by Belle Brooks
I don’t look back when I leave the house, but I have a feeling I should have as I climb into my SUV.
Turning the key in the ignition has my stomach tied in knots. I feel lost, off … something is very out of place. My entire life is upside down and topsy-turvy.
The garage door rises, and I reverse down the drive.
A black mask. A black long-sleeve T-shirt ... fill my revision mirror. I slam on the brakes. I’m huffing. I’m shaking.
“Wake up, you dumb bitch. You can’t change the past.” His perfect blue eyes shine before he throws his head back and laughs. “Are you ready to play my game, Red?”
My eyes spring open. I’m standing between two thick brown tree trunks. There’s a mobile phone in my hands, and I’m holding it out in front of me like one would hold a weapon. I pant between long sobs.
“Get away from me,” I scream. “Get away.”
Reid
West doesn’t come for the lock of hair, Prospect does. And when I ask him continuously if they’ve found Morgan, if she’s rung again, if there’s anything he can tell me, he just narrows his eyes and flares his nostrils like a bull about to charge his horns through my torso.
Prospect has had it in for me from the beginning, but why?
He holds a clear evidence bag, and when Maloney drops the length of hair inside, Prospect seals it quickly and marches away.
“You didn’t see Morgan, Reid,” Prospect shouts with his back to me.
“Fuck you,” I roar. Prick.
I’m not sure if I did see Morgan or not, either, but someone was lurking out on our street, and that someone was a female. You can’t mistake a woman’s silhouette.
“What is up his arse, seriously?” I cross my arms in front of my chest.
“Eric’s a serious fellow, but good at his job. He’ll be wanting to get back to the station; don’t worry about him. He’s cool.” Maloney says that, but still watches his people in the same way I do. I can tell by the knowing nod that follows and the way his eyes remain focused. Always searching, and analysing ... He suspects everyone, just like me.
“He hasn’t called the landline,” I blurt out.
“Who?”
“The prick who has Morgan. There have been no more calls. Why?”
“Don’t know.” Maloney pistol grips his chin.
Maybe nobody else has realised we’ve had no more taunting calls, or perhaps they have but had hoped I wouldn’t.
“Let’s sit outside for a bit. You want a smoke?” Maloney shifts from foot to foot. I nod.
Maloney leans against the rail as I sit on the swing on the patio. He reaches into his pocket, retrieving the packet of cigarettes and the lighter. This time, he removes two cigarettes before placing the pack back where he removed it from. “Do you mind if I join you?”
“Not at all.” I offer a half-hearted smile.
The sweet, sweet taste of nicotine enters my lungs with more ease than it has previously. I don’t cough or splutter. Instead, I enjoy the rush of chemicals exploding in my brain.
Maloney stares past me. He’s in a daydream. I can tell by the way his head tilts to the side and the blank stare he delivers.
There’s a period of silence.
“My daughter, Mila.” He stops speaking, takes a deep breath, and sighs.
“Yeah,” I encourage him to continue.
“When she was two, she got sick.” Maloney looks into my eyes. “She’d been playing outside under the hose for about thirty minutes in the morning, and her mamma had put only a few centimetres of water into one of those shell pools. You know the ones?”
“Yeah.” I nod.
“She was all giggles and squeals. I’d come off the night shift. I was so fucked. A long night, a lot of drunk drivers to haul in, and way too much paperwork.”
I relax back into the swing.
“I watched Mila as she played. I watched as my wife created another memory for her. Sometimes, just admiring them is enough to wash away all the bad shit I see in my job.” Maloney crosses one of his feet in front of the other. “I towelled Mila off. Took her inside the house and put a new nappy and T-shirt on her. We sat together at the table eating watermelon. I still remember the streams of pink juice running down the front of her white top. I haven’t always been the smartest when it comes to messy toddlers and clothes.” He stifles a laugh.
“They make a mess,” I say, before taking a long draw from the cancer stick poking out between my fingers.
“They sure do.” Maloney sucks hard from the butt of his smoke, before flicking ash over the railing. “I went for a lie-down after that, and I was so deeply asleep that when my wife screamed for help, I didn’t hear her at first. It was the beating on my chest and her screaming by my face that jolted me awake.”
“Shit.” I cringe. Where’s this going?
“Mila was limp in her arms. She was on fire to the touch, and her entire body was covered in this nasty-arse rash. I couldn’t even explain it if I tried. Blotchy, red and fierce.”
I cock an eyebrow.
“It truly looked like someone had beat her.” Maloney takes another draw of his cigarette and slowly exhales. “I didn’t know what had happened, but I took her tiny, limp body and held the inferno that she was against my chest.”
I take in a mouthful of hot air before I flick my butt over the railing past Maloney.
“You should put those out before you flick ’em. It’s fire season, you know.” Maloney smirks.
“What happened?”
“We took a ride in the ambulance, sirens blaring, to the hospital. They whisked Mila away from us as soon as they rolled her and the bed through the emergency doors. I just stood holding my wife as she trembled against my chest. I wanted to take all her worry and fear from her, you know, but I couldn’t because I was experiencing the same fucking fear myself. Big strong copper I was, hey?”
“Puddle of mess on the floor instead?”
“Yep.” Maloney rolls the small butt between his fingers until the cherry pops out and onto the ground. He shifts his foot until he covers the burning cherry with the sole of his shoe. “The next time we saw Mila, she was in the ICU. Tubes and shit were coming out of every part of her body. A large machine was doing all her breathing because she couldn’t. Her organs had shut down, one by one, they told us. They prepared us for the worst.”
“She wouldn’t be coming …” My voice breaks. I clear my throat.
“Home? No. They said they weren’t sure what was happening, or why it was happening to her. They thought it was likely to be either leukaemia that had gone undiagnosed or some terrible bacteria that had invaded her body. I was in shock.”
“I couldn’t even imagine.”
“Five days I sat by my baby’s bed. I couldn’t leave her. I created her with the love of my life. She was my only child. Mila did improve slightly over a few hours, but remained critical.”
“Shit,” I breathe.
“We learnt she had a parasite in her body; it’s this deadly thing that lives in tap water. That fucking thing had gone to her brain. I worried she’d never grow up to be all we wanted for her. I kept asking myself, what if she could never say Daddy again? It broke my heart.”
My gut churns before it sinks low.
“And then on the sixth day, we had the priest come to the ICU and read her last rites. We were prepared for the worst, but we never let ourselves truly believe that Mila would leave us.” Maloney pauses. “Then, about an hour later, Mila magically started to breathe on her own.” Maloney tilts his chin and looks to the sky, to the heavens above. “By that night, she’d opened her eyes and was trying to rip out her breathing tube. It was a true miracle, Reid. Mila’s proof they happen.”
Maloney smiles. “And you’d never believe the first word out of her mouth was Daddy.” Silent tears stream down his face. “I never gave up on her. I knew she had my fighter’s blood inside her and her mamma’s positive spirit. My little girl came back to us. She was my perfect little gi
rl after a few months of rehabilitation.”
“Why are you sharing this with me?” I wipe my brow—it’s dripping with sweat.
“Because I can sympathise with all the emotions inside you. Because we’re becoming fast friends.”
“Is this why you’re the one left to babysit me? Because you best understand my situation?”
Maloney chuckles. “Mate, I don’t have to be here. You could have kicked us all out on the first day. We can’t invade your home.”
My lips pull tight. What the fuck?
“But I want to be here for you. You’ve done all you can to help us in finding Morgan.” Maloney pauses. “I know you worry that there may be someone on the force who knows more about how Morgan came to be where she is—hell, I’ve had my own doubts—but I think you’re barking up the wrong tree. I think the kidnapper is someone Morgan knows well, or someone who’s known her well.”
“I thought it would be her ex, you know? But he’s dead.”
“His brother though—do you think he’s involved?”
“Winston helped her that night. That’s what you guys have told me. He knew where she was. Have you found Winston, or Vactrim, or whatever-the-fuck-he-calls-himself yet?”
“Not that I know of. All I know is he goes deep into the bush and spends days out in nature with no way of being contacted. Morgan said she was in bushland, and I’m just putting two and two together. Major alarm bells are ringing for all of us.”
“But they are looking for him, yeah?”
“Sure are. He’s our prime suspect. We’re also looking for your brother.”
“I can’t believe that Cruise would—” I can’t even say it.
“I think we’ve found our man in Winston, but we also need to locate Cruise so we know that he’s safe. Is this normal behaviour for Cruise? Disappearing? I know he’s some soap actor, high profile and all that shit, but does he disappear like this?”
“Three times,” I mumble, sitting further upright.
“Really?”
“Yep. When the world gets too much for him, Cruise goes on what Dad tells everyone is a walkabout.”
“Walkabout?”
“Cruise finds somewhere to hide out, where nobody can find him, and drinks himself fucking stupid. The last time, probably two years ago, he ended up having his stomach pumped because of alcohol poisoning. Mum and Dad tried to get him to seek professional help after that episode, but he refused.”
“Substance abuse problem?” Maloney cocks his eyebrows.
“Yeah. I guess. Cruise has a mind that’s so creative that at times, it gets the better of him and he can’t seem to find a balance between what’s real and what’s not.”
“I see. Has Cruise ever seen a shrink about shit like this?”
“Ha. Yeah, no. Not Cruise. He doesn’t believe in shrinks and their healing powers. He believes in hitting the bottle until he drowns out the noise inside his brain and he finds his equilibrium once more.”
“Good to know.” Maloney stretches his arms above his head.
“Sore? Tired?”
“Yeah.” He arches his eyebrows. “You could say that.”
“Cruise was playing this character at work. It got to him. That’s why he and Mum, Dad, and Natalie went overseas. The network issued a break in filming because Cruise was going off the rails. I remember talking to him about it on the phone. He was so down, and short tempered. You heard me talking to mum earlier.”
“Yeah. I did.”
“Cruise has always been this harmless fellow. He never gets into fights—he gets along with everyone.” I grin. “Cruise is the quintessential loveable teddy bear, with an amiable face and down-to-earth attitude, you know?”
“Yeah. But all men get into biff barges.”
“Not Cruise, unless it’s with me. He can get rough and tumble with me, but I’m his little brother so that’s been a lifetime thing.” I smirk. “I’ve always given back as good as I’ve gotten.”
“This Natalie. His wife?”
“She’s the best thing that ever happened to him. However, two of the three times Cruise has gone walkabout have been due to feuding with her and working long, much too long hours at work.”
Maloney nods as he removes the cigarette packet from his pocket, retrieving another two fags. “Another?”
“Sure.”
The flash of the flame coming from the lighter in front of my face tells me I need to make sure that this stops once Morgan’s found. Stress or not; these cigarettes kill.
“Do you think it was Morgan who put that lock of hair into the mailbox slot?” Maloney’s eyes narrow.
“I think it was a woman, but I’m not sure if it was Morgan. I think I wanted it to be really bad though.”
“Why don’t you think it’s her now?”
“Because she would have wanted to see the children. She loves her kids.”
“Do you think you could have been seeing things and nobody was there at all?”
“I’m so fucking tired, it’s possible.” I pause. “Why don’t you go home to your family? You said it yourself—you don’t even need to be here. I bet you aren’t getting paid for this.”
He laughs. “I’m getting paid. No, I’ll see this out to the end.”
“Mila would be missing you.”
“Yeah, she would be, but I have a duty, and that is to serve and protect above all else. My little girl will understand, as will my wife.” Maloney takes a draw from his cigarette, blowing small Os with the smoke on his exhale.
“Have you at least spoken to them?”
“I have. Many times.”
“Shit. I never even noticed.”
“Most times we don’t even notice the things that are right under our noses.”
And as the words leave his lips, I wonder if Morgan’s kidnapper is right where we can see him, but too close to see.
Morgan
I rotate in circles. I'm in bushland with no idea how I came to be here. I’ve bare feet, and I’m stripped down to a pair of boy-legged knickers and a singlet.
Bruises, cuts, bites, and grazes mark my entire body, and the numbers one through to five, are inked inside my inner arm, with a line crossed through “one”.
Two large gashes gape across my shins, and my feet are a filthy black.
I’m holding a mobile phone, a phone that’s not mine. I stumble forward, then rock backwards. How did I get here?
As I manoeuvre in a circle, pain rips through my brain and beats behind my eyebrows making me dip my head and brace it between my palms. Why do I hurt so bad?
Heat scorches my skin, skin I can tell has already burned. Blisters rise on the tops of my legs. I seek shade, and as I shuffle, I wobble as I would after way too many glasses of wine. Have I been drinking?
I press my back up against a smooth palm tree trunk that shelters me with its leaves. I look at the screen of the phone I have clasped in my fist as if my life depends on me doing so. It’s blank. I swipe my finger over it and the screen lights. I open the contacts. There are none to be found. I move to the gallery and see nothing apart from a document icon. I press download and stare in wait. An arrow pointing downwards travels in a repetitive pattern. I continue to wait. The screen goes white before the document opens.
Dear Morgan,
I received your letter, and I’m sorry you feel this way. I know things have been hard for me, and I wish I weren’t such a burden on all the people I care deeply for, but I am. I know you need space to live the life you’ve made for yourself with Reid, and after this letter, you won’t hear from me again.
There’s so much pain buried deep inside me ... it’s a living hell from which I can’t seem to escape. No matter how many times I tell myself it’s only a nightmare, and if I try hard enough I’ll wake up, I don’t. Morgan, I never wake up, no matter how much I beg.
There’s so much I wish I could destroy inside my mind. There’s an evil that lurks inside me, and it's one I struggle to contain. There are so many things I
wish were different for me, one of those things being you. I guess you were the glue that was holding all my broken pieces together, but over time you couldn’t stick with me anymore. I understand why, I do. I’m sorry I couldn’t be all you deserved.
You mean well—I know it’s why you’ve continued to write to me for so long. At first, it was a relief after you moved away. I missed you intensely. I pined for you like a child who’d lost his very first puppy. That probably sounds psychotic, right? But from the very beginning, when I met you, I knew you were someone special. I also knew you’d always stay true to your word. You have for as long as you can, and I thank you for doing so.
I was in love with you, Morgan. It wasn’t lusting, or puppy love, like you said. It was a deep, all-consuming, heart-stopping love, but for you, it wasn’t those things. In the end, you couldn’t fall as hard for me as I had for you, and that’s always been my fault.
I tried to hide my darkness. Keep its venom secured away in an airtight jar, but it wasn’t bullet-proof, and bit by bit that jar got shot to shit, and parts of me, I didn’t want you to know existed, escaped. It tarnished what we had. Neither you nor I are responsible.
As the days keep passing, I’ve realised that time itself cannot heal my wounds because my wounds grow deeper with each ticking minute. I want to be at peace. I want to find my order, and I’ve figured out how I can.
I need to say goodbye to you, Morgan.
I need to let you go.
I’m letting you go, my rose.
Please continue to blossom like the perfect flower you are. Remember that twelve long-stemmed roses will never be enough for a beauty like you. You will always be one more, one more perfectly cut bud, better than all the other women who walk this damned earth. It’s the reason why I always gave you thirteen of them, instead of the traditional dozen.
Before I let you go, promise me you’ll always remember that in your eyes the sun rises, in your smile it sets, and that your grace and beauty are so deep down beyond your skin it means you were angel-sent. I’d rather fly with angels than stay wrapped up in my nightmare.