Cold Deception (4 page)

The older one, a bloke, grunted. “We’ll get her up to the hospital quick smart.”

“I’ll come with you,” Eleanor said.

Julia and Dee followed them out to the roadside and watched as Blossom was loaded into the back of the ambulance. Eleanor climbed in after her.

Dee sighed and ran her hands through her hair. “What a disaster.”

“I meant what I said back there. This is not your fault or Ma’s.” They stared after the ambulance. Julia finally stirred and turned back to the house. “I’ll get some things together for Blossom. We should follow them up to the hospital.”

Dee nodded, a look of devastation on her face. Julia put an arm around her shoulders.

“I never told you how grateful I was that you visited me every week. I know I told you I didn’t want you to, but you wouldn’t listen and then I got to rely on you.”

Dee leaned her head on Julia’s shoulder. “I couldn’t leave you in that place alone, Jules. Ellie’s not strong, not really. She could only manage a few times.” She lifted her head and looked into Julia’s eyes. “Do you resent her for that, Julia?”

Julia stroked the older woman’s back. “Yes and no. She wrote to me almost every day. Did you know that?”

Dee shook her head, sudden tears appearing in her eyes.

“They were wonderful, a gift. Full of love and longing. All the intricate details of your lives together. Every week for ten years, I waited for those letters, craved them. They were
my
drugs.”

Eleanor’s letters were her lifeline to the real world, to a place Julia dreamed of every night, glimpsed through the terrifying bars of her nightmares. All the gossip, changes, and silliness of the upper mountains community allowed Julia to live vicariously through the power of her mother’s words. As the seasons changed, she could see the garden and the bush, the light on Mount Solitary, the greedy parrots on the plum tree, just as her mother described them.

Part of her believed they were her mother’s usual strategy of pulling her back toward her, only to push her away later on, but still, Julia treasured them, re-reading them and dreaming of freedom.

Freedom was here.

She stared after the ambulance.

Freedom might have to wait a while.

The hospital arranged for Blossom to stay in overnight then go into detox for a week, down on the plains at the bigger Nepean Hospital. Julia wanted her to go into rehab after that, but no beds were available at any she called. Not that Blossom would go. She insisted she was fine, she’d just taken a few too many pills and she didn’t need to even go to detox. When Julia played the emotional manipulation card and told her Dee was so devastated by Blossom’s behavior, she blamed herself, and that Eleanor was painting deserts, Blossom reluctantly agreed to detox.

“But I’ll be fine after that, Jules. You’ll see.”

After a night in Katoomba Hospital, she was propped up in a bed waiting to be transferred down the mountains to the detox ward. Her words were still slurry but a least she wasn’t crying. Her face was scrubbed of makeup and she looked like a child again, a child with too many burdens. Eleanor had just left, satisfied Blossom was being cared for appropriately. Julia stared at her sister, appalled at her transformation.

“Rez has had enough of the drugs too. We thought we could move back here permanently and start painting. Rez is an artist too. He’s good. You’ll see. All we need is a new start and we’ll be fine.”

She avoided Julia’s eyes and picked at a loose thread on the hospital blanket.

“Rez has been in some trouble in the past, but it’ll be okay now.”

“What kind of trouble?’

She shrugged. “Just a bit of dope. The cops claimed he had a lot more than he really did. I’m sure they loaded him up. He got a suspended sentence.”

Julia’s heart sank. The cop was right. Rez was a drug dealer and Blossom was in thrall to him.

“Where is Rez, Bloss? Has he been to see you?”

She nodded. “He's staying with some friends but dropped in this morning.”

Julia couldn’t believe it. What were the hospital staff thinking?

“Did he give you anything?”

“What? What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean. Did he give you any pills?”

Her eyes immediately filled with tears. “You don’t trust me, do you?” she wailed.

“Not particularly. I’ve done ten years with women who were much more skilled than you at lying and cheating. Where are they?”

“Go away! I hate you! Saint Julia! You do everything to make yourself look good.” She was yelling now. Julia rifled through Blossom’s toilet bag and clothes looking for what she knew would be there.

“Even after ten years in jail everyone thinks you can do no wrong,” Blossom snarled.

Sure enough, Julia found a strip of pills in a tampon package. Blossom grabbed her arm.

“They’re mine. Leave them!”

“Stop it, Blossom. You can’t go on like this.”

Julia pulled away from her, the pills in her hand.

“You don’t understand,” Blossom whispered. “I have to have them. If I don’t have them the red comes back.”

“What?” Julia’s heart gave one painful lurch.

“The red. Red blood everywhere…”

“No. No.” She sat on the bed and pulled Blossom into her arms. “No, there’s no red. It’s just a dream. Forget it.” She rocked her back and forth, dark despair falling over her. “Shh, shh. It’s okay. Nothing will hurt you. I won’t let anything hurt you.”

“But it’s there. The red and that smell. I can’t remember what it is, but there was a smell…”

Julia tightened her hold on her sister, willing away the demons.

“It was nothing. Remember? You were sick with the flu. That’s why Father Pat brought you back early from the school excursion. He used to wear that awful aftershave. That’s the smell you remember. Then I was foolish and went and saw Father Pat after Sally told me what he’d done. That’s what happened. It’s just confused in your head. It was a bad time for a little girl, but it’s over now. It’s all over.”

“Don’t leave me, Jules. Don’t leave me.”

“I won’t, baby girl. I won’t.”

She rocked her, holding on to her fragile, skeletal body. When the staff came to transfer her to Nepean, she was asleep. Julia gently laid her back on her bed, then stood and stared after her as they wheeled her away.

*

Weariness fell on Julia like a dark, heavy cloak when she left the hospital. All she wanted was to crawl into bed and block out the world, but the words of the cop penetrated her brain like a pneumatic drill. Most people were sympathetic when they found out what she’d done, which made her sick. Rarely did anyone give her a hard time for hurting her family. She did that herself every night. No doubt about it, she had to give Dylan credit for unerringly hitting on the one truth that haunted her.

Her family suffered because of her.

Not that she and that particular truth weren’t well acquainted. But now she was back, the reality of her actions confronted her full force. She didn’t regret what she’d done. She’d do it again in a flash. But maybe a little more skillfully…

This wasn’t the time to regret the past and fall into a heap. She had to get on with life. Get control of it and make something of herself instead of becoming dependent on her family. Eleanor’s success as an artist and the money she inherited from her parents meant they were far from poor, but Julia had no intention of living off her mother. She’d work on the house, build up her skills, and maybe set up a small business as a decorator.

It was a short walk to the Council Chambers were she could renew her driver’s license. Then she’d be on her way to getting around the place without relying on Eleanor or Dee.

She trudged down the highway, past the showground, bending forward against the wind. It was only early June but there was a feel of snow in the air. Eleanor had bought her scarves, gloves, and a beanie then forced them on her as she left the house. She’d been irritated at all the fuss, but now she was grateful for her mother’s unaccustomed attention. Dee normally fussed, not Eleanor. But this morning she’d hovered around Julia like a fussy hen.

“Are you sure you’ll be okay? I can come with you after we see Blossom.”

Julia shook her head. “I’m fine. Have to do this on my own some time.”

Eleanor nodded, a worried look on her face.

“Take my phone.” She thrust it into Julia’s hand. “Call me if you need to.”

Trying to make up for all the years of neglect again? She had to hold back from biting off her mother’s head. Too little, too late. After several years of therapy with Dr. Devlin, she saw this was the pattern of their relationship. But maybe Eleanor’s letters told a different story. Maybe she’d changed, gotten older, exorcised her demons.

“Are you still going to Narcotics Anonymous meetings?” she asked her mother, not yet willing to put the past behind her.

Eleanor nodded, an eager light in her eyes. “And I’ve been stable on medication for ten years. No breakdowns, no crises. Even my paintings are better.”

Her pleading look shamed Julia. She took the phone, squeezed her mother’s hand and was silent in the car on the way to the hospital.

Now, as she plodded along the highway, she hoped her mother was better for good. Coping with her madness while Blossom seemed to be going off the rails would be too much. Julia had to find her some help. Maybe this doctor the cop mentioned…

Her thoughts crashed around in her head as she rounded the corner of the highway to spy the Council Chambers. Now days the Road and Traffic Authority couldn’t afford rent on a separate premises so had moved into the local Council building. The pink concrete monstrosity perched on the side of the highway, looking like some misguided architect’s idea of late sixties modernity. Completely out of place with the rest of the town’s shabby Art Deco sensibility.

She’d quickly go in, get her license, then cross the square to the parole office. Get everything unpleasant over and done in one hit.

Her heartbeat sped up at the sight of the automatic doors. She could do this. She had a right to live just like normal people. Stepping onto the rubber door mat, she jumped as the doors whooshed open. Her skin again prickled with cold and heat. The foyer was crowded with people who all looked up as she stood there, letting in the frigid air. The rushing in her brain started and her limbs shook.

“Make up your mind, love,” a voice complained from somewhere on her right. “It’s bloody freezing and looks like this queue isn’t going anywhere.”

Faces crowded her in. Faces with cruel, glittering eyes and sneering mouths. A low muttering penetrated the blood pounding in her brain. She had to get out, get away from all the faces with mouths and eyes hating her, wanting to push and shove her…

She backed away, out of hell, and turned to flee.

And slammed into a wall of uncompromising muscle.

Hard hands grabbed her arms to stop her falling. She had to get away. She pulled against him in terror. He would throw her back in, she knew he would, throw her to the wolves…

“Hey. Hold on. What’s wrong?”

Dylan stared at her with his chilly gray eyes.

“Nothing. I didn’t… I couldn’t…”

The shaking wouldn’t stop. Try as she might, she couldn’t make her limbs obey her. “Let me go.”

He shook his head. “Not yet. You’re coming with me.”

*

Dylan Andrews led the struggling woman away from the Council building, across the square to the wisteria-covered picnic area. Gray and bare, the twisting vine hung down in a dense veil, providing minimal cover from prying eyes. Luckily few people were around on this freezing morning.

“What’re you doing? Let me go!”

Through her struggles Dylan could see she was still gasping for breath and shaking. The dark circles under her eyes stood out in stark relief against the complete whiteness of her skin.

“Sit down,” he ordered. “You’re having a panic attack. Just sit there and breathe.”

She collapsed on a bench and leaned against the stone picnic table.

“I’ll be all right in a minute,” she said in a small voice.

He stared down at her, irritated with himself and his reaction to her. Everything he knew about Julia Taylor indicated she wasn’t the run of the mill ex-crim, yet his hackles rose when he was around her. He knew he wouldn’t have to keep an eye on her like most crims first out of jail. She wasn’t a user and murderers had a low recidivism rate. Many people thought her crime was justified and there was certainly no doubt the pedophile priest was no loss to the world.

That was the problem. She didn’t have the right to make that decision. No one did except a court of law. Sure, she’d been young and foolish, but he’d seen first-hand what out of control vigilantism did. Some nights the vision of Dale Rowe’s dismembered limbs still visited him…

Her breathing returned to normal and some color appeared in her face. No doubt about it, the Taylor women were stunners. Blossom was a carbon copy of her mother, but the woman in front of him was equally compelling. Instead of dark and petite like the other women in her family, Julia was taller with round curves, pale skin, and chocolate-honeycomb hair. She pulled off her woollen beanie and strands of gold flashed in the filtered winter sun. Looking into her eyes, he could get lost in that riot of color. What were they? Green, hazel, brown? Large eyes filled with pain and something else. Something he didn’t want to think too much about.

Yearning. That’s what it was.

Not surprising, he supposed. You don’t spend ten years in jail without yearning for freedom. But wanting was a double-edged sword, as he knew only too well. What you wanted wasn’t always good for you.

He sat on the bench opposite her, aware his size intimidated her. That was okay in some situations but not in the midst of a panic attack. He watched her scrub her hands over her face and push back her hair. Pulling her scarf free from around her neck she took in a deep breath and let it out.

The skin of her neck was creamy and pale. He couldn’t help following that track of smoothness down toward her buttoned shirt. It was a little too tight and the first button pulled, stretching to open.

He gave himself a good mental slap. Of all the women in the world to lust after, this was not the one. Apart from the fact she was just out of jail, was suffering from a bad transition to the real world, and he might have to arrest her sister at some stage, there was something about her he knew was dangerous. Not dangerous for others, just for him. Under that tough persona he could see she was too vulnerable, too lost.

“Do you want me to get you some water?” he said.

She shook her head.

“How often does it happen?”

She finally met his eyes and he saw wariness had replaced yearning. Good. She needed to be on guard.

“Just when I come across a crowd of people in an enclosed space. I thought I was over it. I guess I’m not.”

“You had one yesterday when I brought Blossom home. There wasn’t a crowd there.”

Hard bitterness leached into her eyes.

“I wasn’t expecting to see a cop on my doorstep so soon after getting out. You reminded me of someone.” She wound the scarf back around her neck and stood up. “Thanks for saving me,” she said with a wry smile. “It’s a first for me.”

“Being saved?”

“Being saved by a cop.” She crammed her beanie back on her head as the wind picked up. “I’m okay now. Time for another go. This time I’m prepared.” She turned toward the Council Chambers.

When she was halfway across the square he called after her.

“Who do I remind you of?”

She stopped and turned back toward him.

“The cop who punched me in the gut then pushed me into a filthy police cell the night I was arrested. He didn’t rape me. He’d done that already to the woman in the cell next to me. I was lucky, wasn’t I?” She shrugged. “He went on to bigger and better things, though. Quite a business man in more ways than one.”

She lifted her hand and saluted him then went on her way. A chill, colder than the icy wind, settled into his bones as he watched her go.

*

Julia stood in the queue waiting for her number to be called and repeated her mantra again and again in her head.

Nothing can hurt me. Nothing can hurt me.

Sure, in the past many things had hurt her, but standing in a queue, doing one of the most boring and ordinary of tasks, did not involve contact with psychopathic figures of authority. The rather sweet-looking girl behind the counter, who chatted with her customers as she took their money, would not attempt to assault her. Julia doubted she was even capable of rudeness. She would be fine. All she had to do was concentrate on the mundane. Ignore everything else. Especially the feel of that stormy gray gaze, tracing the line of her neck.