Darkest Place (26 page)

Carly didn't think she'd sleep and wasn't sure she wanted to, but sometime after three, cocooned in Nate's doona on the sofa, her eyelids wouldn't stay open.

It wasn't really slumber, though, more of a deep, physical silence as her brain continued to tick. It mulled over the time and labour involved in crafting a box that passed as a piece of timber. With compartments for storing information that would leave no electronic footprint. Repeating the process over and over. Climbing in and out of the walls of the warehouse, indulging a hobby for a long time.

Then, slipping back and forth between thoughts and dreams, Carly saw torchlight bouncing off walls and pictures of Elizabeth, of herself, naked, smiling as a camera flashed.

She rehearsed conversations with police in which she handed over bundles of cards, explaining how she'd found them in her ceiling. In some versions, Dean Quentin or Anne Long would flick through the pictures of Carly spread out on the bed; others, they'd tell her she'd disturbed evidence and destroyed fingerprints. Every time, she wanted to snatch it all back, humiliated, shamed, doubted.

Brooke kept sliding into Carly's thoughts, standing at the top of her stairs, but it was always Carly who fell.

Christina was there, too, trying to leave the supermarket with her packet of rolled oats, talking about nightmares and being muddle-headed.

And Talia, with her tight, dark curls and frayed jeans, stowing her cello in her three-door hatch and driving into a tree.

 

By 7 am Carly had reached the harbour, her energy sparked by an angry, purposeful agitation. Her sprained ankle hurt but she didn't care. She was in bright sunlight, filling her lungs with fresh air, stretching the aches and pains in her muscles and joints from crawling through that dark, shadowy place.

She wasn't going to the police with the evidence she'd found. She would not sit with Dean Quentin or Anne Long or any other goddamn cop and watch them flick through those humiliating photos or explain how she'd found them. She didn't know what she was going to do yet, but that was not going to happen. It felt like the first decision made. It felt strong and determined. Perhaps it was the only thing to feel good about today.

Waves were pounding on the breakwater but she didn't have the patience to watch it. There was something at work inside her – a solution, maybe, or just a violent, throat-tearing scream. Whatever it was, it needed space and energy and she pushed on, retracing her steps.

She wanted to talk to a doctor. She wanted to know what her apartment would sell for. She wasn't going back into the ceiling. More decisions. Steps towards a conclusion.

‘Not using our furniture today?' Reuben asked as he delivered her breakfast.

Carly was standing under a heater, her gaze fixed on a container ship being tugged towards open water. She'd ordered eggs and toast and strong coffee – something to sustain her for however the day turned out. ‘I can't afford to get too settled,' she told him.

‘Got a lot on?'

‘A lot on my mind.'

‘Good to get that sorted then.'

‘Yes. It needs to be done today.'

Because it would end today. She had not come here to see friends hurt and killed, to be questioned and doubted, to wait for the next awful event. She would not live like that again. The only decision now was how to end it.

In the warehouse, Carly stepped off the lift on the third floor and knocked on Brooke's door.

‘I wanted to say thanks for last night,' Carly told her.

‘My pleasure. How did you sleep?'

‘All night. How about you? How did you sleep?'

‘Me? Fine.'

‘Okay. Good.' Carly fiddled with the cuffs of her sweatshirt, wanting to warn her.

‘You want to come in?' Brooke asked.

It wasn't only about Brooke, though. It was Elizabeth, maybe Talia, too. ‘No.' Carly should be sure before she opened that wound. ‘No, I've got to go.'

‘Okay.' Brooke nodded, frowning a little. ‘What's happening?'

‘Nothing. A class.'

‘Oh. You seem …'

‘What?'

‘Like you're on a mission. I thought you might've had a presentation or a job interview or …' She shrugged. ‘I was going to wish you luck.'

‘We should wish each other luck. For the hell of it. We deserve it, right?'

‘Yeah, why not. Good luck to us.'

Carly pulled her into a hug, felt Brooke's surprise at the tightness of the grip, saw the question in her eyes as Carly waved and walked away.

Heading down the corridor, she picked out the third door from the corner. The woman with the shoe collection. Carly had sat above her wardrobe and looked into her life. A man in black might have done more than that. She could knock, explain there was someone getting into her loft, drugging her and taking pictures. But she should know more before she passed on that shocking news.

Carly counted the four doors along Christina's row before she knocked.

‘I was wondering how you were getting on.' Christina was in slippers, a mug of tea in her hand when she opened her door.

‘I thought I'd come up and show you.' Carly did a little jig, proving her ankle was recovered, waving her arms like it was a magic trick.

‘Would you like to dance in here for a coffee?'

She'd like to board up all Christina's vents. ‘I'd love to but I've got a class. It's just, I'm missing a book. I think I left it in your library the other day. Would you mind if I took a look?'

‘Of course not. Come in.' Christina walked ahead down the hallway. ‘I'm just spooning muffin mixture into a pan. Do you mind if I keep at it?'

It saved Carly from explaining what she wanted to do. ‘Only if you promise to keep one for me.'

She didn't know if access to the ventilation shaft had been set into every loft room or just spaced evenly through the ceilings, but it didn't really matter. She skipped the library and found Christina's bedroom, felt a twinge of guilt about letting herself in. Reminded herself as she opened the wardrobe that she wasn't climbing through a vent. She shone the light up and found the rectangular hole in the ceiling. Bastard.

‘Not there. I must've left it somewhere else,' Carly said as Christina was sliding the muffins into the oven. ‘What flavour am I getting?'

‘Lemon and coconut.'

‘Yum. And I've been thinking,' Carly said as Christina walked her to the door. ‘We should do something together the next time Bernard is away. See a movie, maybe.'

‘That's very kind but you don't have to do that. You've got your own young friends to go out with.'

‘No age limit on friends, Christina. We could have a bite to eat afterwards and discuss it. Brooke might like to join us. It could be our own movie club.'

‘Well,' her face broke into a girly grin, ‘yes, that might be nice. I do get a little out of sorts when Bernard is away.'

It wasn't her fault. ‘Great, good. When is he away next?'

‘Wednesday week.'

‘I won't forget.' Carly was already over the threshold but she stepped back and wrapped Christina into a hug too. ‘Thanks for the bed the other night. And the books. Take care.'

She turned and left before Christina could ask what it was about, not sure herself. Not sure if she was saying sorry or goodbye. Maybe both.

Back at Nate's, she showered, changed and left again. There was a class at nine thirty – she'd missed two days but that wasn't why she was going. She needed to put some distance between her and what she knew, think about something else for a while, give her brain a chance to work its way to wherever it was going, without the warehouse and the ceiling and the evidence everywhere she looked.

And she needed to remind herself of what she had here – what she'd achieved and where it could go.

 

‘Thank god you're back,' Dakota said as Carly slid into the chair beside her. ‘That essay is due at the end of the week and I think I've written a thousand words of utter bullshit. I figured you'd tell me if it was.'

‘Because I'm rude and patronising?'

‘Because I'll buy you lunch if you read it and tell me what you think.'

Not today, she couldn't do it today. She didn't know if she'd be able to after today, either. ‘Sure.'

Carly listened without taking anything in, drawing rectangles on her page, covering them with grids of tiny squares. She sat on a bench in the sun at the break with her eyes closed, face tipped to the light, soaking it in like she'd been starved of vitamin D.

‘You got happy thoughts in there?' Dakota asked, arriving with cappuccinos.

‘Not sure happy thoughts are what I need.'

‘What do you need?'

A solution, she thought, but said, ‘Not sure. I took your advice, though.'

Dakota pulled a face. ‘Should I apologise?'

Carly smiled. ‘After I left your place yesterday, I decided to do something the old me would have done. Like you said,' she made quote marks in the air, ‘“Be that”.'

‘What did you do?'

Abseiled down a ventilation shaft. ‘Something completely outrageous. And it felt good. Liberating. Exhilarating. Thanks for that.'

‘Any time.'

‘It's just …'

‘Uh-oh.'

‘It opened a door I didn't expect to find and now I don't know what to do.'

Dakota chewed her lip, maybe wanting the outrageous details but hearing Carly's evasion. ‘What do you
want
to do?'

It was an easier question. Still, Carly lowered her eyes. ‘I want to forget what I found. I'm good at that, I did it for years. But the old me is talking now. Just throwing her opinion into the mix and complicating things.'

‘What is the old you saying?'

‘That I opened the door so it's my job to close it.'

‘What do you think?'

‘That it's harder than I thought to
be that
.' Brave, assertive, happy.

‘Well, I guess if it was easy, you would've
been that
before now.'

Carly lifted her gaze, settled it on Dakota's face. She was young and honest and frank. She reminded Carly of herself, before the night on the cliff. Maybe it was why Carly kept asking a twenty-year-old with a stud in her eyebrow and blue hair for advice. Carly had been brave, assertive and happy at her age, and she'd tried to erase that person. She'd thought it was what had sent her friends to
their deaths, but now, looking at Dakota, she saw Debs' face again, the one Carly had remembered yesterday as she hung from a rope. Brave, assertive, happy. The four of them had
been that
. It wasn't what had killed them, it's what had made them friends. And Carly had been too scared or too ashamed to
be that
without them.

‘Thanks,' she said. ‘And I'm pretty sure you don't need me to read your assignment. If it's bullshit, I'd be very surprised.'

Carly drew more rectangles and grids through the next class, listening to the activity in her head instead of the teacher. Whoever was getting into the ceiling had to be stopped. The police could do it but they didn't believe her. Turning up at the station with what she'd found last night won't change that. Photos of her spread-eagled on a bed wouldn't make the story any more believable, not after her last conversation with Dean Quentin, and she didn't want them added to her police file. So … she needed evidence. Better, more convincing evidence.

She needed to get back in the ceiling.

It's Nate. Where are you?

Carly checked the shadows in the garage before typing a quick reply.
Home.
That's all she wanted to explain – he wouldn't be happy about what she was planning, and there was an urgency to it now. She wanted it done and over. She almost sent the text then changed her mind, figured something to soften it might make him worry less.
How's your face? Knee?

His answer came as she waited for the lift.
I'm at home. You're not here. Where are you?

Too late to stop him worrying. If he was in his apartment, he'd seen the contents of the treasure box lined up on his coffee table.

Be there in 5.

He was in his doorway on crutches, his face grim as Carly crossed the suspended walkway. The bandage around his head was gone but his face was still blotched with bruising and swelling. She was glad to see him out of bed but wished he'd stayed in hospital – she didn't want to discuss it, the photos or her next step. He said nothing
until she was standing in front of him, then pulled her hard against him. ‘Christ, Carly.'

The words were pushed out through clenched teeth. Carly couldn't tell if it was anger or the broken jaw but the intensity of his embrace felt good. After long, scary hours alone with the evidence from the ceiling, it felt like a rescue, and she held fast for a moment – because it wasn't going to last for long.

‘You look terrible,' she said when he'd let her go. ‘I can't believe they discharged you.'

‘They didn't. Where have you been?' He asked for the third time, anger in his voice muffled behind his closed jaw.

‘To class. Why are you here?'

He shut the door and started down the hallway on his crutches.

Ignoring her? ‘Nate?'

He stopped in the living room, spoke without looking at her. ‘I was worried about you. I thought you might try to get back in the ceiling.' He turned hard eyes on her, pointed across the room. ‘What the fuck is that?'

The files from the treasure box were still lined up like solitaire. ‘How much have you seen?'

‘Enough to know it's fucked up.' The unbruised parts of his face had paled, sweat shone on his forehead.

He should have stayed in hospital. She didn't have time to play nurse. ‘Nate …' She reached for him.

He pulled his arm away, swaying a little. ‘Where did it come from, Carly?' There was a guttural edge to his voice now. He was in pain, she could see that. Not just from his injuries. There was frustration and fear in it, too, and something that made his eyes shine with wetness.

She made an effort to soften her voice. ‘You need to sit down.'

He didn't move.

‘The ceiling,' she said. ‘I found it in the ceiling. If you sit down, I'll tell you.'

She got him painkillers and water, telling herself to explain it calmly – an argument would take longer. She made him swallow the drugs before she started, then told him she'd climbed into the metal chute.

He shook his head, an
Are you fucking kidding?

‘If you start with that, you'll exhaust yourself,' she snapped. ‘Just listen.'

He sat back in his chair, hands gripping the armrest. When she got to the part about the wire cover that lifted off, a line appeared between his brows and deepened as she talked him through Elizabeth's vent and finding the latches and the treasure box.

‘There were photos. I didn't look at them all, I couldn't. I just crammed what I could into my pockets.' Carly pointed at the jacket on the floor. ‘They're still there. I still haven't looked. But I went through those.' She aimed her finger at the stacks on the coffee table.

‘Where did you get them?'

‘From another timber box, the same as the other one. Above
my
loft.'

His gaze ran across the line of cards. They were photos, she told herself. Nate had seen her naked, he'd touched her body, what did it matter if he saw them? Her vision shimmered anyway. She'd been drugged, manhandled, exploited, demoralised. She didn't want him seeing that.

‘Carly …'

She should tell him about the drugs, but stood and stepped away from him to the windows.

‘Carly?'

‘It has to be someone who lives here.'

Nate took a second to respond, finally deciding to follow her train of thought. ‘Because of access?'

She waved a hand at the coffee table. ‘A lot of work has gone into this. In the ceiling and wherever the boxes were made. I called the police the first time only three days after I moved in. I've only been here two months and there is a handcrafted box with ordered files above my apartment. This system was already in place. It was refined and well rehearsed before I got here.'

She sat down again, using her hands to explain the rest. ‘I counted five drop-down vents in the tunnel below mine. If we take that as an average for each floor, multiplied by the number of storeys in the warehouse, that's twenty-five wardrobes he has access to on the east wall alone. If we assume he's doing it on the west wall too, where the beams also run along the top of the lofts, that's fifty apartments. I don't know how many are occupied by women who live alone but if it we take a guess and say a quarter, that's twelve or thirteen women keeping him entertained.'

Carly pointed at her jacket, the photos still zipped inside. ‘He visited Elizabeth, too. She lived on the north wall. You can only get there through a long, metal chute.' She paused, the words hanging in the air between them. The reasoning, now that she'd said it aloud, had firmed the anger and resolution inside her. ‘He's been right through the building, Nate. He can do it without stepping out of the walls. He's taken a lot of photos. He's been doing it a long time.'

Nate's eyes stayed on Carly, a focal point while he thought. Then they dropped to the coffee table, then to Carly's jacket on the floor.

‘A long-term resident,' he said. ‘Probably someone who's been here from the start.'

‘Which is why it's not a team. A team couldn't keep it hidden for that long. But one man …' She shrugged. ‘It's someone agile, lean and fit. He molests his neighbours and walks in and out of the building, which means he's ordinary enough not to get noticed as the freak around the warehouse. He knows things about people and doesn't let on, so maybe he's the guy who avoids everyone. Or maybe he gets in our faces and enjoys the joke. Have you seen the notes?'

‘What notes?'

Carly pulled a card from a stack. ‘He writes up his visits like a science experiment. So he's methodical, probably well educated. And this.' She picked up another and handed it to him. ‘There are drugs listed, so maybe he has a medical or science background. Maybe access to drugs, but,' she shrugged. ‘You can get anything over the internet. If he's been at it for years, he's probably got an account with a regular supplier.'

Nate said looked back and forth at the two cards, a frown deepening.

She sensed the questions building in him – the shorthand, the abbreviations, the things she'd had to google – and bypassed them. ‘My bets are on Howard.'

The frown didn't move as Nate lifted his face and stared at her.

‘There are others on my list,' she said. ‘But Howard ticks all the boxes. He's been here since the beginning. He's the supervisor, he can go where he likes, he's never around when you want him, and he's good at playing dumb. Plus, he's got degrees in engineering and science, the right body shape and he'd have no problem crawling around the ceiling.'

Nate pulled his teeth across his bottom lip. ‘Who else?'

‘The guy on two who locks his pushbike to the stairs and never talks to anyone.' She was uncomfortable about pointing the finger at people she'd gotten to know – and at the same time nauseated at the thought it might be someone she smiled and waved at every day. ‘Damien from the community gardens, who works in IT and is weirdly friendly. Stuart, who's a little odd and works at the pharmacy. Dietrich, the German guy, who's writing a crime novel and looks like he'd have no problem climbing around a ceiling. And then the guy might keep a low profile and I've never even seen him anywhere but in my loft.'

Nate eyed the cards she'd pulled, the others on the coffee table, her jacket on the floor.

Carly glanced at the ceiling, anxious and impatient. ‘Why not Howard?' she asked.

‘He's got keys to most of the apartments,' Nate said. ‘Why would he use vents to get in?'

‘A challenge? His own private science experiment? Maybe it doesn't have to make sense. Nothing else about it does.'

Nate placed the two cards on the table in front of him, laid an index finger on each. ‘Do you know what all this writing means?'

She jerked to her feet, snatched up her jacket.

‘Is this what he did to you?'

‘Not now.'

‘You said there were drugs. He gave you drugs?'

It was the difference between them. Nate wanted to remember, Carly wanted to hide from it. She wrenched the evidence from Elizabeth's apartment from her pockets, started stacking it on the floor.

‘He can't hurt you here, Carly.' It was an attempt at reassurance, but as he grappled with his crutches, something
else took over. ‘He won't
do this
again.' He picked up a card and held it in a fist. ‘This …' He stopped, breathed hard. ‘Tell me, what did he do to you?'

She sat back on her haunches and watched Nate struggling to his feet. How the hell was he going to stop it? ‘He checked my pulse and breathing. My vision, the slackness of my muscles. He arranged my body on the bed and took pictures.' She flung a stack of notecards at Nate. ‘They're the details of what he gave me. Sedatives and anaesthetics and fucking hallucinogens. Concoctions of them. All written down, nice and readable, which is really useful for understanding why I just laid there while he climbed on top of me.'

‘Carly, it's okay.'

‘
Don't tell me what it is.
' She shouted it, took an angry stride towards him, the toe of her shoe scattering the pictures she'd stacked. ‘I thought it was me, I thought I was the screw-up. And it was
him
. He
drugged
me. So I'd lie still for him. So he could take photos and sit in the ceiling and get off on it. So I wouldn't remember what he whispered in my ear or that his hot, rank tongue was on my face.' She scoured a hand across her cheek as though it was still wet with his saliva. ‘Except I did remember. For whatever reason, his concoction didn't work like he wanted it to. And I moved. I scared him that last time. And now I've found his stash in my ceiling.' A hand pressed to her chest. ‘
I
know.' The other hand stretched towards Nate. ‘
We
know.'

‘We give this to the police.'

‘No.'

‘This is …'

‘I'm
not
giving those pictures of me to the police. I won't have that on my file too.'

He watched her in silence. She glared back at him. He must have understood the body language and decided not to push it. ‘What about those?' he said, a nod at the scattered pictures on the floor.

Elizabeth humiliated. Drugged and exposed. Thank god she never knew.

‘It'll get their attention,' Nate said.

Carly squatted beside them. It was evidence. Close-ups and wide-angles, white thighs and breasts, mouth open, dentures missing. Elizabeth wouldn't know who saw her now. Carly walked fingers across the photos, seeing only Elizabeth's essence this time: glittery rings, a pale blue shawl, her glasses folded on her side table. Carly picked up a picture, a pair of red slippers in shot. Elizabeth had been wearing them on one of the days Carly dropped in, hobbling up the hallway with her stick, proud and determined. ‘No.'

‘She's dead, Carly.'

‘That's right. She can't make that decision for herself.' Carly picked up her jacket and turned for the hallway.

‘What are you doing?'

Nothing had changed. ‘I'm going back up there.'