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I found the approximate place near the tower, and made a path through the shrub, crackling over leaves and snapping twigs. The minutes ticked by as I searched, trying not to get my eyes poked out. This shrub had it in for me. I’d have to wear a long-sleeved shirt to breakfast to hide the scratches.
Cassius had sounded disbelieving when I’d told him it was buried somewhere impossible to get at without being seen, but after a day, he’d stopped pestering me. It was possible that he, too, had become unsure about whether he wanted to know the truth.
Finally, I found the phone at the very base of the tower, tucked into a pile of leaves.
If I discovered anything that incriminated the doctor, everything might be upturned.
By everything, I meant us.
And by incriminated, I reminded myself, I meant women being murdered. I needed not to be a dumb ass.
I clutched the phone to my chest as I wriggled out of the death claws of the shrubbery, then plucked the last of the leaves and twigs from my hair and clothes. The screen of the cellphone was blank, and the battery was on zero charge, but the charger upstairs should revive this by morning. I could read the pages I’d photographed at the beach, at the hut, in peace.
“You’d better have something worth it inside you,” I whispered.
If he’d taken the trouble to hide that book, before allowing us into the Inner Sanctum, it must have something good inside it. I prayed it was something that would prove he wasn’t killing the lost girls.
Proving a negative would be difficult.
I frowned. It was late. I was way past being at my best mentally and too sleep deprived to be optimistic. Tomorrow was another day. Though right now it was tomorrow, I reminded myself, as I opened the door to my…to our bedroom.
It was so fucking quiet in here.
My heart stuttered as I stared into the darkness at the familiar shapes of the furniture. Nobody jumped out and tasered me this time. I fell into bed, drew up the sheets, and…
Sleep.
* * *
The day was swarming with rain, again. I could hear the patter on the roof and the windows before I rose from the bed.
Nevertheless, I was determined. I ate breakfast, packed, and headed for Rose Bay with the charged-up phone. Tomorrow the men would return. Today I could try diving, if there was a break in the clouds and the sun shone onto the tower and the bay. There were the secrets of the diary that wasn’t really a diary, to be read—all two hundred plus tiny photos of its pages and some of them would be out of focus.
The rain was heavy enough to make me need to sprint into the beach hut when I arrived, backpack stuffed with everything, including the chef-made lunch. I could just see myself explaining this abduction and island lifestyle to a cop—yes, officer, I ate lobster mornay twice, and the pastries were to die for.
I sighed at the morose sky and at the rain obscuring the beach and pouring onto the clearing out front of the hut—I couldn’t even see the cliff where the tower lay from here. Water streamed off the edge of the roof and pooled on the sandy soil. The sun lounges looked miserable, and I knew the car was getting drenched due to the lack of proper sides.
I could wait. The afternoon might be clear.
I dried my feet, pulled over a dusty, but intact, leather chair and positioned it in the gap where the front door had once existed. The chair groaned and puffed out air when I sat but failed to collapse. I opened the phone then the photos app, pursed my mouth at the god-awful teensy handwriting in the first pic. I was going to hate reading by the time this was done.
This must be all in the doctor’s hand.
I leafed through to where the writing began, then started slowly by reading every word. After a while I began to skim. This could have been a diary in the earlier sections, but the doctor lapsed into history and the story told was perhaps part true history, part fiction. I knew he loved books and history, and he seemed to be stretching his authorly muscles here. The wars and battles were fairly well described, but if there was meant to be a plot to each section of history, he lost me.
I plunged onward, found a few philosophical questions asked that he pondered. Some echoed what he’d said to Cassius and me.War is hell, someone had once said.
I could not agree more.
Soldiers killed, but is it murder? Is murder hell too? Probably.
For a diary this was back-to-front in the progression of dates.
He drifted through the Middle Ages, wandered across many of the countries of Europe, portrayed wars and village life, even went into how big city life in ye olde London town might have been. Greece, Italy, and their history in AD times had a large mention, and Rome? Rome and the Roman fucking Empire was the final part where he went on about man’s search for the gods and for immortality, and for forgiveness for sins.
What would Mankind do with Immortality?
That was a title at the top of one page. Skimming again, then reading in depth, I discovered the doctor thought mankind—ignoring the women there, doc—would probably do something awful with it. Would only the rich get to have it? What if to buy immortality you had to pay in some terrible coin? Not your soul exactly, but with dark deeds.
