Cold Valley Nightmare

by Anna Willett

  There was a scrape on the end of the line followed by an intake of breath. Janice was lighting a cigarette.

  “I know the bit of footage you’re talking about,” Janice replied. She blew out a deep breath and Lucy could almost smell the tobacco and taste the hot smoky flavour on her tongue.

  Instinctively, she stood and reached into her pocket, curling her fingers around the curious object her brother had given her that afternoon. As she listened to Janice enjoying a cigarette well out of sight of her husband and, Lucy suspected, without his knowledge, she turned the worry beads and was surprised to find her craving easing.

  “The pregnant woman in the yellow dress?” Janice seemed to be thinking out loud more than talking to Lucy. “I know I know her… I couldn’t quite come up with a name, but…” She hesitated and Lucy’s fingers tightened around the worry beads. “I think she might have been one of the foster kids.”

  The urge to fire questions was almost overwhelming, but Lucy waited, giving the woman time to roll the memory over in her mind.

  “Yes, I’m sure that’s how I know her. My memory is pretty good for names and faces, but there’s been so many kids passing through the high school.” She made another tutting sound. “I can’t quite recall her name, but I’m sure she was one of Marina’s foster kids.”

  Lucy tapped the pen to her lips. Finding the pregnant woman would be much easier if they knew her connection to Cold Valley.

  “So you know the woman, just not her name?” she said.

  “Well.” Janice drew out the word with painful uncertainty. “I think Marina Plick would know her. She used to foster kids – lots of kids.” There was a moment’s silence. Lucy had the distinct impression Janice was thinking about what she was about to say next, a sort of gathering of courage before plunging on. “I don’t know if Marina will be very helpful.”

  Surprised by what Janice told her but still cautious, Lucy measured out her next words carefully, “Why wouldn’t she want to help find a missing child?”

  Janice gave a short laugh. “I don’t know why I said that. I don’t really know the woman and she did foster lots of kids, but...”

  Again, rather than prompting Janice, Lucy held her tongue and waited.

  “Cold Valley is a small place and people talk. Most of the kids in Marina’s care were troubled. They came from dysfunctional homes or no real homes at all. They’d been exposed to violence, drugs, even abuse.” Janice let out a sigh. “Sometimes they seemed to get worse, not better under Marina’s care.”

  Lucy wrote Marina’s name on her pad and circled it. Her mind went back to the discussion she’d had with Damon and how he’d said that for some women the desperation to have a baby can lead them to do shocking things. If the woman wearing the pregnancy belly was a foster child from a broken home, could this be another reason she’d do something as crazy as snatching a child? Maybe some mixed up notion about her own childhood?

  “Do you think the children were being mistreated?” she asked.

  Lucy heard another scrape and an intake of breath. Janice was onto her second cigarette.

  “Some of the teachers at the high school had their suspicions, but nothing ever came of it.”

  Before Lucy could ask the obvious, Janice rushed to explain. “You have to understand, this was over fifteen years ago and things were better than they’d been only a decade earlier, but people were still hesitant to point fingers.” She exhaled. “None of the kids ever came right out and said anything, and back then there was no mandatory reporting. I remember the principal at the time did what he could. He talked to someone from Children’s and Family Services, but it took a couple of years before they stopped sending Marina kids.”

  The idea that an untold number of vulnerable teens might have been mistreated and the woman suspected of being responsible went unchallenged was enough to leave Lucy reeling. For a second she almost lost sight of her goal. But even as the questions about Marina and a system that continuously let down helpless children mounted, Lucy’s thoughts turned back to Clem. There was a good chance he was still out there and unlike the children that went through the foster system fifteen years ago, Lucy might be able to help him.

  “Can you give me Marina’s address?”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Damon picked up his glass. Lucy sat across the room with her back to him, typing on her laptop. When he returned from Brock’s room, she was waiting for him with two glasses of whiskey and a new nugget of information. He was still surprised by how quickly her mind worked and her uncanny ability to narrow in on the salient facts. Watching her slender frame as she moved over the keyboard, he couldn’t help marvel at the way life had brought them together, and that somehow, even after all the things he’d done during his time in the military, fate had rewarded him with Lucy Hush’s love.

  Not that he believed in fate or karma. Those were things people used to comfort themselves, to make sense of a world where tragedy and violence could strike at any moment. But even to his logical mind, meeting and falling in love with Lucy was something extraordinary. An unexpected gift he cherished and had the wisdom not to question.

  “So far,” Lucy said, turning away from the computer and looking at him, “we’ve got the woman at the fête who we know is faking a pregnancy. That makes her interesting to say the least. Then there’s this woman, Marina Plick, a foster parent who may be connected to the woman at the fête.” She raised one eyebrow. “And four bodies buried in the forest not far from where Clem disappeared.”

  Damon set his glass down on the bedside table. “Do you have an address for the Plick woman?”

  “Oh, yes.” She turned back to the table and grabbed a notepad. “Janice didn’t have the exact address, but she gave me directions to Marina’s house.” She held the pad out. “This on its own is interesting.”

  Damon took the pad.

  “Huh.” Boronia. The street name was familiar. It took him a second and then it came to him. Boronia Street was on the far side of the fire road, almost directly opposite Hallows Lane. “So Marina Plick lives opposite the Wheelers?”

  Lucy nodded. “With the forest between them and almost direct access between the two streets via the fire road.”

  He could hear the excitement in her voice. Her enthusiasm was catching. He felt a spark of hope and for the first time since they became involved in the case he allowed himself to believe the little boy might still be alive.

  “I think you and Brock should pay Marina Plick a visit tomorrow,” she said.

  Lucy was on her feet, moving towards him until she was standing above him where he sat on the edge of the bed. Raising his chin so he could meet her gaze, Damon noticed her cheeks were tinted with colour, making her golden skin glow and her eyes shine. This case was hard on her, hard on everyone involved, and the possibility of finding Clem alive was energising. He just hoped he hadn’t involved her in something that would end in tragedy.

  “Me and Brock?” He reached up and let his hands rest on her hips. “Don’t you want to come with us – interview the woman yourself?” He pulled her closer, breathing in the light floral scent of her skin. “You’re pretty good at surprise visits, remember?”

  He lifted her T-shirt and kissed the warm flesh just above her navel the same moment her hands gripped the back of his head and her fingers laced through his hair as she shivered and arched her spine. Lucy whispered something, but the words were muffled and unintelligible as his hands travelled upwards, skimming the firm swell of her breasts.

  Later, with Lucy’s body resting against him and her soft breath warming his chest, Damon closed his eyes. They’d come so far in the last fourteen months that he didn’t want to risk upsetting the niche they’d carved out together. A niche that seemed solid and fragile at the same time. But he reminded himself Lucy was strong. She’d come through more than most people could possibly imagine. And if he was intent on being with her, he knew part of loving her was giving her the space to take her own risks.
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br />   Not for the first time that day, Brock’s story came back to him, and halfway between wakefulness and sleep Damon could almost visualise the little girl’s waxy skin as his partner described it: tinted purple by the waning light.

  * * *

  “It might have been better to have Lucy along on this one.” Brock had a takeaway coffee propped on his knee and one arm draped on the open window. “An older woman might respond better to her than us.”

  Damon turned the Jeep onto the two-lane stretch that connected Boddington with Cold Valley.

  “She’s trying to set up a meeting with the little boy’s mother,” he said.

  He glanced over at his partner and noticed he looked tired and uncharacteristically dishevelled, as the rush of air from the open window ruffled his thick black hair. “She mentioned something about talking to the school secretary, the one who identified the pregnant woman,” he continued.

  Brock nodded and sipped his coffee. Clem Scott had been missing for nine days, so it made sense that they split up and cover as much ground as possible. They’d had no further word from Larson on the bodies in the forest, which indicated the cops had a tight lid on the situation and Larson’s contact on the force couldn’t sniff out anything new. His boss had never come right out and said so, but Damon was pretty sure Larson had a few inside people on his payroll. How many and how high up, Damon had no idea; only that it was unusual for Larson to be kept in the dark. That meant their only option was to push on with the investigation and work on the only lead they had.

  By the time they turned onto Boronia Street, it was almost nine o’clock. The sun, still flanked by clouds, offered only dreary grey light. The street turned out to be little more than a stretch of faded bitumen edged with scrubby looking bush and a smattering of mailboxes.

  “Last one on the left.” Brock pointed to a red box hanging limply from a rotted stake.

  The directions Lucy had passed on told them only that Marina’s place was the last house on Boronia Street before the road abruptly ended in a sort of unpaved cul-de-sac. Damon noted that Marina’s closest neighbour was almost three hundred metres back, leaving the house well away from prying eyes.

  Instead of turning the Jeep onto the patchy gravel driveway, Damon pulled over and turned off the engine.

  “The fire road ends back there.” He gestured over his right shoulder. “That puts it roughly between Marina and her closest neighbour.”

  Brock set his cup in the console.

  “If the woman at the fête was staying with Marina, she’d have almost direct access to Hallows Lane,” he said.

  Damon tucked his phone inside his jacket and opened the driver’s door. “Let’s take a look.”

  They left the Jeep parked on the road and walked back towards the fire road. The track narrowed at the Boronia Street side until the trail was little more than a sandy mouth leading into the forest.

  “Plenty of tyre tracks.” Brock nodded toward the opening. “The cops would have been in and out of here a few times since yesterday.”

  Damon turned away from the fire road and surveyed the quiet street. “Would the police have gone house to house when Clem disappeared?”

  Understanding what Damon was getting at, Brock turned to look in the direction of Marina’s mailbox. “Maybe, but it’s doubtful they would have come this far.”

  “Yeah, and if they did and the home owner turned out to be an old lady?”

  Brock shrugged. “They probably wouldn’t have asked to go inside.” Years of undercover work investigating corrupt cops left Brock jaded when it came to the police and their tactics. But Damon knew Brock wouldn’t give an estimation based on his personal feelings.

  Damon stood with his hands on his hips.

  “So the woman at the fête is desperate to have a child. So desperate she wears a fake belly.” His eyes were on the fire road, studying the network of tyre marks. “She sees Clem at the fête. Maybe she even called him over when Robert Wheeler wasn’t paying attention.”

  “Which would have been most of the time, from what you’ve told me,” Brock interjected.

  “Yes, but she didn’t or couldn’t take him then. Maybe too many people were around. Maybe the little boy got spooked. Who knows?” Damon said.

  He turned towards the Plick’s mailbox. Talking through what might have happened helped him get his thoughts straight. “The woman with the fake belly might have driven from Marina’s to Hallows Lane and spotted Clem. Or she might have been watching the Wheelers’ house knowing the boy lived there. It could be that when she saw him in the front yard alone, it was an opportunity too good to pass up.”

  “But,” Brock said, staring into the forest. “Why would a woman who lived here sixteen years ago as a foster child be hanging around now?”

  It was a question Damon had asked himself, but still had no plausible explanation beyond she was visiting her former foster mother. “That’s what we need to find out.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  The house was old, but not as rundown as Marina’s place. Smiley clocked the two outbuildings at the rear of the property. One was brick with a solid door and would work as a place to house the dead-heads. That’s how he thought of them: dead-heads, the people that came to him believing they would be re-homed and given work picking fruit or cleaning houses. They were the walking dead and as such he didn’t give them much thought. He couldn’t afford to, not if he wanted the cash to keep flowing. And cash was the only thing that mattered. The only thing that gave him the upper hand.

  Smiley gasped at the twist of pain in his gut and pulled the cigarette packet out of his jacket. People paid to use the dead-heads. There was a market for illegal immigrants, one that paid well, and all Smiley had to do was store the dead-heads until the buyers came to play with their purchases. Then a night spent helping the buyer on the chase and by morning it was time to clean up the mess. If he hadn’t known it before, living with Marina and being part of the chase taught him there was only one thing that separated the dead-heads from the buyer and that was money. You could be on the top of the pile or be someone’s toy. Smiley intended to be at the very top.

  He lit a smoke and turned from the outbuilding back to the house, scratching the side of his neck. There was no phone service. It was a drawback, but not a deal breaker. He could always drive the ten minutes to the shit bucket these people called a town and pull over somewhere private and make a call. The problem wasn’t the lack of phone service; it was Mimi and the kid.

  The cops would never stop searching for the kid, and as long as they had him, they wouldn’t be able to start earning again. No, the kid had to go. Smiley had been careful not to speak to the boy. To keep his distance so when the time came it would be easier.

  Mimi would have to get in line or she’d end up like the dead-heads. Without warning, a memory flashed in his mind: Mimi, her dark hair clinging to her pale skin as she watched him through glistening blue eyes. They were running, hands linked and skin sweating.

  ‘Don’t let them take me back.’ Her voice was panicked and breathless. ‘I’ll die before I go back.’

  He could feel the warmth of her hand in his, and remembered the way her eyes pleaded with him until his chest was so tight he couldn’t breathe. He would have done anything for her then. He had done anything she needed. He was her hero and the man who’d taken her away from the miserable life her druggie mother had left her to. And although he’d only been a few years older than her, barely eighteen, he was a man. He’d proven that when he bashed Franko’s brains in.

  They’d left Marina’s together and ran free, Mimi promising to be his and give him love like he’d never known, and him angry at the world and tough enough to keep her safe and take whatever they needed. For a while they’d had everything. Taking what they wanted and living only for each other. They were outsiders in a world that had forgotten them.

  Smiley dropped the cigarette and ground it into the dirt. It hadn’t lasted. Nothing lasts unless you’ve got
money. If Mimi could see that, things would be simple. The chase could give them everything they’d ever wanted. He spat out a wad of dark bile threaded with blood that hit the ground at his feet. Sometimes his thoughts were confused, clouded by the dead-heads’ screams. Their begging in languages he couldn’t understand filled his head until it felt like his skull would crack open. At night the shrieks would change, stretching out into other voices, Franko’s voice.

  Smiley rolled his shoulders back and walked towards the house. He’d drive into town and make a call, arrange for Dale to come and pick up the kid. There were people who would pay as much as twenty grand for the boy. Franko’s face flashed in his mind, mouth open, his thick purple tongue lolling over his lips as his fat pink body covered Mimi’s. Smiley slapped his palm to his temple, trying to knock the image out of his brain. Whatever happened to the boy after Dale took him wasn’t Smiley’s problem. His hero days were long gone.

  Before he could reach the house, Mimi appeared at the back door. Not willing to listen to anymore shit about being a family, he veered left.

  “I thought you went into town.” There was an edge to her voice, demanding and suspicious as she called after him. “Get some peanut butter for Jake.”

  Pleased by the way his boots kicked up a cloud of brown dust and not bothering to stop, he headed around the side of the house to where he’d parked the car. The Commodore Equip, darkened by the shade of a dying tuckeroo tree, looked almost as brown as the dirt ringing the hem of his jeans.

  “What the fuck.” Startled by movement, Smiley halted. At first alarmed, he quickly realised the dark shape moving on the bonnet of his car was nothing more than a crow.

  Still, the creature’s shiny black feathers and thick body unnerved him as it regarded him with black pupils. The thing’s eyes reminded him of the dead-heads, the way they looked when they knew death was near. Only instead of rolling with panic, the bird’s eyes watched him with recognition.