this to her, we need to know everything she can remember," he told me, keeping his voice low. "Names, descriptions and what they did to her, with any dates and times she can remember."
"When she wakes up, I'll ask her," I said.
"Fuck, Nathan, the police will be asking, too, and if you want to get to them before the local police do, you need to know everything before they do. You've got to do better than just fucking wait. You need to be her fucking best mate."
I sighed. "So, that means I have to stay with her? The hospital's going to discharge me today. How do you expect me to convince her she needs some random stranger around all the time without her suspecting, when she wakes up?"
He smiled. "I'll take care of the hospital and arrange to have you stay for as long as necessary. The local police are already cooperating with you, right?" He paused and I nodded. "As for the girl – make yourself useful. Be your usual charming self and give her a hand when she needs one. Her hands look like they'll be out of action a while. Your charming personality worked on that receptionist – what was her name, Christie?"
Shit, Christie. Christie the receptionist had turned out to be religious, waiting for marriage and her true love before she'd let anyone in her pants. Even down on her knees she'd been a disappointment. After she'd spilled all she knew and everything she wouldn't swallow, I hadn't seen her again. I'd been glad to give her up. I cleared my throat.
"Christie the receptionist was nowhere near as... traumatised as Caitlin. That's not a fair comparison." Oh hell, I thought, I almost called Caitlin damaged. And she was – covered in blood and bruises and beaten and broken and... "This one's not going to be won over by a bit of charm and a smile."
"This one's a shitload better looking than that receptionist, or so I've heard. A bit of an incentive, maybe?" He lowered his voice. "Look, the police are going on about how she was raped by more than one man. You're going to have to be honest with me on this one. You didn't..."
I waited, but he didn't tell me what he didn't want me to do. "I didn't sleep with her. Is that what you mean? She wasn't offering and I'm not interested if she isn't willing." I winked. "It's not as much fun if she doesn't enjoy herself."
"Or at least pretending she is," he replied, distracted.
I forced a laugh. "Not with me. No need, mate." I winked again, but my cheer felt hollow. There was no need when this was one girl I'd never sleep with. Oh God, what I'd give for a decent night's sleep without her...
He sighed, looking wistful. "Yeah, that's why you're the one who's pumping her for information. Don't let the police find out if you do decide to fuck her." He got up to leave. "Let me know what you find out. And don't let anyone fucking kill her."
16
Don't touch me.
Don't touch her.
Don't...
Can't stop. Must...
Shouting. Shots.
Hurts.
No.
Can't stop. Must...
Hurts.
Can't get up.
Must...
Red light. Blood.
Scared. Slipping.
Stars.
Dark...
17
Caitlin slept peacefully, for the moment. As the bright sunlight streamed through the window into her hospital room, I was incapable of sleep.
I felt I owed her some explanation and it was easier to tell her when she was asleep. I hesitated, not knowing how much to tell or how little. Maybe if I spoke my piece now I could resist telling her when she was awake and asking for answers. Or maybe I'd never have to tell her.
"She'd gone shopping and we didn't even know she was missing until hours afterwards," I blurted out before I realised what I was doing. "It was weeks and she wouldn't answer her phone, no one had seen her.
"Then there were the envelopes. No return address, just printed labels on the outside and inside... zip-locked freezer bags with bloodied cloth and skin, cut with a jagged knife. Sometimes every day, or more than one every few days. I wouldn't let Chris check the mail – I put a lock on the letterbox so she couldn't..." My voice died as I remembered again what I could never forget.
"It must have been over a month before her body turned up, dumped at the base of some sand dunes. Near where you were." I swallowed convulsively, but continued. "For more than a month, they'd just hurt her, until they killed her." A memory I didn't want. One that plagued my dreams.
I looked at Caitlin, wondering who her envelopes had been sent to. Nothing had been found at her house and she still lived at home with her father. Had they even sent them? Or were the cuts on her body something someone did just for the hell of it? I tried not to think about it. My thoughts went back to Alanna, as they always did.
I sat in the chair next to her bed, my closed eyes seeing only pictures of the past. "Alanna was my sister, my twin, but we were so different. She was always so cheerful, so determined to succeed and make a difference. She'd help someone when no one else would bother. The next thing you know, everyone would be helping her. She stopped to help a woman push her broken-down car off a busy road outside Uni once. The two of them could barely budge it, then a Council truck pulled over and the whole road crew helped her get the car onto the kerb. I was stuck on the other side of the road and six lanes of traffic, so I saw the whole thing. I wouldn't have believed it if it was anyone else, but Alanna... it's just who she was.
"We were at a party once, and everyone was drinking. A normal Uni party after the end of exams. A girl she didn't know was so drunk she passed out and hit her head as she fell. A room full of drunken med students and no one seemed to know what to do. Alanna just stepped in and took charge. She knelt on the floor next to the girl. She sent one person for ice, another to call an ambulance, someone else to find the friend the girl had arrived with. By the time the ambulance arrived, she had the girl's name, contact details of her next of kin and everything. There was nothing for the ambulance officers to do but get the girl to hospital.
"Alanna was such a fighter, she would never have given in to them. Never stopped fighting, never let them win. So they broke her and they killed her. How could anyone do that to her?
"I wanted to hunt them down and hurt them for what they did to her. But the police didn't arrest anyone and they could still do it again, to someone else!" They'd do it to Chris next. My parents would never give in. I gritted my teeth, trying to force the thought out of my brain. "Please wake up. I need to know how to find them before they can get to Chris. She's the same age as you and I can't let it happen again. Not after..."
I looked at Caitlin, serene in sleep. It was hard not to see the corpse I'd thought she was.
I didn't get there in time. I'd let it happen to her.
I looked away, at a mercifully blank wall.
"I'm sorry, Caitlin. I never wanted to see you hurt. Not like this. I should have helped you sooner."
Once again, I lay back and closed my eyes. I couldn't look at her any more, but the image of her on the beach seemed burned into my retinas, eyes open or closed.
Shit. Sleep felt like a dream I barely remembered, while this was a nightmare I couldn't wake up from.
18
Took my clothes.
Tried to fight.
Threatened me.
Scared. Froze.
Cried.
Couldn't fight.
So cold.
Shivering and cold in the dark.
Two of them.
One laughing, one clinical.
Wanted someone to help, rescue me.
Superman?
No one else, only me.
Tears. Cold...
19
I paid little attention to the nurse in the room until she started to pull the curtains closed around Caitlin's bed, blocking my view of both of them.
"No," I said suddenly, hoisting myself off my bed and pushing the curtains open again.
The nurse glared at me, anonymous to me now that her name badge was obscured by the curta
in she held clenched in her hand. "I'm changing her dressings. Even if she has to share a room with you, she's entitled to some privacy."
She yanked the curtain shut again and I heard the rustle of latex and cardboard as she pulled out a pair of gloves. "Caitlin did her first practical placement for medical school in this ward and we all know her. She won't want some sleazy bastard staring at her as she sleeps." Her voice was low but loud enough for me to hear it.
I stepped into the area by Caitlin's bed, inside the curtains. "You know the last thing she said, before she passed out in the Emergency Department? She reminded me that I'd promised not to let anyone hurt her again." I stared back at the nurse. "Until she wakes up and tells me otherwise, I'm just keeping my promise. I'm not letting her out of my sight while you're here."
She raised her eyebrows and let out a snort of breath, but she didn't say another word to me. Pointedly ignoring me, the nurse snapped on her gloves and started opening the first of the large stack of dressing packs on Caitlin's bedside table. The first dressing she pulled off Caitlin's wrist revealed an open, ulcerated wound that looked painful.
That's where they tied her up. There was rope gouging into her skin, caked with her blood.
The nurse swabbed it with disinfectant. For a moment, the raw wound was hidden again as the disinfectant fumes stung my eyes and they started to water.
Caitlin tossed restlessly as soon as the nurse's hands touched her, mumbling something I couldn't hear. My eyes still burning, I had to move to her bedside to discern the words. "Please... you promised..." she whimpered.
At that, I dropped into the chair by her bed. I couldn't remember the last time I was this close to tears –