by JC Grey
Chapter Seventeen
‘Looking for this, old man?’
How amusing was it to come up behind the drunk as he searched the barn for the replacement nail gun? To watch him spin around in shock, so certain he’d been all alone.
‘Who are you? This is private property.’
‘You might say I’m a fan.’
The old man went to respond and then clamped his lips tightly together, no doubt in consideration of his employer’s privacy.
‘Get out of here before I call the cops – and give me tha— Ah!’ He screamed as a nail pierced his hand, pinning it to the bench.
They both stared at the dark red blood that seeped from the wound and began to drip on the floor.
‘The good news is that it’s not all alcohol in your veins, then, Rowdy.’
‘What . . . what do you want?’ rasped the old man. His face was white, eyes panicked, as he stared at the nail gun, fearing a second assault.
‘Firstly, for you to understand that I’m in charge.’
‘Who are you?’ It was whispered through gritted teeth. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘I’ve been watching you. You and the boy.’
‘He doesn’t work Tuesdays.’
‘Lucky for him. It’s the bitch I came to see.’
It was comical to see the old man’s attempts at a blank face. ‘Who?’
‘Blaze Gillespie. I know the whore has been staying with her lover.’ A slight movement of the nail gun followed the smile. ‘But you’re going to get her here.’
Even with Paddy sitting between them in the truck for the drive over to Sweet Springs, the atmosphere grew so tense that Blaze was ready to kiss her phone when it buzzed as they turned off the main road.
‘Hi, Rowdy. I’m on my way —’
‘No!’ He sounded strange, as if he was struggling to speak. ‘Not safe—’
She heard a faint thud and Rowdy’s howl of pain.
‘Rowdy? Rowdy?’ she said, sitting bolt up in her seat. ‘Can you hear me, Rowdy? What’s happening?’
The line went dead.
What the hell’s going on? Is he okay?’ Mac asked as he brought the truck to a halt on the side of the track to Sweet Springs, in view of the gates.
‘I don’t think so.’ Blaze tried Rowdy’s number and then the Sweet Springs landline, but there was no answer. She shook her head. ‘I think he’s hurt.’
‘Well, if he’s here, we’ll soon find out.’ He put his foot to the accelerator.
‘Wait!’ Blaze clutched his arm. ‘He said something like “It’s not safe”.’
Mac drew off the track, his face grim. ‘It’s got to be Woodall. Ryan’s supposed to have guys watching the bastard, but maybe he gave him the slip. Wait here.’ He unclipped his seatbelt.
Blaze tightened her fingers around his arm. ‘Where are you going?’
‘To see if I can stop Woodall before he kills someone.’
‘We should let the police know.’
Mac nodded, pulling out his phone. He listened for a moment and started to leave a message. He swore. ‘I’ve lost the signal.’
‘We can try the landline up at the house.’
Mac nodded, getting out of the car. Blaze followed him around to the boot where he took out a tyre iron.
Suddenly, she remembered. ‘My grandfather’s old rifle is in the study. It’s not loaded, but no one knows that!’
‘All right, let’s go.’
She wound down the window of the truck down so Paddy would have fresh air, and told him to stay. Then she and Mac turned off their mobiles to avoid inadvertently alerting anyone who might be lying in wait, he took her hand and they headed cautiously towards the house.
The road emptied the further west Andrew Ryan drove, as most people had heeded the advice to stay put as the fire front moved steadily down from the north, fanned by the choppy wind. Only fools were out, and Ryan counted himself and Pete Woodall among them. He sighed as the car in front swerved on to the shoulder, kicking up a cloud of dust and only narrowly avoiding the ditch.
The good cop in Ryan knew he should put the siren on and stop Woodall here and now before he got anywhere near Rosmerta. The way he was driving, he was over the limit for sure. But the bad cop knew he needed something more than a drunk driving charge to stop Woodall from making bail. So he kept following.
His phone, clipped to the dash, rang and Macauley Black’s name flashed on the display. Just as Ryan went to answer it, the car in front skidded, spitting up loose gravel at Ryan’s windshield. Instinctively, Ryan ducked as the stones smacked against the glass. He swore, and applied the brakes to put distance between Woodall and himself. By then the phone was silent.
Ryan impatiently jabbed Mac’s number but the call went straight to voice mail. Ryan left a curt message that Woodall was heading for Rosmerta with trouble in mind and to keep everyone inside until he got there.
By now, he could barely make out the car in front because of the cloud of dust. The air was thick with it. He put on a little speed to catch up. They were little more than five minutes away and then, with any luck, he’d be able to charge Woodall with something, which should keep him out of trouble long enough to get to the bottom of things.
Two minutes later, as he topped a low rise before the road fell gently towards the Black homestead, he realised that what he’d thought was thick dust kicked up by the squally wind was, in fact, a vast cloud of smoke blowing in from the fires to the north.
Heart in her mouth, Blaze slid the key into the lock as quietly as she could, wincing at the loud click.
Inside, Mac gently pushed open the door to the study, tyre iron raised. It was empty. Blaze let out a sigh of relief and handed Mac the rifle. ‘I’ll scope out the house first. Stay here.’ He handed her the tyre iron. ‘If anyone opens the door without announcing themselves, hit first, ask questions later.’
‘Be careful.’
‘Always am.’
From the doorway, Blaze watched him move stealthily down the hallway, pushing open the doors one by one. He took longer in the kitchen, but came out shaking his head.
‘There’s no sign of Rowdy’s vehicle or any others around the back,’ he murmured.
‘If he was working in the barn, he probably parked around the back or inside.’
‘I’ll check it once I’ve had a look upstairs.’
She watched him climb the stairs, forgetting until too late to remind him that the third stair from the top creaked. When she didn’t hear anything, she relaxed. He must have remembered. Within minutes, he was back.
‘Everything looks normal up there but I’m pretty sure I saw a movement in the barn,’ he said.
‘Rowdy?’
‘Couldn’t tell.’ He shook his head. ‘Listen, I’m going over there. Before Woodall does something he’ll regret.’
‘Wait,’ she said. ‘Let’s try Ryan again.’
‘I can handle Woodall, I promise.’ He grinned at her. ‘Trust me.’
‘I do but —’
He stopped her with a hard kiss to her mouth and then he was gone.
Slowly, she closed the door after him, her mind finishing the half-asked question.
But what if you can’t?
By the time Ryan pulled up beside Woodall’s vehicle, the man was nowhere in sight, but Peggy Fairchild appeared from the direction of the hands’ quarters.
‘Oh, thank God, Detective Sergeant. Hurry! This way,’ she said, her face flushed.
‘Woodall?’
‘Yes, hurry!’ She turned back and Ryan hurried after her. As he approached the low timber building, he heard the sounds of raised voices, Woodall’s being the loudest.
‘He deserves it. You all deserve it! Now get out of here unless you want to be toast!’
The smell of gasoline was intense as Peggy opened the door and they walked into the large open-plan kitchen and living area to find Amos wrestling with Woodall over a metal canister of fuel. The older man was wheezing as he tr
ied to rip it from Woodall’s hands.
Fuel was being splashed around the room in the process so Ryan told Peggy to find a hose in case it was needed and she rushed off.
‘Pete, that’s enough now,’ Ryan said. ‘You’ve made your point. Now let it go.’
Woodall looked around wildly. ‘Stay back. I’ve got a lighter!’
‘Amos, move away, please,’ Ryan said. The old man released his grip on the can. ‘Peg’s gone to find a hose. Perhaps you could help her. Make sure it’s connected and ready to go if I can’t talk this bloke down.’
‘We’ve got a high-pressure hose somewhere. I’ll track it down,’ Amos promised.
‘Good. By the way, where’s Mac?’ Ryan asked in a low voice.
‘He took Miz Blaze over to Sweet Springs earlier. It’s just Peg and me here. Beau and the boys went to move the cattle and horses to the dam when the wind changed direction suddenly. Boss didn’t think the fire would get this far, but said to be on the safe side.’
‘I’m gonna do it!’ Woodall screamed, emptying the rest of the can onto the floor rug as Amos rushed off. ‘It’s all going up!’
‘Come on, Pete.’ Ryan spread his hands to indicate the empty room. ‘Only thing that happens is you and I get torched. So how about we walk out of here and talk things over?’
‘Where’s Black?’ Woodall muttered. ‘Hey, Black! Black, you fucking bastard! Don’t think you can hide from me. I’m going to burn your fucking precious station to the ground!’ Woodall laughed drunkenly and then began to cough from the fumes.
‘He’s not here,’ Ryan said, keeping his voice calm. ‘He’s away for the day so we need to handle this between the two of us. Okay?’
‘Gonna get a shock when he comes back, won’t he?’ Woodall said. ‘Everything gone. Then he’ll know what it’s like to have nothing. To be nothing.’
‘And what about you? How are you going to end up? At best, in jail or in hospital. Think about it, Pete.’
‘I want him to pay,’ he said sulkily. ‘He should pay.’
‘Okay, but not like this; come on now. Let’s get out of here before you drop that lighter and we all go up in smoke.’
‘He’s gotta pay,’ Woodall slurred, stumbling again.
‘He’s already paying, Pete. If that gives you any satisfaction.’ Ryan took the lighter from Woodall, spun him around and clapped on handcuffs. ‘That stunt you pulled over at Sweet Springs the other day really got to him.’
‘Nah, wasn’t me . . .’ Woodall almost tripped and brought them both down as Ryan hauled him out of the building and across the yard. The guy smelt like a combination of brewery and oil refinery.
‘Drama over,’ he said to Amos and Peggy as they waited with the hose. ‘Sorry, you’ll have a bit of a clean-up job in there. Be careful; he emptied the entire fuel can.’
‘Thanks, mate,’ Amos said. ‘Bit of a worry, what with the fires so close.’
‘You shouldn’t have tackled him alone, Amos. He could have seriously hurt you.’
‘Boss would never forgive me if I let the place go up in smoke. Weather the way it is, it wouldn’t take much.’
‘Mac would never forgive you if you let his right-hand man go up in smoke,’ Ryan corrected. ‘I’ll get this idiot back to town and booked.’
‘Didn’t do it,’ Woodall muttered as Ryan herded him into the back seat of his police vehicle. ‘Wasn’t me.’
‘Whatever you say, Pete.’ Ryan rolled his eyes at Peggy and Amos as they waved him off. ‘Whatever you say.’
The silence was as thick as the air inside the study. Blaze took her phone from her bag and switched it back on. Less than five minutes had passed since Mac had gone to check the barn. Please let him find Rowdy okay, she prayed.
She didn’t have Ryan’s number so she called Triple 000 and tried to explain the circumstances, but the line cut out before she completed her first sentence. She tried on the landline, but all she got was a recorded message saying that all lines were busy and to try again.
Being back in the study where some creep had written that word over and over made her uneasy in a way that using her laptop again hadn’t. Computers, after all, were inanimate things, whereas rooms held in their air the very imprint of their inhabitants. She shivered, despite the warmth of the room.
She thought again of the nightmare; her fear that she might have brought danger right to Mac’s doorstep. What if he’d walked into an ambush at the barn? She couldn’t just sit here and wait, not when his life and her future were on the line. Why someone was stalking the people she cared about, she had no idea. But someone was and only she could stop it.
Rifle at his shoulder, Mac slipped around the front of the house to the barn. The double doors gaped open, providing the only way into and out of the barn. As he got closer, he could hear a man’s wheezing, painful breath.
‘Rowdy!’ he called. ‘Are you in there?’
‘Come on in and find out,’ called a voice he recognised.
Mac moved slowly forward until he was at the doorway. As his eyes adjusted to the dimmer light, he saw Rowdy, white face etched in pain, slumped awkwardly against a work bench. Something dripped from his hand to the floor and Mac saw the dark pool of blood.
‘Jesus, Rowdy,’ he muttered.
‘She nailed my hand to the bench,’ Rowdy wheezed. ‘Won’t tell me who she is.’
‘I know who she is.’ Mac subtly shifted the rifle behind his back, not wanting to provoke Emily Williams, who stood poised, the nail gun still in her hand. Her once-attractive, freckled face was marked by a skin condition that spread along her neck, and where the sleeves of her work shirt were rolled up Mac could see the raw skin inflamed by scratches that looked infected. But it was the deranged look in her eyes that really alarmed him.
She chuckled. ‘Maybe you only think you do.’
‘What’s all this about, Emily?’
‘This, lover boy, is bait.’
‘She . . . she wants Blaze,’ Rowdy panted.
‘Over my dead body, Emily.’
She grinned wider. ‘That is so on the agenda.’
‘Listen, I don’t know what’s going on but Blaze isn’t here,’ Mac said.
‘Really? That’s disappointing, as I thought she might be interested to hear about her friend, Redmond.’
‘What about him?’
‘Oh, about how he screamed as he was filleted.’ She waved the nail gun.
Mac stiffened. ‘You murdered Mitch Redmond?’
‘Impressed?’ Emily chuckled.
Mac stiffened. ‘The film festival shooting?’
‘Guilty as charged.’
Mac clamped down hard on his welling tide of rage. ‘And the attack on Peggy Fairchild?’
‘Me, too! Versatile, aren’t I?’
Mac clenched his fist around the rifle. ‘You could have killed her, and for what? What the hell is this all about?’
‘You’ll find out when the bitch arrives.’
Rowdy stirred. ‘Mac, I tried to tell Blaze . . .’
‘And you learnt your lesson, didn’t you?’ Emily said, shaking her head as though to say ‘I told you so’. She brandished the nail gun again. ‘And, unfortunately, I’m going to have to give you another unless Mr Black here is kind enough to put down his weapon.’
At her threat, Rowdy moved involuntarily, wrenching his hand. He groaned in pain and the blood dripped faster.
‘Okay, okay!’ Mac held up his left hand. With his right, he slowly placed the rifle on the ground, close enough that he could get to it if he had half a chance.
‘Kick it towards me,’ she ordered, and Mac reluctantly put his boot to it. ‘Excellent. I must say you’re much more malleable than I expected.’
‘Quid pro quo,’ Mac pointed out. ‘Let him go. You don’t need him now I’m here.’
‘And spoil the party before the main act gets here?’ Emily waved a forefinger from side to side. ‘Where would be the fun in that?’
‘Okay, then how do
you want to play this?’ Mac said, keeping his eyes on her while his mind ran through the options for calling the woman’s bluff and rejected them just as fast. He’d already seen that she was armed with far more than a nail gun. A hand gun was also within easy reach. Clearly there was more to quiet, nervous Emily Williams than met the eye.
She grinned. ‘I’m not playing at anything. I’m deadly serious.’ The smile widened as she placed the nail gun on the bench and picked up the hand gun. ‘Now, what were you saying about your dead body?’
Mac heard the safety click off and was poised to hit the ground when all of them heard the sound of a police siren out on the main road.
Mac let out a relieved sigh until he realised that, instead of the siren getting closer, it was becoming fainter. They all listened until it disappeared into the distance, and Mac knew that if they were going to get out of this alive, they were going to have to do it alone.
Chapter Eighteen
‘Emily?’
Blaze stood just inside the barn, her eyes on the slight blonde woman holding a gun directed at Mac, and had to blink twice to ensure her sight wasn’t playing tricks.
Her eyes searched the shadowy form, trying to connect this dishevelled creature with the woman she’d met so briefly at the wrap party for Bad & Co.; a fellow Aussie in a room full of Yanks – or so she’d thought.
‘It is Emily, isn’t it? Rick Beatty’s friend.’ She took another step forward. ‘What are you doing here?’
The woman’s mouth moved in a grim facsimile of a smile. ‘Well, I’ve come to see you, Blaze.’
‘Where did you get the gun?’
‘This little beauty?’ She looked down at it. ‘I’m sure our friend Pete Woodall is glad I removed it from his house before I called the cops.’
Frowning, Blaze noticed her skin condition. ‘Can we talk about this? I don’t think you’re well. I want to understand what’s happened to you.’
A cracked laugh. ‘You happened to me, bitch!’ The gun arm wavered, halfway between Mac and Blaze. ‘Don’t come any closer!’
