Chapter Twenty-Nine

Cursing her fumbling fingers, Rebecca finally pushed the key into the heavy lock. ‘Matthew!’ she shouted again, desperately, hopelessly. There’d been so much blood, too much. And the rope. That thing had said … Dear God. Rebecca’s stomach turned over.

He wasn’t answering. Because he couldn’t hear her, she groped for some small spark of reassurance. Because of the noises inside, ear-piercing, heart-shattering. Her baby laughing. Becky would know Lily’s voice anywhere. Matthew laughing with her. Rebecca had seen the video playing in the background as she’d been forced to watch her husband brought sickeningly to his knees. How long had they played it? How many times over had they subjected him to this slow, cruel torture?

Foreboding at what she might find on the other side of the door ratcheting her fear to a suffocating level, she faltered for a split second and then, her hand visibly shaking, she pressed down the handle and shoved the heavy door open.

Stepping inside, her eyes immediately darted to the rope. It swung, ominously, chillingly, from side to side, casting grotesque shadows on the blood-spattered wall beyond it. Ghosts in the shape of Sullivan. Rebecca clamped her eyes closed. ‘Matthew?’ She squeezed his name past the sharp lump in her throat and took another step – and then froze.

Her legs almost gave way as Matthew spoke behind her. ‘I heard you,’ he said, his voice shaky and raw with emotion. ‘Out there. I heard you. The monitor. I heard … the shot. I …’

Apprehension clutching at her insides, Rebecca whirled around as he trailed off.

‘I thought …’ Clearly struggling, Matthew stopped again, dragging an arm across his eyes, attempting to compose himself, as only Matthew would. Hiding his tears, always ashamed of his self-perceived weaknesses. A legacy of a childhood spent at the hands of a merciless bully, a sick, twisted individual, who’d pursued him into adulthood, even invading his dreams. His arm was drenched in blood. Becky glanced down, quickly trying to evaluate his physical injuries. In his hand, the scalpel he’d used. Intended to use again? On himself? Whoever came through the door? His bare torso was slicked red. The shirt he’d used as a compress on his wounded arm saturated crimson. His pallor the colour of death itself.

‘Mia?’ he asked hoarsely, bracing himself, as she moved towards him. He was shivering. Every limb in his body seemed to be trembling. He was unsteady, swaying on his feet, his eyes unfocussed, his strong features etched with so much undiluted pain, Rebecca felt she might break down and weep his tears for him.

‘With Ashley,’ she quickly reassured him. ‘Just outside. They’re all right.’

Matthew nodded, the relief flooding his face palpable. ‘Steve?’ He looked at her now as if he hardly dared hope.

‘He’s alive, but I’m not sure how badly he’s injured,’ Rebecca answered honestly. She stopped him as he moved towards the door. ‘The police are here. Paramedics too. They’ll look after him.’

Again, Matthew nodded. His expression was now one of overriding guilt, but he seemed to accept that his friend was in safe hands.

‘The shot?’ he asked, scanning her eyes, attempting to process his thoughts, to weigh up the situation. Rebecca could tell from the flash of unmistakable white-hot fury in his own where his thoughts were leading him.

‘A police marksman. She’s wounded. Still alive.’ Rebecca took another step towards him, willing him to stay still, to not react, as she knew his instincts would drive him to. His features were now taut, tension and anger emanating from him. Whatever was going through his mind, he needed physical help. Now.

Matthew, though, simply nodded again and took a step back. His cheek twitched, once, indicating the irrepressible agitation she knew so well. ‘Not for long,’ he said, the look in his eyes darkening to pure murder. ‘I’m sorry,’ he added thickly, glancing down and back. Then, his jaw locked determinedly, he moved to walk past her.

‘Matthew?’ Rebecca turned to follow him. ‘You’ve lost so much blood. You need help.’

Matthew didn’t answer. Instead, he appeared to debate for a second, before placing the scalpel on the tray, which housed the tools with which he was supposed to end his own life, picked up what appeared to be a syringe, and headed towards the door. His stride was firm, despite his weakened condition. Purposeful, as he headed across the open area of the basement towards the room they’d held Mia in. The room Connor still held the gun in, Rebecca realised, a new kind of fear gripping her. ‘Matthew!’ she shouted, going after him.

Matthew’s step didn’t falter.

He was functioning on adrenalin. One aim driving him. To stamp out the evil that had dogged his whole life. Destroy the inhuman person who’d dared hurt his baby, his family. Rid the world of Sullivan and his vile legacy once and for all.

Seeing Connor sitting stupefied against a wall, the gun resting between his legs, he didn’t pause, but strode straight over to where Taylor Sullivan sat propped against the playpen, nursing a wound to her arm.

‘Stand up,’ Matthew grated furiously, stopping in front of her, looming over where she now cowered looking up at him. He was a grim sight, Matthew supposed, covered in his own fucking blood. ‘Up!’ he yelled. ‘Now!’

‘I have a witness, Adams,’ she said shakily, dragging her hand under her snivelling nose. ‘Anything you do to me—’

Trying and failing to control the rage broiling inside him, his chest damn near to exploding, Matthew emitted a roar that gave vent to the pain in his soul and then reached down to drag the woman up. Twisting the fabric at the neck of her top tight, he yanked her towards him, heaving her upwards, until she was eyeball to eyeball with him, then, ‘I have something to numb the pain,’ he seethed. ‘Poetic justice, don’t y’think?’

‘Don’t,’ she said, her terrified gaze sliding downwards, as he pressed the syringe under her chin. He might not hit the jugular, but Matthew guessed it would do the job adequately. ‘Please don’t.’

His breathing irregular, tight with ill-suppressed rage, Matthew pressed the syringe closer, every fibre of his being willing him to pump the stuff into her system. ‘Are you begging?’ he asked.

‘Yes!’ Her eyes were petrified, wide and tearful. ‘Please, don’t do it.’

‘Right.’ Matthew smiled wryly. ‘So, tell me, did you show any compassion, Taylor,’ he repeated another of her taunting phrases back to her, ‘when you killed Natalie? When you hurt my daughter? Tried to destroy my family?’

Taylor studied him for a second, seeming to be searching for an answer. ‘You hurt me,’ she said pathetically. ‘You destroyed my family.’

Matthew swallowed back his contempt. He’d played this game before. His whole life, on one continuous loop. He was just like one of the rodents he’d been locked in with, a rat on a wheel and, no matter how hard he ran, he would never shake off the spectre of Sullivan.

‘Quid pro quo?’ sick to his stomach, he repeated another phrase he’d heard over and over, from the mouth of her psychopathic father.

She nodded. ‘That’s right.’

Battling the demons that he knew would dog him for the rest of his life if he did this, Matthew twisted the fabric of her top tighter. She held his gaze. Matthew didn’t look away. Even catching the gun-wielding figure moving into his peripheral vision, Connor, he guessed, hearing the uniforms yelling as they came into the room, at him, at Preston in turn to drop the weapon, he didn’t look away. He needed to know. He needed to see. Was there an ounce of humanity in there?

‘Do it then,’ she said, her gaze gliding confidently in the direction of Connor, and then back to him, a smile of victory curving her mouth. ‘Go on, Adams. Let’s see if you’ve got the balls.’

Press it. Matthew tensed his arm, his thumb poised, ready to send this bitch back to hell.

Her eyes grew wider as the first shot pierced the standoff. She jolted physically as the second shot hit her. Matthew watched, as the triumph gave way to surprise, and then indisputable pain. Instinctively, he caught her as she wilted, supporting her as her legs crumpled beneath her. Going down with her as she slid to the ground, her head resting on his knees, he took a second to assimilate, to realise that it had been Connor who’d shot, and then, again, instinctively, sympathetically – he had no idea why – he pressed his hand to the gaping wound in her side.

Blinking dazedly, she looked up at him. There was no hatred there now, no malevolence or bitterness. Only unadulterated fear. Fear Matthew had witnessed before, felt before. Felt now, on a daily basis. ‘I’m going to die, aren’t I?’ she asked him.

Glancing briefly at Connor, noting the gun he’d dropped to his side, the officers moving in on him, Matthew kept his focus on her. He saw the bubble of blood at her mouth. ‘There are uniforms here,’ he said as the certain spray of death spattered his torso. ‘Paramedics too.’

She nodded weakly, though he doubted she was reassured. ‘You look a bit like my dad, you know?’ she said, searching his face.

‘I’m flattered.’ With monumental effort, Matthew smiled and told her what she needed to hear. ‘He was a good-looking bloke.’ If a sick, twisted bastard.

She smiled a small smile back. ‘I’m sorry about your little girl. Will she be all right?’ She coughed, another telling spray of red speckling Matthew’s chest.

He hesitated. ‘She’s young, strong,’ he offered, after a second. ‘She’ll forget in all probability.’ Matthew prayed that she would. ‘We’ll make sure to keep her safe.’

Taylor closed her eyes, a single tear escaping the corner of one to slide slowly sideways down her cheek. ‘I know,’ she said. ‘She’s lucky.’

Matthew doubted she was, with him for a father.

‘I wouldn’t really have hurt her. I had a baby once, did you know that?’ she asked, looking woozily back at him. ‘No, of course, you wouldn’t,’ she added as Matthew studied her, confounded.

‘I was pregnant when my dad died. He didn’t know. He’d have gone ballistic.’ She laughed, and coughed, and winced. ‘He would have looked after me though. He always did, you know?’

Matthew nodded. ‘I know,’ he said throatily, realising that, in his own perverse way, Sullivan had cared for her. No matter the devastating impact on her life of what he did for a living, he had cared for his daughter. Were they really that dissimilar?

‘A little girl. She died too,’ Taylor went on, a deep sadness in her eyes Matthew would never have imagined he’d see. ‘I think it was probably my fault. They said it wasn’t, but I didn’t look after myself very well. Didn’t go for my checks or anything. I know I should have.’

Feeling something touch the very core of him, Matthew glanced briefly upwards. ‘I doubt it was your fault,’ he tried to reassure her, working to contain a quite different emotion to the one he’d had just a short while ago. ‘Think about it, babies get born and survive in the bleakest of circumstances. God takes the best first.’

She smiled at that, then frowned. ‘Do you believe in God?’

‘I do.’ Matthew nodded adamantly, though he really wasn’t sure that he did.

‘It was probably just as well he did take her. I don’t think I’d have known how to be a mum. I never really had one.’ She coughed again, painfully, and looked beseechingly back at him.

Knowing she didn’t have long, Matthew felt compelled to reach for her hand.

Seeming comforted, she squeezed it. ‘I wouldn’t have known what to do with a baby on my own,’ she went on, her words becoming more slurred as she spoke. ‘My boyfriend dumped me. My dad was right, they are all only after one thing. He said I was beautiful, you know, my dad.’

‘He was right,’ Matthew assured her. ‘You are.’ She was. Most definitely. Beautiful on the outside, broken on the inside.

‘Yeah,’ her mouth curved briefly upwards. ‘Being beautiful is a curse, I reckon. That’s why I cut my hair off. I missed him,’ she said, the light in her eyes fading. ‘Still miss …’

Eyes vacant. Matthew swallowed hard. Life extinct.

Aware of the commotion now in the background, the police officers manhandling Preston out, blue lights rotating ominously outside, Matthew stayed where he was. Closing her eyelids over her empty eyes, he studied her features. Bereft of the tortured spirit that drove her, the woman looked peaceful, angelic almost, untroubled. Girl, he reminded himself, recalling the young age her violent actions had belied. An innocent child once, untarnished by life, the corruptness that lurked in all walks of life, she’d been severely damaged inside. Wounded, like him. His wounds had scarred over, allowing him to function, appear normal, to fit in. Hers had been too deep, wide open, debilitating. Dependent on the cards life dealt them, were any of them ever really that different?

‘Matthew?’ He heard Becky say his name, as if from a distance, though she was only yards away. He felt a hand on his shoulder, tried to focus on Davies as he crouched beside him.

‘Steve’s on his way to the hospital,’ he said, his tone quiet, his eyes deeply troubled as he scanned Matthew’s. ‘He has an open skull fracture.’

Matthew was focussed now, his emotions descending again into freefall.

‘It doesn’t appear to be a depressed fracture,’ Davies added quickly. ‘Given his medical history though, he’ll be thoroughly checked out.’

Understanding, Matthew nodded. He didn’t feel capable of formulating actual words.

‘Come on, you can’t do any good here,’ Davies said, squeezing his shoulder and urging him up.

Matthew allowed himself to be helped to his feet by Davies and an assisting paramedic, while Davies instructed an officer to attend to the deceased. Taylor Sullivan. She had a name, more than one. Matthew doubted she’d ever had an identity. Davies was right. He couldn’t seem to do any good anywhere.

‘Your family needs you,’ Davies said, nodding him towards Becky, who still stood uncertainly inside the door, watching, waiting, always watching and waiting, for signs he wasn’t coping. For him to talk to her, instead of bottling things up. For him to hit the bloody bottle. Always ready to pick up the pieces. She looked petrified, dark circles under her eyes, her face chalk white, no bright spots on her cheeks. Still, she was beautiful. Her glorious flame-coloured hair, tumbling carelessly over her shoulders, her clothes covered in his blood, still she looked desirable. And strong. Petite though she was, she seemed to have a rod of iron running right through her. It would break. One day, she wouldn’t be able to pull herself up. To take any more crap. Crap that was heaped on her shoulders because of him. She couldn’t take any more. Hadn’t she told him as much? He hadn’t wanted to hear them, wished he’d never heard the words she’d spoken from the heart at the hospital, but still his mind played them over, I can’t do this, Matthew! Don’t you understand? I can’t! I don’t want to!

He’d promised himself he’d do the right thing. He now knew what that was.

‘Matthew?’ she said, coming towards him, and then stopping, leaving a small but significant gap between them. Matthew couldn’t blame her for that. ‘Please go with the paramedics,’ she said, her gorgeous aquamarine eyes glassy with tears.

Christ. Matthew breathed in. Did she even have to worry about whether he’d do that?

‘You need help,’ she said, searching his face.

Swallowing, Matthew nodded. ‘I know,’ he admitted, more to himself than to the woman he’d idiotically shut out of his life while he tried to mend his own wounds. Cautiously, he stepped towards her, ready to back away if she flinched at his touch, and then he reached out, cupping her face in his hand to stroke the tears from her cheek with his thumb.

She cried too many tears over him. Easing her towards him, he felt something shift inside as she rested her head on his shoulder. Breathing in the familiar, intoxicating scent of the woman he loved with every fibre of his being, Matthew dropped a soft kiss to the top of her head. ‘I won’t cause you any more hurt, Becky,’ he promised quietly.

Ashley came through the cubicle curtains as Matthew was getting ready to leave. They’d wanted to keep him in for observation, but he needed to be elsewhere. Steve was conscious, he’d been informed, cracking jokes about how Lindsey would be making room for him in the doghouse. That would be Steve. Matthew needed to see him. He needed to go and see Lindsey, make sure the man’s wife, his pregnant wife, was provided for while Steve was hospitalised. Again. Thanks to him. What he’d do beyond that, other than check on Kristen and then collect the lock of hair from the cemetery he felt bereft without, Matthew wasn’t thinking about. Didn’t dare allow himself to think about home and Becky and whether she’d get through the aftermath of what had happened. How the hell she had stayed with a useless bastard like him was the only question he’d asked himself over. Still, he had no answer.

Nevertheless, the first question on his lips was, ‘How are they?’

‘Good,’ Ashley said, eyeing him guardedly as he hurriedly pulled on the shirt one of the nurses had offered him from lost property. ‘They want to keep Mia in overnight, but they’re both doing okay. Becky’s staying with her, obviously.’

Matthew nodded and glanced at her. ‘How are you doing, Ash?’

Ashley shrugged, in that non-committal way she did. ‘I’m okay.’

Still the same old Ashley, Matthew thought, looking her over, pretending to the world she was fine, when she was hurting like hell underneath, and probably as depressed and bewildered as he was, as Becky was. After almost losing another child, all down to him, again, she was bound to be that. He should be there for her, for all of them. First, though, he had to get his thinking straight. Starting with not thinking about his own needs. If his being there physically was detrimental to his family’s wellbeing, then he couldn’t be. He doubted he’d be staying on the force, but there would always be other people with grudges against him, scores to settle. No, he couldn’t take any more risks where his family was concerned.

‘Are you going to see her?’

Matthew hesitated. ‘Do you think she really wants to see me?’

Ashley folded her arms and rolled her eyes, unimpressed. ‘Oh, dear, we are feeling sorry for ourself, aren’t we?’

‘No,’ Matthew assured her, then winced as he attempted his shirt buttons.

‘Here, let me,’ Ashley offered, walking over to him.

‘Thanks. I can manage.’ Matthew tried another button, but the hand of his injured arm just wouldn’t oblige.

‘’Course you can. God forbid anyone might doubt it.’ Sighing, Ashley reached for his buttons anyway. ‘So, are you going to see them?’ she asked, glancing curiously up at him from under her eyelashes.

Matthew sighed in turn. ‘She might need some space, Ash,’ he tried to explain. ‘After all that’s happened …’ He trailed off. He really didn’t want to bring the sex video up. The implications of that alone would be enough for any woman. Add to that the fact that he was emotionally challenged, to say the least, a selfish bastard who’d refused to seek the help he’d needed, insisting on carrying on with his job. Even if she hadn’t meant what she’d said, Becky would be mad to want to pick up where they left off.

‘Right.’ Ashley’s forehead knitted itself into a scowl as she peered at his shirt. ‘Call me stupid, but don’t you think Becky might be the best judge of that?’

Matthew ran his good hand through his hair, frustrated. ‘Possibly not.’

Finishing off the buttons at the neck, a little too tightly, Ashley now gave him a majorly unimpressed look. ‘Good job Becky didn’t hear that.’

Matthew’s mouth twitched into a small smile. He had to agree it probably was. ‘Do you honestly think she needs to be with someone whose only success in life is monumentally balls … messing things up, Ashley?’ he asked her, unfairly. She didn’t need this, not now; if only she hadn’t chosen that moment to come in and check on him. ‘Someone who’s been so selfish and obsessed with his job, he’s put his family at risk, twice?’

‘Yeah, right.’ There went the eyes again, sky high this time. ‘Then you messed up really badly and saved your family’s lives, twice. Three times, in my case. And as for my mum, she’d definitely be dead if not for you, or well on the way to being.’

Matthew got what she was saying, but it didn’t excuse his preoccupation with himself, did it? Nothing could undo the horrors they’d been through. Sighing, he turned to the bedside cabinet to pick up his meds.

‘Don’t you think your perspective might be a little skewed, Matthew?’ Ashley asked despairingly.

‘Definitely.’ Matthew had to agree there too.

Ashley sighed, audibly, and then, ‘She loves you, Matthew,’ she said firmly. ‘Yes, she thinks you’re a right pain in the bum sometimes, doing your macho “I don’t need anyone” thing, but she loves you.’

Matthew shook his head. She just wasn’t getting that loving him, if ever she could after all this, was a major risk to Becky’s health. ‘I will go and see her,’ he said, turning back, ‘as soon as I’ve—’

‘Had a medicinal drink?’ Ashley suggested, hitting him where it hurt.

‘Got my thoughts straight. Given Becky time to think. I won’t go far and not without leaving a message for her. I won’t be drinking.’ Matthew looked Ashley over. A beautiful young woman, she was all grown up now. Not quite, he reminded himself, watching as she retreated under her curtain of hair, as she tended to when she wasn’t getting her own way. Also, when she was scared, he reminded himself too. Whatever happened, he would make sure to be there for all of them, even if it had to be from a distance.

Walking across to her, he hugged her to him. ‘I’m not going far,’ he repeated adamantly. ‘You’re stuck with me whether you like it or not.’ Getting no reaction, he sighed inwardly and headed for the cubicle curtain before his courage failed him.

Ashley stopped him short. ‘Lily loves you too,’ she said quietly.

Tugging in a tight breath, Matthew turned towards her. ‘Don’t, Ashley,’ he said, pressing his thumb and forefinger hard against his forehead. She had issues, Matthew knew that. She probably meant well, might even have thought that one of the voices she heard in her head was Lily, but this was definitely hitting where it hurt most. ‘Just … don’t.’

‘She said to give you a message,’ Ashley went on regardless, possibly trying to make him change his mind, see that she needed him, but Christ this was too much. ‘She said to tell you you’re not useless.’

What? Matthew stared at her, incredulous. She couldn’t know. How could she possibly know the words that had never been anywhere other than spoken a long time ago, or floating hauntingly around in his head?

Ashley turned to him, looking at him from under her hair, her eyes now definitely guarded. ‘She said you’re the only one who thinks that.’

She studied him for a second, as Matthew continued to stare at her, too stunned to speak, then, ‘From the mouths of babes,’ she said, walking past him. ‘If you leave now, then useless is exactly what you’re being, Matthew.’