Nothing could stop us now – not that I wanted him to.
"Release the girl and back away slowly, hands in the air."
Fuck.
SIXTY-ONE
I raised my hands and slowly turned around, trying to keep my body between Caitlin and the dickhead who'd decided to interrupt us. Caitlin and I were doomed. Fate hated us and if I even got close to a chance of happiness, it was shot to hell by yet another bastard like this one. Fuck, he was even wearing a balaclava.
"Step away from the girl," he repeated, his voice slightly muffled by the mask.
Reluctantly, I took a step closer to him. A flash of silver sailed past me and thunked into the door frame behind him. We both stared at the knife, pinning his shirt to the wall, and he reached up to touch the blood welling up from where it had grazed his arm.
Balaclava Bastard raised shaking hands and I realised he was unarmed. What kind of idiot burst into a house and tried to break up a busy couple without a weapon? Even I was a match for him with my broken leg if I could tackle him to the floor. I limped toward him. I was going to punch his fucking lights out.
He let out an agonised wail as his body grew rigid, shaking a little as I noticed the fine wires snaking into his shirt. His eyes rolled up and he slid down the wall, his weight pulling Caitlin's knife free to clatter to the floor before he hit it like a sack of potatoes.
Caitlin darted in and kicked the knife out of his reach, but it wasn't necessary – he slumped over, unconscious. She nudged his thigh a couple of times, but he didn't respond, so she knelt beside him and yanked out the hooks that had anchored the taser to his chest. She took a moment to examine his arm, too before she rose. "Watch him," she said grimly, wiping her knife on his shirt before tucking it back into the sheath strapped to her arm. "I'm going to get something we can restrain him with."
Restraints? Oh shit. Oh shit. I tried not to think of all the sadistic things that went with restraints. I desperately needed a distraction. Pizza. That was safe. And whisky, maybe. And wondering who the hell this idiot was.
I yanked the balaclava off his head and stared at his red face. It was hard to tell, but he looked familiar. If only I could remember where I'd seen him before.
"Who the hell is he?" Caitlin stood in the doorway, staring at the unconscious man.
I shrugged. "I don't know. I was hoping you would."
"Never seen him before. Here." She tossed me a roll of electrical tape. "Roll his sleeves and his pants legs up. Bind his wrists behind his back, then tape his ankles together."
I frowned at the tape. "Sticky tape? He'll break out of this in seconds."
Caitlin laughed. "No, it's heavy duty electrical tape. This stuff takes off hair and skin. We had a case in ED a few weeks back where some guy tried to wax his privates with it. Nasty job, putting skin grafts there."
I shuddered. "You mean you want me to put it on bare skin around his wrists and his ankles?"
"Yep. It'll hold him." She glared at the man. "And when he wakes up, he can tell us who he is and why the hell he's here in my house."
"Shouldn't we call the police?" I ventured.
She considered for a moment. "Afterwards. Maybe. If he wants us to." She waited for me to finish taping his wrists before reaching into his pocket. Flipping through his wallet, she pulled out a driver's licence. "Says his name's Otto. Nope, I don't recognise him. You?"
Otto? I stared at the man, then the card Caitlin held out. "Yeah. I used to work with him. He stopped coming to his shifts and never answered his phone. He was supposed to be working the night of your second concert, but he never turned up. He was a security guard."
She rose. "That means someone hired him and he'll tell us who if we meet his price."
"You're going to bribe him for information?" I looked around, but Caitlin had left the room.
She returned a few minutes later with a stack of towels. "No. I'm going to threaten to cut things off until he tells me." She held my horrified stare. "What? I'm a doctor. I can stitch things back on. If I want to."
I fervently hoped I never pissed her off enough to warrant attention from her knife.
Caitlin threw the towels at me. "Here, spread these out on the floor under him."
To keep the blood off her floorboards? I knew Caitlin could be cold, but this took things a little too far. I'd worked with the bloke. Surely she wouldn't...
She upended a pot of water on his face and he came up spluttering. I shoved another towel under his head to mop up the water.
Caitlin unsheathed her knife, holding the serrated blade up to the light. "Now, you're going to tell me why you're here or I'm going to use this."
Otto's eyes widened, fixed on the knife. He couldn't seem to get the words out fast enough. "He paid me to keep an eye on you. I had to stay in the shadows, out of sight, and make sure nothing happened to you. He said you weren't allowed to know I was there. If you saw me or if you got hurt, I'd lose my job."
"How long have you been keeping an eye on me?" Her voice was dangerously calm.
"I don't know. Since...since you started working at the hospital. I watched to make sure you made it home okay and then watched the place at night. Just at night – that's all he wanted. And if you went out, he wanted me to stay watching the apartment. There were a couple of Arab guys who came once or twice, watching your place, but they never went in. He said not to interfere unless you were in danger, and they left before you got home, so I stayed in hiding."
Her knife stilled. "Who's he?"
"Jay. He said his name was Jay. I never met him – we only spoke on the phone."
"Do you have his number?"
Otto jerked his head to the side. "Pocket. It's in my pocket."
Caitlin nodded to me and I extracted his phone, scrolling through the numbers until I found one for Jay. I held it up.
Caitlin snorted. "Give it to me."
She put the phone to her ear. After a few seconds, I heard someone answer.
"No, it's me," she bit out. "And you'd better leave the state tonight because if I get my hands on you, I'll castrate you for sure this time. You set a fucking stalker on me. After all the trouble I went through, you had someone do surveillance on my house. At night. You know how many nights he followed me home and how many times I nearly attacked him? I can take care of myself."
A whiny voice said thinly, "I was trying to protect you. Didn't want you to be scared."
"You should be scared. Next time, run all security through Trevor. And if you send anyone else to my house – especially at night – I'll call the police." She ended the call and threw the phone at Otto's crotch.
I winced as it landed.
"Your job here's done. I don't want to see you near my home or my work again, unless you're a genuine patient," Caitlin said. "What are you going to do if I tell him to let you go?"
"Get the fuck out of here," Otto replied, looking shaken. "He doesn't pay me enough to get stabbed and tortured. Sorry, lady, you're on your own. He can shove his job up his arse."
Caitlin nodded to me and handed me the knife. "Cut him free."
Carefully, I sawed through the tape on his legs, then his hands. After what she'd said about it ripping off skin, I wasn't game to try it.
Caitlin held up her taser. "Now get out."
Otto winced as he clambered to his feet, but he didn't hesitate. He took off at a run, out the door and down the stairs.
Caitlin sagged to the floor with a sigh. "God, I hope that means this is over."
Cautiously, I wrapped my arms around her. "It will be. And if he's crazy enough to come back, I'll be here." I glanced at her ripped shirt. "I'm sorry about your shirt. In the heat of the moment and all..."
She shrugged. "It was ripped anyway. I'll buy a new one." She sighed as she rose. "I should probably go put some clothes on. After that, I'm not really in the mood any more."
She glanced at my pants, but I didn't have to. I already knew that my libido had left the building.
SI
XTY-TWO
"How was your day at work, dear?" Nathan fought to keep a straight face as he stirred something in a pot on the stove. I wasn't game to ask what.
"Um, exhausting. I hate working with Dr Proctor."
Nathan pulled a beer out of the fridge and handed it to me. "Is he a real arsehole?"
I laughed. "No, he's a proctologist."
Nathan appeared puzzled. "But doesn't that mean..."
I grinned. God, the beer tasted good. "Yeah. And he deals with the emergency cases, mostly. I figured my rotation with him would be all about removing appendixes, but the things people stick up their –"
Nathan burst out laughing. "Shit, I forgot about those. I was lucky, but Alanna told me she had to remove goldfish once. Half a dozen of them and some had been dead for days."
"Urgh. Well, in the last week, I've had to deal with a mobile phone, a mouse, some condoms, a tampon and an electric toothbrush. The last one needed stitches."
Nathan winced.
"Today's one was the worst, though. You know that plaster stuff you buy at the hardware store to fill in cracks?"
He turned pale. "No. No one would be that stupid..."
I nodded. "Oh yes, someone was. He'd been fixing up some cracks in the wall with the stuff while renovating his house, and sex toys being expensive and embarrassing to buy, he figured he'd save a bit of money and blushing and make his own. Custom shape and size, too. So he got a turkey baster and the plaster and..."
"NO! Oh God, NO!" Nathan shouted, covering his ears.
I wished I could cover my imagination just as effectively. The bloke had waited three days before he'd worked up the courage to walk stiffly into hospital and whisper to the triage nurse what his problem was.
"What's for dinner?" I finally asked, pointing at the pot.
He peered into it. "Um, I was thinking pasta, but the water's not boiling yet, so nothing, so far. I found some pasta, but I have no idea what to put with it. Everything's pretty empty." He grinned at me sheepishly. "What would you like?"
I shrugged. "We could go out." My eyes followed his to his walking cast. "Okay, maybe we could get something delivered? And I'll order some groceries and have them delivered tomorrow. I'm sorry, Nathan, I'm not used to taking care of someone who can't leave the house. I don't know how you managed with me five years ago. I swear you had to be some sort of saint." I dragged my laptop bag from under the dining table and set it up. "All right, let's order some pizza and then you can help me pick out groceries for the next week or so." I buried my head in my hands. "I'm sorry. You must think I've had my head up my arse all week."
He snorted. "Well, no, by the sound of things it wasn't your arse at all."
"Oh God." Once the helpless laughter started, I couldn't stop.
When I paused to catch my breath, Nathan said, "I never thought of online shopping. Now you make me feel like an idiot. I should be paying for it, too, and rent for taking up space here and using all your electricity and water."
"No need, honestly. I own the place outright – no rent or mortgage to pay. Paid for by that TV interview we did together, years ago, so you don't owe me anything. Food and power and stuff...well, you're not working and you're injured because you were helping me, so room and board are the least I can do for you. I'm just..." I shook my head, attempting to clear it, but it only started to hurt. "Tired. I should hire a housekeeper."
Nathan limped into the dining room and my chair protested squeakily when he rested his weight on the back of it. "I could be your housekeeper while I'm here. I've already met your cleaner and if you show me where you want me to get your food from, I can order it for you. And cook it, I guess, if you tell me what you like and I know how. But if you expect me to wear a uniform or something frilly with a short skirt...stuff it. I don't do dresses."
I could hear the hope in his voice. Staying here alone wasn't helping him, with me never home. Nathan needed to do something, not sit around and be useless. I'd be lost without him, though. Life was so much brighter with him to come home to. Even if I hadn't slept with him yet. He hadn't mentioned it after the night we'd gotten rid of my stalker. I wanted to, but I was scared I'd hurt his leg worse if we did and we'd waited five years – what was a few weeks more? "What about going back to uni? Have you...decided that's not what you want?"
Nathan chuckled. He was standing so close behind me I could feel the vibration through the chair. "Actually, I've been talking to Curtin for a few days now. Nothing's official until January, but I've spoken with their admissions office and the head of the physiotherapy school. They've both told me I'm close to qualifying for their graduate degree, with the credits for my unfinished medicine degree, so I'm pretty much guaranteed entry no matter what. If I start in January, I'll be fully qualified within two years. Maybe less, if I can get credit for some of my anatomy units." His arms slipped around me in a tentative hug that tightened when I didn't resist. "Thank you. I'd never have thought of it if it weren't for you. No more breaking up drunken brawls outside the Arena. No more night shift. And no more cadavers, thank God."
I rose and returned his hug. "That's wonderful, Nathan." When I looked into his eyes now, I saw more than hope. I saw a sense of purpose that I'd never seen before. "You're too good to be my housekeeper."
"It's something to do while I'm cooped up here. It's not like I can play the piano or the guitar, or go for a run. Daytime TV's awful on a good day. And it doesn't matter how many books you have in the house – I've never been a reader."
I took a deep breath. "Okay, but only do the groceries and cooking. And when you're healed up well enough to come with me, we'll head down south for the rest of our holiday. We'll take a day to go to the house where it all happened, and when the day is over, I'll put it up for sale. The rest of the time will be our own to have a proper holiday. Maybe your last before your course starts, because I've heard physio is almost as full-on as medicine. That reminds me...you should be doing physio for that leg. Are you doing the exercises the hospital gave you?"
Nathan shifted his gaze so he didn't need to tell me he wasn't. I already knew, anyway.
"I'll get you an appointment at the hospital physio. I want to see you well, Nathan, and if I have to drug you so you cooperate..." I threatened.
His hands flew up in surrender. "All right, all right, Dr Miller. I'll do it. But you might need a crane to get me back up those stairs."
SIXTY-THREE
This time, we agreed, we'd do things differently. We'd go to the house first and all the memory-tainted places around it, and then, when we'd finished the difficult stuff, we'd get to be tourists. And when we got home, having banished every damn demon from our combined pasts, then we agreed that we'd finish what I started when I ripped her shirt.
Caitlin plugged her mp3 player into the stereo and sang along quietly as we drove. I even found myself tapping my fingers on the steering wheel. This time would be different. No bunker meant the worst memories could be avoided. We'd go in, check the place out, go to the beach and be back in Busselton by dinner. I could almost taste the fish and chips already. And with all the physiotherapy she'd made me do the last couple of months, I'd be able to walk that jetty as if I'd never broken my leg.
We passed the resort and I nodded at the road to the beach. "We could go to the beach first and then the house if you want."
She shook her head firmly. "No. First the house, then the beach. Checking out the house is more of a priority. We need to get it over with."
I nodded and kept driving, for I knew she was right. By tonight, we'd have finally put those demons to rest and the future would be brighter. I was certain of it.
I wasn't counting on the roadblock.
And not in the metaphorical sense, either – big metal barriers across the whole damn road, blocking both lanes. The big letters proclaimed that the road was closed for a prescribed burn in the national park.
"Ooh, that's good," Caitlin said. "With all the fire danger signs we saw last time we came down
here, I wondered how the house would survive, so close to all that bush in the national park. If they're controlling it now, we won't have to worry about bushfires burning down the house in summer if we haven't sold it by then."
"Sure, but it also means we can't get to the house today if the road's closed," I pointed out. "What do you want to do now?"
She seemed stunned for a moment, but she recovered surprisingly quickly. "The beach road was still open, right? And we did see that track that ran from the house to the beach. So we park at the beach and walk up to the house." Her eyes burned with determination. There would be no getting out of this. I'd have to go inside that house of horrors one more time. At least Caitlin would be there to hold my hand. Shit, if anyone else knew how terrified I was of walking into a perfectly ordinary house. To stand in that kitchen and see the light switch which my hand had covered in her blood...but Caitlin understood. The only person who could. If she could do this, so could I.
I negotiated a sloppy u-turn, leaving behind a spray of gravel as we sped in the opposite direction. The beach turn-off was only a kilometre or two up the road, so it was a few minutes before we bumped along the narrow road to the beach.
Bitumen gave way to gravel as I pulled into the parking lot. Oh God – at least it was still daylight. I hadn't been here since the night Caitlin and I had been shot. When she'd taken a bullet for me and saved my life – and nearly lost her own. A sacrifice I didn't deserve. Not then and definitely not now.
Warm fingers pulled mine from my death grip on the steering wheel. She squeezed my hand and gave me a shaky smile. "Is this the car park where I...where we...where the ambulance was?"
Be a man. She deserved to know.
I nodded as we exited the car, waiting until she stood beside me before pointing out the places that haunted my worst nightmares. "I parked there, under that tree, so the car would be mostly hidden. The ambulance was there, on the sealed road, but the police cars were in the car park, here." I dragged my feet to where I fancied the gravel was a little darker than the rest. "This...this is where we were shot. There was so much blood, I didn't know if I could stop it before you bled to death. Why did you do it? You were safe – the police, the ambulance guys, they were all there to save you. Why would you risk your life for one of the men who'd hurt you? You'd have been safer without me. No one was going to miss me."
Afterlife of Alanna Miller Page 20
