Chapter 36

The remaining colour that Ebony held in her face drained, as Martin was brought out by two burly police officers. He had changed so much from the fun loving Martin that she had grown up with, the man who had been her science lab partner, the man she had ran the school newspaper with.

Instead of him being the happy-go-lucky looking guy he had been many months before, he was now pale and fragile looking. His pale, crystal blue eyes were wide within the paleness of his tanned skin. But most of all, and Ebony seriously doubted that she would ever forget, the look of fear on his face, which made him look like a frightened little boy.

Now here he was, being made an example of in front of the people who had once been his friends and the people he had considered his family. She could hear the town busy bodies whispering in the back of the courtroom, while her friends sat in a stunned silence, raising incredulous eyebrows, as if they too, like her, couldn't believe that this man was capable of becoming a monster. But he was more than capable and Ebony knew first hand.

"Ebony." Amber whispered loudly from her seat on the front row. "Are you okay? You've gone a little pale."

Ebony turned her head, her gaze not leaving Martin's quaking form, tears threatened to fall down her cheeks. "Um...Yeah."

Satisfied with her friend's answer, Amber settled back into her seat, slipping her hand into Lex's and giving it a reassuring squeeze. Lex returned her affection, by flashing her a quick smile and stroking her hand with his fingers.

A hush fell over the courtroom as the honourable judge Saranne James, hit her gavel hard enough to put the fear of God into the most unreligious person on the face of the planet. "Order. I want order in my court." She bellowed authoritatively. "Mr. Thompson. Mr. Duffin, please take your seats or I shall hold you in contempt of court."

At the judge's order, the two lawyers returned to their seats. From the look on their faces, the crowd in the courtroom could tell that there would be no deals in this case and both the plaintiff and the defendant would be made to undergo severe deformation of character.

/

Josh Ram stared at the woman who stood before him. The woman he now recognized as a very old friend. After a brief conversation with the mysterious woman in the back of the courtroom, Josh had invited her to have coffee with him in the courtroom cafeteria. He was intrigued by her interest in the two recent murders in Seal Beach and how she seemed to know rather a lot about him. It had become obvious why she was so interested when she had removed her dark glasses briefly. Those eyes, those eyes belonged to Zandra Williams-Kennedy, even though she had obviously inserted coloured contact lenses into her once green-grey eyes and she was now going under the name of Sandra.

"So...Sandra." Josh started as he raised his Styrofoam cup of coffee to his lips. "Why are you here?"

Zandra sighed. Out of all the people she could have turned to in Seal Beach, she had chosen Josh Ram, her former kindergarten best friend, before Tai-San Lui moved to the small town.
Ideally, she would have gone to either her cousins Pride or Ryan, and although she was sure Pride would have told Ryan that she was actually alive and well, it was far to dangerous for them to get involved with the murders more than they already were.

"Why do you think Josh?" Zandra sighed, resting her face in her hands. "I'm here to stop him. He'll kill again and it's all because of me."

Josh furrowed his brow, was he hearing her right. She was here to stop Lex from killing again. How on earth was she going to stop her former husband from killing the people they had grown up with or had business dealings with? By giving him heart attack?

"And just how do you plan on stopping him?" Ram smirked over his cup. "By hitting him with your fake Kookai bag?"

Zandra rolled her eyes in Ram's direction, but she was unaware whether or not he could see her gesture from behind her dark glasses. "You've got to get to Ebony, Josh. You've got to tell her that he's the killer and you've got to keep that bit of stuff away from him."

"Amber. That's it isn't it Z...Sandra?" Josh slammed his empty Styrofoam cup down on the table, causing it to roll around on its lipped base. "You just don't want to see Amber with Lex, do you?"

It was true, she didn't want Lex to date the beautiful blonde he had been defending in The Monsoon earlier that month; it was also true that she was hoping that after he discovered she was really alive, and that she explained why she had faked her death four years earlier, he would fall back into her arms and they would grow old together. But something terrible had happened to Lex and no one would believe her if she tried to explain.

"Josh Ram." Zandra cried in a low whisper. "I came to you for help. If you're not willing to help me, I'll find someone else; but I warn you, he will kill again, maybe even kill you."

"Okay. I'm listening." Josh sank back into the blue plastic chair, his arms folded stubbornly across his chest. "And it better be good."

/

Mrs. Stevens pulled up the red SUV outside of The Lovers Motel; the same motel that Trudy had first stayed in when she had arrived in the town several weeks earlier, when both she and Bray had come in search of Amber. The same gold embossed sign swayed gently in the breeze, while the view from the cliff top, once again took Trudy's breath away.

"So this is Seal Beach." Mrs. Stevens sighed, obviously impressed with her daughters choice to relocate to the pretty coastal town.

"Yeah. This is Seal Beach." Trudy whispered, choking back the small sob that threatened to escape her lips. "Do you think Amber will see me?"

Mrs. Stevens shot the brunette a sympathetic smile. "I'm sure she will sweetie. From what she told me over the phone, she's happier here than she ever was with Bray in Eketahuna." She paused, long enough for her to place a comforting hand over Trudy's. "And I think she's somewhat grateful that she found out that Bray was no good before she actually walked down the aisle with him."

"I didn't mean to hurt Amber." Trudy smiled weakly. "I never meant for it to happen. I told Bray that I didn't want to carry on, that I'd tell Amber. But he said that he'd blame me and she'd believe him."

"And he was right. She would have blamed me. Trudy Taylor, the only girl in Eketahuna class of 2002, to have a mattress strapped to her back." She finished, wiping away the tears that had begun to roll down her cheeks.

Mrs. Stevens felt her heart go out to the young woman beside her. She knew exactly what Trudy was going through; she had been in the exact same position twenty years earlier, although she, unlike Trudy hadn't ended up pregnant and alone.

"Trudy Taylor. Stop crying this instant." Mrs. Stevens commanded. "You will not cry over Bray Fielding any longer. Yes you're pregnant and yes you're alone. But you've got me and Amber's father and I'm sure, more than sure, that Amber will forgive you. I know my daughter and I know you. No come on, let's check in and go find Amber."

/

"Clo. Are you telling me that you're not upset about your father being murdered at the hands of a mad man?" Ved raised an incredulous eyebrow in his wife's direction.

"No Ved." Cloe replied firmly as she opened the bottle of clear nail polish that she held tightly in her hand. "I'm not upset. Besides, Ned wasn't even my real father...Mum married him when Dal and I were little. I mean, don't get me wrong, he was the only father I've ever known and up until a few years ago, I worshipped the ground he walked on. But, that was before that I discovered that he was an absolute cad."

So Ned wasn't her real father, that made sense. He probably wouldn't have like to have met him, if he was as bad as Cloe had made out. In fact, come to think of it, he hadn't even met her family, except for that fleeting moment when the lights had gone out at The Monsoon and he'd lifted Java Matthews' prized diamond necklace.

"It all makes sense now." Cloe whispered, as she suddenly sat bolt upright on the edge of the bed, careful not to catch her painted fingernails on the bed covers. "It all makes perfect sense."

What made perfect sense? Ved asked himself as he reached over for the remote to the stereo, which all the hotel rooms had thankfully being equipped with, as he turned down the Incubus CD that Cloe had put on only minutes earlier. "What does Cloe?"

Cloe turned to face her husband; the look on his beautiful face was one of confusion. She hadn't had the chance to tell him about cryptic message that Dal had left on her cell phone, although she had told him that she had checked her voice mail.

"Dal left a message on my phone." Cloe admitted, a slight blush colouring her cheeks. "I had to babe."

Ved nodded understandably. He never expected his wife not to sneak off and check them. If he'd learned anything about being a cat burglar, it was to expect the expected and boy was he expecting that she would.

"Hey." Ved casually ran his hand through his short white blonde hair, still unable to take in what Cloe had said about her step-father. "I understand. What did he have to say?"

"Cloe, it's Dal. Look, I don't know where you are, but you really need to come home. There's been a crisis and there was blood everywhere. There was nothing I could do and mum's taken it really badly. The police need to speak to you and Ved. Call me. Please Clo."

Cloe paused for a moment; unsure whether or not she should tell her husband everything that Dal mentioned in his message. No, she should probably just give him cliff notes. "Something about a crisis, that there was blood everywhere and that the cops need to talk to us both."

"You don't think Dal found your fathers body?" Ved frowned, hoping that the young lad hadn't had the unfortunate pleasure of finding Ned Matthews' corpse. He knew from experience, after his mentor, a fellow cat burglar, Spike D'Angelo, was murdered by a mutual friend that Ved realized that finding dead bodies wasn't what it seemed to be in the movies.

"I hope not." Cloe shook her head solemnly. "He doesn't handle blood very well, not even his own. I thought that after our meeting with Lex later, I could pop by and see him."

"That's not a very good idea, especially if the cops are after us." Ved schooched forwards on top of the bed, so that he was sat behind Cloe. He wrapped his arms tightly around her waist and rested his head in the curve of her shoulder. "Let's just see what Lex thinks. When we meeting him anyway?"

"He sent me a text saying he would meet us at Deadman's Ridge at midnight." Cloe lolled back in her husband's embrace, a small sigh escaping her lips.

Deadman's Ridge. Midnight. Although Ved had never met this Lex Kennedy, from what he knew about him, Lex wasn't the type of guy who would arrange to meet a friend in one of Seal Beach's most pretty weekend getaway and most notorious suicide spots.

Something was odd, very odd. Ved didn't know why, but the impending meeting was leaving a very bad taste in his mouth. It was about time he called in a few favours with a certain Seal Beach police detective.