Soul Storm (26 page)

He wasn’t planning this, was he?

‘How’s that?’ He holds out one crystal glass of wine and a tumbler of water with plenty of ice.

‘Good.’ I take both, but put the wine down on the table and gulp back the water. My throat is dry.

Of course he wouldn’t have planned this. What’s happened here this evening has happened naturally.

Lewis sits down, with a big enough space between us to make me feel reassured but impatient too. He hasn’t poured himself a drink yet.

I can only just hear the bullfrogs now. Apart from that, there’s nothing except the faintest hum of air-conditioning. No rain, no thunder. Sound-proofing must be important to
billionaires.

The chambermaid has lit an aromatherapy burner and that familiar sharp citrus fragrance wafts through the room. It’s strange, the idea of giving a place a signature scent. But perhaps
it’s a nice thought, too. The bubble bath Meggie and me used as kids still reminds me of her more than pretty much anything else except her singing voice.

When I get home, I might smell
this
hotel smell and be transported back here instantly.

‘Ali . . .’

I turn my head slightly and Lewis’s face is close to mine.

Yes,
I say in my head.
Now.

He hears me.

His lips are on mine. Soft at first. Making sure this is OK.

But then when I begin to respond, the kiss is more urgent. More passionate.

The other boys I’ve kissed. They’re all forgotten.

Time’s stopped.

One hand traces down my cheekbone, the other is on my neck. I reach around to pull him closer, my arms on his back. Through the shirt, I feel the definition of his muscles. So right. Warm.
Protective. Strong.

Have we both
always
known this was how it could be?

I am not plain Ali any more. Not some sixth-former with bad results and no clue what to do with my life.

I’m beautiful. That’s what his kiss is telling me. It’s overwhelming, the powerful pressure of his lips making me light-headed, more drunk than I actually am.

It’s like the difference between the tropical fruits I could never taste on the Beach, and the ripe,
real
fruits we shared at lunchtime.

Have I ever felt this alive, this
wonderful
?

I don’t know how long it is before he pulls back slightly. Minutes. An
hour
? His eyes are dark with excitement. Where did a geek learn to kiss like a film star?

Perhaps it’s not about learning. Perhaps it’s simply about finding the person you’re
supposed
to kiss.

‘We’re two seriously bright people, Ali,’ he whispers. ‘Why the hell didn’t we work this out sooner?’

I smile. ‘Let’s make up for lost time.’

Even though he kisses me confidently, I can tell he’s going to let me set the pace. Except my body is responding to him in a way I never thought possible. I can’t imagine wanting
this to stop.

Ever.

And that’s when everything goes dark.

We pull apart
so
reluctantly.

I can only just see him, in the tiny flame from the aromatherapy burner. His face looks even more handsome, all sharp angles and full lips.

‘What’s happened, Lewis?’ Instinctively, I’ve grabbed his hand. Despite everything I’ve been through in the last year, the dark still has the power to make me
afraid.

He looks around. ‘Air-con’s off, too, so probably another power cut.’

‘Can you phone reception?’ I whisper, as though a bogeyman might hear me if I speak any louder.

‘Line’s probably down.’ He leans over to grab the phone with one arm, keeping hold of me with the other. He lifts the receiver, then replaces it with a sigh. ‘Yeah.
Dead.’

The word makes me cringe. ‘I don’t like this.’

‘It’s fine, Alice, really. There’s bound to be a generator that’ll kick in soon. But not too soon, I hope.’

He leans in to kiss me again.

It’s even better than before, but I pull away after less than a minute. It’s still dark, but now I notice there
are
lights on in the villas on the opposite side of the lake.
‘Look,’ I say, pointing over the water.

‘Maybe it’s just this villa,’ Lewis says. ‘A fuse or something.’ He sighs. ‘Much as I hate to tear myself away, the lights won’t come back of their own
accord if it
is
a blown fuse. What if I cycle to reception? You’ll be OK here, won’t you?’

‘I’d rather come with you.’

‘Look outside. It’s still belting down. Only one of us needs to get soaked, eh? You’ve got the tea lights for the burner, and I’m pretty sure I saw a torch in the
bathroom. I’ll cycle as fast as I can. I don’t want to be away any longer than I have to.’

He kisses me again, too briefly, and I cross my fingers, hoping the lights will come back on as we kiss so we don’t have to separate. But . . . still darkness.

‘Back in the blink of an eye,’ Lewis says. When he opens the door, the bullfrogs are joining in as the thunder rumbles grumpily. I let the door close softly behind him.

Torch. I’m on a mission to find it. The more I concentrate on the search, the less I’m going to freak out in the dark. I’m seventeen, for God’s sake. A power cut is no
big deal unless you’re a little kid.

I pick up the aromatherapy burner and gently tip the water and oil into my empty glass, so it won’t drip onto the tea light and extinguish it. Then I lift the burner up to light my way and
push open the door that leads to the bedroom and, I guess, a second bathroom too. The layout seems slightly different on this side. The tiny flame only lets me see about a metre ahead, so I take
small, cautious steps. But I’m calm. Determined. Lewis will be proud of me.

The bathroom is to the left, bedroom to the right. Inside the bathroom, I think it’s moonlight that shines through the frosted window, bright enough to help me make out a kind of walk-in
wardrobe with towels and a safe, the same as on my side of the villa. This has to be where the torch is kept.

Something moved.

Behind me. I hear it scuttling across the tiles. A cockroach? A
rat
?

Stop panicking.
It’s only my imagination. I will my heart to slow down, take some deep breaths. The reception’s only five minutes away by bike. Lewis won’t be
long.

‘Argh!’

The
something
just ran over my foot.

I drop the burner and it hits the marble floor with a crash, followed by the musical ring of tiny splinters. Then, silence again.

Hold on. Where’s the tea light?

Shit! It’s landed on a pile of towels, still alight. I reach for it before the towels catch fire. Hot wax burns my hand but I manage to snuff out the flame.

Of course, now it’s
seriously
dark, and there are sharp fragments of broken burner spread all over the floor, ready to cut the soles of my feet. Do I wait till Lewis comes back or
try something else?

What about Lewis’s phone? There’s bound to be a torch on that, if not an app to generate enough power for the entire villa.

I tiptoe carefully out of the bathroom, lowering my feet slowly to feel for splinters. The bedroom’s ahead. If the worst comes to the worst, I can lie down on his bed and wait. Beds are
safe places: no splinters, no sharp edges, no naked flames.

In the far corner, I can see a ghostly blue light. A phone display.

Yes!

I cross the room, the marble floor smooth under my feet. There’s a small table in the corner that Lewis has set up as a recharging station, with his laptop and iPad and phone. Of course,
it’s not charging now the power’s off but the phone shows the time.

Just before ten. Weird, it feels so much later than that.

I pick up the phone to see if I can find the torch function.

Hmm. Lewis has a password. Of course he does. There’s probably a NASA-level biometric security system, too. But there’s just enough light from the time display to get me safely out
of here and back to the snug. I might be ready for that wine he poured for me now.

I remove the phone from the charger and hold it up to illuminate my route. His bedroom’s smaller than mine. Only half the room is underwater, and there are two limestone walls in place of
the glass.

Lewis gave me the best room.

A warm feeling floods through me, and then an even warmer one when I think of the kiss. Any moment now, he’ll be back and the power will be on and we can pick up where we left off.

On his bed, there’s a small stack of paper. Typical Lewis. He can’t forget work, even though he keeps saying how good it is to be away from all that. But that’s OK. I like the
idea of a boyfriend with ambition. Money doesn’t matter but I want someone who will make the most of his talents, his precious time.

I laugh at myself. We’ve only kissed three times, so obviously it’s completely over the top to be thinking he’s my
boyfriend
already.

All the same, it feels right.

As I pass the bed, I notice one of the pages has slipped onto the floor. I pick it up and curiosity gets the better of me. What’s
so important
that it can’t wait? The dim
phone screen gives me just enough light to read.

It’s an email, I recognise the layout. Weird to print out emails, but Lewis is very aware of cyber-security, of what can go wrong when computers die. Maybe he prints stuff out as some kind
of old-school back-up.

I’m suddenly aware of how fast my heart is beating.

This is weird. I haven’t seen this email before, not in all the stuff that Lewis found on Zoe’s two laptops. Maybe he’s only just hacked into a new part of her hard drive and
he hasn’t shown me yet because . . . well, I don’t know why. Maybe because today was my first day of normality in over a year and he didn’t want to spoil it.

But it’s so
Lewis
to be working behind the scenes to solve the mystery.

Another thing strikes me: the date. This was sent just a few days before Tim ‘committed suicide’.

I move the phone further down the page.

A hairbrush?

My head is spinning. My sister’s hair was brushed through after she died. The police think it was the last thing the killer did.

And they never found the hairbrush.

I drop the page on the bed. Now I can see from the layout that all the printed pages are emails. I sit down, wondering what else Lewis has found. It’s too dark to read quickly but I scan
the tops of the pages, holding the phone next to each one. There must be a dozen emails I’ve never seen, with subject lines like
stalker
and
scarf
and
visitor.
All
between Tim and Zoe.

One of those writers is now dead, the other in a persistent vegetative state.

So why has Lewis brought these emails with him? They must have been printed before we left.

It’s OK. I can ask him when he gets back. Except . . . perhaps I should wait and see. I bet he won’t appreciate it if he finds out I’ve been going through his things. He could
be back any second. Maybe I’ve got time just to read one more, then I’ll go back to the snug.

From Meggie? To
Lewis
? But they never knew each other!

What the hell?
My sister never mentioned Lewis, and he’s always said he’d never spoken to her, let alone emailed her. He recognised her, yeah, because they
went to neighbouring schools. But whenever I’ve asked him, he’s insisted she was just another pretty face in the crowd.