‘Erika.’ He stepped into her. ‘I…’
The door swung open and Constable Mayne walked in. Her eyes popped wide when she saw them. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t realise anyone was in here.’
‘We were just leaving,’ Hartley said, pulling Erika toward the door.
Leila Mayne stepped back, giving them room to pass, a wide smile on her face. ‘Have…fun.’
‘Take this to evidence,’ he said, handing her the bag with his bloody shirt in it. ‘And tell the Sarge I won’t be back for a while.’ Hartley didn’t give Leila a chance to respond, just kept walking, pulling Erika along beside him.
‘Hartley, I…’
He glanced at her. ‘No. This isn’t the place to finish this conversation.’ His gaze was heated, wanting, needing. ‘And I want to finish it, more than I want to breathe. With you. Alone.’
‘Me too.’ Heat prickled under her skin at the force of his gaze. She felt undressed already.
She let him lead her outside to his Patrol and climbed in. The silence between them was palpable, stroking her skin, making her feel itchy with tension and expectation. ‘Where are we going?’ she finally managed to ask.
‘My place.’
‘You live alone?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good.’
He shot a smile at her, hot and needy.
They pulled up at his house—an old brick Californian bungalow with a neat front yard and massive ghost gum shading the veranda and right side of the house. She didn’t see much more than that though, because he had her up the front steps and inside before she could look around.
The moment he had her inside—she had a flash impression of clean white walls and polished honey-red floors—he turned and backed her up against the door, his mouth on hers before her back had even hit the wood. Oh god! She gripped on tight and matched him kiss for kiss, passion turning them into an inferno of need. It was shattering. Before Hartley, sexual encounters had been pleasant things she’d enjoyed, much like eating a good meal with a fine bottle of wine and good company, or maybe even with the adrenaline rush of going on a rollercoaster for the first time. She’d thought she had a healthy appetite and enjoyed sex, but with Hartley, it was something else. She was something else. A mindless puddle of need and want and desire.
She liked feeling this way. Liked the edgy lack of control. Finally, finally, she was going to give herself over to it and just let herself feel.
Lips parted, tongues tangled, licking, tasting. His hand stroked under her t-shirt, slipping over heated skin to cup her breast. She moaned, gripped him tighter. Held on to him. Something hard and cold pressed into her bicep as she wrapped her arms around his body. His gun. He was still wearing his gun. That and his jacket and t-shirt would have to go.
She wanted to feel him. All of him. Her hands raced under his t-shirt, over the hard silk of his warm skin. Nerves and muscles jumped and quivered at her touch. His breath was rasping in his throat, matching hers. Her fingers found his zip. She wanted to tear his jeans off him and impale herself on his thick length. She didn’t think she could ever do without this again.
She couldn’t do without Hartley ever again.
She had to tell him. She’d not said the words yet. She pulled her mouth away from his on a gasp of air. His lips immediately found her neck and he began to lip, nip and suck his way down the column of her throat. She arched against him, the motion begging for more. But she had to tell him first. She had to say the words. ‘Hartley, I…’
‘Don’t move or we’ll shoot you both.’
She and Hartley froze at the deep gravelly-voiced command that came from behind Hartley. She opened her eyes. Two men were standing in the dim hallway, only a few metres from them. One had a bat in his hand. The other had a gun, pointed at Hartley’s back. She stiffened, her fingers tightening on Hartley’s shoulders, stopping him from moving. If he didn’t move, she might be able to pull his gun from the holster without them seeing. With everything in her, she tried to make him understand what she was trying to do. He’d been shot at once today. She could have lost him. She wasn’t going to take the chance of that happening again.
He stilled.
‘Aww, what’d you have to go and interrupt them for, Frank? I thought I was going to see myself some titty.’
‘We didn’t come here for a show, Willie G.’
The tension in Hartley’s body increased to the point she could feel his fury pulsating through him. She could tell he wanted to move, to face them, but he didn’t. His green gaze met hers, and he nodded, glancing down briefly as her hand began to slowly make its way up from where it had been on his zip toward the gun nestled under his armpit, hidden by his jacket and their pose. All the time, she looked over his shoulder at the two men. If one of them moved, she was going to be ready.
‘What do you see?’ he whispered leaning his head against hers.
‘The one on the right has a gun. The other one has a bat,’ she whispered against his jaw. ‘They’re both wearing leathers.’
‘Bikies?’
She nodded slightly.
‘We could have a bit of fun before we take ’em to the boss,’ the one called Willie G was saying.
Hartley’s fingers pressed into her skin, stopping her from responding to the man’s words. ‘Act frightened.’
She didn’t question his instruction, trusting him with everything in her. She peered over his shoulder again, as if she couldn’t believe what was happening and then screamed, ‘Oh my god. He’s got a gun! Don’t hurt us. Don’t hurt us.’ She cowered into Hartley.
‘Shh, shh, it’s okay, EJ.’ He pressed her head into his shoulder with one hand, the movement making it easier for her to get access to his gun. He turned a little as if trying to partially face the men behind them, the movement giving her free, unfettered access to the gun. As he said, ‘Please, let her go. She has nothing to do with whatever this is,’ she slipped the gun from the holster.
‘Oh, she’s the one we’re here for. She and her bloody meddling,’ the one called Frank said, waving the gun casually at them. ‘We could have counted on old Metler not to do a proper job on those bodies, but her, she really looked like she was going to find evidence that pointed to us. The fact you were pulling in Blondie just meant she was close.’
‘Did you kill him?’
‘Of course. He wasn’t one of us. Too new. We couldn’t trust he wouldn’t sing like a little blond birdie. We couldn’t have that, could we, Willie G?’
‘No, Frank. The boss would not be at all happy.’
‘And who’s this boss of yours?’
The one called Frank snorted. ‘I’d have to have a death wish to tell you that, mate.’
Hartley turned a little more, still covering Erika’s movement with his body so she could grasp the gun with both hands and remove the safety.
‘Ah-ah, no sudden movements. Not that I mind shooting a copper, but I think we’ll get less out of your girlfriend if we did.’
‘I won’t tell you anything. You bastards murdered my brother,’ Erika said, raising her head enough to let the words wail out of her. If the situation wasn’t so dangerous, she would be pretty impressed with her acting right now.
‘The only thing I know about your bro, little girl,’ Frank said, lip curled, ‘is what that Blondie idiot told us after he screwed up getting rid of Tyler and that betraying son of a bitch Andy J for daring to set up a rival business in the boss’s territory.’
‘What did he tell you?’
‘Don’t suppose it will hurt to tell you given you’re not goin’ anywhere after this. What do you reckon, Willie G?’
‘Might as well tell her, Frank. Might make her a bit more inclined to be friendly before we take care of her, if you know what I mean.’
‘You won’t touch her!’ Hartley growled.
‘Shh,’ Erika whispered in his ear, fingers gripping the gun a little tighter as she edged it between their two bodies. She needed them to tell her what they knew. ‘
Let them talk.’ She lifted her head a little. ‘What else do you know?’
‘Blondie overheard Tyler trying to talk your bro into helping, sayin’ some stuff about how he was the best chemist he knew of and that together they could make some truly addictive meth that would put everyone else out of the market and make them rich. Your bro wasn’t into it at all, but after hearing how good a chemist he was, Blondie decided to see if your bro would work for the boss instead, especially seeing he’d just offed Andy J for betraying the boss by working for someone else. Then the stupid bastard set it up to look like Andy was your bro, so no one would come looking for him while he worked on him, making him more … amenable to the situation.’
‘He kidnapped Peter? So he’s alive?’
‘I’ve got no idea. Blondie never told us where he’d stashed him and quite frankly, I didn’t care. I told him he should have just killed your bro in the first place and not tried to have a bright idea, ’cause if he had, half of this shit wouldn’t have had to go down like it did and Willie G and I wouldn’t have had to haul arse out to this dry as dirt place and help him steal bodies right out of the bloody morgue. Besides, the boss doesn’t hold with kidnappin’—brings too much attention our way. It’s one of the reasons we was sent up here—to clean up Blondie’s mess.’
‘So you don’t know where he is?’
‘We never even seen him, did we, Willie G?’
‘Nope.’
‘For all we know he’s dead as those others you was workin’ on. Now enough chatting about your bro. Time for you to tell us exactly what you know about us and our operation. We took the bodies and destroyed your evidence, but you still found Blondie, so we need to know how and also, what did Blondie say to you before we gave him a lead shower? We need to know what else we gotta clean up.’
‘I didn’t speak to him.’ Oh god, Peter could be dead. And if he wasn’t, he most certainly was injured given what they were saying. And if nobody knew where he was except for Tom, he could be dying from dehydration right now. Heartless bastards. Her grip tightened around the gun.
‘He’ll be okay,’ Hartley whispered against her neck, somehow reading her thoughts.
She nodded, whispered back, ‘If he isn’t, I won’t stop until everyone responsible pays for his death.’
‘That’s my girl.’
‘What about you, copper? What did Tom tell you?’
‘As if I’d tell you when it’s our only bargaining chip for keeping us alive.’
‘Nothin’s going to keep you alive, copper. What tellin’ us will do is stop us from goin’ after one of your other copper mates to find out what you don’t tell us and also, maybe we won’t have too much fun with your girl before we kill her too.’
‘If you kill us, the police won’t stop. You know what they’re like when one of their own is killed.’
‘I don’t think so. The boss told us after we finished questioning you, we was to make sure it looked like you ran away together, and died in a nasty car accident, right Willie G?’
‘Right Frank.’
‘Nobody will believe that.’
‘Enough. Either tell us what we want to know, or get a bullet in the back.’
‘Let me turn around first. I want to see who I’m talking to.’
‘Fair enough, but no being a hero, Detective. Move nice and slow, hands where we can see ’em.’
Hartley shifted his head so he could look at Erika, his eyes full of love, worry, fury and trust. His trust in her at what would come next meant so much. He knew she could shoot—they’d stolen her grandfather’s guns often enough and shot at cans in the paddocks when they were younger. Holding his gaze, she leaned up and kissed him gently. ‘I love you,’ she whispered against his lips.
‘I know.’
At any other time she’d hit him for being so arrogant, but right now the little flash of humour was all she needed. ‘Okay.’
He spun away from her quickly and lunged toward the one with the bat. ‘What the fuck?’ the man with the gun spat out, his gun moving toward Hartley.
Nobody was looking at Erika. She lifted Hartley’s gun and fired just as another shot rang out.
Chapter Twenty
Erika drummed her fingers against the metal table and the file there.
The sticky section was gone, thank goodness. Although this time she wasn’t cuffed to the table and could pull out her wipes from her backpack if necessary.
Drum, drum, drum.
How long were they going to be? She wanted to know what was going on. She should have gone to the hospital with Hartley. She would have been able to help. Instead, she was sitting here feeling completely useless and out of the loop. Worrying about Hartley. Worrying about what had happened to Peter. Was he even alive? Had they found out any more from Frank and Willie G? They said they didn’t know where he was, but they could have been lying. ‘Stay alive, Peter,’ she whispered into the quiet of the room. ‘Give me time to find you.’
She bit her lip, trying to stop it from trembling, trying to stopper the emotions that would cloud her thinking. Clear thinking was the only thing that could help Peter now. That and Hartley’s help.
Hartley. Oh god, Hartley. Was he okay?
She looked down at her hands and her mind skipped to the moments after the gun blasts. The blood was gone, but she could still see it there. She’d not had blood on her hands since the night her parents died. On her gloves, yes, but not her skin. It was different. More…real. More like she was actually, truly in the moment, feeling everything. Emotion had pumped through her as the blood had pumped over her hands. Just like it had on that night when she’d held her father’s heart in her hand and tried to pump it for him, to keep him with her.
Drum, drum, drum.
She thought that living through that again would have brought back horrible memories, but it hadn’t. It had been different. She was different. She wasn’t that traumatised twelve-year-old anymore. She was a grown woman, a qualified doctor of forensic pathology. She’d survived Mabel. Survived running away and starting over. Had survived coming back here and going through the grief of losing Peter only find out he was alive, then swinging back to not even being certain of that. She’d survived realising she loved and was loved and then faced losing it again.
She clenched her hands, stopping the drumming. If she could survive all that, she could survive this waiting without falling apart. She had to. To be strong for Hartley. To be strong enough to find out what had happened to Peter.
The door swung open and she looked up. It was Sergeant Cooper. She flinched internally, but came to her feet. ‘Is there any news?’
He shook his head. ‘He’s still in surgery. The Boss, Fields and Mac are down there interviewing the other suspect.’
‘Is he saying anything?’
His eyes narrowed. ‘That’s none of your concern.’
‘It’s exactly my concern.’ She stood straighter. ‘It’s my evidence that can help to put them away.’ She noticed then he had a manila folder in his hand. ‘Is that from Melbourne?’
‘Yes.’ He stalked across the room and tossed it onto the table in front of her.
She grabbed it up, opened it. DNA results from the victims and from the skin cells found under the fingernails. Hair, soil, fibre and bug analysis. Blood work. It all told a story, a story she would be able to finish when they let her out of here so she could do a post-mortem on ‘Blondie’, as Frank had called him. She would match his DNA to these samples to prove he had killed Tyler and Andy J and with the other evidence she’d collected, she would then prove that Frank and Willie G had helped him to steal the bodies and destroy evidence and then murder him when he became too big a liability. She snapped the folder closed, looking up at the sergeant in triumph. ‘I think we’ll have them once I’ve done the autopsy on Mr Johnson and collected some more samples from Frank and Willie G.’
‘That will have to wait. The Boss wants you to stay here for a little longer. She might have some more question
s for you when she gets back from the hospital.’
She didn’t want to stay here, thinking, waiting, worrying. She wanted to get on with the work ahead of her. The work that would help wrap up this case and possibly find Peter before it was too late. ‘I should get on it now.’
‘The Boss says you’re to stay, so you stay.’
She opened her mouth to protest again, but he held out his hand to her before she could say anything. ‘You saved my boy. Thank you.’ He shook her hand briefly then turned and left before she managed to pick her jaw back off the floor.
He’d thanked her? She’d never imagined a time that would happen. Was he finally realising she wasn’t who he thought she was? No. She didn’t have that kind of luck. But maybe, just maybe, he wouldn’t treat her like public enemy number one any longer. Which was good. She didn’t want to cause more strain and trouble between Hartley and his dad than she already had.
She sat back down and read through the evidence workup a few more times, matching it in her mind to what she’d already found in the lab. Even without Frank’s confession to them, when she matched their DNA to these samples they would have everything they needed to convict them. She only hoped they’d tell Hartley where they’d dumped the bodies, as the only thing that might help find Peter was some evidence Blondie might have left on the bodies that might give them a clue as to where he’d been. It was a long shot, but it was all she had. She just hoped it would be enough.
The door opened again. She looked up, expecting to see Constable Mayne—she’d already been in half a dozen times in the last two hours to ask if she needed anything. However, it wasn’t the younger woman. ‘Hartley.’
Dangerous Echoes Page 16
