Swell (Complete)

Chapter Thirty (Part Two)

"It don't matter where I'm falling,
Cause I can't get my mind right,
I need to pull it together if there's no one to catch me."

....

By the time the Taylors arrived in their old hometown it was dark. Will had spent the hours disconnected from his family and focussing on the music in his Bluetooth headphones. He'd felt Marti's head resting on his shoulder the whole trip and saw her hand in Tom's when he occasionally glanced away from the window.
He couldn't put words to how he felt in those hours; driving towards a death that had been weeks old, but unknown of. He felt nauseated at the fact he'd started to move on and leave Elissa behind, dead in a shallow grave.
It wasn't their fault, he continually tried to tell himself.
There had been a note that had taken them all into the trick, and they still didn't know if she had left willingly to start with.
He wanted to pretend she had, it made the guilt easier to deal with.
He wanted to pretend they knew she had left with someone by her own choice, and then something had gone wrong; she had been tricked, or they'd fought, and the other person had overpowered her and left her for dead.
But the truth was that they had no idea.

If she had been tricked from the first moments, she'd been abducted and murdered.
And he'd left her there, not worrying at all.
No, that was a lie, he had worried. He'd struggled to stop thinking about her when they first moved.
He still struggled to think about the present and the future.
"We'll go to the station first thing tomorrow, we're booked in to speak to some officers." His mother broke through the music in his headphones as they arrived at the hotel.
They'd booked 2 rooms, one with two single beds and one with a queen bed and a fold out couch.
The twins were meant to have the two singles, and Marti would be sleeping with her parents.
Will took his headphones off, folded them up and put them into their case. He felt as though he should be looking at a wet world, but they'd left the rain in Wheeler Falls.
Ritchieville was dark, but dry. He felt a deep sense of foreboding as he got out of the car and went to the back to get his bag.
This was wrong, he shouldn't be here to be questioned about his ex-girlfriend's murder, he shouldn't be here at all. Elissa should be alive and happy, wherever she would have been.
"I want to share with Will." Marti spoke up.
Mrs Taylor was heading to the reception to get the keys, Tom and Mr Taylor were picking up the other bags.
"Alright." Tom said as he slung Marti's bag over his shoulder. "I'll share with Mum and Dad, makes sense to me." He gave Will a soft look and Will twitched a smile towards him.
Marti might want to talk her grief out, Will had been hoping he could remain in his world of music and conversational silence as long as he shared with Tom.
He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. The air was sticky and thick; it felt more like summer air than winter air. A chill ran down his spine and he felt Marti loop her arm around his.
Closeness was the last thing Will felt like, but because it was Marti, and she had lost Elissa too, he didn't try and fight it.

"Will, what do you think they'll ask us tomorrow?" Marti's voice was thick and insecure; it broke his heart as he flicked the doona across the bed.
"I don't know." He replied, giving her woeful smile. "I suppose when we last saw her, what was said, whether we thought she left of her own will or not." He felt his throat shrinking as he thought about his answers.
They'd been surprised by the note, and the presence of her violin still in her room, they'd so easily believed she had suddenly left them. It had never even crossed their minds that she'd been taken.
Why would it?
Kidnapping and murder weren't things that happened to people they knew.
Yet, Brett had almost been murdered not long after they'd moved to Wheeler Falls.
Will frowned as he thought about that. He sat down on his bed and watched Marti check her phone before lying down in her bed beside his.
The room was simple; a TV, DVD player, small kitchenette, a table, the two single beds with three bedside tables; one between them and one of the other side of each bed.
Marti looked at him in the lamplight and he gave her a weak smile.
"I don't want to be here, Will. I don't want to be suspected of hurting Elissa. I loved her, like you did." She muttered.
"I know. We don't have a choice, Marti, by answering the questions we might give something to help them find out what really happened."
"What do you think happened? Do you think she left at all? Or do you think she was tricked and kidnapped?"
Will rolled onto his back and stared at the roof. He hoped she'd left; he didn't really want to think of Liss' last moments of life.
Taped up, buried, left alone and exposed.
Abandoned as he had thought she'd done to him.
He'd let her die by believing she would leave them so easily.
He should have known.
"Will?"
"I don't know." He whispered thickly.
"Do you think it was slow? That she suffered?" Marti kept talking, but he wanted her to stop.
"Marti, I don't want to think about it. Tomorrow will be hard enough without adding these thoughts to our minds." His voice was low and shaky, betraying the burning in his eyes.
Had Liss suffered?
They still hadn't been told the official cause of death; just that she had been found taped up and buried in a shallow grave.
Had the murderer buried her alive?
Will felt a burn slide from the corner of his eye along his temple.
"You're right, sorry." Marti whispered and turned the lamp between them off.
He closed his eyes in the darkness and tried to breathe steadily.
"I love you, Will." He heard her whisper across the space between them.
He sniffed quietly and nodded against his pillow.
"I love you too, Marti." He replied.