8: A gripping dark fantasy mystery

by Georgina Bartlett

“I cannot believe you! Are you crazy, or are you trying to get me fired?” Ronnie screamed at her, Justine rolled her shoulders and cleared her throat knowing what was coming next. “You seriously go through my computer – which is a felony by the way! Take the address of an assailant who was following you and could be seriously dangerous and then kiss me to try and cover it up. That is really shitty J. Don’t go to the house and call me back.” She growled.

  “That was the first of five voice messages she left you that night. And what she said is true, going through a detective’s computer is a felony,” Strong said. “Do you want to explain to us why you felt the need to break the law and get this address?”

  Justine’s face was warm, her olive skin mixed with red blotches. “I am working on a case at that time which involved a missing person and Ronnie offered to help me attain the address to someone who might have some information.”

  “Huh, well if she was trying to help you get the address, why was she so mad that you took it?” Detective Walsh asked.

  “I think she was more upset that I took it and didn’t tell her,” Justine uttered, and cleared her throat again.

  “Need a glass of water?” Strong asked.

  “No, I’m ok,” Justine assured, and ran a hand through her hair.

  “Let’s play another then,” Strong announced like she was a game show host. She clicked the tape recorder again, and Ronnie piped up.

  “If this is all about our earlier conversation and it scared you, you could have just told me that. I know you have always questioned your sexuality. And being that close to seeing it through must have scared you. I get that. But don’t avoid me because you can’t deal with being bi-sexual. And don’t go to that address.”

  Strong stopped the recorder, and Justine squirmed in her chair under their scrutiny.

  “You know, I will take that glass of water,” she sniffled and touched her throat.

  “Of course,” Walsh grunted, and reached under the table to grab a fresh bottle of water. “Here you go. Being prepared for everything is the best way to live,” he bragged as he saw the surprise on Justine’s face.

  “Thanks.” Justine took a swig from the bottle. She tried to look away from them as she swallowed but met their eyes instead.

  “You good?” Strong asked, and Justine nodded as she put the water down. “Fab. So, did you go to the address that Ronnie told you not to?” Strong asked and pointed her bony finger at the recorder.

  “No,” Justine lied without a second thought.

  “You didn’t?” Strong raised an eyebrow.

  “No, I just went home.”

  “Right, so then why did you feel the need to take the address?” Walsh queried, writing notes on a personal pad.

  “I just took it in case I needed it later in my investigation,” Justine answered and licked her lips.

  “And you ran out because?” Strong probed, her chin propped on her hand.

  “Like Ronnie said on the recording, we had just talked about a pretty sensitive subject, and I needed to get away,” Justine hesitated and interlocked her fingers on the table.

  “Fair enough. Let’s move on,” Strong insisted and clicked the tape.

  “J, call me back now. I just got a call from the lab. They are done with the fabric we found and have something for me. I’ll let you know what I get. Don’t go to that address!”

  Justine waited for Strong to stop the tape and ask questions, but she let it continue playing, her beady eyes on Justine’s face for her reaction.

  “J, this is serious. Call me now. It can’t wait.” Ronnie paused as she breathed down the receiver. “I think I have a tail.” She went silent again and Justine sat forward, her eyes glued to the tape. “I’m gonna try and lose them. Listen, I don’t know who to trust, so I’m sending you something. It should be there in a few days. J, this could be to do with June 9th. Call me back.”

  Strong paused the tape and brought Justine back to the room.

  “No. What happened?!” Justine yelled, her hands in fists on the desk.

  “I know this is hard, Justine, but we need to go through these tapes bit by bit. Can you keep going?”

  Justine’s chest was heaving. She sat back and nodded, unclenched her hands, and put them on her lap.

  “Do you know who would be following Ronnie, and what she is referring to when she mentions June 9th?” Strong and Walsh both watched Justine intently.

  “I’m not sure what she’s referencing, no. And I don’t know who could be tailing her, but this is all because of me.”

  “How so?” Strong leaned in.

  “She had a tail because she had answers for me. If I hadn’t involved her, she wouldn’t have been in danger.”

  “I know how you must feel,” Strong assured her with the tiniest amount of empathy in her tone. “But this could have been to do with any of the cases Ronnie had open. It could have been a coincidence and, if not, she was a detective. She knew the risks,” Strong moved back in her chair.

  “Why was she calling you with the results from a rag found at a crime scene?” Walsh continued as he paused his writing, ignoring the interaction that had just happened.

  “She was helping me on my missing persons case. We searched an abandoned building in Edmonton where the girl was seen and found a piece of fabric with blood on it. Ronnie told me she would be able to get it tested,” Justine explained.

  “And why was Ronnie so willing to use police time and equipment on a case she wasn’t personally working?” Walsh probed further.

  “She was my friend, my best friend since we were kids. Well, teenagers. Her family was my second family,” Justine said and felt a single tear run down her face.

  “Ok, Miss Brick,” Strong interjected. “Do you need a moment?”

  “No. Thank you,” Justine let the tear continue its journey.

  “Ok. This last recording may be hard to hear,” Strong said, and rested her finger against the play button. “You want to continue?” She asked. Justine nodded, and Strong pushed her finger onto the play button.

  “J. Whatever happens, I love you.”

  Justine covered her eyes and trembled with tears.

  “Our audio techs have gone over these files and think that she wasn’t alone when this message was recorded. They enhanced it and found two people breathing. Do you know who could have been with her?” Walsh asked, ignorant to Justine’s tears.

  Justine shook her head as she hugged her arms around herself.

  “Alright. That’s all we need right now,” Walsh commented. “But we know that you are lying about certain parts of your story, Justine, and it won’t be long until we find out the reference of June 9th and if you visited that address.” He held open the door with his chubby white hand.

  Justine grabbed her bag and stood, gingerly, and walked to the door.

  “Oh, one more thing before you go, Miss Brick,” Strong stood and put her hands in her pockets.

  “Yes?” She turned to look at her.

  “Have you received anything from Ronnie in the post?”

  Justine thought for a moment before she answered. “No, nothing.”

  Strong dropped her head and nodded. “Thank you.”

  The door closed behind her, and Justine walked blindly awake to the exit.

  “Hey, hey you ok?” Rick asked as he ran after her.

  “No, not really.”

  “I’m sorry you had to go through that. Those two can be heartless. Probably why they have so many closed cases.” Rick put his hands in his pockets and rocked on his heels. “Did they find anything?”

  “No, they didn’t. Hey, Rick. Was the tech department able to enhance that picture of the guy from the shop CCTV Ronnie got?”

  “Er yeah I think they did. I can get you a copy if you want,” Rick assured as the door down the hallway opened. Strong and Walsh left. They glanced at the two of them talking and then walked away.

  “No, I need to go. But can you send me a copy to my work email?” Ju
stine asked and fiddled around in her purse before pulling out a business card.

  “Sure, no worries,”

  “Thanks for everything. I’ll see you soon.”

  Once outside, Justine started to run for the train. She needed to get back to her office and pull out the case file she had memorised, a girl with mud brown hair pinned to the front.

  Twenty

  “Clara, like me, is not part of this world,” Doc began. “We come from the earth realm that is made up of humans, people who have no great super powers, only the powers of kindness and helping others. The earth realm is where the king found me, and where I first met all of you,” Doc said, and cradled his damaged arm as he looked around the room.

  “But-how? It’s not possible,” Mort said, her hands trembling as she looked to her brothers who were as shell-shocked as her.

  “It is true,” Doc assured. “I was working as a paediatric surgeon in London twenty years ago. A woman and a man who had the most golden eyes I had ever seen came in one night when her waters broke. She was a special case. She was having quadruplets, so it was all hands-on deck, I had been chosen as the paediatric surgeon to be there when her babies were born. It’s a night I’ll never forget,” Doc remembered, and looked at the siblings, the only one able to look at him was Mort, her eyes a sad grey.

  “We rushed the mother to the surgery room when we saw the first baby was breach, deciding that the safest way to deliver them would be through a c-section. The father’s skin was a light olive, so you can only imagine our surprise when the first baby delivered had the most beautiful black skin. They passed him to me, and his eyes were already open, the most vivid green staring back at me. Babies don’t have their permanent eye colour till they are nine months old, normally born with dark eyes. He was followed by a girl with light brown skin and piercing blue eyes, a boy with rose skin and pink irises. And lastly, a small baby girl with pale skin and light grey eyes. Everyone in that room knew then and there, this was some kind of miracle.” Doc paused to remove his glasses and laid them on the table as he rubbed his eyes.

  “We were all curious to how the parents would react, but as soon as they saw you all, their hearts burst with joy. I’ve never seen parents so in love before,” Doc reminisced, and wiped tears that had run down his nose. “I checked you over while you were in the hospital, but you were all the picture of health. We doctors presumed it was due to a gene mutation that had been so strongly present in your parents DNA it changed the face of medicine. Pictures were taken of you all, and tabloids picked it up, but as soon as your parents left the hospital, they disappeared and managed to avoid the public eye. It wasn’t until two years later when my wife Clara was very sick that I saw you all again. She was dying, cervical cancer, in a time when women weren’t tested enough. She went through chemo and had surgery to remove it, but it had spread to her lymph nodes and became terminal.

  “On a day, like any other, I visited the hospital and the doctors told me it was going to happen any day. We-er we had a daughter. She was only ten at the time, and Clara didn’t want her to watch her die,” Doc sobbed, unable to speak as his breath caught. “We called our friends and asked for them to take her for a few days. We told her it was just while they ran more tests. They took her, and I stayed with Clara.” He brushed the tears from his cheeks and wriggled his nose as he snorted back more. “It was late in the evening. I grabbed a coffee from the vending machine and that’s when I heard him. A man dressed in a black suit with a long dark cloak wrapped around his shoulders and sunglasses. He told me he could save my wife. I told him I was done with trials, and that she just wanted to be at peace. He grabbed my arm and pulled back his sunglasses to reveal purple irises. At first I told him to get away from me and threatened to call the police, but then he told me he could prove his power. He touched my coffee cup and the liquid inside turned to glass right before my eyes, I tipped it out of the cardboard sleeve, and it smashed as it hit the floor. I didn’t know what to think. I just thought, could this man save her? He told me there were consequences, conditions I would have to follow and, without thinking, I agreed to them all. With the click of his fingers another man in a black suit and sunglasses entered Clara’s room. I followed after him and watched as he laid his hands on her. She was frail, and her skin was so weak it was see-through. But after a few moments she started to breath better and her skin changed from dead grey to perfect pink. She opened her eyes, and I knew, somehow, she was going to be ok. The man stepped away from her and his skin resembled the colour of hers before, but as he breathed out, it went back to normal.

  The man I made the deal with came into my room and told me the price for Clara’s life was my eternal servitude. I had to leave with him and never see my family again. I kissed my wife goodbye and told her she would live a long life, and then I left. I hadn’t seen Clara since, that was until yesterday.”

  “I had no idea he would take her,” Doc gasped and shook his head as more tears rolled down and he bit the inside of his lips. “My daughter-” he choked. “My daughter grew up alone. She must have thought…that we both just left her. I don’t even know if she’s alive. But I left her, she’s alone because of me.” He covered his face as his whole body shuddered.

  “Forrest, don’t,” Madame Arbre warned as Forrest walked to Doc’s side and knelt down.

  He studied the broken man in front of him, and placed a hand on his knee.

  “It’s not your fault. There’s no way you could have known,” Forrest said, stood, and left the room.

  Free from their eyes Forrest walked down the stairs and sat on a lower step, he heard the tapping of the cane behind him before he felt her presence next to him as she took a seat.

  “Our parents are dead, aren’t they?” he asked without looking at her.

  “Yes,” Madame Arbre confirmed.

  “And my mother. She was…” he started, but couldn’t finish the sentence.

  “Yes, yuh mother was Human, and yuh father was Tincturian,” she said. “I know dis is a lot for yuh to take in, but time is of de essence.” She stood and walked to the edge of the step, held her hand in the light that beamed through the middle of the tree. A small box made out of dried leaves landed softly in her hand. “Yuh will need dis to use de travel tree,” she explained, and opened the box to reveal a long crystal that had been carved at the end to look like a stake.

  “What is it?” Forrest asked as he stood and tilted his head.

  “Tis an Iter Crystal. Dis specific tree needs dem to work. It took me a long time to find dem, and dis is my last,” she told him and placed it in his hand. “Go and grab yuh siblings. We need to leave now.”

  Twenty-One

  Justine threw herself up the stairs to her office on the second floor, her hand in her bag as she fumbled around for the keys.

  “Where in the hell…” she started and gritted her teeth when she couldn’t find them.

  Getting down on the ground, she shook out her back and let the contents spill over the floor.

  “Ha!” she yelled and bit her lip when she found the keys wrapped inside her address book.

  She scrambled to her feet, pushed all her belongings back in her bag and shoved the key into the door. Finally inside the office, she ran behind her desk and pulled out the chair, taking a seat she opened the cabinet and dragged out the file she had memorised with the picture of the girl with mud coloured hair on the front. She flipped to the first page and read the first sentence.

  Bethany Richmond. 14 years old. Reported missing June 9th 2008…

  Reaching over to the front of her desk, she picked up her mail and found the long manilla envelope. She ripped open the seal and looked inside. It was a transcript from the lab that Ronnie had copied before she sent it to Justine, a sticky note was attached, and the blue rag with the bloodstain fell out.

  ‘J. The blood on the rag is a positive match for Melody, and for Beth. The night I went down to collect it, the lab tech George who had called me, he’d had his
throat slit! Someone had taken the lab tests and tried to cover the whole thing up by erasing it from the system too. But the person who did this didn’t know George. He was always suspicious, so he would keep copies of all his files under his hamster’s cage. I grabbed it and left, but I’m pretty sure someone followed me. So I’m sending it straight to you. A cover up is happening in the department, and I don’t know who to trust, so show this to no one. I think someone wants it badly, because there is a third set of blood on the rag, George was about to run it against cops and detectives when he was killed. – Be careful. Ronnie. x

  Justine covered her mouth with her hand and sobbed. This was the lead she was looking for, but it was also what she didn’t want. Proof that Ronnie had died because of her and this case.

  Justine pulled her phone from her bag and dialled the number she had for Grace Davies and put it on speaker.

  “Hello?” A voice came from the phone.

  “Hi, Mrs Davies?” Justine asked.

  “No, this is her niece. Can I ask who’s calling?”

  “Yeah, my name is Justine Brick. I’m working on a case for your aunt. Is she around?”

  “No, I’m sorry. They had a home invasion yesterday. She’s in the hospital.” The voice on the line broke and released a sniffle.

  “I-I’m so sorry to hear that. Do they know if she’s going to be ok?”

  “Not yet. She was badly hurt,” the voice on the speaker explained as she cleared her throat. “Is there anything I can help you with, Miss Brick?”

  “Er, well I don’t want to bother you while all of this is happening.”

  “No, it’s ok. I want to help my aunt as much as a I can. Ask away.”

  “Ok, thank you. I just wanted to clarify with her the night that her daughter Melody went missing,” Justine said and winced, ashamed she had asked something so sensitive at such a difficult time.

  “Melody, erm, yeah. I’ll never forget. She went missing June 9th, 2008,” she said.

  Justine remained still, her eyes wide, staring at the photo of the girl with the metal smile on her case file.