She almost missed the car on the side of the road as she battled to find the wipers. For a second she thought it was Damien parked there and her heart leapt, but as she got closer she could see the dark colour belonged to a different, older make of car. The bonnet was up and a woman ran out in front of her, waving her arms in the rain. For a second she thought about driving on-it was dark and she wasn't entirely comfortable with the idea of stopping. But the conditions were awful and what if the woman had children in the car? If it was Philly herself who'd broken down the last thing she'd want would be people to just drive by.
If only she'd grabbed her bag before she'd rushed off. At least then she would have had her phone to alert the authorities. As it was, she had no choice …
She pulled up just behind the car and found the button for the window. Cold bullets of rain took advantage of the opening glass, crashing cold and hard on to her face and chest. The woman rushed alongside.
'Can I give you a lift?' Philly asked.
'You can do better than that,' said the woman, pulling open the door before ramming something cold and hard against Philly's cheek. 'You can give me the car.'
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
THE call came at three o'clock in the morning from the security desk downstairs. He hadn't really been sleeping, more like tossing and turning, running over words and conversations in his mind, trying to make sense of the tangle of his thoughts. So the call hadn't really woken him up, but the words the security officer had spoken snapped him immediately to attention.
Two officers. To see him.
He wasn't all that familiar with the workings of the police force but he knew enough to know that they didn't go making social calls at this time of night. He just had time to pull on jeans and a sweater when his doorbell buzzed.
'What's this about?' he said before the uniformed officers had cleared the entrance.
'Mr DeLuca, are you the registered owner of a Mercedes vehicle?' He rattled off a registration number Damien recognised instantly.
'That's my wife's car-yes. I bought it for her as a wedding present. Is there a problem?'
'Can you describe your wife for us, sir?'
'Well, yes. Five-sixish, slim figure, sandy-blonde hair. What's this about?'
The officers exchanged glances. 'You might like to sit down. The car was involved in an accident this evening. I'm afraid we have some bad news.'
His blood ran cold. 'What kind of bad news?'
'The car spun on a bend and went over an embankment. The driver wasn't wearing a seat belt. She was thrown from the car.'
Damien turned away, chilled to the core, trying to swallow though there was nothing to lubricate his throat as the ashes of his past choked him. 'Spun on a bend,' 'Over an embankment'. Was he truly hearing this or were these images dredged up from another disaster, another tragedy over a lifetime ago?
Why did it seem that history was repeating itself?
'A woman was driving. Do you recognise this?'
The officer placed something in his palm and he tried to concentrate as he looked down on the loops of thin satin ribbon and a key-the same key he'd placed around Philly's neck just last night. His fingers curled tight around the cold metal. 'My wife … Is she badly hurt … Or … ?'
'Mr DeLuca,' said one officer, his voice laden with compassion. 'It's more serious than that. The driver was killed. Under the circumstances we fear it may be your wife. We'd like you to come and assist with identifying the body.'
Philly!
They thought it was Philly. But he'd left her back at the house. It couldn't be her. He'd left the car out of the garage. Someone must have stolen it. But then why would they have the key?
There was one way to find out.
He explained and reached for the phone. She had to be at the house. Someone else must have taken the key and stolen the car. That had to be what had happened. He called up the number from the phone's memory, knowing he'd never key it in as quickly while in this state. Eventually his manager answered, businesslike but clearly half-asleep himself.
'It's Damien,' he said. 'I need to know if Mrs DeLuca is in the house. It's important. And check the garage too,' he added as an afterthought.
He found shoes while he waited, avoiding the pity-filled eyes of the policemen as they looked everywhere but at him. But it wasn't Philly. It couldn't be.
Eventually the manager came back, his worried manner immediately sending shivers down Damien's spine. The words only confirmed his tone. No sign of her. Hadn't slept in any of the rooms. And the car was gone.
He held on to the phone for a good minute longer, only half-aware of the concerned voice on the other end of the line. 'Phone me on my mobile immediately if you hear from her,' he said at last, hanging up.
He looked over to the officers, his mind blank, his gut cold and empty. 'Let's go,' he said.
She must have followed him. Why the hell hadn't he considered she might do that? She'd followed him and now she was dead. Their child was dead. Grief welled up within him with the force of a tidal wave.
And it was all his fault!
She'd wanted to talk and he'd run. She'd wanted him to stay and he'd fled. She'd told him she loved him and he'd turned his back on her.
And so she'd followed him. Why would she have done that? Why had she been so determined to make him see reason if she already had everything she wanted? Unless the baby and the house weren't enough. Had she really needed him too? Had she really loved him?
She'd crashed, gone over an embankment, had never stood a chance in a car she hadn't known how to handle. A car he'd given to her. He'd inflicted upon her the same fate that had met every other member of his family. He'd done that to her because he'd never once had the courage to accept what she'd said and faced up to what he really felt.
That he needed her. That she made him feel special and strong and protective. That he wanted to look after her.
That he loved her.
Anguish twisted him inside.
My God, but he did!
He loved her. And now it was too late.
He'd never wanted to love. Love only compounded pain, made it infinitely worse than it would otherwise be. But why had he thought he could deny love by simply ignoring its existence, by simply not thinking the thoughts or saying the words?
By not telling the woman he loved?
He was right not to want to love. Wouldn't the pain he was feeling right now be so much easier to bear if he hadn't loved her?
But he hadn't told her, and right now that made his pain worse. He'd denied what she'd meant to him and he'd rejected her love. How must she have felt following him along those roads in those conditions? She must have been desperate to catch up with him.
The police car pulled up outside the hospital, its lights making crazy patterns on the slick roads. The storm had long gone and a strange calm had descended. That was outside at least. His storm had only just begun.
He looked up at the horizontal concrete façade, the windows lit with a dull glow and the occasional blip of colour from a machine.
He didn't want to go inside. He wanted to deny it now, even though he knew it must be the truth. It was going to be one of the hardest things he'd ever done. But there was something even harder to follow.
How was he going to tell Daphne?
They led him along the long corridors, the atmosphere antiseptic, their bright fluorescent lighting garish and cold in this late hour. Then they made him wait outside a room in the morgue, giving him even more time to think about how he should have done things differently, how he should have told her what she meant to him, how wrong he'd been.
He hadn't been fair to her. He'd bullied her at work, he'd bullied her at the Gold Coast, and he'd bullied her into this wedding. And now there was no chance to tell her he was sorry.
Now it was too late.
They called him inside, into a room where the clinical furniture and fittings faded into bland insignificance, where the cloaked trolley held centre stage. He walked slowly to one side, the policemen close behind, and stopped, wanting to know, not wanting to know, because until he knew for sure, there was always a chance they were wrong, however unlikely that seemed.
'Mr DeLuca?' The attendant's brow was furrowed with concern.
'She was pregnant, you know. Our first child.'
The man's eyes blinked slowly, as if he hadn't wanted to hear that. 'Are you all right, Mr DeLuca?'
He gave a brief nod. 'Ready,' he muttered on a breath that tasted of death and cold ash.
The attendant peeled back the sheet. Damien's heart stopped and he rocked on his heels as he scoured her face. Under the scratches and contusions her features still looked quite lovely considering she'd suffered such a sudden, savage end, her eyes closed, her lips slightly parted as if ready to draw her next soft breath. She looked at peace.