Welcome To Wherever You Are (44 page)

Tommy narrowed his eyes and laughed. ‘How bad
you
feel, Stuart? Really? So this is about how
you
feel, is it?’

‘No, no, that’s not what I meant,’ continued Jake, closing his eyes and growing frustrated with himself. ‘Tommy; Stuart Reynolds died as well that day. I don’t want to be the person I was then, and I’m not, I swear to you, I’m not. You know me, the real me.’

‘The real you is a coward who thinks a couple of months in a Buddhist temple means he’s absolved of all his sins. Well, newsflash, Stuart, you’re not. It’s nowhere near enough.’

Suddenly Jake’s emotions got the better of him and his eyes became watery. ‘Tommy, please . . .’ he begged and put his hand on Tommy’s arm.

‘Take that off me or so help me God, I will kill you.’

‘I understand why you’re upset.’

‘You have no idea what I am!’

When Tommy felt Jake’s fingers grip him tighter, Tommy pushed him hard in the shoulder. Desperate to prove to Tommy his sincerity, Jake tried to hold Tommy’s arm again, but Tommy punched him hard on the side of his face. Jake lost his balance and fell to the ground as Tommy winced at the pain in his knuckles and fingers.

‘Why did you run away?’ yelled Tommy. ‘Why did you just leave us?’

‘I wasn’t thinking straight,’ continued Jake, pulling himself up to his feet. ‘I didn’t think there was anything I could do to help.’

‘You couldn’t know that because you didn’t stay to find out.’

‘I know! I know! But Tommy, we can work our way through this, I know it won’t be easy, but I really believe we can if you just try. You have to give me a chance.’

‘You know what the most pathetic thing about all of this is, Stuart?’ Tommy wiped his eyes and sniffed up the mucus dripping from his nostrils. ‘Me. I’m the most pathetic thing because I thought if I couldn’t “be” you then maybe I could be “with” you. How fucking stupid is that? That I wanted to be with the person who destroyed my family.’

‘It’s not too late, I promise you.’

Tommy shook his head and glared at Jake. He had said everything he needed to say but he felt no better. Jake’s explanation hadn’t made a blind bit of difference and Tommy knew he must walk away now or risk his anger getting the better of him.

As he began to leave, Jake grabbed hold of his arm one last time. And it was all that was needed to tip Tommy over the edge. Tommy hit Jake again, missing his face and catching his neck. Jake staggered backwards and Tommy’s second blow caught him on the bridge of his nose. Both of them heard the bone pop. Neither the noise nor the pain in Tommy’s fist stopped him from raining more blows on Jake’s head as his adversary attempted to shield himself with his forearms. Jake refused to retaliate and staggered backwards into the railings while Tommy continued on autopilot, unleashing every drop of wrath and ferocity his body possessed until he was close to empty.

There they remained, rooted to the floorboards of the pier, exhausted, battered, bruised and breathing heavily before Jake finally spoke.

‘I love you, Tommy,’ he pleaded.

One final blow to the side of Jake’s head was all it took for him to topple backwards off the pier and into the choppy waters below.

‘He’s dead,’ came a voice in a measured tone.

Tommy stopped in his tracks, and turned around slowly to see Declan staring at the words
Welcome to Wherever You Are
on the poster in the hostel reception before him. Tommy’s mind raced ten to the dozen, trying to figure out how Declan could have known what had happened between him and Jake on the pier.

‘He’s dead,’ repeated Declan.

‘It wasn’t what it looked like,’ Tommy replied carefully. ‘It was an accident.’

‘He was my best mate.’

Tommy paused. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘Matty’s . . . gone. He’s . . . dead.’

‘Oh, Christ, I’m sorry.’ Tommy felt a combination of relief that his secret was safe and sympathy for Declan’s loss.

The diversity of Venice Beach’s occupants and visitors made the unusual, usual. So nobody who passed Declan carrying Matty’s body over his shoulder along the boardwalk had given the friends a second glance.

Once Declan had returned Matty to the security of the hostel and carefully laid his body on his bed, he was at a loss as what to do next, so he ventured through the silent corridors and back towards reception. There, he slumped to the floor and leant against a wall, entwining the fingers of both his hands together like he was in prayer. He fixated on the poster’s words and knew that without Matty by his side, Declan had no idea where he was.

Meanwhile Tommy was short of breath, having run the mile and a half from Santa Monica back to Venice, only stopping midway to prop himself up against a parking meter and to vomit into the road.

Over and over again, he replayed the two seconds it took for Jake to disappear over the pier’s railings and the heavy sound the water made when his body plunged into it. Tommy squinted into the dark waves below him, horrified by what he’d done, calling Jake’s name, not Stuart’s, but receiving no response. He sprinted the length of the pier and then back on himself across the beach, rushing waist high into the water shouting for Jake over and again. In desperation, he used the flashlight app on his phone, but it wasn’t powerful enough to illuminate more than a couple of metres ahead. And after a frantic fifteen minutes or so, he knew it was too late.

Tommy hurried back towards the beach party and his head swept from side to side, hoping against all hope to catch sight of a soaking wet Jake amongst the revellers, but he wasn’t anywhere to be seen. Suddenly feeling exposed and vulnerable, Tommy made the decision to return to the hostel.

It was only while he ran that Tommy noted the irony of his actions. He had followed the same path as Stuart Reynolds; rather than face up to a terrible mistake, contact the authorities and suffer the consequences, he’d taken the easy way out and simply run away. Nevertheless, by the time he reached the hostel entrance, he knew he was in too deep and had to clean up the mess he’d created.

‘Where is Matty now?’ Tommy asked Declan softly.

‘I put him in our room.’

‘Okay, well you come with me to the lounge and I’ll be back in a minute.’

After leading Declan to the sofa, Tommy made his way up the corridor to remove any trace of Jake from the hostel. He opened a cupboard door and grabbed a roll of plastic bin liners, deciding to hide Jake’s belongings in the alley dumpster for the following day’s collection. Then he would change the booking register so it looked like Jake had checked out midway through the beach party and continued with his travels.

But as he approached Jake’s room, the normally locked door was ajar.

Michael drove the first leg of his journey with Savannah for six hours straight, while she slept by his side in the passenger seat.

She used the handbag Michael had taken from her room as a pillow, and every so often, he placed two fingers on her wrist to check her pulse or turned the radio off just to hear her breathe – a sound he wasn’t sure he’d ever hear again after she vanished from his life.

When he’d bundled Savannah into his car, he’d briefly but gently informed her that Jane was a private investigator employed by Savannah’s father to track her down, befriend her and bring her home. Savannah was unsure whether it was that awful information or the sedatives in her bloodstream making her feel queasy. Most people have never been drugged once in their lifetime, she thought, and here she was with two incidents under her belt, each with differing end results.

A purple and orange patchwork of light began to illuminate the sky as the sun appeared from behind the hills ahead. Michael stretched out his fingers as straight as he could manage. They were healing nicely, he thought, although his orthopaedic hand specialist warned him they might never function as fully as they once did. Michael was grateful his university tutors had shown understanding about the ‘car accident’ that had rendered him useless as a potential surgeon, and for them permitting him to change courses when the following semester began.

The rush of fresh air coming in through the window finally woke Savannah. She stared at Michael, still in disbelief, like a child meeting Father Christmas.

‘It’s really you,’ she croaked. ‘I thought I was dreaming.’

‘Drink some water,’ he smiled, and passed her a bottle.

‘Where are we going?’

‘Well, I figured we could start in Arizona and we can decide from there.’

Savannah had so many questions, she wasn’t sure where to begin. ‘How did you know where to find me?’

‘Girl, you hid yourself well.’

Tommy held his breath and nervously opened the door to Jake’s room.

Inside it was empty of Jake’s belongings, leaving just a stripped bed. Tommy realised Jake must have survived his fall, returned to the hostel before him and cleared out.

‘You’re alive,’ thought Tommy, and let out a long sigh of relief. He covered his face with his hands, rubbed his sore eyes and let out a deep breath.

Tommy had teased Jake for being a neatness freak and always keeping his belongings packed away in his rucksack, but now he understood Jake was preparing for a moment just like this; for when his past and his present collided and he needed to escape them both.

Tommy’s eyes looked around the room for any trace of Jake and focused on an open locker. From inside, he removed a silver bracelet and a scrap of paper.

‘
What we are never changes, Tommy
,’ it read, ‘
but who we are never stops changing. Remember me better than I am. Jake
.’

As much as he hated Stuart Reynolds, a significant part of Tommy was already missing Jake. Now he understood that Stuart’s death wouldn’t have brought him any closer to closure, but Jake Bellamy’s purpose in Tommy’s life was to help set Tommy free. But in doing so, it meant Jake had chosen to keep running, forever trapped in a moment of madness from his past.

Tommy turned the bracelet over and read the engraving, ‘
Don’t look back
.’ He wouldn’t, he promised himself. Then he slipped the bracelet onto his wrist to remind himself how one reckless moment can change everything you thought you knew about yourself.

*

Twenty minutes after Tommy dialled 911, an ambulance arrived outside the hostel’s entrance to take Matty’s body away to Santa Monica’s UCLA Medical Center.

Declan followed the stretcher on which his friend’s body lay from their room, along the corridor, down the stairs and into the back of the vehicle.

Many of the other guests who’d returned from the beach party quickly sobered up at the sight, and stood in a silent line of respect as one of their own embarked on his final journey.

Savannah couldn’t take her eyes off Michael as he drove.

The only thing that looked different about him was a concave scar in the centre of his forehead, and she shuddered when she recalled the sound her father’s mallet had made when it collided with Michael’s skull.

She listened intently as Michael drove and explained how he’d searched for her everywhere he could think of back in Montgomery, Alabama, but to no avail. Then, just when he was about to reluctantly give up, he received an unexpected email from Savannah’s sister Roseanna.

He agreed to meet the desperate-sounding girl in a busy shopping centre where she tearfully revealed everything she knew about the whereabouts of her sister in Los Angeles, gleaned from flirting with one of her father’s young assistants. The boy explained that Reverend Devereaux had put up a $250,000 reward to find his daughter, and several private detective agencies were fighting to be the first to bring her home. They’d all begun at the Montgomery Greyhound station where she’d purchased a bus ticket to LA using his credit card.

There were more than 400 hotels of varying size in the city, and with her father freezing her bank accounts, her hunters assumed all Savannah had in her possession was the money she’d stolen from his wallet. And as that wouldn’t stretch far, she’d need a place to stay that was basic and affordable.

That narrowed the field down to around 120 motels. One agency’s team was deployed to the city to visit all the cheap dives and boltholes with photographs of the missing Savannah, but with no success. Another hired a personality profiler who normally tracked down serial killers to build up a picture of her likely pattern of behaviour. Based on her hobbies, talents, skills and qualifications and a need to keep a low profile, they narrowed her potential line of work down to three cash-in-hand jobs where few questions were asked – waitress, prostitute or exotic dancer. And at the Flesh For Fantasy strip club, they’d found their target.

The Reverend showed no loyalty to any of those hunting his kin, and was happy to pass on updates from one detective agency to another. So one tried the softly, softly approach and paid one of Savannah’s colleagues a $1,000 tip to drug her water bottle with Rohypnol. But when Savannah realised something didn’t feel right, she hurriedly left the changing room and then fell into the path of a stranger’s car. The next morning Savannah had disappeared, quitting her job.