Didn't You Promise (A Bad for You Novel) (14 page)

Chapter Nineteen

We make it through customs and immigration with not a question over my emergency paperwork. Dad pushes our trolley of luggage through a set of doors toward the exits. The trolley’s piled high with bags. They’d dropped everything and come to Malaysia the moment the authorities had called, yet there are two separate bags for toiletries, and another for shoes.

“Angelina!”

Flashes erupt like fireworks.

I cup a hand over my forehead, white spots flaring in my vision.

“Angelina, how does it feel to be home?”

Faceless voices call to me. One after another, and all at the same time. Voices, and flashes, and waving furry microphones. Mum throws an arm around my shoulders, hauling me behind Dad as he parts the crowd with the trolley.

A man keeps pace beside Mum. “Mrs. Morrison, are you relieved to have your daughter back?”

My mother ignores the questions. We huddle towards the main exit.

A female reporter dashes into our path. The spots in my vision clear but I keep walking.

“Angelina, does it put your mind at ease knowing your kidnapper has been caught?”

My step falters, but Mum guides me forward.

I look back at the reporter. “What?”

She shoves a microphone towards my face. “Does it make you feel safer knowing he’s turned himself in?”

I stop dead. Lights, and faces close around us. The arm around my shoulders yanks me into a walk towards the main exits.

“Mum,” I whisper, my heart pounding in what feels like my voice box. “What are they talking about?”

Mum glances through a waterfall of hair that’s fallen across her face. “I have no idea.”

The doors open and a damp breeze washes over us. We push our way through the circle of media towards the taxi rank. Sirens wail over the drone of voices. A black sedan with a flashing blue light on the roof slides into the disabled parking bay.

The door flies open.

Dad halts with the trolley. Mum and I stop at his side.

Hannah Goodman steps from the car.

My pulse isn’t just racing, it’s speaking to me, warning me—she
knows
,
she knows
,
she knows.
My heart thumps the sound.

They have Haithem. He turned himself in—oh sweet Jesus, he’s alive.

“Angelina.” Hannah holds open the rear passenger door. “Let’s take a ride.”

Each breath slides down my windpipe full of bubbles or some obstruction, as though I have to gasp or burp just to get air.

Dad walks towards Hannah. I’m not sure what he’s saying. Faces crowd my vision. A man peers at me over his camera, and it sends something crawling down my back. His ears stick out, and he doesn’t just look at me, he
stares
at me.

“Tell us how you got away.” A voice calls out.

Hannah runs up beside me, pushing a microphone from my face. She takes my arm, guiding me towards the car.

I’m going to prison.

Going to rot in a cell for the rest of my days. I’ve broken too many laws to count. Lied about my disappearance, traveled with fake passports, and let’s not forget how I shot someone...

Maybe this is fair. I slide into the rear seat, close my eyes, and melt into the leather. Someone slides in beside me.

“Seatbelt, honey.”

I open my eyes. My parents are in the back seat with me. Hannah in the front passenger seat. Perhaps they aren’t dragging me off to Federal prison just yet.

I yank the seatbelt across my chest.

Hannah turns to us. “Sorry for ambushing you right off the plane, there have been some developments while you were in the air.”

Developments? I see his face in my mind. His hard, precious face. Could he be alive? But why would he turn himself in?

“When did you get back?” I ask.

Hannah straightens. “I arrived home earlier today.”

I swallow. I can’t ask what I want to ask. Did she come home today because I came home today?

I watch the airport, with its news and paparazzi gathered outside, fade into the distance out of the car window. Don’t know how I’m still sitting upright, and not passed out. Not rocking back and forth. There’s too much in my head, and complete fucking mayhem in my heart.

He’s alive—they have Haithem.

Euphoria and despair holding hands in my soul.

I drum my fingers on the table of the interview room. The white walls surround us. There’s no big mirrored window like television police dramas would have us believe. But there’s cameras. Two in opposite corners. Small enough not to stick out like dogs-balls and big enough to ensure you don’t forget just exactly where you are. Dad sits in the spare seat against the wall, Mum’s getting tea and coffees for us from the cafe downstairs.

They think this is safe. That there’s no threat to me here. I’m being
enlightened
not interrogated. My parents have no idea what horrible things I’ve done.

Hannah reenters the room with a folder. “Before we get started, I’d like to inform you that this interview is being recorded.”

Dad narrows his gaze. “Why?”

Her smile doesn’t quite go all the way. “Standard procedure.”

“That’s fine,” I say.

I won’t be saying a single damn thing I don’t have to. They can record me all they want.

“I’d like you to take a look at a few pictures and tell me if you recognize anyone.” She opens the folder and slides it across the table.

I glance down at a page of mug shots. My throat burns. I know what’s happening, what they want me to do. They want me to identify Haithem.

I won’t do it.

I’ll deny everything. Say he’s lying. He’s not the one. That I went willingly. Or just say nothing. Refuse to identify him. That was the plan wasn’t it? Say nothing, wait.

Say nothing.

I blink at the folder. “Nope, I don’t recognize anyone.”

Why would Haithem expose himself? It doesn’t matter, as long as he lives and breathes we’ll work the rest out.

She turns the page. “What about this page.”

I make my eyes move like they’re looking, but I don’t want to see his face if it’s there. Not in a mug shot. I don’t want to react, don’t want to give him away.

Please be alive.

Then I do look, because I need to see. I need to know if he’s there.

I drag the folder closer, my gaze lighting on a photo. Hannah’s chair squeaks. I’ve reacted, given myself away, just as I knew I would. Can’t help it though—I know
that
face.

“Do you recognize one of these people?”

“Yes him, I recognize this man.” I tap my finger on the photo of the man the nurse showed me in hospital. I don’t need any instruction to know this is what I’m meant to do.

“Where do you recognize him from?”

My pulse skids and leaps.

I
don’t remember
—I almost say it. Then straighten. No, that’s not it. I look at Hannah. “The elevator, that’s the man from the elevator.”

Hannah’s lips press together. I can’t help staring at her. She’s pretty, in an aggressive Lara Croft kind of way. But it’s the slight narrowing of her eyes that has my attention. She fishes in the folder and pulls out the CCT image—the gnarly root of all our troubles.

Click
,
click
,
click.

A thousand wheels slide into place.

“You’re confirming that the man in this picture—” she points to the mug shot, and holds up the CCT photo “—is the same man in this one?”

“Yes.”

She watches me for a long moment. “You remember that, can you shed light on anything else now you’re home, Angelina?”

“No,” I say, and rub my arms. Not sure if it’s the air conditioning or if Melbourne has really gone this cold.

“This man has given a full confession to your abduction. Can you confirm if this is the man who abducted you?”

“I don’t know.”

Hannah lips touch together again and she closes the folder.

Dad scoots his chair closer to mine. “What happens now? He’s going to be charged?”

“It’s complicated, Mr. Morrison.”

“Well, I have all day and I’m listening.” Dad leans forward, and the look on his face reminds me why he was elected mayor.

Hannah starts talking, telling us that this man handed himself in, providing a full accounting of everything he did and how he did it—which counts for a lot. He has a history of mental illness, which again, counts for, apparently a lot. That without me going back, making some kind of statement, giving some kind of testimony, proving that a crime was done, there may be a charge but may not be much of a conviction. If they can even get a conviction without me there.

But I hardly listen. There’s something swirling inside me—lost hope.

The hope that Haithem is still alive. The hope that he was okay somewhere even if not with me. I hear their words again, what they’re asking.

My stomach rolls, tears choke my throat.

“No,” I say. “I won’t do it—I won’t go back.”

Dad moves his chair beside mine and puts his arm around me.

They don’t know my heart is breaking, they think I’m scared.
I
am scared.
I’m scared I don’t know how to
be
again.

“She doesn’t want to go back,” Dad says.

They whisper like I’m not there. I want to cover my ears. Just get outside. Breathe some air that’s not recycled.

“I’ll keep you updated.” Hannah rises. “You know it’s a shame, if he’d been even an hour earlier with his confession you could’ve identified him in person, and perhaps assisted the Malaysian authorities a little more.”

She walks us to the door and holds it open.

It’s no coincidence. Haithem planned this. Perhaps all along. The plan for if something happened to him. This is why he’d had me hold on to my license. This is why it’d been found on my person when I’d been delivered, bleeding from my torn stitches and unconscious at a Malaysian hospital. Every detail precisely constructed.

Maybe Hannah sensed it. She seems like a decent cop, she probably has good instincts. But I’ve already learned appearance counts for more than fact. The government saved face, so have the police. There’s a culprit in custody. That’s all that matters. Case closed.

Snip
,
snip
,
snip.

Cords cut, one by one. All the ties between Haithem and I. The threads connecting us. My disappearance. The CCT images. Everything, explained away. I can go home with no more questions. Nothing connects Haithem to me. All the danger diffused with one confession.

Such a perfect plan.

Makes me love and hate him all the more. He never told me about this one. I should’ve known he’d plan even for his own death. I can’t imagine what it’d cost him to bribe a person to take this kind of fall. I’ll never know and I’m not sure I want to.

We leave the building and wait in the street for a taxi. Moisture fans my face. I look up, turning my face to the spitting that isn’t quite rain.

The sun shines through gray clouds.

This is it, the end.

It’s all over.

Chapter Twenty

I open my eyes and stare at the ceiling. I
can
do it. I
can
get out of bed. For seven days I’ve cried. Cried hard, and ugly, without care for anything or anyone outside of my own grief. I needed the time, needed to grieve. I’ve learned how dangerous it is to deny myself that, so I don’t. It doesn’t matter that a week can’t be nearly enough to heal.

I know I’m not healed. I don’t expect I’ll heal anytime soon. The difference is this time around, I know what I need, and I know that I
can
heal.

So now after a week of self-indulgence, I have to pull myself together. I roll to my side. The mattress doesn’t want to let me up, there’s an Angelina-sized fetal-shape indent trying to suck me back in. I throw back the sheet and slide my legs over the edge. My muscles still don’t feel right. They will eventually. Once I use them.

I slip into the bathroom between my room and Joshua’s. The girl standing across the room in the mirror is not pretty. Not one bit. It looks like something took roost in her hair. Let’s not even mention the state of her eyebrows. I strip off my clothes. My shoulder tugs, but it’s more discomfort now than actual pain.

I shower and pry off the sticky plastic they put over my wound. I run my fingers over the freed patch of skin. They used dissolving stitches this time. The wound’s not as big as I’d thought it’d be.

It’ll scar but it’s hardly disfiguring.

I wash my hair, and consider cutting the knots out until the conditioner does its work.

Then I set about another kind of hair issue. By the time I’m done, I’m sure I’ve just about single-handedly kept the disposable waxing strips industry in business. Despite the waxing rash burning over half my skin, I’m human again.

I wipe the condensation off the mirror and reveal my makeup-free face.
Better
. No one’s going to faint in terror.

Brace yourself
,
life
,
I’m coming to get you.

I dress in jeans and a T-shirt, tuck my license and a fifty-dollar note from the roll of savings still safely hidden in a pair of socks in my drawer, into my back pocket, then make my way to the kitchen. The sight of the closed door on the other side of the bathroom stops me.

This door has been shut for a long time.

Not my parents’ rule—mine. I wouldn’t go down the hallway if they left it open even a crack. I push the handle down, and swing the door wide.

Josh’s room, exactly as he left it with his jacket still hanging on the handle of his wardrobe door. As though he might walk back in at any moment and wear it again. My chest gives a gentle squeeze. I leave the door open, and continue down the hallway.

Mum’s been cooking. Cinnamon clings sweetly to the air. I stop at the counter. She slides hot cinnamon rolls from a tray onto a rack.

“Is it Sunday?”

Mum spins around. “You’re up.”

She stands there, chest tight and high as though she’s holding her breath.

“I thought it was Friday?”

Maybe I lost track of time. Wouldn’t surprise me if a day or two vanished on me. Mum only bakes on Sundays, and only for church. Apparently God forgives gluttony on Sundays. She never leaves a sweet for me to scavenge either. They all go with her.

She’s clever that way, Mum. She bakes all my favorites, makes sure I’ll be smelling them all day, but if I want some I have to attend church with her.

Most often I miss out.

“It is,” Mum says, and drizzles glaze over the scrolls.

“Then what are these for?”

“You.” Mum puts one on a plate and hands it to me.

It’s so warm the glaze melts down into the spiral. I glance up at her. She must really have wanted to get me out of my room...Two inches of silver flecks line Mum’s part. Mum does not let her roots grow out—ever. Things have been bad, I know they’ve been bad, but those flecks are a timeline of just how bad. The curtains in the kitchen are drawn tight. She’s been baking with the lights on in the middle of the day.

Not good.

I set the plate on the bench. “I’m so sorry for how worried you’ve been.”

Mum doesn’t say anything, just wipes her hands on a tea towel.

I walk around into the kitchen and rest my hand on her shoulder. “I’m so sorry, and I love you, Mum.”

Mum opens her arms and I hug her. I hold on to her for longer than I ever have. I can’t take back what’s been done, but I want to make things better.

She sniffs and pulls back. “Would you like a coffee to go with the roll?”

My brow rises. Mum doesn’t believe in coffee, it’s Dad’s vice, and he’s the only parent I drink it with. “Yes, please.”

She prepares an espresso from the pod machine, and makes herself a tea. We sit at the kitchen table and I spoon three sugars into the espresso.

“We have sweetener in the pantry.”

I smile and tap my spoon on top of the cup. She can’t help herself.

“As you know, I don’t like the artificial death-by-dementia flavor.”

Her eyes widen but then she laughs. “Okay, Angelina.”

I cut the roll into quarters and eat a piece. The sweet spicy flavor melts over my tongue. Damn, for the Mistress of self-deprivation, my mother sure can bake.

She watches me eat the roll, and sips on tea. “You look very well.”

I suck some glaze from my thumb. “Thank you.”

Her mouth pinches. “That’s not what I mean.” She shakes her head and her hair trembles around her face. “I’m not going to let you withdraw again this time around, you need to talk about things, not just pretend nothing ever happened.”

I swallow and slide my plate away, then take a sip of espresso. “You’re right, that’s not a healthy thing to do and this time I won’t.”

She opens her eyes, and stares at me.

“I’m going to go back to the therapist, and this time I’ll
really
speak to her.” I wipe my sticky fingers on a napkin. “But, I need your help, Mum.”

“Of course, anything you need—”

I hold up my hand. “That’s what I mean. I don’t need you to do everything you think I might need.” I lower my hand and my voice. “What I actually need is for you to trust and respect me as the woman I am.”

“Of course...”

I hold up my hand again. “That means, I don’t find you sitting on my bed if I’m home five minutes later than you expect.”

Mum sits a little higher. “Okay.”

“While I’m here I need to know that where I’m going, who I’m with, what I’m wearing, and what I’m doing are all
my
business.”

“Well, now,” Mum says, then frowns. “What do you mean while you’re here?”

I reach forward and take that one little piece of roll I left behind. “I mean, I’d like you to help me find a place of my own.”

She takes a breath. Her face goes a little red. She can’t keep it in. “Angelina, do you have any idea what it costs to keep your own place?”

“Yes, and it won’t be a problem.” I chew that last bite of roll, and swallow. “I’ll get a job. I have the money Josh and I saved up, and Emma has been nagging me to move out with her for a year—” I pause and slide back my chair. “Which reminds me I really should return her call.” I cross the room and pick up the cordless phone.

“Well, honey, you won’t reach her on her old number.” Mum, collects the dishes, without looking up at me.

“She has a new phone number?” My arm drops to my side.

Why would Emma need a new phone number?

“Yes, she has a new phone number.” Mum takes the dishes to the sink. “She really wanted to tell you herself...”

“Tell me what?” I put the phone back on the receiver and approach the sink.

The dishes clink against the stainless steel basin.

“That she moved to Sydney.”

My mouth opens. Emma moved state while I was gone? I stumble back to the table and sit down.

Mum pulls up a chair beside me. “Things have been hard for Emma too, and with you not here there just wasn’t anything good left for her in Melbourne.”

I close my eyes. Poor Emma, beside me, the only other person in her life is her drunk asshole father.

And I left her all alone.

“She had a good job offer. An amazing one actually.”

One she probably wouldn’t have taken if I’d been around. I open my eyes again and sigh. “Emma could use a fresh start, I’m happy for her.”

“Then it’s settled.” Mum stands and marches back into the kitchen. “I’ll talk to Dad, and work out some looser boundaries.” She opens the dishwasher. “He’ll want to have something to say about dating and traveling at night, but maybe we can—”

“I’m still going to move out, Mum.” I look at my fingernails. They’ve grown longer than they’ve ever been.

“Well maybe we should talk to the therapist about that first.” Mum’s movements slow. “There’s no reason to decide straight away. You only just got home.”

I swallow deeply. There’s more than one thing I don’t want to do that I need to now I’m home. “Okay, Mum. If it makes you feel better,
I’ll
talk to the therapist before looking for a place.” I stand then walk to the key holder by the back door and take the spare house key. “But you should know, my mind is made up.”

The dishwasher slams shut. “Where are you going?”

“Out,” I say and smile, opening the door and walking through.

Mum follows me out the door. “You can’t.”

We round the corner. “Didn’t we just talk about this—”

Flashes erupt in my face.

Flashes and clicks, and my name rising from dozens of mouths in our quiet little street. Mum takes my elbow and we duck back around the corner.

“That’s why I’ve had the curtains closed,” Mum says. “You can’t just walk out into the street, it’s an ambush.”

My stomach sinks. I refuse to be a prisoner. Not now, not ever. There are too many things I need to do, and I need to start now. There’s a cocoon that wants to tighten around me. There’s a temptation to lie back down inside it, and let myself be folded in security.

I won’t go back to hiding.

“You’re right, I can’t just
walk
out...” I run back into the house, jog down the hallway to that recently opened door, and for the first time since I said goodbye to him, I walk into Joshua’s room.

My steps slow, and I approach the box on top of his chest of drawers. There’s a lingering something in the room that makes me a little lightheaded. Maybe it’s the sweetness leftover from the deodorant he used to wear way too much of. Whatever it is, it’s faded and dusty.

I reach the box and open the lid, taking the long silver key from inside.

“The battery is probably flat by now...” Mum follows me into the room and sits on the bed, running her hand over the bedspread.

How long has it been since she’s been in this room?

She used to come in here daily.

I close the lid, my fingertips leaving streaks where they’ve disturbed the dust.

It’s been a while since Mum cleaned in here.

“Maybe,” I say, and hold the key to my chest. “But I won’t know until I try.”