Carved in Stone: Monochrome Destiny Read online

  “It’s the only conclusion that makes sense. If people come here to buy the illegal goods and Kat saw them, she might well have been intrigued enough to check it out.”

  “Without telling you?”

  Robyn sighed and turned to him. The next two boxes had proved fruitless also. “Well, six weeks ago I would have been surprised too, but I’ve learned a lot since then. Kat didn’t tell me everything, obviously, and I can almost believe that she waited to tell me about this until she had the whole big story.” Robyn looked to the ground and shook her head. “I don’t know her motives, I didn’t know her as well as I thought I did, but Kat being threatened into leaving and then somehow concluding that the smuggling was happening at the church and coming back to check it out makes more sense than her just leaving without saying a word. It also accounts for the phone being where you found it. What if they saw her there? What if they did something to her to stop her talking? Andrew she could be . . .” She couldn’t say it; couldn’t even think it.

  Andrew put the phone on a shelf and pulled her to him. He kissed her, swift and hard, before letting her go. “If there’s something here, we’ll find it.”

  The boxes held nothing that wouldn’t be expected in an abattoir. When they had finished opening each and every one, they moved out from the shelving and into the expanse of the room.

  The concrete floor was immaculately clean, cleaner than Robyn would have expected for such a place and had no trapdoors or grills indicating that there was anything underneath this building. The main room was open, right up to the ceiling where ducting snaked just under the roof providing ventilation and climate control. Long chains suspended the lighting.

  Further into the room three long, aluminium topped tables gleamed in the light from Andrew’s phone but were empty. Beyond the tables was a very large, walk in, chiller. White walled, with a great white door, large enough for a forklift, it dominated the room. To the right of the chiller, a set of grey metal stairs led up to what Robyn assumed were offices. Above the chiller, she could see a walkway with a metal rail and several windows and doors.

  Disregarding the staircase, instinct drove Robyn to the chiller. It was the perfect place to hide something.

  “If we find anything in here, we’ll photograph it and get the hell out of here.”

  “The sooner the better,” Andrew responded looking around the room. He had been getting more nervous with each minute they remained in the building. She could hardly blame him.

  Robyn pulled the handle on the chiller and heard the click of the catch disengaging before a whoosh of air broke past the rubber seals. Cold air billowed out as the door pulled backwards on a long, but efficient, piano hinge down the side of the door.

  The misty vapour swirled around the entrance before settling and dissipating and allowing them to see a curtain of clear plastic strips that had become opaque thanks to the condensation covering them. Using both hands, Robyn parted two of the sections and stepped through.

  Directly in front of her, appearing out of the mist, was another face. Dead, lifeless and expressionless, it had glaring black eyes and sallow skin. Picked out by the sharp light of Andrew’s phone, the contrast between light and dark was extreme and gave a frightening appearance to the macabre corpse. Robyn gasped and jumped back.

  The face was not human but that of a pig. Swinging by its hind legs, the pig hung from a rack above her head. The eyes, black like the head left in her fridge, had become opaque from degradation of the retina. This was not a fresh kill and behind this one carcass were hundreds of others. They had all had their throats cut, blood drained and were hung by their hind legs, ready for butchery. Robyn reached out and pushed aside the cold body. It moved smoothly on the sliding rack of hooks above her head.

  Ducking and weaving through the sea of carcasses, they made their way to the back wall which was shelved. Expecting something condemning, Robyn was disappointed when the trays stacked there contained butchered joints, chops or offal products ready for packaging. There was nothing erroneous or strange about this set up, but she still had that feeling.

  “There’s nothing in here.” Andrew’s quiet whisper broke the silence.

  Robyn crouched down so that she could see wall to wall. There were no boxes, no products of any kind placed on the floor, the supervisors preferring to keep everything neatly on the shelves, and no contraband. The chiller was a long rectangle in shape and the only obstruction to that shape was against one corner. Crouched as she was, Robyn could see that in the far right corner there was another room, a room within a room.

  “In the corner.” She began to move before she’d finished speaking.

  Andrew kept close behind her, shining the light to assist but kept all his senses sharp and continually checked the room for signs that they were no longer alone. He knew that this was a bad idea. If anyone ever discovered that either of them had been here like this, then there would be nothing he or his grandfather could do to stop Robyn being forced out of the community. Yet, he’d seen such hurt in her when she’d told him her darkest secret. And he understood secrets better than anyone else. Robyn needed to do this and there was no way he was going to stop her. Helping her had just seemed like the right thing to do. He didn’t believe that there was a secret smuggling ring, or anything like it, but he couldn’t let her go walking into danger alone. This was her last place to check and he only hoped that once she had found nothing here, she’d admit that there was indeed nothing mysterious or sinister in her friend’s disappearance. She needed to drop this and settle, with him. Now that he’d found her, he wasn’t letting her go.

  Robyn stopped in front of another door, much smaller than the last it had a digital thermostat in the centre reading 4.0°C. It was a fridge within a fridge.

  “Why would they need a separate fridge unit?”

  “I don’t know, but I’m about to find out.” She reached automatically to open the door.

  No dead eyes looked at them this time. Instead all he saw was red.

  The walls of the little room were lined with shelves and standing on the shelves were racks and racks of bottles. The bottles were filled with a deep red liquid. Even in the bluish light of the phone, Andrew could not mistake the colour, for it was a rich, deep, crimson and thick. The light did not penetrate the liquid.

  On the floor stood several plastic crates, red in colour, they held empty bottles, dozens of them. Empty, but not clean. The sides of the bottles showed tide marks where the thick red liquid had once been inside.

  Robyn stepped forwards into the room.

  “Don’t.” He held his hand out but he was still dazed by the sight of all those bottles and he made no further effort to pull her back.

  Robyn stooped down to get a closer look and picked up a discarded bottle. Holding it up to the light, she turned the glass to show thick remnants of liquid still sticking to the sides. Thicker sediment pooled in the bottom and a mottled red smear on the inside showed that the liquid was lumpy, not smooth.

  Andrew blinked and his skin went cold.

  Staring at the neck of the bottle as Robyn turned it in her hand Andrew saw the unmistakable print of pink lipstick.

  Robyn brought the bottle close to her face, placed it under her nose and smelled the contents. He wasn’t quick enough to stop her, but as soon as she inhaled she paled before buckling over and dropping the bottle.

  The noise hurt his ears, so loud in the silence, as the glass shattered upon impact with the concrete floor. Shards sprayed out from the centre and gleamed in the light from the phone, tinkling noisily as they went. Robyn ran out of the room and into the darkness. Andrew took only seconds of staring into the small room to come to his senses, slam the door and go after her. She was at the chiller entrance when he caught up but she didn’t stop, she headed straight for the fire door. He got there first and slammed into it before Robyn tore out into the night and ran for the trees.

  CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN

  Fleeing as if being chased,
Robyn raced past the rain soaked trees, pushing branches from her face and put more and more distance between herself and the abattoir. Ragged breaths escaped her, pluming in front of her as the night grew cold and her chest ached, but she did not stop. Her calves and thighs burned relentlessly but she still ran unabated, deeper and deeper into the safe haven of the trees. She ran in no specific direction, her only purpose was to get away from what she had just seen, smelled.

  Eventually, she had no choice but to slow down and stop. Leaning, one hand braced against the moist, spongy bark of a tree, she hunched over, gasping for air and clutching at her chest.

  Andrew came to a stop beside her.

  “What was it?” His breathing was even, as if he hadn’t run at all, but his voice held pain.

  Robyn clutched a hand to her heart and felt its rapid beat as she stared at Andrew. She wanted to hold him and cling to reality as the world around her tilted into the fantastical. She couldn’t stop the thoughts of ritual and ceremony that ran thought her mind. It all made so much sense and that pained her even more. A town on its knees, desperate and easy prey. How far would people be willing to go? What would they be willing to embrace?

  “What was in the bottle?” Andrew’s eyes were so wide. Robyn could see his anguish and knew that it would be reflected upon her own face.

  “You know.” He was there. He saw, he must have seen more than her, for to her, those bottles simply held thick black sludge. Andrew would have seen them differently.

  “I thought it was smuggling; I thought the worst I would find was drugs, guns, but now. . oh, God.” The rain had stopped but the ground was saturated and muddy as Robyn dropped to her knees.

  “Robyn! Please, what was it?” He didn’t make any move to come closer, as if his whole body was frozen by the impact of what they had just seen.

  “Blood! It was blood.” Her words made it real and her mind put it together then; blood, symbols, Wiccan charms. It all made a sick sort of sense. “They’re practising Satanists or witches or both. And there are so many involved.”

  He stood so still. Too still.

  “Did you hear me? It was blood, Andrew. They’re drinking blood.”

  “That can’t be. You must be mistaken.” He stayed back, denial ripe in his words.

  Robyn felt sick. “I’m not wrong. The lipstick.” A cramp gripped her nauseous stomach and she buckled forwards, placing her hands in the mud, but only succumbed to dry heaves.

  “The whole town cannot be . . . my grandfather . . .”

  Robyn lifted her head and cut him off. “What? Because you have family mixed up in this, it can’t be true? These things can’t happen to you?” Her temper flared, finding untapped energy sources. “Oh, I know how you feel. I’ve been there, believe me. Not me. Not mine. We can all tell ourselves that we couldn’t have known, that we aren’t to blame. We can all lie to ourselves.”

  Andrew shook his head. “You blame me?”

  “Shit, no.” She shook her head and climbed unsteadily to her feet. “You couldn’t have known about this, but just because you didn’t know doesn’t make it any less true”

  “I’ve spent enough time here to know that those who don’t conform get driven out. I know that James has a stranglehold on this town and its resistance to change keeps some here and others away. But this?” Andrew’s hand swept out behind him. “Never, never in my wildest dreams would I have thought him involved in this.”

  “There is no other explanation. You said it yourself. The town is on its knees. Perhaps the people think that selling their souls will bring them prosperity. Perhaps they tried faith and prayer but got nowhere. I can’t tell you why they’ve done it, or when, but I know what I smelled.”

  “You’re jumping to a conclusion without thinking about all the possibilities.”

  Robyn stepped forwards, anger raising her voice. “Then you give me an alternative. You saw that lipstick just as clearly as I did. What do you think that gathering was doing?”

  He was silent.

  “We have to tell the police.”

  Andrew stepped forwards until he stood directly in front of her. “And tell them what, Robyn? That we broke into the abattoir and found blood. It’s hardly something out of place in an abattoir and we would have to admit to committing a crime.”

  “We tell them about the lipstick, the ritual.”

  “We have no evidence and that bottle is smashed, gone. Besides, is it actually illegal to be a Satanist?”

  She shook her head. No, she doubted it was illegal. “There has to be something.”

  Andrew’s hands lifted to her cheeks. “It’s late and you’re cold. We can’t do anything tonight. It’s time to go home, Robyn.”

  When they entered Andrew’s house, the dark space seemed lifeless and cold. Perhaps that was because of the way Robyn felt. She was numb, hollow and she didn’t know what to do. What the people of Porthmollek were doing was sick, but not illegal. It explained the secretiveness and why newcomers were hounded out, and why Kat had left. No-one would want to stay once they found out what was going on. In fact, Robyn was thinking that she didn’t want to stay either. It was true that she’d come to Porthmollek to start afresh, to build a new life, but she was more desperate than that. She’d been a high flyer, going places. Her position in research was very sought after, the company on the cutting edge and she’d just got the promotion that could really boost her career. But she’d lost it all. She’d been dismissed and her C V looked pathetic. No-one was going to hire a woman who couldn’t see properly and hadn’t been able to hold down a job, any job, for five minutes since her accident. She’d stayed when she should have left and now she knew more than she wanted. The only thing that was keeping her here was Andrew, but she couldn’t ask him to leave his family. Family was everything. She knew, because she no longer had one.

  “I should go.” Robyn could see the guilt he carried and she couldn’t stand to see him like it. He needed time.

  “You shouldn’t be alone, not tonight.” He cupped her face in his hands.

  “I’m not afraid.” It was a lie.

  Andrew dipped his mouth to hers and gently traced his tongue over her lips. “I shouldn’t be alone tonight.”

  She melted into him, his need for her filling part of the hollow that had formed inside her. No man had ever needed her before.

  Andrew led her to the bathroom and reached his long arm into the shower cubicle to turn on the stream of water.

  “Stay.” He stepped closer to her, the long fingers of his hands playing through her hair.

  In answer, she reached out and began to unbutton his coat. Pushing the jacket over his shoulders, she traced the line of his muscular arms as it fell to the floor.

  He wore a soaking black pullover that she now lifted off his lean torso before beginning to remove her own clothing.

  Robyn’s pulse raced as Andrew pulled her mouth to his and plundered. Desperation produced wanton desire as he tasted and sucked and savoured. They were both naked, their cold bodies crushing against one another for warmth and Andrew swept her into his arms with ease to carry her under the cascades of hot water.

  He didn’t set her down, but instead pushed her back to the tile to brace her as he pushed inside her wet folds. Robyn welcomed the sweet length of him as she was stretched and filled and she rejoiced in the all-encompassing heat that came from his velvet flesh entering her core. He was warmth and light itself and this was a joining of need, a joining of affirmation, the calm in the eye of the storm.

  Their love making was a slow, sensual, physical expression of their desire as Robyn clung to Andrew, her legs wrapped around his hips and her arms gripping his shoulders. He drove slowly in and out of her and as he did so, she felt his muscle and tissue unwind and become fluid beneath her touch as both the hot water and the hot sex consumed him.

  Robyn could feel herself quickening around Andrew’s thickness all too quickly. He felt it too and thrust faster, harder to drive her over the edge and i
nto bliss. Her head fell back as her body pulsed around him, the heat of her orgasm driving away the chill that had entered her bones. How could she even consider leaving behind a man that could do this to her? She pulled her head forwards onto his chest and moaned as he drove into her again, her folds greedy for him.

  She was putty in his hands, hot and pliable and glowing pink with the flush of her orgasm, but he hadn’t finished with her yet. He needed more, a lot more, to drown out the thoughts running through him. He hated what he’d seen, the secrets that had finally been revealed, but what he hated more was Robyn’s silence, on the walk home. She had been too engrossed in her own thoughts and Andrew feared that it meant only one thing; she was leaving. He couldn’t let her do that, not now that he’d found her. He wanted to keep her, mark her, own her, anything to stop her from slipping through his fingers.

  He cupped her arse and lifted her off of his stiff cock before turning her to the wall and placing her hands against the tile so that she knew not to move. She trembled a little under his touch and his cock twitched, desperate to be inside her again. With one leg, Andrew pushed Robyn’s feet further apart and he grabbed her hips and pulled them back to meet him. With one swift thrust he buried himself in her tight wet folds up to the hilt and began to pound into her. It was deeper like this, closer and he needed to burrow inside every inch of her like he’d never needed anything before. God, it was heaven watching his cock slide into her over and over as her beautiful arse shuddered under his pounding rhythm. He wouldn’t last long like this, especially when he watched her breasts swaying freely under his assault. She was tight on him, clenching his cock hard within her, but she wasn’t there yet, not quite, and he wasn’t going over the edge without her.

  Andrew reached around their joined bodies and pressed his fingers into her folds. Robyn gasped as he found her clitoris and began circling it firmly with one finger even as he pounded her from behind. She’d never felt him so deep and with the added pressure on her clit there was only one way this was going to go.