Sam: A Novel Of Suspense (12 page)

Something
wrapped around Angela’s wrist.  She tried to leap back but whatever had her was
too strong.  She cried out for help, struggling to break free.  Tim and Mike
rushed up behind her and grabbed her around the waist.

The
power came back on with an audible click.  The room flooded with light and
Angela blinked as her retinas responded with pain.  Sammie was lying on the bed
in front of her.  He looked at her through the narrow black slits of his eyes.

It
was Sammie’s hand that was wrapped around her wrist.

“What
are you doing, Angela?  I was sleeping.”

Angela
found it hard to speak. Her lungs had seized up as if an invisible snake had
roped itself around her chest.  “Sammie, where is your mother?  Where is
Jessica?”

Sammie’s
grin grew wider.  “Oh, I think she went up to her room to get some air.  She
was feeling rather unwell.”

“Sammie? 
Has something happened?  Did you mother do something to you with a pillow?”

Sammie
giggled.  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.  As I explained, I was
sleeping quite soundly until you woke me.  Maybe you should go check on my
mother – I would hate for anything to happen to her.”

Angela
leant closer to the boy.  “What does that mean?”

“Er,
Angela.”  It was Tim’s voice, coming from behind her.  “I think you should take
a look at this.”

Angela
stepped away from Sammie and turned around.  What she saw on the walls was
impossible.  More of the boy’s crayoned drawings had appeared, stuck into the
plaster with push pins.  They depicted the rain outside and the house without
power, the windows shaded black to show the lack of light.  Even more
disturbing was a depiction of Angela, Tim, and Mike.  The drawing showed them
all sitting in the piano lounge huddling around a laptop on a table between
them.  Sammie had drawn them watching him.  There was no way he could have
known how they were sitting or what they were doing – it had happened only
minutes ago.

Tim
placed a hand on Angela’s shoulder and turned her slightly to her right.  He
pointed at one of the pictures.  “Look.”

Angela
looked at the artwork and felt like a heavy stone had rolled its way through
her guts.  Scrawled in harsh black pencil was a picture of Jessica.  She was
hanging by her neck from a rain-drenched balcony.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

When
Angela and the others reached the penthouse floor, they could hear that Frank
was already there. He was crying out for help in a way that made it very clear
that something terrible had happened.

Angela
had never been on the penthouse floor and neither had Tim, so Mike led the
way.  The hallways of the fourth floor were wider than the others and the three
of them were able to sprint side by side as if they were running down a track. 
Mike motioned to a doorway at the end of the hallway and told them it was
Jessica’s bedroom.  Frank’s voice was coming from inside.

Angela
grabbed the door handle, but it was locked.  She rattled it back and forth,
hoping it would turn, but it held tight.  She bashed a fist against the wood. 
“Frank?  Frank, let us in.  What’s happening?”

“I
can’t,” came Frank’s muffled voice.  “I can’t let go.  Please help me.  I can’t
hold her much longer.”

Angela
looked at Tim and Mike and saw that they were as confused as she was.  At least
Mike seemed to have an idea.  He shrugged his shoulders and then took a step
backwards, before skipping forward and aiming a heavy kick at the door.

The
wood cracked.

Mike
kicked again and the door swung open.  Angela rushed through into Jessica’s
bedroom, dragging Tim along with her.  She looked around for Frank, but the
room was empty.

“Frank!”

“Over
here, on the balcony.”

Angela
peered across the lavish bedroom and saw a pair of French doors at the far
side.   They were open. The wind and rain were blowing in.  Angela wasted no
time with standing around.

Frank
was outside on the rain-soaked balcony.  Angela found him leaning over the
cement railing, struggling with something unseen.  The shirt on his back was sodden.

“Frank,
what’s going on?”

The
man strained to turn his head to look at her, the muscles bunching up in his
neck.  “Help me!”

Angela
hurried over to the railing and was glad that Tim and Mike did the same.  Frank
was tired and his body was starting to give out.  Jessica’s limp form hung from
his grasp, dangling four stories above the ground.  She was unconscious. A thick
noose cut into her throat, secured at the other end by one of the balcony’s
cement balustrades.

“Holy
mama!” Tim cried out. 

Angela
drove her upper body over the railing and grabbed a hold of Jessica’s wrist. 
Frank had the woman under the armpits, but she was gradually slipping from his
grasp.  Angela grabbed a handful of Jessica’s shirt and yanked.  She almost
ended up tumbling over the balcony herself, but Mike managed to wrap both his
arms around her hips and anchor her down before she went hurtling over the
railing.  With Mike securing Angela, she managed to get both hands on Jessica’s
clothing and pull with all her weight.  She and Frank worked together and slowly,
they managed to hoist Jessica back up towards the balcony’s railing.  Once she
was near the top, Mike and Tim grabbed fistfuls of Jessica’s blouse and helped
topple her back over to safety.  The unconscious woman hit the floor with a
thump!

Frank
dropped down to his knees beside her and clawed at the rope around her neck. 
He was frantic and almost crying.  This was not the stone-faced control freak
that Angela was used to seeing.

“Frank?” 
She put a hand on his shoulder. “What happened?”

Frank
managed to loosen the rope around Jessica’s neck and sat back on his heels, relieved,
shaken, and concerned.  “I got here just as she was about to jump.  I managed
to catch her but her weight dragged me over the side.  I couldn’t get her back
up again.  I think…I think she’ll be okay.  She was never hanged by her neck.”

Angela
looked down at Jessica and saw that, physically, she was okay; breathing
steadily as the rain fell down on her sprawled body.  Emotionally, however, the
woman looked severely injured.  Her eyes were now open but merely stared into
space, her focus aimed upwards at the faraway stars.  Angela knew that Jessica’s
mind was just as far away as those stars.

“We
need to call an ambulance.”

Frank
shook his head.  “No!”

Angela
didn’t understand.  “She just tried to kill herself!”

“If
word of this gets out, she’ll be removed from the board.  All of Joseph’s work
will be undone.”

“What
are you talking about?”  Tim butted in.  “Who gives a shit about business right
now?  She needs help.”

Frank
was still adamant and shaking his head.  “We’ll keep her safe.  She’ll be
okay.  No one can know about this.  Mike, you go and get Graham.  You can take
turns keeping an eye on her until she’s better.”

“This
is insane,” Tim said, pulling at a clump of his ginger hair as if he were going
mad.  “Why did she even do this?  She seemed perfectly fine earlier.”

“No,”
said Angela.  “She wasn’t.  People that commit suicide often seem okay right
before they try to end it all.  Killing yourself takes courage and also a
certain amount of inner peace.  The reason Jessica seemed stronger and more in control
this evening was because she wanted to die with the dignity of being herself.”

“I
wish we’d known what she was planning,” said Tim.  “I just wish we could have,
you know…”

“It’s
not your fault,” Angela told him.

“Like
hell it isn’t,” Frank said.  “You people and your games are probably what sent
her over the edge.”

Mike
put a hand on Frank’s shoulder.  “Come on, Frank.  That’s not true and you know
it.  Things haven’t been right around here since even before Joseph died. 
Angela and Tim are just trying to help.”

Frank
shoulders dropped slightly as he seemed to accept what Mike was telling him. 
“Fine,” he said. “Someone just help me get her to the bed.  She needs to rest.”

Mike
and Tim hoisted Jessica up off the floor, while Tim went and pulled back the
covers on the bed.  Angela remained where she was, too dazed to move.  She focused
on the caress of the rain against her bare arms and stared out into the night
from the balcony.  Things were a mess, she thought to herself. The next thought
that came into her head urged her to just get out of there and go back to her
uneventful – but safe - life.

I
can’t turn my back on Jessica now.  She needs my help more than ever.

No,
I’m not leaving.   I became a priest once, not because of my belief in God, but
because I wanted to devote my life to helping other people.  I don’t have to be
part of the church to uphold that vow.  Maybe, I’m only just realising that my
life can still have meaning without being a priest.

A
rumble of thunder broke Angela from her musings and she went back inside.  She
closed the French doors behind her and shut off the room from the wind and
rain.  It still beat against the glass.  Jessica was now tucked up in bed,
staring up at the ceiling, not blinking.

“I’ll
stay with her for now,” said Mike.  “I’ll let Graham know what’s happened in
the morning.”

“Thank
you,” said Frank.  “I will keep an eye on Sammie while she recovers.”

“What
would you like us to do?”  Angela asked Frank.

Frank
stared at her for a moment and she expected some sort of verbal tirade, but
eventually he let out a sigh and simply said, “Just get some sleep.  We’ll
figure this out in the morning.”

Angela
didn’t argue.  In all honesty, her bedroom seemed like the safest place to be. 
She’d had quite enough of this evening and its stresses, so she left Jessica’s
penthouse without complaint, not even bothering to say goodnight.

When
she got to her own bedroom a few minutes later, she noticed that her suitcase lay
on the bed. It reminded her that she was still wearing the blood-stained
clothing she’d had on for two days.  It would be good to get into some fresh
clothes.

Beside
her suitcase was another bag.  The old leather satchel sill carried a layer of
dust, despite its recent travels.  Angela hadn’t looked at the contents inside
for a long time, and tonight she didn’t have the energy to.  She placed both
her suitcase and the satchel onto the floor, then headed into the en suite bathroom. 

Angela
leant into the room’s shower cubicle and turned on the water.  A cold stream
hissed from the shower head and slowly began to warm up.  She took off her
clothes and let them fall to the floor.  In the morning she would ask Mike to
dispose of them as no amount of washing would save them.  The mirror above the
sink showed a reflection of her naked body.  She cringed, not because her own
flesh disgusted her, but because her skin was stained with Sammie’s blood where
it had seeped through her clothes. 

The
blood on her flesh made her think about Charles Crippley.

Will
that man ever stop haunting me?

Angela
ran a hand under the shower to test the temperature and stepped beneath the hot
stream.  She shuddered in the heat and watched the dried blood flake and fall
off her skin.  It wasn’t long before her skin was bare again – yet she still
felt stained.  She used a nearby bar of soap to lather herself up and finally
wash the horrors of the day away.  Slowly, Angela’s strength returned.

Her
mind started to drift.  She thought about Jessica and what had made the woman
attempt to kill herself.  Then she thought about the images on Tim’s laptop, of
Jessica smothering her son.

But
there’s no way that could have happened.  We were there too quick for her to
get all the way upstairs and try to throw herself over the balcony.  Plus,
Sammie was asleep when we got to him.  It was almost like…like we were being
sent on a wild goose chase to stop us from finding out what Jessica was
planning.  Thank God that Frank had been there.

There
was still something that didn’t add up at all.  Jessica could not have been in
two places at once – it was physically impossible – so what exactly had she,
Tim, and Mike been seeing on the laptop’s screen?  Something else troubling her,
equally as impossible, were the drawings on Sammie’s wall.  They predicted the
rain, the darkness, and everyone being huddled around Tim’s laptop.

They
also showed Jessica hanging herself.  Sammie had known what was going to
happen.  He knew.

Angela
thought about Charles Crippley again.  That man had also possessed certain
talents of clairvoyance.  He had known Angela was a lesbian before she’d even
known herself.  He’d also known the sins of her parishioners – he’d called them
out in church as he butchered each and every one of them.

Was
that what was happening now?  Was Crippley inside the boy?  Sammie had known
Angela when they met; knew her because of his “friend”.