Chapter Twenty-Six
“Are you okay?” Henry said, grabbing a tight hold of my shoulders.
We had finally made it back to the building, hours later, drenched.
The cream that was once soothing the lips between my legs had worn off.
I was not only cold, shaking but now also in burning pain, while holding what I believed to have been a dead woman’s hair in my hand.
I really didn’t know how he wanted me to answer that question.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, that’s such a stupid question.
Come with me,” he said, taking my hand he dragged me towards the kitchen.
I stood in the corner as I watched him rummage through the cupboard to find a pair of rubber gloves and a sandwich bag.
He threw the gloves on, holding his hand out to me.
“I know that you have touched it, and that’s okay. But we need to report this….” His face turned pale as he looked down at the hair. “We need to report this as soon as possible.”
I opened up my hand and Henry took the clump of wet hair and placed it into the sandwich bag. After this, we stood opposite each other in silence.
Henry took a step towards me, wrapping his arms around me, holding me tight.
As I nuzzled into his body. I wanted to cry, I wanted to completely break down inside of his arms but I also felt numb.
Numb but filled with pain and the only other person who understood that very feeling was the man that was holding me. Death was not new to us.
We had become immune to it. It was just something that happens when you’ve seen the lifeless bodies of those you loved the most. It takes the shock away from the notion of death.
It numbs you and makes the very thing that the world seems to fear the most, completely certain.
As much as I wanted to cry, as much as I wanted answers, as much as I didn’t want this to be the thing that he found in his backyard on a day like today, I kept my poise, and I didn’t say another word.
“You should go and have a shower, warm up. You’re freezing. I’ll be right behind you. I need to find Jackie and get all the details of the last people that were here and then I need to figure out how exactly I’m going to get the police over here,” he said, and my body involuntarily shivered again.
“Oh, Miss Molly, you really need to get yourself warm.”
I nodded. “I’m going to have a hot shower now, I’ll head upstairs, but are you sure there’s nothing else that I can help you with?”
“You can help me by getting warm, and I’ll meet you up there soon, I promise,” said Henry squeezing me tighter as he placed a kiss on the top of my head, lingering a little longer before he pulled away.
I took myself straight up to the penthouse.
As I walked through to the bathroom, I avoided all mirrors.
I didn’t want to see how pale my skin was or how blue my lips had become.
I didn’t want to see how much of a drowned rat that I looked like in front of Henry.
I didn’t want to catch the expression inside my own eyes.
I didn’t want to see the sadness that sat behind them because as soon as I did, I would not be able to stop the tears from flowing.
Right now, the most important thing was to get warm.
I stripped down my wet clothes, leaving them in a pile at the opening of the shower.
As I stood under the hot shower, still shaking, I waited for the moment that I no longer felt the chill underneath the heat.
I curled up at the bottom of the shower, steaming the whole bathroom up, as my body shivered.
I called Ruth. Still nothing. I called her name again.
“Ruth?”
“Yes, Miss Molly,” her familiar voice echoed through the bathroom, and I don’t know who had changed the AI back into the Ruth avatar, but I had never been so happy that they did.
“Um, do you mind showing me or telling me the extent of your capabilities? You can come sit here, if you like,” I said.
Instantly I saw Ruth’s image appear at the end of the long shower, standing tall amongst the steam.
Seeing her complexion, her pale skin, her long red hair instantly made me jump at first, before she took a seat down at the end of the shower, leaning against the glass screen.
I gulped as I eyed her long red hair which was draped over her shoulder.
I wished I could reach out and touch it, feel its realness.
I wonder if it felt how I had imagined it in my vision, so soft and strong or if it was more like the hair of the stranger that I had just held tight too for the past two hours, walking home in the rain.
“It’s so good to see you again, Miss Molly,” Ruth said with a wide smile on her face. Ruth had seemed so real to me, so conscious, but now as she sat there smiling back at me, she appeared unreal since she couldn’t read the room of dark hidden emotions right now.
“Ruth…” I said, “I was wondering what exactly your full capabilities are.” I was talking to her like she was well the artificial intelligence that she was, and no longer like a human.
“I can help you out with anything that you need. I can read the entire internet for you, assist you with finding the information that you need, and I can also help you out with anything that you need assistance with, within this house and the entire property.”
“This property as in this whole island?” I questioned.
Ruth’s head tilted, as though she was deep in thought. “Is there something specific you would like to know. You can just ask me the question and I can see if I can find out the information for you,” she said, still smiling wide at me, her voice a little too peppy for what I needed right now.
“Do you know who were the last visitors here and how long ago they visited?” I asked.
I knew that Henry was going over that information right now with Jackie, but I couldn’t help myself in asking Ruth.
Besides, whatever Henry found out before the police came here, he wouldn’t share all the information with me.
Not because he was trying to keep secrets, but because he would be protective.
And in a situation like this, the less you knew the safer you were.
But I couldn’t just go around pretending that I didn’t see what I did, that I didn’t feel it for myself.
“Yes, I do,” she said. “The last group here was a three-day retreat for the three co-founders of a creative agency. They spent their time here cultivating their plans for growth for the next financial year. This island is always a go-to place for people who really want to take their businesses to the next level. And a lot of them do follow through with their plans after they visit here. I think it helps to immerse yourself in a certain lifestyle, particularly if it’s one that you want to envision yourself in for the future.
That’s why this island does so well gaining so many business leader retreats. ”
“Right, and do you remember who these three people were who owned the creative agency?”
“Yes, I do remember their faces and their names that are clearly filed within my files. It was Thomas Bradshaw and his son Caleb alongside his best friend Richard Whey.”
“Oh,” I sighed, “So there were no women here last weekend? Only three men?”
“Correct,” said Ruth, “May I ask you why you’re asking me all this information, Miss Molly. If we get to the root of the question, I might be able to help you get to the answers that you’re looking for a lot quicker.”
I wasn’t going to tell her that we just found a body.
And we didn’t find a body. I didn’t know if that was even the truth yet.
All we had found was some blonde hair and some blood stain on the rock.
For all I know a long haired labrador could have been out by the waterfall.
Although everything in my gut told me this was unlikely.
That hair was human, I was sure of it. I could have just told her about what I had found, but I also didn’t know enough about the technology that Henry had built.
If Ruth was smart enough to read the entire internet, who’s to say that anything that I told her wouldn’t be added in a way for anyone else to read.
Thinking about that now made me overthink any other conversation that I had had with her.
I ignored Ruth’s comment and continued with my questioning.
“So there was no blonde women out here last weekend at all? Or even the weekend before that?”
“Last weekend was the only business retreat that had been out here all month. We have been giving the island and the staff a break lately. And yes, you would be correct, there have been no blonde women out here in the past couple of weeks,” said Ruth.
“And you’re one hundred percent sure about that.”
“Yes, from my records, those are the absolute facts.”
I wondered if there was any chance that Ruth’s facts were wrong. Or at least misguided, if there was any way that they could have snuck some women into the retreat, or maybe she wasn’t snuck in, maybe she worked here?
“Ruth, has there even been a blonde woman that has worked here on the island?” I asked.
Ruth instantly shook her head. “No, Miss Molly. Since I have been a part of this island there have only been three main workers here, there is Jackie who runs everything, Dylan, who is the cook, and there is also Joan, who is the cleaner, but she is currently on a holiday in Japan. That is the very reason that Henry created me. Or us I should say, so that we can help with everything else on the island that isn’t physical.
Of course, there are some extra staff that do get bought in occasionally for large events, extra cleaners, waiters and cooks.
But I can still tell you that in the past month there has not been any blonde women here. ”
I tried to rack my brain for any other explanation of what we saw.