Cruel Minds Read online

  AN EMILY SWANSON NOVEL

  Book #2

  CRUEL MINDS

  MALCOLM RICHARDS

  Copyright © Malcolm Richards, 2016

  Storm House Books

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any similarity to real persons, alive or dead, is purely coincidental.

  For more information about the author, please visit www.malcolmrichardsauthor.com

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  EPILOGUE

  SNEAK PEEK – COLD HEARTS (EMILY SWANSON #3)

  THANK YOU

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  About the Author

  PROLOGUE

  He runs through the forest, arms outstretched, tripping over roots like a blind man. It is night and it is raining hard. The wind whips the trees into a frenzy. Low hanging branches whistle past his eyes. He doesn’t know where he’s going except onward into darkness. And the darkness is absolute. The machine gun rat-a-tat of rain on leaves fills his ears, alongside the crunch of foliage underfoot and the laboured heaving of his lungs. He can taste blood.

  He ploughs forwards, ignoring the pain that grips his body. He risks a glance over his shoulder but it is like staring into a void. His mind fills the emptiness with terrible images. He is back on the ground, fists pummelling his flesh, boots stamping on his bones. The image is ripped away as his shoulder slams against a tree trunk.

  He hits the forest floor hard, punching the air from his lungs. Sprawled on his back, he sees white lightning strobe through the canopy. A rumbling peal of thunder rolls across the sky. Catching his breath, he hears footsteps. They are moving towards him.

  Adrenaline fires through his limbs. He scrambles to his feet and races on. A second flash of lightning rips across the sky. For a moment, the forest is lit up like day. A clearing lies up ahead. A wooden shed sits at its centre, rain drumming against its corrugated roof.

  He shouldn’t go in there. He should keep running. But the door is unlocked. And now that he’s stopped moving, pain is taking control of his body. Wrenching open the door, he stumbles inside. The sound of the rain hitting the roof is like a blacksmith’s hammer on molten metal. He slams the door closed, then staggers against the wall. Lightning flashes through the window. He’s inside a tool shed. Sharp instruments hang from hooks on the wall.

  A wave of dizzy nausea threatens to topple him. He gets down on all fours and crawls away from the door. White pain shoots from his hand. His broken fingers splay at unnatural angles. Yelping, he drags his body into the darkest corner he can find. Then pressing his back against the wall, he sits and waits. Seconds pass by. Then a minute. His heart is hammering in time with the rain. He wonders if he is safe here. If he can stay hidden.

  But he has already been found.

  A shadow passes the window. He hears the rain rush in as the door opens and closes. The world falls away. His heart stops. There is nowhere else to go. Trapped in the corner like a hunted animal, he tries to make himself small. He should fight. Pick up a tool and lash out. But he has no fight left.

  The darkness closes in on him like a mother’s arms. He feels someone standing over him, their presence disturbing the air molecules. Lightning flashes. He sees a blade, curved and cruel-looking, held up high.

  “Please,” he says. He doesn’t know if he’s begging for mercy or for release.

  He holds up his hands, his broken fingers like twisted vines.

  The blade cuts through the air and deep into his flesh. It comes down, again and again; tearing, slicing, spilling blood as black as night. His screams are swept away with the rain.

  He becomes one with the darkness. He becomes nothing.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Emily Swanson sat on the sofa with her knees pressed together and her arms folded across her chest as she stared at empty cream walls. The room needed something more. More character. More things. Perhaps a painting on the wall or a small mirror. A potted plant in the window. She understood the reasoning behind the blandness—no distractions—but still, a little colour never hurt anyone.

  Attempting a discreet sigh, her gaze moved from the walls to the coffee table, then to the desk in the corner. It was a very tidy desk, she noted; its contents neatly stacked and its surface recently polished. A vase of flowers would help to brighten it up.

  Movement flickered in the corner of Emily’s eye. She turned towards the woman sat in the armchair. Kirsten Dewar looked to be in her mid-thirties. She had a pleasant face with keen eyes that smiled even when her lips didn’t. She was smartly dressed—blouse and cotton trousers, flat shoes—and her dark hair was pulled back into a neat bun. She sat upright and still as she stared at Emily, pen poised over the notepad in her lap. Warm sunlight spilled over her crossed legs.

  This was their sixth meeting in as many weeks. Each session began in the same way. After exchanging polite greetings, Kirsten would lead Emily into the room, pour them both a glass of water, and position herself in the armchair. Then she would sit in silence, waiting.

  Emily found those first few minutes excruciating. What was she supposed to say? Was there a game plan? Or was she supposed to sit on the couch until the words spoke for themselves? In their first session together, they had sat through twelve minutes of silence, time slowing down with each passing second. Then, Emily had embarrassed herself by crying.

  The opening silence had thankfully grown shorter with each session. At some point soon, Emily assumed it might vanish altogether. Now, as the fifth minute ticked by, she drew in a long, steady breath and tried to clear her mind of thoughts. Words began to appear, formulating a sentence.

  “I slept a whole four hours last night,” she said. Instantly, the knots in her shoulders began to loosen. Her hands, however, remained tucked against her sides.

  Kirsten smiled. “Well, that’s a lot better than three. Do you feel better for it?”

  “More like I’ve been run over by a truck. Which is an improvement on being run over by a truck and then the truck reversing.”

  Kirsten nodded, jotting on her notepad. “Still, it’s only been a week since you came off the sleeping pills.”
r />   “Ten days to be exact.”

  “You know, if you’re not ready, there’s no written rule saying you have to stop taking them just yet.”

  Emily heaved her shoulders. There was a water stain on the bottom left corner of the coffee table. It irritated her, had done since her fist visit.

  “I know. But one less pill means my bones don’t rattle so much when I walk. Plus, I’m experimenting with valerian root. It makes me feel all white witchy.”

  Kirsten smiled. It was a kind smile, Emily thought. Genuine.

  “And how is your sleep when you have it?”

  “You mean am I still having the same nightmare?”

  “Are you?”

  “A night wouldn’t be complete without it.”

  In the dream, she woke to find herself lying on a gurney at St. Dymphna’s Private Hospital, her wrists and ankles in restraints. Doctors and nurses huddled around her, cold eyes peering over surgical masks. Doctor Chelmsford and Doctor Williams appeared amid the bodies, syringes in hand, needles dripping with neon blue liquid. Don’t worry, the same bodiless voice always said. Soon you’ll sleep forever. And as the needles pierced her skin, she realised the voice belonged to her mother.

  “What you went through, Emily—it was incredibly traumatic.” Kirsten’s expression turned serious. She rested the pen on the notepad. “Your mind needs time to process what happened to you. Dreams can be an outlet, a way for your unconscious to make sense of it all. I know it may not seem much of a comfort, but it does offer an endgame.”

  “But I know exactly what happened to me,” Emily replied. “I was abducted from my home, falsely incarcerated at St. Dymphna’s, drugged and experimented upon. I’d say I’ve processed it enough.”

  Kirsten watched her for a moment. She picked up her pen and jotted down more notes.

  “What happened to you won’t just disappear overnight, Emily. If you break a leg, you can’t just get up and walk again. The bone needs time to heal. For that to happen, the leg needs support in the form of a cast and a pair of crutches. Why should your mind be any different?”

  “Tell that to Doctor Chelmsford. Sometimes I wonder if he was right—do we always need to remember all the bad things that happen to us?”

  “Doctor Chelmsford’s rather archaic school of thought is the reason he’ll be spending whatever’s left of his life behind bars. Doesn’t that tell you something?”

  “It tells me it’s all done with. It’s over. Now, I just want to get on with my life.”

  “And there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s good to make plans, it’s part of the healing process.” Kirsten paused. “What does getting on with your life look like?”

  Emily drummed her fingers on the sofa. She had spent her whole life hiding in the shadows. Moving to London was supposed to have been about starting a new life—an opportunity to wipe the mirror clean, to become a different person. A better person. Someone with confidence and courage. Someone who was not afraid to speak her mind, or to stand up to those who tried to silence her. In a way, she had achieved all of these things, albeit through extreme measures.

  Two months had passed since her horrific ordeal at the hands of Doctor Chelmsford and Doctor Williams. How long would the nightmares last? How long before she could set foot in a hospital, or her GP’s office, or even here at the therapy centre, without breaking into a cold sweat?

  What did getting on with her life really mean? It meant sleeping through a night unaided. It meant waking up each morning without forgetting that she was safe.

  Kirsten was staring at her, waiting for a response.

  “I want to have an ordinary day with no bad feelings,” Emily said. “I want people to stop asking me how I’m doing every two minutes as if I’m made of glass and I’m about to break. The fact is I broke a long time ago. If I can be okay with that, why can’t everyone else?”

  “People care about each other, Emily. It’s human nature. Don’t you think that’s a good thing—to have people in your life who are concerned about your welfare?”

  Emily bit down on her lower lip and stared out of the window. The therapy centre was on the second floor of a converted Edwardian house on the western outskirts of Islington. Like Kirsten’s room, the window offered a bland view. Emily stared at the opposite row of houses. Sunlight glanced off the window panes, making her squint.

  “The people in my old life turned against me,” she said.

  Kirsten scribbled into her pad, the scratch of pen on paper the only sound in the room.

  “Are you worried that’s going to happen again?”

  “I worry about a lot of things, as you know.”

  “What about the journalists? Are they still calling?”

  Emily returned her gaze to the room. “The story is old news for now. Doctor Williams is dead and buried, along with half of his patients. Doctor Chelmsford and the others are awaiting trial. I’m sure the press will come snooping again when that happens.” She paused, the muscles in her shoulders knitting together again. “It’s me that’s the problem. I just wish my brain came with an off switch.”

  Kirsten leaned forwards. “Emily, you’ve been through so much this last year, long before what happened with the doctors. Losing your mother, Phillip Gerard’s suicide—those two events alone are enough to send anyone over the edge. But you’re sitting here today as a survivor. You’re strong. Much stronger than you give yourself credit for.”

  “I don’t feel strong.”

  “How do you feel?”

  “Guilty.”

  “For not being able to save your mother? For not being able to prevent the suicide of a young boy who had been systematically abused by his father for most of his short life? Tell me, how do you stop cancer, Emily? How do you anticipate someone’s behaviour when they can’t even anticipate it themselves?”

  Emily looked away. She felt tears forming at the corners of her eyes. “I could have helped him. I was his teacher, he looked up to me. Instead, I behaved like his father.”

  “He was taunting you. You’d just lost your mother. You were in a deep state of grief. You lost control just for a moment. Emily, we wouldn’t be human if we didn’t have moments when we’re not in control. Phillip Gerard was not in control.”

  “Phillip Gerard was an eleven-year-old boy.”

  Silence filled the room.

  “Imagine you had a sister and she was sitting right next to you, right at this moment,” Kirsten said. “Imagine she’s a teacher, and she tells you that a boy in her class killed himself because she shouted at him. Does that sound palpable to you? Does shouting at someone drive them to take their own life? Or is there a much more real explanation? What would you say to your sister?”

  Emily stared at the empty space beside her, then at the stain on the coffee table.

  “We all make mistakes,” she said.

  “Yes, we do.” Kirsten picked up her pen and notepad again. “And we’re focusing so much on the loss of life that we’re forgetting something hugely important.”

  Emily looked up. “What’s that?”

  “That you saved lives.”

  “Alina still hasn’t woken up.”

  “And you think that’s your fault?”

  Emily was quiet as she thought about Alina Engel, the former tenant of her apartment, who had disappeared and whom Emily had found in a comatose state, surrounded by the dead and dying in Doctor Williams’ chamber of horrors at the Ever After Care Foundation. Alina was now back in her native Germany, where she remained in an intensive care unit with little hope of recovery.

  “I just wish I’d gotten there sooner.”

  Kirsten frowned. “You saved lives, Emily. The patients Doctor Chelmsford was experimenting upon would not be here today if you hadn’t intervened. As for the victims at the hospice, they were terminally ill. They were going to die anyway. But you freed them to die with dignity, not in the darkness of Dr Williams’ attic. You should be proud of what you’ve achieved. And you should place the
blame firmly in the hands of the guilty.”

  Emily felt a tingling in her chest. She squeezed her eyes shut, preventing the tears from escaping.

  “And therein lies the problem,” she said.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The woman stepped out from the shadows, a .45 pistol in her hand. She’d been watching them through the window, fires burning in her eyes. See how they smile and laugh, her expression said. See how together they are, how wholesome. A picture postcard of the nuclear family that society tells us we must aim for. And she was aiming for them. They were in her sights.

  As she revealed herself, unpeeling from the shadows and stepping into the well-lit kitchen, the perfect family turned and froze in a frightened tableau; moist, tender meat hanging inches from their open mouths.

  At the head of the table, recognition spread across Jerome Miller’s face like cracks in ice. His walnut-coloured skin paled.

  “Please,” he said. “Don’t hurt them. They’re all I have.”

  The children began to cry. At the opposite end, his wife stared at him, then at the woman in the red dress, who now had all the power, who could decimate the family with a single squeeze of a trigger.

  “You don’t have to do this,” Jerome said, ever so carefully putting down his fork and raising his hands high above his head. “It’s me you want. It’s me that’s wronged you. Let them live and take me.”

  The woman with the gun began to cry, but her aim held true and steady.

  “I loved you,” she whimpered. “And you loved me. You promised me the world. Now you’ve taken it all away.”

  “Please!” Jerome begged. “Put the gun down and let’s talk about this!”

  The woman in the red dress threw her head back like a lioness and laughed. Her jaw snapped shut. Her face contorted with hate.

  She squeezed the trigger twice. Two loud gunshots shattered the air. Jerome flew backwards, crashing onto the table, knocking dinner plates to the floor. His family stared in shocked silence.

  “I’m sorry,” whispered the woman in the red dress. She placed the barrel of the gun to her temple and fired. As she fell, the room plunged into darkness.