Saving Rose

by Kate Genet

  ‘Jesus fuck,’ Danny said. ‘What shit are you making up now, you stupid old bitch? And Rose is coming with me. There’s nothing you can do to stop that happening. I'm her father and I’ve every right to take her wherever I want to go.’

  The old woman was close to tears. ‘Zoe isn’t even buried yet and you want to take her daughter away from everyone she knows?’

  So they weren’t even going to pretend any niceties. Well, that suited Danny just fine. He didn’t particularly want to bother with any made-up stories about taking Rose for an ice cream or something. He’d packed her bag, they were leaving.

  The dog though, it had taken another step forward and now Rose was leaning down in his arms, hanging out a hand beckoning to the sabre-toothed animal.

  ‘The dog can’t come with us, Pumpkin,’ he said. ‘It’s too big.’

  ‘But he’s my dog!’ Rose said, and he could tell from her voice she was close to tears.

  ‘He can be your dog when we get back.’

  ‘Where are we going?’

  Lying to Rose wasn’t a problem. Anything to stop her from throwing a tantrum. ‘Just home to get some things, Pumpkin. I missed you, so I thought you could come with me.’

  ‘Claire said I had to stay here with Gramma and Pilot.’

  A flame of anger ignited in the pit of Danny’s stomach. ‘Claire doesn’t get to say what you can and can’t do, Rose. She doesn’t get any say at all.’

  ‘You can’t take her, Danny.’ It was Gracie again, sticking her nose in where it didn’t belong, just like normal.

  ‘I can, and I'm going to. She’s mine.’

  The old woman was shaking her head, flinging glances towards the driveway, then looking back at him like he was a dangerous animal.

  ‘She’s safe with me,’ he suddenly said. ‘I would never hurt her.’ Not that he had to explain anything to this woman.

  ‘I don’t think she is,’ Gracie said. ‘We’ve learnt a lot about you, Danny. More than maybe you know.’

  He’d taken another step back towards the house, calculating the distance to the door, and the dog took another step towards him.

  ‘You don’t know anything about me,’ he said.

  A strange smile made an appearance on her face. He didn’t like it, held Rose tighter to him.

  ‘I know you did unspeakable things to your sister, Danny. Your own sister. You must have ruined her life.’

  ‘Rachel loved me,’ he said, swallowing. Another step back. He wasn’t going to make it, and now he knew that Gracie wasn’t going to stop the dog going for him. Her hand wavered where it rested lightly on the animal as it was. Another moment and she’d take it off and the bloody thing would read that as permission to attack, even though he was holding Rose. Where the fuck had the animal come from anyway?

  ‘Keep that dog away from me,’ he said.

  ‘Give me Rose back and we’ll let you leave.’

  He shook his head and made his decision. Twisting the child around, he slipped a hand around her tiny neck and squeezed.

  ‘Hold the dog off,’ he said. ‘Or Rose gets hurt.’

  ‘You said you wouldn’t hurt her.’ Gracie’s voice was shocked, quavering.

  He shrugged. ‘It takes a few minutes to suffocate someone,’ he said, making it up but pretty sure he’d heard something along those lines on some crime show. ‘Which gives me plenty of time to do some damage without actually killing her.’ He could see Rose’s eyes staring wide with fright at the sky and against his arm her little heart pounded frantically. He narrowed his eyes at Gracie.

  ‘In fact,’ he said, and his voice was conversational as he spoke, and he could feel the sun, pale but still hot against the top of his head, and really, it was a beautiful day and the world held so many possibilities. So many possibilities to take advantage of.

  ‘In fact, she’d just be that much more docile with a bit of brain damage, don’t you think?’ His voice was dreamy, and behind Gracie, he could see the waving red heads of poppies swaying in the breeze. ‘No one would question me when I said she was trapped for a while in the earthquake. She’d just be another sad case and I’d be a good dad for taking care of her.’ He paused and focused on Gracie. ‘And I would, you know. I would take such good care of her.’

  Gracie’s eyes were bright pennies in the sunlight, round and glittering. He stared at them, fascinated, then smiled again.

  ‘Take the dog and go into your pottery studio, Gracie,’ he said. At the end of his arm, his hand tightened and next to his ear Rose made a choking sound. Her fingers were scratching at him, but he couldn’t feel it. Not at all.

  ‘I’ll let the dog go!’

  He shook his head. ‘It’s already too late,’ he said. ‘You should have done it straight away, but you don’t even know how to control the dog, do you? And I don’t think it’s going to attack me while I’ve got Rose in my arms.’ He felt strong, hands of steel. ‘And I'm not letting her go.’ Nodded towards the shed. ‘In you go, Gracie. Do it now, before it’s too late.’

  Gracie Wilde gave a choked cry and tugged on the dog, turning on the path, struggling to lead the dog away with her to her studio. Danny loosened his hand for a moment and Rose took a whooping breath.

  ‘That’s the way, Gracie,’ he said. ‘But you’d better hurry up.’

  She got moving then, threading her hands through the dog’s harness and pulling it down the path with her. A moment later and they’d disappeared into the darkness of the shed she used for her pottery. Danny followed a few steps behind, closed the door and twisted the silver key that she always left in the lock when she opened the place in the morning. It turned with a satisfying snick.

  66

  Claire could feel Moana’s attention on her. ‘You don’t like tunnels? I thought your family lived over here.’

  It was difficult to unlock her fingertips from where they were dug into the car seat. It was also an effort to keep her eyes open, especially as the tunnel was even more dimly-lit than usual, the lights running on back-up generators, only one lane open.

  ‘They do,’ she said from between gritted teeth. ‘And usually I'm fine, but I'm not usually travelling through a tunnel that’s been damaged in a major earthquake and can fall down around my ears at any moment.’

  Moana’s laugh was expected, and Claire didn’t hold it against her. Too much. Just sniffed and admitted her weakness. Sometimes, she’d decided long ago, actually admitting to the things that scared you was a strength.

  ‘Do not like squeezy underground places,’ she said.

  ‘Squeezy underground places?’

  ‘Yep, those are the ones I do not like.’

  There was even more amusement in the woman’s voice and Claire found it was actually helping to make a joke of it. The car crept along at just under fifty kilometres an hour, having been waved through the cordon by a beefy fella in an army uniform. Somewhere in all this mess, the Prime Minister had declared an official state of emergency.

  ‘Underground is not the place for me,’ Claire said. ‘I am no burrowing animal.’

  ‘Would have thought there was no more of a squeezy place than under water.’

  ‘It’s my philosophy to stay on top of the water,’ Claire said. ‘And that I will do very happily.’ In fact, most of her wished right this minute that she was doing exactly that. Giving in and closing her eyes, she imagined the cold spray on her face, the immense distance of ocean around and under her, all her senses switched on. Her mind brightened and cleared.

  ‘He’ll be going after Rose now,’ she said, opening her eyes to a dim light at the end of the tunnel.

  Moana’s glance was sharp, serious. ‘You think so?’

  ‘I do.’ She could see the truth of it. ‘There’s no way he’ll hang around Christchurch. He’s chosen to literally burn his bridges – in this case, his house. That’s a pretty emphatic way of turning your back on a place.’

  Moana caught on quickly. ‘Where do you think he’ll go?’

&nbs
p; ‘I don’t think he’ll know how much we have on him now – if he ever did. He probably thinks he solved any problems by deleting that photo on Jeanette’s phone. There is no way he saw Zoe’s phone and I doubt she would have told him she had the photos on there.’

  ‘His computer was stolen and there will eventually be techs available to go through whatever is on there.’ She sighed. ‘The earthquake’s changed everything.’

  ‘Yes,’ Claire agreed. ‘But Danny has no idea who took that. He might think about whether it could have been Jeanette since he was parked near her flat, but really, that would seem a low probability if I were in his shoes.’ She paused a moment, taking a grateful breath when they emerged unscathed from the tunnel on the Lyttelton side.

  ‘All the same, he will be ditching this place for greener pastures,’ she resumed. ‘And what better time for it – him and a great many others after the earthquake.’

  ‘If I was him,’ Moana said, ‘I’d leave the country.’

  ‘Go back to Australia.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  Claire leaned forward in the car, taking in the view, still unbelieving of the changed landscape. ‘Can you stop him?’

  Moana thought for a minute. ‘Maybe,’ she said. ‘Certainly if we can get some solid evidence. We can bring him in on a charge of breaking and entering. That’s for sure. And he’s definitely a person of interest for the rest of it.’ She tapped her fingers against the steering wheel. ‘These photos that have been found half-burnt. They’re obviously the original ones with his sister in them.’ She stretched in her seat, sighed. ‘What I really want is to look over the post-mortem of Sahara Woolsley again. See if there is anything to link him to her death. Zoe must have thought there was something to the possibility.’

  ‘Something we may not have seen ourselves, yet,’ Claire added. She looked down at the paperwork in her lap. It was insurance stuff for the most part. House insurance, standard terms on that one, life insurance policies for both Danny and Zoe, which were much what you’d expect for their income level, and the last document, which she couldn’t bring herself to look at, was Zoe’s will. She touched the long envelope lightly with her fingertips.

  ‘I need to check on Rose,’ she said.

  Moana looked at her.

  ‘It’s not out of our way.’

  ‘Your parents are with her, aren’t they?’

  ‘Yes.’ It wasn’t enough though. ‘Danny will be coming for her. I’d feel better if we could at least check on her.’

  ‘At least?’ Moana didn’t miss anything. Claire found herself appreciating that.

  ‘I’d feel better right now if she were in our care.’

  ‘You mean, if we pop her in the back seat and bring her with us?’

  ‘You’re right,’ Claire said on a sigh. ‘That’s ridiculous. She touched the Last Will and Testament again. ‘I’ll tell you what,’ she said at last. ‘You don’t really need me with you anymore. It’s all just evidence-gathering at this stage, then putting a formal case together, right?’

  ‘Right.’

  She shifted in the car seat. ‘So you can drop me off here, and I can stay with Rose. I'm not comfortable leaving her with my parents.’ A smile crept across her face. ‘Even with our new dog.’

  Moana frowned at her.

  ‘Rose found a dog hiding out behind Dad’s boat this morning – the one he’s building in the backyard. Poor thing had obviously been terrified by the quake. Anyway, it took a real shine to her.’

  The smile widened. ‘It’s a really huge German Shepherd. I mean, you should see the size of this thing’s teeth.’

  ‘You better hope it likes all of you, then,’ Moana said. ‘You don’t know the animal at all, if it just turned up out of the blue.’

  ‘I know,’ Claire said, sighing again. ‘Another reason to go home.’ She gestured at the broken main road where they’d slowed almost to a crawl. ‘I can get out here. Mum and Dad live only a couple minutes away.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes. I need to be with Rose. I'm not letting Danny take her.’ The car stopped at the curb and Claire let herself out, then leaned back down in the doorway. ‘Put together a case against him, Moana. Find him and bring him in. Danny Fry is not taking that little girl anywhere. I will tear him limb from limb and feed him to the sharks before I let that happen.’

  Moana gaped at her, but Claire simply smiled and closed the door.

  When the car drew away a moment later, heading for the hills and whatever remains of the pornographic photographs could be recovered, Claire slid the envelope containing Zoe’s will into the inside pocket of her jacket and crossed the road to her parent’s house.

  67

  The front door was open. Claire considered this and slowed her step, pushing it wider and stepping into a silent house. It was usually the French doors that were left open, not the front.

  Standing in the dining room, she listened, head cocked to the side. Nothing. Just the breathing of the house, the rumble of her father’s generator.

  ‘Mum? Dad?’

  She said it barely above a whisper, then moved quickly through the house, checking the rooms, looking out the window into the backyard. It was empty, her father’s car gone.

  She pulled out her phone and called her mother. Perhaps they’d all piled into the car and gone to see Rose’s real Granddad, Colin.

  A phone tinkled and chortled from somewhere near and Claire strode over to the table and looked at her mother’s mobile phone, disconnecting her call. Next, she tried her father, moving off through the house and up the stairs, her movements quiet, controlled.

  ‘Claire,’ her father answered. ‘How did it go this morning?’

  ‘Are Mum and Rose with you?’ she asked, ignoring his question.

  ‘No,’ came the reply, instantly concerned. ‘I left them at home. I’ve only been gone twenty minutes. They were playing in the garden when I left.’

  ‘They’re not here.’ Claire walked into Rose’s room. Her suitcase was gone. ‘He’s got her,’ she said. ‘Danny has Rose.’

  ‘Where’s your mum?’

  ‘I don’t know, but I'm going to find them both.’

  ‘I’ll be right there.’

  There was a click and the call ended. Sliding her phone back into a pocket, Claire left the room and went back downstairs.

  ‘Mum?’ she called, louder this time. The garden doors were closed, and she pushed them open. ‘Mum?’

  A great barking started up, deep, throaty, and coming from the pottery studio. She could just hear her mother’s shouts over it.

  ‘Mum!’

  ‘He locked us in, Claire, I'm so sorry, he was hurting her!’ Her mother scrabbled at the other side of the wooden door.

  Claire heard what she said but concentrated on looking for the key. ‘The key’s not in the door.’

  ‘I can’t fit through the window,’ her mother said. The dog had stopped barking at the sound of Claire’s voice. ‘I tried already.’

  ‘Is there a spare key?’ She was scanning the path for it, in case Danny had dropped it, thrown it away. Something glinted amongst the calendula and she pounced on it, glad her eyesight was sharp.

  ‘Got it, Mum,’ she said, fitting it into the lock, turning it and pulling the door open. Her mother collapsed into her arms.

  ‘I'm so happy you’re here, Clare,’ she said, and her cheeks were wet against Claire’s. ‘He took her.’ Gracie’s voice broke. ‘I tried to stop him, and Pilot wanted to tear him to pieces, but Rose, she ran up to him of course. She was thrilled to see him – she didn’t know any better!’

  Claire held her arms around her mother. ‘It’s okay, Mum,’ she said. ‘We’ll find her.’

  Her mother leaned back, looking up at her. ‘He was hurting her.’ She touched a hand to her throat. ‘He had her like this and he was squeezing, and she was choking! I had to back off, I had to take Pilot and back off. He would have killed her.’ Her eyes were wide, wet. ‘I really think
he would have killed her, Claire.’

  Claire squeezed her own eyes shut a moment.

  ‘He’s had us all so fooled,’ Gracie said. ‘All this time. I just thought he was a bit of a twit, I never thought he was a murderer.’

  ‘I think that is exactly what he is,’ Claire said.

  She turned around. ‘Where’s the dog?’

  They both turned, searching the garden and Claire could feel herself straining to move faster, run here, there. She raked sharp fingers through her hair. The urgency was like an electric current streaming through her veins.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Gracie said. ‘Maybe he’s looking for Rose. I swear that dog is in love with the child.’ She glanced at Claire. ‘I couldn’t let him attack Danny though. Not while Danny had Rose in his arms. She would have gotten hurt too.’

  Claire reached out and touched her mother on the arm. ‘It’s okay, Mum. It’s my fault for being away for so long. I should have been here. I knew Danny was dangerous.’

  Gracie got the same look on her face that Claire had seen a million times all through her childhood. ‘Rubbish,’ she said. ‘You could have had no idea. That’s why you went to see Zoe’s police friend. To find out.’

  The dog barked. Not just once, but an urgent summons.

  He sat at the front door, staring up at the handle, barking. Claire put a hand to the warm fur at his neck.

  ‘How long ago did he leave, Mum?’ she asked.

  ‘Five minutes. Ten at the most.’

  The dog whined, and Claire pulled the door open.

  Pilot leapt forward as if a starting gun had gone off and ran in leggy strides down the path, nose to the ground. He jumped up at the gate, leaning giant paws over it and barking again. She ran down the path behind him.

  ‘Easy, boy,’ she said, and the dog turned his dark brown eyes to her but kept barking. ‘I know,’ she said, then turned to her mother. ‘Do we have anything we can use for a lead? I don’t want to lose him.’ Or let him loose on an unsuspecting public.

  Her mother stared at her pale-faced from the doorway, then disappeared, returning a minute later to hand over a bungee cord with an apologetic look.