Chapter 19 #3
Belinda kicked the bucket of cleaning items Austin’s way. “Get started. It’ll look suspicious if our phones are at the hospital too long. The quarry hasn’t been targeted yet, but who knows when that will change?” She glanced around the tiny hut. “Any blood?”
Austin shook his head.
“Good,” she grunted. “Don’t miss anything.” She flicked the gun from me to the bed. “Take a seat.”
I sat where she directed, using my hip to move Chloe’s freezing feet out of the way. “You’d kill an old lady for her money? You make me sick.”
Belinda moved so that she could watch me and keep an eye on Austin at the same time. “It is what it is,” she said baldly. “When Austin and I became a thing, I found out he had a bit of a gambling problem. Got himself into a whole lot of trouble.”
I did my best to look surprised. If Belinda cottoned on to how much Mads and I really knew, it could turn my bad situation into something infinitely worse.
I needed her to think she had time and a chance to solve this little problem, which would hopefully give me time to figure a way out of the damn mess I’d got myself into. “So that’s why you need the money.”
Belinda shrugged. “Love, right? What can you do? Luckily, the solution was right in front of us. All we had to do was avoid landing ourselves in jail in the process. That’s where I come in.”
The casual dismissal of Chloe’s planned murder as a solution made me want to vomit. “You’re fucking insane.”
She delivered a scathing look my way. “Quite the contrary. It takes a very sane person to get the details of a plan right to the very last thing. To understand what people want to hear and to give it to them. To get them onside. And to be patient. So damn patient. Not to mention all my nursing skills.”
I huffed. “The Valium?”
She narrowed her eyes at me. “Yes, the Valium, amongst other things. You can’t just wing something as delicate as this.
You have to control the dosages. Make sure you get the desired effect without overdoing it.
Without killing her. And without drawing attention or suspicion.
I usually hid it in her favourite foods when I made us lunch.
Or in meals I’d leave in her fridge. Chocolate pudding was the most reliable. She never failed to finish those.”
The detail was sickening, and I found my gaze straying to Chloe’s pale face.
Belinda noticed and smirked. “Aw, it’s touching to see you two finding your way again.”
I ignored the comment. “But it was inconsistent. Chloe didn’t appear medicated at all that first day. But the second morning she was definitely off.”
Belinda beamed. “Precisely. Good days and bad days, remember? The days she wandered, I’d sometimes loaded her up the night before so she was far more confused and suggestible in the mornings.
Other days she was her usual self. Lucid times mixed with confusion.
It looks a lot more . . . natural. Did you know Valium can mimic and exacerbate the progression of Parkinson’s disease? ”
I said nothing.
“Well, it can.” She grinned. “Just an added bonus.”
I grunted in disgust. “Convenient for you that Brendon used to have a prescription then? That whole drama around his medication bottle was you covering your tracks, ensuring the police expect to find Valium in Chloe’s blood, even a lot of it.”
Belinda looked pleased. “See? Details matter. I told you.”
I shook my head. “It won’t work. The police always follow the money. I should know.”
Belinda eyeballed me. “That’s where you’re wrong.
It won’t matter if they find out about Austin’s debt.
Doesn’t mean a thing with a more obvious explanation staring them right in the face.
Everyone knows about Chloe’s wandering. We made sure they did.
Confused and wandering around in freezing weather at her age?
It’s a recipe for disaster. Add in some Valium and no one’s going to look any further. ”
“I did. And so will Mads. What are you going to do about us?” I asked the unavoidable question.
Austin looked up from wiping the stone fireplace to glare my way. “We can’t just let him go.”
Belinda smirked and fear licked over my skin. “Well, no. Obviously, we can’t. I have a plan for Mister Fisher here and he isn’t going to like it.”
Fear tickled up my spine. Belinda had to be talking about getting rid of me. About killing me. She had no other option.
Austin’s gaze jerked to his girlfriend. “But his brother-in-law is a cop.”
Belinda continued to stare at me. “Just means we need to be careful how we go about it. Loose and confusing. No red flags.”
I snorted. “Good luck with that. Madigan already knows I followed you. That’s what he’ll tell the police. And when they track my car here, he’ll know it was only because I followed you here.”
“Maybe.” Belinda appeared bemused. “But what your boyfriend thinks isn’t what counts.
What counts is what the police can prove.
And although the evidence might show that your car was here, maybe even your fingerprints, if we miss any, there’ll be nothing pointing to us.
Blenheim isn’t Auckland, Nick. There aren’t security cameras on every corner and we’ve been very, very careful. ”
“But how the hell will you explain both of us dead?” I scoffed. “Chloe and me.”
She never batted an eyelid. “Easier than it sounds. I’ve done a bit of researching myself since we discovered who you are. Chloe will be found drowned in the old quarry lake at the far western end of the river walk. People will be surprised she wandered that far, but stranger things have happened.”
I wanted to laugh in her face, to tell her she didn’t have a hope in hell of pulling that off, but the truth was, I could see it working. “Maybe,” I mused. “But I’m not a confused old woman. And I’m an excellent swimmer.”
“True, that’s why I’ve settled on you disappearing, presumed dead, probable suicide.
That should cover it.” A terrible smile spread over Belinda’s face.
“Picture this, if you will. You lose us and go searching for Chloe on your own, not knowing the area and following random clues, one of which even leads you up here. Eventually you find your mother dead in the lake. After only just reconnecting, it will be devastating for you. Despairing and conflicted, feeling guilty and blaming yourself, you leave the car behind and simply disappear, never to be seen again. Months or years from now, your remains might be discovered in secluded bush, a long way from here and everyone will assume it was suicide.”
I snorted. “Why the fuck would I kill myself?”
Another of those oily smiles. “Why does anyone do something like that? Do we really know what’s going on in someone else’s head? You’ve been under a lot of stress, after all.”
My heart stilled, and fear balled in my throat as I began to see where this was leading.
“Difficult childhoods change a person in ways they can’t predict,” Belinda said smoothly.
“You’ve spent decades angry at your mother for leaving when you were a kid.
Festering a fury for abandoning you to an abusive father.
While she got a new life for herself, you lived with the constant taunts of never being good enough.
Too soft. Too weak. Not worth your father’s attention.
Not worth being born. A waste of space and everyone’s time. ”
A buzzing sounded in my ears and my tongue grew fat in my mouth.
Belinda’s voice morphed to his in my head.
His words circling my brain. That familiar hollow well of worthlessness.
The desperation. The anger. The paralysing fear.
Why did you leave me? Why didn’t you love me? Why wasn’t I ever good enough for you?
And underpinning it all, under the silence and the fear and the utter loneliness, a poisonous thought continually ate at my teenage heart, whispering its ruinous invitation. A twisted idea I’d never admitted aloud to a single soul. The one thing that had seemed the solution to everything.
Kill him. Just fucking kill him. Kill the bastard. Kill him. Get out. And fuck the consequences.
I’d never crossed the line, but oh how I’d wanted to.
I’d tasted the temptation. I’d touched that dark place most people never even knew existed in their hearts.
I’d recognised with horror that I was capable, and I’d come so fucking close.
Dealing with that knowledge hadn’t been easy, and I was still coming to terms with it.
Mads had seen that side of me in Kettleworth.
Seen me lost to that all-consuming fury.
Seen it and understood it when I wasn’t sure I had.
Belinda cocked her head, still smiling. “Ah, yes, there it is. I can see it on your face. You hated your father so much. You wanted him dead. You probably even planned how you’d do it in your head.”
Only a million times.
“Maybe you rehearsed how you’d do it. Gathered what you’d need.”
In a box under my track shoes.
“A life of rejection by the people who were supposed to love you does things to a child. To a man. Things he can’t control.
Rage he can’t control. Until one day he simply .
. . snaps.” She clicked her fingers in front of my face.
“And nobody saw it coming. Nobody believes he’s even capable.
Friends are shocked. Loved ones horrified.
But when they look closely, the pieces are all there to be found. ”
“I—” I swallowed hard. “How did you—” Then it hit me. “The scrapbook.”
“Mmm, partly.” Belinda waggled her hand.
“The best bits came from your own mother. Yesterday, after you left, I sweetened her up with a little Valium and then grilled her about you. She never mentioned the trip to the bank or the power of attorney, strangely enough. My bad for not pushing hard enough. But she couldn’t shut up about how proud she was of the man you’d become in the face of everything you’d been through.
She told us about the scrapbook and how she’d kept tabs on your life.
She told us how you’d lost your much-loved husband and then found yourself in a new relationship surprisingly quickly after.
” She sent me a sly look. “Were you a naughty boy while your husband was so sick all those months? Can’t say I blame you. ”
Bile surged from my stomach and I choked. “Shut your fucking mouth.”
Belinda shot me a venomous smile. “Poor boy. The grief and stress and all that guilt must’ve been so hard to bear.
Truly, it’s a wonder you didn’t snap earlier.
And then Chloe’s letter arrives in the midst of all that turmoil.
” She gave a sad shake of her head. “Offering you hope and a lifeline to healing all that childhood trauma.”
“You’re out of your goddamned mind.” But the uncertain wobble in my voice didn’t match the barb and Belinda saw right through it. I was rattled and she knew it, homing in on my weaknesses like a predator working on a kill.
“But then Chloe dies and you’d barely got started together,” she continued in a syrupy tone.
“And what’s more, you’re the one who finds her, floating in the quarry lake.
Grief upon grief. You feel responsible for not finding her sooner.
For not saving her life. Blaming yourself like you’ve always done.
All that anger and conflict you’ve buried for decades suddenly rises to the surface and pushes you over the edge.
You take off and lose yourself and your life in your misery.
Tragic but understandable, all things considered.
If only you hadn’t been alone. Mads will blame himself for the rest of his life. ”
“He won’t believe any of it,” I protested.
A comment that earned me another oily smile. “Won’t he? Are you sure about that?”
No. No, I fucking wasn’t. Promise me you’ll be careful. I’d been an emotional time bomb ever since we’d met, and the picture Belinda painted had just enough truth in it to carry the lies.
Except they weren’t really lies, if I was being honest. Not about my childhood or my adult struggles.
At some point, all of those feelings had bubbled inside me; some of them still did.
They might not paint the same picture Belinda did, but they could be made to look that way.
Mads would hopefully see the truth. Samuel too.
But I wasn’t even sure about them, let alone the people who didn’t even know me. So yeah, I could be in real trouble.
“How about you stop talking and start helping me,” Austin grumbled. “You’re the one who said we needed to hurry.”
Belinda glanced at her watch and patted the keys in her pocket. “Fine. I’ll go grab the other tarp I hid along the track and come back. We can stretcher them out one by one.”
Austin shot me a glare. “What about my ribs?”
Belinda scowled. “What about your ribs? I can’t carry them alone.” She closed her eyes for a second, then sighed. “Fine. I’ve got some tape to strap them with but that’s the best I can do.”
For the first time, Belinda was focused solely on Austin, and I saw my chance. I wasn’t sure what, if anything, I could achieve without my hands, but I was about to find out. I slammed my boot into Belinda’s shin and she howled and stumbled back, her arms flailing as she lost her balance.
“You are one seriously fucked-in-the-head bitch,” I barked, pushing to my feet to get a second kick in. But before I could land it, Austin leaped to help his girlfriend get to her feet.
Once she was standing, Belinda shoved him away, her cheeks blowing red as she pushed me back onto the bed. “That was a mistake, Nick.” She glared down at me. “See you in hell, fucker.” She raised her arm and pistol-whipped me across the temple.
I didn’t see it coming and pain lanced through my brain like broken glass, ricocheting around my skull as it ripped through every cell.
A loud buzz fractured my eardrums and white light strobed behind my eyes, then faded to a pinpoint.
The world closed in, darkness creeping from the edges of my vision until there was nothing but blackness.
Bile filling my throat.
Falling.
Falling.
Into silence.