Heller's Punishment (14 page)

As we drove,
Heller told me more about what had happened. Felicia and her
boyfriend had apparently taunted her parents with the details of
her escape as they alternately abused them and trashed their house.
Felicia hadn’t just concealed drugs on her when she first arrived
at the clinic. She’d also secreted a mobile phone in the lining of
her Elmo jacket.
Probably during her bathroom visit at the
airport
, I thought, despondent again at my performance on the
assignment.

She’d used it
to contact her boyfriend via text messages on a regular basis.
That would explain all her time in the bathroom.
She’d never
had any intention of being rehabilitated, only interested in the
money her parents had offered, which I already knew. But she
couldn’t even last one week at the clinic for that reward without
drugs, texting her boyfriend and asking him to drop her off some
heroin. He flew up and decided to take the easy way to force some
money from her parents while he was here, hatching the plan to rob
them.

“I
knew
I’d heard two voices that day in the woods, although she denied
it,” I said quietly, but my voice was rather unsteady. I was
incredibly angry with myself about everything. I deserved to be
fired this time.

Heller glanced
at me sideways and pulled into the next petrol station. I hobbled
on the crutches over to the facilities to splash my face and regain
some composure. Meanwhile he and Clive went to attached coffee
shop. When we climbed back in, he handed me a coffee and then a
tiny chocolate bar. I took it gratefully, but raised my eyebrows at
him. He didn’t usually condone chocolate.

“I’ve heard
that chocolate can help when a woman is upset.”

Despite myself,
I laughed. “Oh Heller, you’re so funny sometimes.”

He was a little
offended. “I wasn’t trying to be. I was trying to be nice.”

And to my
shame, that only made me laugh more.

“Well, with
that reaction, I can see why I don’t try to be nice very often.”
And with me still giggling, he drove off, continuing his story and
sipping occasionally from his coffee.

After I’d
pressed the emergency button, clinic staff rushed to the room and
noticed the makeshift escape rope hanging over the windowsill. They
looked out to witness me falling to the ground after I blacked out.
The fact that I was unconscious at the time of the landing meant
that my body was looser and although I suffered some awful
bruising, I fortunately hadn’t sustained anything worse than a
fractured ankle. I was lucky I hadn’t killed myself.

When the clinic
staff rushed outside to me, they soon realised I had worse problems
than a fractured ankle. My pulse was weak and my breathing shallow
and irregular. They summoned an ambulance, but on the way to the
hospital I took a turn for the worse and the paramedics had to
revive me.

“I don’t
remember any of that,” I admitted. “I would have liked to thank
them for saving my life.”

“I did it for
you,” he assured. “And for me.”

I turned to him
with a small smile. “Felicia’s boyfriend offered me a new job.”

“Oh yes?” he
asked sceptically, taking another sip of coffee.

“Yeah. He
thought I’d be good at swallowing men’s rods for a living.” He
choked in surprise at my response, coffee spurting from his mouth
in a gush. I turned a puzzled glance at him, my eyes even bigger
with mock-innocence, in my most naive voice. “What do you think he
meant by that?”

He patted me on
the cheek with amused affection, wiping himself down with a
napkin.

“I’ll show you
tonight, if you like,” he offered, laughing. I smiled back, knowing
that he’d let go of his incredible anger at least for a short
time.

We arrived home
in the late afternoon and I had to suffer the indignity of being
carried upstairs to his bed. He called Dr Kincaid, who arrived
promptly and examined me, recommending bed rest for the next few
days. I spent those days in Heller’s flat, Niq keeping me company
during the day as he did his schoolwork and Daniel joining us after
work. But then I moved back to my own flat, clumsily learning to
manoeuvre myself around with the crutches.

Obviously,
fieldwork was out of the question for me, so I was forced to work
in the office for the next six weeks, filing, preparing reports,
answering the phone. My ankle recovered well and Dr Kincaid gave me
some strengthening exercises to do to help mobilise it again.

Two weeks into
my office duties, I realised that I hadn’t seen or heard from
Heller for a couple of days, and he wasn’t answering his phone.

I turned to
Daniel. “Where’s Heller? I haven’t seen him for days.”

“He’s gone
interstate for business. He’ll be back later today,” Daniel advised
distractedly, busy pounding his keyboard.

The next
evening as I watched the late news on TV, one story made my heart
stop beating for a moment. A photograph of Felicia flashed up on
the screen – the same photo that her parents had given me to
identify her. Following it was a more recent photo of Paulie,
clearly a mug shot. I turned up the volume.

“. . . have
been identified as nineteen-year-old prostitute, Felicia Evelyn
Heyne, and her twenty-six-year-old boyfriend, Alberto Paul
Vincelli. Police confirm that the bodies were found in an isolated
part of the state forest by a bushwalker. Preliminary
investigations suggest that both were kneeling as they were shot,
each sustaining a single bullet wound to the back of the head. It
is believed that they may be the victims of a drug deal gone wrong,
as both were known drug users. Police have not been able to
determine the last movements of either of the victims, but urge
anyone with information to contact them immediately at Crime
Stoppers on 1800–” I switched off the TV.

Oh God!
I thought, nausea rising in my throat. I went straight to my phone,
punching in a familiar number.

“Matilda? Is
everything okay?”

I took a deep,
shaky breath. “Heller, I’ve just seen the news. What have you
done?”

A significant
pause. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said coolly,
before replacing the handset with a gentle click.

I stood in my
living room, the phone dangling from my hand. He was an unforgiving
man and it was entirely in his nature to take revenge, especially
on anybody who harmed me. In fact, the last person who’d hurt me
badly had been fortunate to be taken into police custody rather
than being ‘taken care of’ by Heller. I rang Daniel.

“Hi sweetie,
it’s me,” I greeted him. “Can you tell me if Heller went interstate
by himself?”

“No, he took
Clive with him. Problem?”

“No. Thanks,
Daniel,” I said softly.

I wasn’t sure
how I felt, not really having any experience in caring deeply for a
man who might possibly be a cold-blooded killer. The rational side
of my mind reminded me that I didn’t really
know
anything –
I only had suspicions. I was being unfair to judge Heller guilty
until proven innocent. So I tried to push those awful, uneasy
thoughts from my mind. What was done was done, one way or another,
and nothing I felt or did would make the slightest difference to
anyone now. But I didn’t sleep well that night.

The next day I
rang the Heynes, even though I had no idea what to say to them.
They’d suffered the most debasing experience of their lives and
then lost their only child. I couldn’t even imagine what they were
going through. I spoke to Mrs Heyne for ten minutes, managed to
splutter out some remotely genuine condolences and listened with
awkwardness as she told me quietly that they blamed themselves for
how flawed and troubled Felicia had turned out.

“What do you
think happened to her?” I asked, tentative about raising the
subject.

“Drug deal gone
wrong, just as the police suspect. What else?” She laughed, and it
contained all the bitterness that was absent from her voice. “A
vigilante punishing her for what she did to us? I don’t think
so.”

No
, I
thought, feeling ill again.
But maybe a vigilante punishing her
for what she did to me.

“I’m very sorry
for your loss,” I said, preparing to ring off.

“We lost
Felicia a long time ago,” were her final words.

I felt
unbelievably flat afterwards and lay on my lounge for a while
thinking about everything – life and death and how some people’s
lives are full of love and sunshine and others with misery and
darkness. I knew I definitely wanted to be on the love and sunshine
side of the ledger, not the other. And that tormented musing
probably affected my judgement when I received yet another late
night phone call from my love-rat ex-boyfriend, Will, begging me to
come and visit him. Instead of hanging up on him as I usually did,
I stayed on the line listening, and even promised to think about
it. He was ecstatic, obviously imagining that his concerted
campaign to win me over again was starting to bear fruit.

Weeks later,
Daniel took me to have a final x-ray of my ankle. When Dr Kincaid
examined it later that day, he instructed me to take the boot off
permanently, put away the crutches and start walking on it again. I
was nervous at first, expecting great pain, but although it still
ached and was stiff, I was able to get around reasonably well,
albeit slowly. Life started to return to normal.

Chapter
10

When I could
walk confidently again, I made a momentous decision that ended with
me standing at a door, shit-scared, pressing on the buzzer. I knew
this was going to be messy, a very bad idea to start with, but I
felt compelled to do it by emotions I didn’t understand and
couldn’t control. Heller warned me repeatedly against this visit,
but since when have I ever listened to his advice anyway?

He’s not
home
, I thought with relief when nobody answered.
I have the
day or time wrong
. I was just about to make an eager escape
when the door opened. Will stood there, his wild, curly brown hair
particularly unruly, his soft brown eyes staring at me with
infinite longing.

“Tilly,” he
said gratefully. “You came. Thank you so much. I was sure that
you’d change your mind.”

He invited me
in. I wasn’t unaware of the effect my appearance was having on him.
I’d dressed deliberately. A tight, low-cut gold top teamed with my
most successful push-up bra, black denim miniskirt that showed
acres of leg flesh and killer heels, with which my poor ankle was
struggling to cope. I’d left my shiny dark brown hair long and
wavy, and liberally applied a sensuous perfume. Heller had frowned
at me when I’d met him at his Mercedes in the basement.

“I want him to
see what he’s missing,” I’d told him defiantly, but that only made
him frown even more. He’d driven me in silence to Will’s house, his
disapproval hanging heavy in the air between us.

“You have one
hour, Matilda,” he said emotionless, staring ahead of him.

“Give me two,
please Heller. I have a lot to say,” I begged. He agreed
reluctantly and drove off without another word, with what I thought
was an unnecessarily dramatic squeal of his tyres.

Will regarded
me with unadulterated hunger as I walked past him through the front
door. I immediately noticed the differences since another woman had
moved into his house. In his lounge room we sat apart, him on the
lounge and me in an armchair. I’d decided to let him do the talking
because despite what I’d told Heller, I really didn’t have much to
say at all. But I was interested in hearing what Will had to say
for himself. He’d bombarded me with text messages, emails and phone
calls after our chance meeting at a resort a while ago, hoping to
convince me to meet with him again. He wanted an opportunity to
explain exactly why he’d dumped me and become engaged to another
woman with indecent haste afterwards.

“Where’s your
fiancee?” I queried courteously.

He seemed
uncomfortable at my use of the term. “She’s at her mother’s house.
They’re planning the wedding. I’m picking her up later
tonight.”

Then he started
talking earnestly, leaning forwards on the lounge, grasping my
hands and staring deeply into my eyes. I didn’t hear anything new.
It had started as a one-nighter at a teachers’ conference, morphing
into a casual relationship and ending up with an unexpected but
welcome pregnancy and a quick decision to marry the woman who would
bear his child. Who wasn’t me, hence my dumping. But he’d realised
since that he couldn’t stop thinking about me, wanting me, needing
me. I sighed to myself.
Blah, blah, blah.
All the
predictable crap I’d been expecting. Heller was right. One hour
would have been more than enough. I tried to suppress a yawn.

Pulling my
hands free from his, I stood and walked to his front window, my
back to him. Gazing at his garden, I now only partially listened to
his entreaties. Realising that he was losing his audience, Will
stopped talking and came up, standing closely behind me. It shocked
me how much his physical presence still affected me. Unwillingly,
my breathing grew heavier and my heartbeat more rapid.

“Tilly,” he
said hoarsely, placing his hands tentatively on my shoulders. His
touch grew more assured when I didn’t reject it. Truth was that I
craved his touch. It had been a long time since we’d slept
together, since I’d slept with anyone, and I’d desperately missed
him. I could smell the familiar scent of his cologne. It brought
back waves of happy memories, loving memories. I didn’t reject his
touch – I wanted him to touch me. Everywhere.

His hands
rubbed up and down my bare arms. I kept gazing out the window.

“God, I’ve
missed you so much. I can’t believe I was stupid enough to think I
could survive without seeing you, touching you, feeling you,
tasting you.”