, the drug of choice. Then the shame. And you are ashamed, aren’t you? You want to stop. You must stop. Heaven is watching, Jason.”

  Jason put up a hand to cover his battered face. “Heaven? Where the hell is that? Whatever is between Jess and me, it just is.”

  Mallory could only feel sorrow. “One hell of a sick shock for your parents.”

  Jason lifted a hand. “I would have given anything for our secret not to be discovered. But it was. I want you to know I loved you, Mallory. I was true to you. I wanted marriage. I wanted children. It felt so good being with you. You’re so strong. I would have been anything you wanted me to be. I was desperate for my life to change.”

  Mallory shook her head in disbelief. “So you got Kathy Burch pregnant. You figured that was the way to go?”

  Jason put his badly bruised hands together. The knuckles were a red mess. “It took a long time for me to remember, Mallory, but it was all Jess’s doing. I knew deep down she was there somewhere on the night. Since you spoke to me that time, I’ve been pounding my brain trying to remember. Then I started to get flashes. I tried to talk to Jess about it, but she denied everything. Then when I tackled her at the Volkers place, she reacted like a savage. She actually attacked me, screaming abuse. Right in front of my eyes Jess flipped. She drugged us, Kathy and me. Jess had it all planned.”

  “Of course she did,” Mallory said with a calm that covered tremendous upset. “At least you got her to finally admit it?”

  “Sure.” He jabbed the air. “Jess has done a lot of things.”

  “Oh?”

  “A lot of things,” he repeated, not about to say any more.

  “Do me a favour here, Jason. Did that include doping your child?”

  That remark roused him. He drew a breath so harsh blood trickled from under his taped up nose. “She would never do that. Ivy is my daughter. Jess is her aunt.”

  “Some aunt! You just said it. Jess is capable of anything.”

  Jason flew to his twin’s defence. “It was poor messed-up Kathy. Jess didn’t count on Kathy getting pregnant. Kathy was just a means to an end, to get rid of you. You were the big danger. Kathy harmed our child. It’s common knowledge. All determined.”

  “Only I don’t buy it. Right now Jessica is my suspect.”

  “Then you’re mad! Too stubborn for your own good. Kathy was under a helluva lot of stress.”

  “She’d endured a lifetime of abuse, as we all knew. She wasn’t strong and she wasn’t getting any help. There are many factors that go towards pushing a vulnerable person to their death; being unloved and unwanted, being treated with contempt, being locked into a situation that must have shocked her. She caught you out, didn’t she?”

  Jason tried to raise his head off the pillow, let it fall back with a groan. “Doesn’t this smack of your jealousy of Jess?” he asked, astounding her. “So Jess has a predilection for causing trouble, but she would never hurt Ivy.”

  “That’s Evie, by the way,” Mallory corrected. “Ivy that was, wishes to be known henceforth as Evie.”

  “Ivy’s a pretty enough name.”

  Mallory let that go. “So is Jessica hiding out, or is she out there collecting poisonous fungi while raging at the trees?”

  Jason’s battered body spoke of outrage. “I don’t know where Jess is and I wouldn’t tell you if I did. You can be sure of one thing. Jess knows how to look after herself. Kathy had a rendezvous with death, Mallory. Maybe from when she was a kid. It’s hard to even remember her now. I can’t even summon up her face.”

  Mallory stood up, sick to her stomach. “You’d remember had you seen her broken body at the base of the cliffs, Jason. You’re a pitiful excuse for a man. I was the one who found her. Not you or your appallingly cruel sister. Cruelty always was infinitely more pleasurable to Jessica than kindness.”

  “Finding Kathy must have been awful for you, Mallory,” he said, in a choked voice. “But think about it. Had Kathy lived she would have been charged with that Munchausen thing. Jess explained it all to me. Kathy was guilty. I know you liked the poor little pinhead, but she was a tormented creature.”

  “As are you.” Mallory spoke with icy contempt. “As is your sister. Your torment isn’t over. I wouldn’t like to be either of you. There is such a thing as karmic justice. You have a week to recuperate at the bungalow, Jason. Be in no doubt that if Jessica turns up, both of you will be moved on by the police.”

  “Why would you need the police?” Jason was back to sneering. “You’ve got the great Lord Protector Forrester there to hold your hand. Forrester has always wanted you, even when he was engaged to that stuck-up Selma. Forrester always gets what he wants. He was dead set against me. That’s because he wanted you. He just had to wait.”

  “It was you spying on us that night we were walking along the cliff front?” Mallory asked.

  “What night?” He sniffed back blood.

  Mallory passed him tissues that were quickly soaked. “It was you, Jason. Perhaps I should change my mind about allowing you the use of the bungalow.”

  Jason’s head fell back on the pillows. He looked a total disaster. “Do it for old times’ sake, Mallory. Did you have any real feelings for me?” he asked, with the strangest look on his face. “You never wanted sex.”

  “How glad I am of that fact. I did have considerable affection for you, Jason. I thought it was love. It wasn’t. Our marriage would have gone ahead as planned.”

  “Only Jess didn’t want it.” He spoke as though Jess always knew best. “Jess can’t share, I’m afraid.”

  * * *

  On the drive into town, Mallory considered how Blaine might react to her hospital visit. She could call into his offices, although there was a possibility he could be over at the Pelican Point project. She decided not to ring ahead, in case he put her on the spot and asked how her visit with Jason went. She could feel a build-up of tension playing havoc with her body. Was she as easily swayed as her uncle, trying to ease Jason’s lot?

  There was a parking spot right outside the pharmacy. As chance would have it, her admirer, eagle-eyed Colin Watson, spied her and gave her an enthusiastic wave. She and Colin had become buddies without any contribution from her. As a concession she returned the wave, and then headed off to the Forrester Enterprises building, which also housed the district’s legal fraternity.

  The receptionist, Susan, an attractive young woman, gave her a bright smile, telling her Mr. Forrester was in. She would ring through. She seemed very pleased to see Mallory. Mallory knew rumour was running rife around town. There could very well be a serious romance afoot. She suspected the whole office was abuzz with it.

  Blaine’s spacious office had all the trappings of success. Floor to ceiling mahogany cabinets, furnishings, lighting, two very fine Oriental area rugs positioned over the pale beige carpet, one very fine tropical landscape dominating the far wall. He picked up the phone to organise coffee. He didn’t retreat behind his impressive desk. He gestured towards one of the leather armchairs in the seating area. A glass-topped coffee table stood in front of the sofa.

  “So how did your visit with Jason go?” he asked smoothly, bending to kiss her cheek.

  “You’re psychic. There, I’ve proved it.” She leaned back.

  “N
ot psychic. I know you, Mallory.” His tone was light, laconic.

  “I thought I might get something out of him,” she said, her dark eyes hooded.

  “Like what?”

  “News of Jessica maybe?”

  “I’m going to have to take your word for it, Mallory.”

  “He’s very beaten up,” she remarked.

  Blaine gave a hard laugh. “Declan doesn’t look too crash hot either. Kathy had to bear the dead weight of her dysfunctional family all her life. They moved much too late to help her. They have to live with that now.” He broke off at a tap on the door. “That’ll be the coffee.”

  Mallory poured. She passed a cup to Blaine, dwelling on the elegant shape of his hands. She loved those hands on her face, on her body. No one had ever touched her like Blaine. His touch was tender, demanding, passionate, and always deeply loving.

  “So what is it you have to tell me?” Blaine sat back, his eyes moving with great pleasure over her. Today she was wearing a simple white dress that was absorbing adjacent colours. It reminded him of a Vermeer painting. “I hope it’s not anything to cause me alarm. Like promising Jason he can recuperate at the farm?”

  Mallory took a long sip at her coffee. “Very good coffee. Rich and strong.”

  “Let’s get back to Cartwright,” he responded, giving her a searching look.

  “He looked so pitiful.”

  Blaine put his coffee cup down so hard it rattled in the saucer. “Just tell me.”

  Mallory’s heart started to trip hammer. “I told him he could stay on for a week to recuperate. Any sign of Jessica and they’d both be out.”

  Blaine shook his head in disbelief. “I simply can’t have that worry on my mind. I don’t want the Cartwrights anywhere near you. Robb’s good intentions backfired, remember? It could be exactly the same for you.”

  “He can’t convalesce at home. His father won’t have it. His mother has been to see him.”