Double-Crossed (33 page)

Marianne knew as soon as she peered out of the truck that they were at Parsley Bay. She recognized the ocean pool and the rocks across the bay. Joe had brought her to Parsley Bay for years to swim and to enjoy the beautiful beach, but this visit held none of the pleasures of those early days. The walkway to her left seemed too far away as she looked around the edge of the truck. The bush lands on the edge of the bay surrounded the truck as they stretched out toward Sow and Pigs Reef. They must be parked at a secret point to pick up their illegal cargo.

Marianne then became aware that the open truck pointed directly at the ocean, and the three men stood at the shore. She sat down immediately, cursing herself for how easy she might have been spotted. Standing, the men had a clear sight through to the back of the truck, but sitting, they couldn't detect her through the heavy undergrowth.

Their piercing silence made them menacing, contrasting with their vibrancy in the truck. Their manner wasn't excited or brash any more, stealthily poised toward whatever they looked for in the deep. Marianne grew tenser, seeing the men so watchful, gazing into a black ocean. It made the scene before her even more dreadful.

Soon she saw a small pinprick of light coming out of the darkness. It flashed once, flashed twice, and then flashed again. It became apparent that Don had a torch as well and signaled back into the expanse. Straining through the shrubs into the dark of the ocean, she tried to see what she could, but saw nothing out there but the pinpricks of light, small glowing specks of radiation in a contaminated sea.

Marianne didn't want to wait another second. The crucial moment arrived to take advantage of their distraction. She slipped her feet forward with her hands behind her on the floor of the truck for support. She landed softly into the earth and felt the shrubs and bracken beneath her sneakers. Gingerly, she turned her back to the activities on the shore and made her way through the woods as fast and as quietly as she could.

She walked for a few meters through the thick Australian bush that lined the shore. Then she started to run. Trying to get under shrubbery and dodge low branches, she ran fast. She felt, rather than saw, the shore behind her from unfamiliar bush land. She knew this piece of land to be small; the run to safety must be short. No water or men in view, but the sounds of the ocean rang true in her ears. No birds, but waves crashing and a shore wind rustling through the trees around her.

However, the darkness and the woods deceived her, and soon Marianne found herself with the ocean in front of her. Somehow, in the black of the night, she had come full circle. She had run herself into a layer of bushes sitting against the ocean's fringe.

Panting heavily, Marianne felt a deep panic set in. She couldn't get her bearings. She froze; she had seriously let herself down. The fear made her stupid, and she berated herself for her foolishness.

While motionless and desperately trying to orient herself, she became aware that to her right, the men still stood on the shore. Now voices came from the ocean. The sounds that she heard rising out of the dark chilled her directly through to her spine. Appalling moans floated in with the tide. She heard Joe's voice calling gently from the shore to hush them up, but still the sounds of people moaning in agony rang in the air, unmistakably tragic. It sent icy currents to Marianne's heart. In the pitchy black of the night, she could see nothing, but she could hear the cries of the people who had risked everything to come here.

Marianne struggled to get her wits about her. Part of her listened for the sounds of the boat coming in from the shore, and part of her waited for the chance to escape into the bush behind her. Indecision flooded through her as the combination of exhaustion and sleep deprivation overtook her decision-making abilities. Tired, emotionally drained, and the feeling, again, that she didn't care what happened to her, started to sink in.

It must have happened in a split second, but played out like slow motion. A hand landed hard on her mouth, gripping her head, and pulling her back off balance. For a moment, Marianne couldn't breathe. She fell into a familiar body as an arm came around to hold her tight. He didn't say a word, but she knew it was Jimmy. They'd spotted her from the beach. Wriggling in an almost half-hearted fashion, Marianne knew that she had ruined her chance of escape.

Jimmy dragged her backwards as she tripped, scrubby bushes scratching at her ankles and through her jeans. He did not have to drag her far. The car she'd not noticed before waited near the truck. Holding her tight, Jimmy grabbed an oily rag and stuffed it into Marianne's mouth, and tied another around her head to hold the rag in place. She almost passed out from the fuel fumes alone. Jimmy said nothing. He simply busied himself tying her up again.

Jimmy put his hand on her head and pushed down, forcing her bend her knees so that he could push her forward into the back of the car.

“Don't try that again or even I won't be of any help to you,” he told her with a sorry tone to his voice. He jumped into the front seat of the car, sitting in stony silence. The rope cut into her hands, even tighter than before, and she felt as though she couldn't move. Pins and needles worked through her arms, spreading to her shoulder blades. The hip she lay on ached, and saliva dripped out of the corner of her mouth, the rag too full of it already to hold anymore. Petrol taste and fumes nauseated her, and all she could imagine was that she had lost her one chance to get away. Now she would have to wait for them to act.

Exhausted, Marianne let herself fall asleep, finally and completely, not caring what happened to her at all. The dreamless sleep soothed a little, no doubt due to her profound exhaustion and her lack of concern. She lay helpless, breathing around the cloth in her mouth, against the leather of the seat.

She woke when she felt the engine spark to life. In the front seat, she could see the back of Jimmy's head. Alone in the car and because it was Jimmy who drove and because of exhaustion, Marianne felt strangely safe, as if her safety existed as an inevitable part of a long future. She sank back into her sleep, watching trees and clouds and realizing the lighter blue in the sky heralded the onset of dawn.

* * *

When Marianne woke again, the car was empty except for her. An ache in the lower part of her spine dragged her back to consciousness as well as the sound of a bird singing. Opening her eyes confirmed the arrival of day, and indeed, maybe even midmorning.

Lifting her head cautiously, she confirmed what she suspected. Her body ached with bruises and stiffness everywhere. However, where solitude burdened her before, now she felt grateful, and wonders of wonders, well rested. The possibility of escape broke through her mental clouds. She'd had a rest, and exhaustion no longer deterred her survival.

Pushing with her tongue, she forced a little space around the side of her gag and gulped the fresh air. She lifted her body with her stomach muscles, and rose to a sitting position, bracing her feet on the floor of the car as she did so, getting a good look around her. She immediately identified the back of The Pink Pussycat at the storeroom door, the same door through which she had made her departure by truck. She knew that to be a hundred years ago now. In the heat of the sunlight, escape appeared possible. No more truck and no one around to dampen her chance to get away.

How did I survive that night? I didn't wake up with a gun pointed at my head
.

Marianne started to work on the bonds at her wrists and her ankles. Jimmy had tied her well after she'd escaped the first time. Struggling against them proved impossible. The tight ropes forced her to give it up in desperation and think of some other escape plan.

As Marianne struggled in the back of the car, she heard a tap at the window. She jumped in response but automatically turned her head in the direction of the window.

There, against the window to her right, stood the doctor.

Marianne's heart soared. They could share the responsibility of her salvation.

She had a friend.

She cried out to him, “Doctor! Help me!” Her gag muffled the words, and she heard them only as moans and frantic grunts.

Through the thick pane of glass, the doctor called to her, “Can you unlock the door to let me in?”

Bracing herself against the armrest, Marianne maneuvered her body to flick the switch. As if the car worked with them, the electric locks kicked in and sprang every door free. The doctor grabbed at the handle and opened the door. Marianne kept her back toward him, expecting he would untie her immediately. He tore the gag from her mouth first, and Marianne drew a deep breath and filled her lungs with the sweet air. He fell to the rest of his task right away, and loosed her bonds and freed her hands.

As she reached down to work on her feet, tears welled up in her eyes, and she started to cry, relieved and overwhelmed. Her words ran into each other in the spilling of emotion.

“Be careful. Joe and Don and Jimmy, and I don't know how many others, want to kill me. They're here somewhere. They'll kill you for freeing me.”

“Calm yourself, Marianne. They will not bother you anymore. Untie your feet, and I'll help you out of here.”

“Where are the police?” She smiled, then, for the first time since she had awakened in that place the day before. The worry and the terror had gone from her at last.

“Don't worry, you're safe. The men who want to hurt you aren't here, and the police will be here soon, I suspect. You have nothing to do but get out of here, and then I can get you home.”

Marianne struggled with the ties on her feet.

The doctor seemed agitated. “Please hurry. We don't have much time. We have to get you out of here.”

Marianne didn't question his urgency or the mystery of his words; she basked in the sunshine of friendship. Somehow she'd escaped, and soon this nightmare would end.

With her legs untied, she could to step out of the car. The doctor placed his hand firmly on her arm and said, “I will examine you when you get back to your home. For now, you must let me guide you. You'll see some unpleasant things that I can explain to you later, but you have to get out of here as fast as possible, and that means walking through the ugliness.” He looked at her with the cool, pallid eyes she had grown to know so well. “Can you be very brave, Marianne?”

“Can we leave by the back gate? I don't want to go in there.”

“There's something I want you to see first. Trust me, Marianne.”

Without answering, Marianne let him take her arm and guide her toward the door of Joe's storeroom. They entered through the same door through which she'd left the night before. For Marianne, it was a slightly apprehensive moment, but she trusted the doctor and the way he held her arm so firmly.

Almost at the other end of the storeroom, she stopped in her tracks.

There at her feet, arms outstretched toward the door of the storeroom, lay Jimmy. Although he reached up for the door, he slumped unmoving against it. The blood seeping out of his back leaked through his shirt. Marianne couldn't see his face, but in order to get in through the door, they'd have to move the body.

Marianne gasped and turned her face to hide in the chest of the doctor who stood behind her. Pushing on the door caused Jimmy to roll over, showing his dead face.

“I can do nothing for this man,” he said. “But I am surprised at your shock. I would have thought after what you witnessed earlier in the evening that you would expect that the life of this kind of man would end in this violent manner. It's astonishing that you have any sort of feeling for him at all.”

Marianne agreed in her heart, but seeing the dead body of a man who'd been a friend deeply distressed her. His mouth held a strange grimace, and he had a horrified stare in his eyes. This image, Marianne knew, she would never forget, the kind of image that would haunt her dreams. Jimmy cared for Joe, but that loyalty came from self-preservation, and she understood it. All through his behavior toward her, she knew that somehow he thought of her as a friend. To see her friend in this way, lying at the base of the door, blood all over his belly, horrified her.

“Allow me,” the doctor said simply. He took her hand and navigated her through the maze, encouraging her to step over the limbs and torso of her dead friend. Marianne had seen so many things in her time with Joe, but she'd never seen dead bodies. That he had spared her. People vanished, and she had questioned, on one occasion the disappearance of a man that Joe had told her no longer worked for him. However, Joe had always spared her. And she'd let him.

Closing her eyes as she stepped over the body, Marianne made her way through the back door of the storeroom. She paused, wanting to look back at her friend.

“Marianne.” She could hear the voice behind her. “There will be time to mourn the things that you see later, at a safe distance. If the authorities find you here, they may suspect you of these crimes. We must keep moving to keep you safe.”

Marianne moved on from Jimmy's body and shuffled around a large shelf that extended into the main part of the room. Up ahead, the door to the main bar stood.

Then she saw the bodies of Joe and Don. They both lay on their backs, staring wide-eyed at the ceiling close to the other exit of the storeroom.

“Oh, dear God! Who could have done this?” cried Marianne.

“Just keep moving.” The doctor's voice, calm behind her, reassured her. “As long as they do not blame you for this, then everything will be for the best.”

Marianne felt hysteria rising inside her. It horrified her to see Jimmy killed, but now Joe. She didn't love Joe any more, but that didn't mean she wanted to see him hurt. Definitely not killed.

She felt vulnerable, weak, and very confused. She couldn't help wondering why her life had been spared through this series of killings. And why was she brought in to see this carnage?

She turned away in her horror. A great pool of blood extended out from Joe and Don, thick and red, like in a bad film. Marianne could see the blood, but tried not to internalize the meaning of it. She stepped over the bodies and found her way to the door. Turning the knob, she stepped out into the blackness of the huge main bar area of The Pink Pussycat Club.