The Broken Ones: Chapter Ten

Chapter Ten: Trust

(Adam)
I left Sarah early that morning, she was fast asleep. And although Janice Kerr had told me to leave it a couple of days, I had to know what was going on in my head. I had to coax it out! I sat on the couch, she reluctantly hypnotised me again, and I was back in the street watching Mark and John. "You're watching them, they're arguing, what do you see?" Janice asked me.

"Mark is all over him, he's trying to...oh fuck!"

"What is it Adam? What do you see?"

"He's fucking all over him, he's kissing him...his sister's husband, the bastard!"

"John pushes him, he's on the ground, Mark's yelling that he loves him!"

"Do you want to stop?"

"No, no, John tells him it's over, to leave him alone he's with Sarah...he tells Mark he was a mistake, a nasty unnatural mistake!"

"I feel sick..."

"I head home..."
"Do you drive?"
"No, I can't find my car! I just walk, it takes me forever!"

"I'm back home, Holly is there she's...she's crying and trying to talk to me but...I pass out!"
"Okay Adam, well done!"

I sat downstairs, fully dressed, thinking how I was going to come clean to Sarah. I heard her yawning loudly and padding down the stairs.

"Adam?" She called out my name, then she spotted me, sitting there in deep thought. "Oh there you are!"

She sat straddled on my knee and kissed me slowly and tenderly. I had to tell her, sooner rather than later. "Mmm, you want some breakfast?" She mumbled, giving me numerous tiny pecks all over my face.
"Yeah, great, sounds good!" I replied flatly, trying to shake out of the fog she'd thrown me in.

"Sarah? I have something I need to tell you, and I think you'll hate me!"
"Is it about John? Have you found something?" Her green eyes bore into mine, and I had to look away, I blushed and felt a knot in my stomach.

"Sort of, I have to confess something...I..."
"Come on Adam, it can't be that bad. Surely?" She laughed nervously and rolled off of my lap, sitting next to me.

"Sarah I lied to you!" She looked rather startled, "I told you I worked with John when actually I never had."
"Oh!" She squeaked, still looking into my eyes.
"Yeah, I...well I've never met John, I came here because I thought...that I'd killed...him!" She let out a stunned, breathy laugh and her eyes were like saucers.

"You...you...what?"
"The night I caught Holly and Billy together, was the night that John died. I thought I'd gone out and got drunk, drove my car home and hit John on the way there. I saw his picture in the paper...and that's when the flashbacks started! I had no recollection of that night, so I put two and two together...and made five!"

"Sarah I didn't kill him though, I know that now but there's something else you need to know..." She shuffled back a bit to put more distance between us, she looked horrified. "John met up with Mark that night, and they argued. It was a major bust up and...well...I've been seeing a regression therapist and I now know why John is so familiar...because I saw him that night! Before I headed home!"
"You...saw...my John?"
"Yes." She called him her John, for the first time in a long time, and it hurt my heart. Even though I had no right to be upset, or hurt, because he was her husband and I...

...I was a liar! "So you never worked at the call centre?"
"No."
"And you came here, why?"
"To tell you I killed John, to confess to you before handing myself in. I thought you needed to know but when you answered the door I...well I bottled it, and thank God I did because it wasn't me Sarah, I didn't do it! I should have known that I didn't, because when I went to pick up my car the next day, there were no dents, no blood...nothing! But I panicked when I saw the newspaper article a few days later." She stood up and wore out the floor with her pacing.
"It took you a whole six months?" It sounded stupid, and totally ridiculous when she put it like that.
"I...I was scared, I tried to forget but the guilt...it wouldn't go away!"

I followed her as she paced and grabbed her arm, then she stopped. "Was all of this...a lie?"
"No!"
"Did you fuck me to get what you wanted? Did you get a kick out of screwing the merry widow?"
"NO! Sarah, I love you! I never, ever lied about that. My feelings were, and are, genuine!" She looked at me then, with damp eyes.
"I felt the way you loved me, up there!" She pointed to the bedroom upstairs. "I'd never been made love to like that before. I believed you, and all along..."

"No Sarah, all along I loved you! I do love you, I want you! THIS IS REAL!" I held her in my arms, and she fell into me. 

I felt her body shake, she was crying. "I've never loved anyone the way I love you Sarah, and I never planned to fall for you, it just happened!" Suddenly there was a banging on the front door as Harley started barking, Sarah and I jumped apart as if we'd been electrocuted. "MASTERS! YOU TOTAL BASTARD COME OUT HERE NOW!!!" Mark's voice boomed around the porch outside. "SARAH OPEN THE FUCKING DOOR!"

Sarah looked at me with fear in her eyes, "Do as he says!" I whispered and kissed her on the forehead. She nodded and went to the door.

Mark wouldn't come in, he just stood there and growled, "Where is he?"
"Mark..."
"WHERE IS HE SARAH???"

I appeared behind her and stepped outside, "I'm here Mark, what's this about?" Mark laughed bitterly and smacked me square on the jaw. I saw stars!

I stumbled backwards, as Sarah began to scream. "MARK! NO!"
"I WARNED YOU! BUT YOU COULDN'T STAY AWAY!"
"Mark please, don't hurt him!"
"SHUT UP! Sarah go inside!"
"No..."
"Go INSIDE!!!"

I finally found my voice and mumbled to her, "It's alright Sarah, just go inside. I'll be there in a minute!" She mumbled an okay, looking frightened, and left us alone outside.
"You, with me, NOW!" Mark grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and dragged me to his car...

...he drove to the pier, and we took the boat over to the lighthouse. When we finally got there, he took me all the way up to the top. "We can speak privately here." He said calmly. Too calmly, and that made me panic!

(Sarah)
All of this information was too much to take in! Adam wasn't the man I thought he was, he'd lied to me! What we had, it felt so real! I felt so loved, so alive! None of that was a lie, was it?

I began to doubt everything he ever said, but when I thought about it logically, if he believed that he killed John, of course he bottled it when I opened the door. I wanted so badly for him to love me, for it all to be real! I never once questioned why he rocked up outside my door six months after John had been killed.

I was terrified, I hadn't heard anything in over five minutes outside, I doubted Mark would do anything stupid but...

...I went outside to see what was going on...and Mark and Adam were gone!

(Adam)
Mark stood looking out to sea for a few moments, while I tried to stop panicking. He was all talk that guy, his punch wasn't even that hard! But he could have murdered his own brother-in-law!

"We used to come here, as teenagers!" He mumbled, "Me and Johno!"
"He was your best friend?" Mark nodded and smiled as I started to record him on my phone, I needed his confession.
"He was my everything!" His voice cracked and a tear rolled down his face. "I loved him the minute I laid eyes on him, only I didn't know at 13 what that feeling was..."

"...it wasn't until we went off to University, and we spent an evening together here before we left, that I realised I loved another man! I never told anyone, how could I?" He shrugged, "I didn't understand it, nobody in our town was gay, well...nobody I knew anyway!"

"I went to see him one weekend, first year of our degrees. I was at San Myshuno University, he was at Bridgeport! He was surprised to see me, we talked about home and stuff...but not that! No that was a taboo subject to Johno, I wanted to discuss what it meant, because I loved him and wanted to do it again but..."

"...he wasn't keen! We ended up going to the student union and getting drunk, headed back to Johno's room and...we did do it again!"

"We made it a regular weekend thing, he'd come to San Myshuno one time and I'd go to Bridgeport the next. It was like we were in a proper relationship...but secret you know?" He smiled sadly. "But any time we were back here, back home, he would act like nothing had ever happened...and it killed me!"

"When we finally graduated, I joined the force and Johno started seeing my sister! MY SISTER!" He screwed up his face and sniffed back a few tears. "We never...it was over then, Johno finished with me for good. And I tried to suppress my feelings by sleeping with as many women as I could, until Alannah..."

"...it didn't last, how could it? Then she lost the baby and the rest...well..."
"I saw you that night, do you remember? At the bar, the night John was killed!"
"I knew you were familiar..." He mumbled, "...but no I couldn't place you!"

"He told you he hated you, is that why you did it?"
"Did what?" He looked at me as if I had two heads. "I took him out for a drink that night, to talk, he told me he and Sarah were starting a family. I just went nuts!" I'll bet you did, I thought.

"Look you need to stay away from Sarah, from the case and from this place altogether. Trust me!"
"Trust YOU?" I laughed, "Are you having a laugh or what? After everything you've done?" He hung his head and sniffed back a few tears.

"I understand, you've been protecting yourself! But Mark there is only so much evidence you can bury, so many witnesses you can bribe and threaten!"
"You think that's what I'm doing? Seriously?" He gave me a sarcastic sneer.

"Don't you get it?" Mark shrieked.
"No Mark I don't, why do you keep threatening me, huh? Why haven't you done anything yet? Because I know Mark, I know you killed John!"
"Oh my fucking God how can you be so BLIND???" I looked at him with confusion, he was guilty and I had him bang to rights!

"Look just hand yourself in, they'll maybe reduce your sentence..." Mark let out a bitter laugh and shook his head.
"Adam, Adam, Adam!" His face looked as if it was about to explode, "I didn't kill Johno..."

He looked me dead in the eyes then, and he uttered the two words that brought my world crashing down around my knees, "...Sarah did!"

To Be Continued...

Previous Chapters:
The Broken Ones