Unseen Messages

by Pepper Winters

  I’d passed on the email address required.

  I hung up.

  I trusted that Mike Oak would be able to spring his son out of prison for the second time and focused on soothing my neglected daughter.

  Coconut took forever to settle. Even a warm bath (which was still a novelty) didn’t work.

  She didn’t want her stuffed turtle (courtesy of P&O). She didn’t want cheese (which was her favourite food ever since she’d had it four days ago). And she wanted nothing to do with the sterile, lifeless apartment currently housing us.

  It was the opposite of our wild island with it sharp lines and unforgiving edges.

  There was no freedom in the white, white walls.

  Even I felt claustrophobic and unsettled.

  Eventually, I opened the balcony door and exited the twelfth-floor dwelling two streets away from Narrabeen beach where I used to live. Late twilight and people still jogged the sandy shores reminding me this beach wasn’t private. This beach didn’t belong to us. From now on, we would have to share.

  I sighed as if my lungs would splatter to the concrete parking lot below.

  Coco toddled outside, coming to hold my leg beneath the purple polka-dotted dress the cruise line had given me.

  We stood there together, listening.

  Just listening.

  Breathing.

  Thinking.

  Finding familiarity in the breeze, in the ocean, in the wideopen space of wildness.

  Wave after distant wave, she calmed. Her tiny shoulders relaxed, her face lost its pinched fear, and she lay her head on my thigh, growing drowsy to the sounds of our old home.

  I’d always lived near the ocean. Always connected to the watery horizon, never able to be tamed. I would never have guessed that waves would become my heartbeat, my breath, my hope.

  I sighed...Pippa, Conner, Galloway...they’d all gone.

  I hadn’t been alone in three and a half years.

  Once upon a time, I’d savoured silence. I’d hankered for peace. I’d been cruel in protecting ‘me’ time. Even poor Madi was held at arm’s length when life became too noisy. Yet, now...I would’ve given anything for company. I would’ve swum all the way to Fiji if it meant my world returned to the simplistic heaven of before.

  Before our bodies ran out of nutrition.

  Before death tried to destroy us.

  I wanted Conner alive.

  I wanted Pippa back.

  I wanted Galloway free.

  So many wants....and only one would hopefully come true.

  But not tonight.

  Scooping up my sleep-standing daughter, I pulled the comforter off the bed, spread out two pillows, and lay on the thin carpet.

  The hardness was welcome.

  The pillows sensational.

  We’d eaten, taken the recommended vitamins to boost our depleted systems, and, as I drifted off to sleep, I didn’t notice it had been dark for hours and I hadn’t once turned on a light.

  I’d bathed my daughter in the dark.

  I’d prepared a meal of cheese and crackers from the fully stocked kitchen by starlight.

  I’d lived my life the way I had for almost four years...

  In comforting moon-cast shadows.

  Chapter Seventy-Three

  ...............................................

  G A L L O W A Y

  ......

  MY INCARCERATION ENDED as fast as it’d begun.

  I’d eaten the dinner provided (hotdog with relish), I’d stared blankly at the television locked to the wall (some silly rom-com), and settled unwillingly into bed (all while suffering physical cravings for Estelle).

  I’d slept with her for so long that I struggled to fall asleep. The worry of how she was. The concern over Coco, the smarting agony of saying goodbye to Pippa, and the uncertainty if my dad could free me again, fermented in my chest with wicked heartburn. A headache also tormented me (a side effect of cellulitis) and my finger still felt tender.

  But I shouldn’t worry.

  I should trust.

  After all, my father wasn’t the reason I’d been sprung from my previous sentence early. Even though he hadn’t accepted the court’s verdict and gathered testimonials from families of patients murdered by Dr. Joseph Silverstein, he’d had no power when it came to swaying cold hard evidence that I’d pulled the trigger.

  However, miraculously, I hadn’t been the only one plotting murder.

  A few weeks earlier, another family, unbeknownst to us, had just lost their mother to a malpractice check-up. Silverstein had been the woman’s physician for decades. In that time, he’d already killed twenty people (some with uncourteous service and others with full intent—prescribing deadly doses of drugs, arranging unneeded chemotherapy, wilfully killing while pretending to be a caring, worried doctor).

  Only this time, when the woman went to him complaining of a rattling chest, back pain, and trouble breathing, he sent her home with an antiseptic throat spray. He didn’t listen to her lungs, take her temperature, or monitor her blood pressure. He ignored the signs of pneumonia on an eighty-four-year old woman. He denied her the most basic of treatment...the same treatment he swore to uphold with his Hippocratic Oath.

  He told her to go home.

  She called the next day begging for relief.

  He told her to stop moaning.

  She weakened.

  She suffered.

  A few days later, she died of complicated pneumonia with pleurisy that any other doctor would’ve been able to clear up (or, at least, send her to the hospital). If only he’d listened to her chest. Observed her complaints. And done what was right.

  But there was nothing right about Joseph Silverstein.

  He’d done the same to my mother. He’d told her time and time again to trust him. When she said she’d like a second opinion, he struck the fear of hell into her with complicated terms and jargon. He said he knew what was right for her.

  All while he got off on watching her waste away.

  However, that was my mother. And she was my revenge to pay.

  The husband, now turned widower, was ninety-two, heartbroken, and had his own vengeance burning. After a marriage of sixty-three years, he welcomed death because without his wife...his life was over anyway.

  His tale was spookily close to mine.

  He bought an unmarked gun.

  He boarded the train (his license had been revoked for bad eyesight), and set his electric wheelchair on fast mode as he sped to the door of the man who’d killed his wife.

  Only, I got there first.

  He saw me bounding from the scene with bloody knuckles and smoking illegal weapon. He watched me throw the gun into a nearby bush, not thinking clearly, and witnessed a nosy neighbour run from her home screaming for the police.

  I hadn’t had a silencer.

  People had heard the shot.

  I was seen.

  The old man made a decision.

  While I was chased by sirens and busy-bodies, he pressed his accelerator and wheeled himself toward the bush.

  With what remaining strength he had left, he collected the weapon (still warm and laced with sulphur) and wiped away my fingerprints with his winter scarf.

  What happened next was fate working once again against me.

  While I was arrested and thrown, without bail, into the judicial system (breaking my father’s heart all over again), the old man replaced my fingerprints with his on the murder weapon.

  He ensured his wheelchair tyres were visible to the porch and tracked mud on the carpet to the body.

  He returned home and packed up the gun, wrote a letter to the police claiming he’d seen me throw a few punches, then leave. That he was the one who unlawfully entered the man’s home and shot him in cold blood.

  He left medical records of previous instances when his wife didn’t receive the best care. He contacted elderly friends who’d also lost loved ones. And finally, a pattern emerged.

  He implic
ated himself and gave enough evidence to prove Dr. Silverstein, cold-hearted bastard and devil, was not a worthwhile citizen. He was a sociopath; a serial killer.

  All of that should’ve saved me from going to jail.

  However, the postal system lost the evidence.

  Lost it.

  The package stamped and marked priority was misplaced in an archaic system that charged far too much and under-delivered.

  I was found guilty.

  Convicted.

  For life.

  And that was where I stayed for five long years.

  Which I accepted.

  Because I’d done it.

  However, one day, fate finally decided to stop playing games and the postal system found said package. It was delivered. The documents were read. The gun was investigated.

  And I was freed.

  Just like that.

  No apology.

  No compensation.

  Just a stern warning that they knew that I knew that I’d done it.

  That just because the man who’d sent the letter died a week after sending didn’t mean they believed he’d done it. They hated that the widower’s voice carried beyond the grave to redeem me.

  A complete stranger saved my life.

  And I had no way to repay him.

  Brady C. Marlton.

  My hero.

  .............................

  The cell door clanging wrenched my eyes open.

  “Oak...you’re free to go. We’ve arranged a taxi to take you to the apartment where Ms. Evermore and her child are staying.”

  I wanted to burst into tears.

  In fact....I’d been strong for so much of my life. So angry. So full of misplaced rage. That I did cry.

  I silently let go and my cheeks remained wet the entire time I signed the temporary visa permitting me to enter Australia, swallowed my gratefulness the entire taxi ride, and collapsed to my knees as I knocked on the door of apartment 12F and Estelle fell into my arms.

  I’d lived three lives.

  An Englishman’s existence.

  A felon’s incarceration.

  And a crash wrecked survivor’s.

  But none of those defined me.

  Only one thing did.

  This woman.

  My wife.

  My home.

  Chapter Seventy-Four

  ...............................................

  E S T E L L E

  ......

  DAWN WAS WELCOMED with an orgasm rather than a yawn.

  When Galloway tumbled into my arms, contrite on his knees and heavily burdened with a past he could never shake, we couldn’t stop touching.

  I hugged him and stroked him, and when I led him into the apartment, I kissed him.

  That kiss turned into another.

  And another.

  And another.

  The kiss turned into stripping on the kitchen counter.

  The stripping turned to his lips on my sex and his tongue licking me deep.

  And sunrise turned into him sliding possessively inside me, claiming me, loving me, solidifying our bond that no matter what happened, no matter who tried to break us, no matter the circumstances that tried to kill us, we were one, and together we could fight anything.

  He didn’t tell me how his father had cleared him.

  And I didn’t pry.

  One day, I would.

  All I knew was Mike Oak had emailed the documentation that’d given my husband his life back. Given him to me.

  One day, I would demand the full story, not because I didn’t believe he was a good person but because a story such as his should be told. He would forever live with what he did. He didn’t take it lightly, but now, he had me and I would help him shoulder the burden of taking another’s life. Even if that life was justified to be taken.

  “I love you, Estelle.”

  I kissed his lips, arching my back and inadvertently pressing my breasts against his bare chest. We’d ended up naked on the balcony; hidden by smoky glass panels, we’d gravitated to the sound of the ocean and the comforting never-still breeze of open skies.

  For so long, we’d longed for sealed doors and air-tight spaces.

  But now that we had them, all I wanted was the wildness of sleeping with no windows, the freedom of rain slapping against flax, and the knowledge that everything we ever needed was within harvesting distance on our own piece of paradise.

  Funny how people evolved...most of the time without their knowledge or permission.

  “I understand if you want to move back to England, G,” I whispered into his skin, peppering kisses among the springy hair decorating his masculine body. “Australia hasn’t exactly been welcoming.”

  He chuckled, gathering me closer. “I don’t care where we live. As long as it’s together.”

  “We’ll always be together.”

  “Thank God for that.”

  His mouth came down, and we lost each other to another sensual kiss. His cock stirred against me and the thought of making love on an open-air balcony with neighbours above who could look down at any moment barely restrained me from rolling him onto his back and straddling him.

  So many times I’d done exactly that, pushing him into the surf, the tide lashing my knees as I rocked onto his body, my hands on his chest, my nails stabbing warm skin, and his eyes catching the final rays of moonshine.

  We’d taken our islandic existence for granted. We hadn’t seen how special it was until it was too late.

  I doubted we would ever go back.

  Even though I would’ve given anything to return.

  It’s funny how I’ve erased the hardship of the past few months.

  All I could remember were the happy times.

  Galloway shuffled me off him, his eyes flickering upstairs as the sounds of the sliding door opening alerted it was time to get dressed before we were arrested for public indecency. “Come on. Let’s go for a shower.”

  I padded behind him, nude and not caring. Coco was young enough not to care about body parts, and she spent most of her young life running around naked anyway.

  That will change now.

  She would have to be more civilised. Go to school. Interact with others.

  She was no longer completely mine.

  Neither was Pippa.

  So much had happened since she’d gone. I hadn’t had time to reflect just how much I missed her.

  Her disappearance was almost as painful as Conner’s death.

  How could I remain breathing after having two incredible children taken from me?

  “I’m in love with indoor plumbing almost as much as I love you.” Galloway winked, slipping into a joke after dealing so long with stress.

  I appreciated his lightheartedness.

  We needed a laugh. To remember we were still alive and deserved to seize what we had left, rather than sink sorrowfully into the past.

  My heart fluttered but not because of his flirtation or the thought of getting wet in the shower but because he honestly looked happy. He looked at home with lockable doors and humming refrigerators.

  Maybe I was the only one missing Fiji. Maybe I was the only one stupid enough to want something as hard as survival.

  Ever since docking in Sydney, I’d wanted to ask if he’d ever contemplate returning. If there were some small chance of making it work (where we didn’t die, had access to medicine and much-needed food)...would he be interested?

  I wouldn’t be suicidal and return to our basic home. We would need provisions, upgrades, help.

  But if we had that...would he?

  However, following him into the bathroom and listening to his appreciative laugh as the shower spluttered with instant hot water, I swallowed my questions.

  We were rescued.

  This was where we belonged.

  With internet and toilets and upholstery. With phones with signals, TV with entertainment, and electricity that heated, cooled, cooked, and protected.

&nb
sp; Not there.

  We were part of society once again.

  And proper city folk didn’t crave untamed wilderness.

  After all...we weren’t savages.

  Chapter Seventy-Five

  ...............................................

  G A L L O W A Y

  ......

  KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK.

  “Can you get that?” Estelle yelled from the bathroom.

  We’d finished our second round of sex with her hands on the white tiled walls of the shower and me driving into her lithe body from behind, all while we drank fresh water straight from the showerhead.

  It was like having a rainstorm on command, only warmer.

  I loved it...but something niggled me, too.

  It was wrong.

  Unnatural...even though millennium of evolution said it was normal.

  “Sure!” Slinging a towel around my waist, I prowled/limped to the entrance.

  I couldn’t see my woman, but I could hear my daughter. She squealed and the splash of her playing in the bath echoed in the bland apartment. At least, a bath didn’t have stonefish or sharks or things waiting to kill her. Coco would never suffer the same awful death as Conner or be eaten by an intruder in our bay.

  There were so many positives of living back in society.

  So why could I only remember the bad?

  The smog.

  The stress.

  The backstabbing and lying and nasty behaviour?

  Running a hand through my damp hair, I made a note to arrange a haircut so I didn’t get labelled a caveman and opened the door.

  A strange woman stared back.

  Her mouth fell open, her gaze dropped to my naked chest (skinny but toned) to my low hanging towel (I couldn’t get used to clothes, no matter how much I needed to wear them) then back to my eyes (that were now scanning her in the same way).

  Curvy redhead with freckles (like Conner), dark green eyes, and lips painted a cherry red. “Um...did I get the wrong apartment?”

  “I don’t know. Who are you looking for?”

  Coco suddenly spun out of the bathroom, completely starkers with bubbles sliding down her tiny body. “Catch me!”

  Estelle chased after her, her purple sundress sopping wet and clinging to her underweight curves. After so long with bare essentials, she couldn’t get used to underwire and underwear, either. We preferred going commando these days.