No Going Back (29 page)

Soon his train arrived and he found a seat at the rear of the lattermost carriage. No one sat next to him, or in those chairs adjacent, and he hoped things would stay like that all the way to Holbrook.

35

Jay was back in the box.

Her hands were free and she scrabbled at the metal sheets entombing her, fingernails ripping down to the cuticle and leaving red slashes on the tin. Though she was in shadow, the smears of blood were vivid, lit by an internal light. They mocked her, flashing like the fiery eyes of demons. Jay screamed but nothing issued from her constricted throat. She was too thirsty to make a sound.

Last time she was able to hook her fingers around the top end of the corrugated sheet and slide it but now it resisted her efforts. There was no way she could budge it, and the knowledge made her more frantic.

Though her world had been silent, she thought she could hear the steady tread of boots approaching her prison. She stopped struggling. Her stomach felt like it had lifted into the hollow at the back of her mouth. She did not dare guess who was out there. She didn’t have to. The wizard from behind the curtain was there waiting for her; ready to reveal his true face, and his true intent.

A keening noise filtered from above.

A scream?

Was Nicole being attacked again?

The sound of boots in thick sand retreated.

Jay began tearing at the metal again, and when she next looked she’d rubbed her fingertips down to the bone.

The red was more livid than ever, gouts of blood splashed from one end of her coffin to the other, dripping from the tin sheeting to splatter on her face. She shook her head side to side, blinking it off her lashes. She looked again. Two particular smears were in her line of vision.

They blinked.

She recognised those demonic eyes peering back at her.

Samuel Logan wasn’t outside, he was right there with her, watching from within her nightmare.

Jay screamed, and this time there was a hoarse, tearing sound that ripped painfully from her throat.

She kicked and writhed, then fell sideways into a chasm that had opened without warning . . .

She sat up, the scream from her nightmare caught in her throat. For a long heartbeat afterwards she sat blinking in the dark as tendrils of the dream refused to relax their grip and tried to tug her back into their embrace. A mild panic caught her and she struggled to extricate herself from the sheets, finding them damp with perspiration and wound tightly around her legs. She yanked them free and then swung her feet off the bed and dug her toes into the rug on the hardwood floor, seeking contact with something firm and in the real world. She lowered her head into her hands and pushed the matted hair back from her brow.

There was faint light leaking from around the shutters, enough for her to make out the unfamiliar shape of furniture, and she heard the rush of a breeze through treetops outside. She was a long way from the box in the Arizona desert, yet its hold on her still sent a tremor through her body. She lowered her hands, expecting to find the glistening nubs of bones protruding from her fingertips, but they were whole and undamaged. They trembled, though.

She stood up quickly and moved for the door, pulling her nightdress down to cover her slick thighs. She snatched a robe off a hook. Not that she was cold, but she remembered now where she was and couldn’t wander about in a state of undress. She pulled it on as she went out of the bedroom, tying the belt loosely around her hips. Immediately to the left of her room was the one where Nicole slept. She stood alongside the jamb, bent to lay an ear against the door. There was nothing to hint that Nicole shared the dream that she’d just experienced, but then, she realised, Nicole’s must be much worse. She crept away without disturbing her friend, to retrieve her clothing from where she’d laid it on a chair. Dressed appropriately, she left her room and closed the door behind her.

Her recent terror was subsiding now, but not her intense thirst. She wondered if there would ever be a time when she would feel sated. The floorboards creaked softly under her feet, and self-consciously she glanced at the room further along where her mother and father slept. No one stirred, but she was careful to regulate her footing and avoid the boards most likely to squeak underfoot: it was bad enough that her sleep had been disturbed without her waking the entire hotel.

She turned, seeking a way down.

Like most structures here in Holbrook, the Tipi Hotel was built primarily of wood and cladding, albeit in a different fashion from its neighbours. Whereas most of the other hotels here were the familiar split level type, serviced by external stairs and walkways, the Tipi reminded her more of a Gothic mansion. In keeping with its style it had internal stairways so she had no fear of being seen by anyone lurking in the grounds. Around her she could hear the subtle movement of the timber joists contracting as the hotel settled for the night, and from a room on her left drifted the muted strains of music from a TV. From further away came the sound of vehicles on the highway. The hotel was built on land set back from the road, concealed by tall fir trees that had been imported from some distant corner of the US to offer insulation, but always the background noise of the highway was there. Sometimes it was just a hum, a lullaby to help send you to sleep, but tonight the traffic noise was carried on a stiff breeze, tumultuous and noisy.

She heard all those things but she did not hear the man who was suddenly standing beside her.

Jay’s hand went to her throat, and she caught the yelp of surprise before it escaped.

She recognised the form standing there and relaxed: he was too tall to be the man from her nightmare.

‘Is everything OK, Jay?’

She nodded up at Joe Hunter. She realised now that he had been sitting in a chair in the hallway in order to have a view of her room, as well as being positioned to guard access up the stairs. He was holding a matt black pistol down by his thigh.

‘I couldn’t sleep,’ she said. ‘I’m thirsty and thought I’d get a drink.’

‘You didn’t call room service?’

‘I wanted to stretch my legs a bit,’ she nodded back at her room, ‘get out of that . . . that box for a while. Is it OK?’

‘You can do whatever you like. So long as you tell me first.’

Jay appreciated Hunter being there to guard them, understanding that for him to do so there were rules to be followed, and she didn’t want to compromise them in any way. She had listened to his ground rules for remaining safe, and one of them was that neither she nor Nicole left the hotel without him. She supposed that creeping from her room in the middle of the night wasn’t a contravention because she’d no intention of going outside.

‘I’ll get us coffee if you’d like one,’ she offered.

‘That’d be good.’

‘What about Nic?’

‘I’m sure she’d prefer to sleep.’

‘Uh, I meant . . .’

‘I know.’ He offered her a smile. ‘She’ll be fine, so long as I can watch who comes in or out of the hotel. There’s a vending machine in the lobby.’

‘You don’t think he’ll come tonight?’

‘Samuel Logan? No, I don’t. But . . . you never can tell.’

‘Surely the police will catch him before too long?’

‘Yeah,’ Hunter said, but she wasn’t easily fooled.

She smiled at his attempt at allaying her fears and he returned a flicker of a grin. His teeth glistened in the pale glow from a night light at the end of the hall.

Jay said, ‘Well, if he is coming, I wish he’d hurry up and get here because the waiting is the worst part.’

The calm Hunter radiated told her he was the type who could wait out the melting of a glacier, but he nodded anyway.

He followed her down to the lobby. The doors to the restaurant were locked tight, the room beyond in darkness. There was a clerk manning the desk, but as he began to rise up out of his seat, Hunter waved him back down.

‘Over here,’ Hunter said, leading her towards an alcove where machinery purred. ‘Let me buy you one instead.’

Still conscious that they might rouse everyone in the hotel, she moved through the lobby on the balls of her feet, her clothing swishing with the sway of her hips. Hunter watched her, but there was nothing lascivious in his observation, and she felt he was at ease in her presence. The same couldn’t be said for her. When she was under his gaze she felt like a schoolgirl experiencing her first crush and knew that she’d no right. Joe was in a relationship, he was happy with his girlfriend Imogen Ballard, and she should get him out of her head. It wasn’t easy, and some of the dreams she’d had tonight hadn’t been as horrifying as being back in Samuel Logan’s box.

She surprised herself by asking, ‘What’s your story, Joe?’

Hunter’s mouth turned down at the corners, but it wasn’t because he was unhappy at her question. He just appeared uncomfortable speaking about himself.

He laughed self-deprecatingly. ‘I’m a good guy, despite what some people might think.’

‘You’re more than that. Despite how you made it sound to me that time,
you
saved our lives: mine, Nicole’s and Ellie’s.’

‘That’s Joe Hunter for you.’

‘You were a soldier, right?’

‘Yeah. Special Forces.’ Hunter adjusted the gun in his belt so that it wasn’t apparent should another guest enter the alcove. Beyond him the vending machine hissed and plopped. Hunter winced and it wasn’t at the intrusive noises.

‘It’s an honourable profession,’ Jay said. ‘You should be proud.’

‘I am. I’m damn proud.’ The way he lowered his head told the lie.

‘I just bet you’ve seen some terrible things.’

‘Yeah.’ Hunter grunted as he returned his attention to the vending machine. ‘I had to do some terrible things too.’

‘Is that what’s so difficult to let go of?’

He handed her a waxed cup full of steaming coffee. Jay studied the man opposite her. From her time with him in the desert she recalled that his gaze was intense, and even in the half light of the alcove she could tell that his eyes were more guarded than usual. He seemed to find the floor interesting. Once before she had wondered if Joe found it difficult coming to terms with his past, and the thought struck her again. It was as if he read her mind and he shifted, bringing his head up to meet her stare. ‘What I did out there in the desert? I didn’t do that because your father paid me to find you, I did that because I
needed
to. Do you understand?’

‘You mean you needed to kill those men?’

Hunter shook his head ‘No, not exactly. I needed to find you and the others and punish the men responsible for hurting you.’

Jay did understand. Hunter thought that by helping victims now it would help him come to terms with those
terrible things
he’d done in the past.

‘You’re seeking absolution?’

‘Not from any god,’ Hunter said.

‘Isn’t it a little self-destructive? I mean, trying to find peace from a violent past by continuing to be violent?’

‘I don’t see things like that.’

‘You think that if you save someone it counterbalances the bad that you’ve done?’

Hunter retrieved his cup of coffee. He lifted it to his lips but paused. ‘I’m not explaining myself very well. It goes much deeper. Maybe I shouldn’t even be sharing this with you.’

Jay followed Hunter out into the lobby, thinking that maybe she shouldn’t have broached the subject. Hunter was obviously uncomfortable. The pain was evident in the set of his shoulders. She reached out and touched his arm.

‘It’s good to talk to a friend sometimes . . .’

He shook his head.

‘Talking doesn’t help. I’ve tried. It’s as simple as this, Jay: the Logans were monsters who deserved to die. One of them’s still alive, but, if he shows up here, I’ll kill him. That or I’ll die trying.’

‘That’s the only thing that will make you happy?’ Jay asked. ‘When you kill Samuel Logan . . . or he kills you?’

Hunter didn’t reply.

36

The police would expect Samuel to flee Arizona so he was not concerned when the train pulled into the station at Holbrook and he alighted on to the platform alongside other passengers. If anything they’d be watching for him trying to board a train, not getting off one. His disguise was working fine, especially with the bonus of the attaché case: it reinforced the image of a businessman in town for a meeting, even at this late hour.

He wandered outside and stood in a dusty swirl of cars circling outside the station as they picked up and dropped off passengers, watching for a cab. The cabs were being snapped up as soon as they arrived, and there were still a half dozen people waiting before him. He had considered stealing another car but thought that the third time would be the charm, an unlucky one at that. He had a raging thirst and walked to a nearby booth hawking cigarettes and soft drinks. He purchased neither but pulled a newspaper from the stand. On the cover was an update of the story that had rocked his homeland. The latest headline carried the shocking discovery of Doug Stodghill’s body at his auto shop. Samuel tossed the vendor a couple of rumpled dollars and walked away, perusing the story. The journalist had taken liberties with his report, much of it speculation, but Samuel was interested in a quote stating that the female victims had remained in Holbrook to help police with their ongoing inquiries.