Good Intentions

by Marg McAlister

  Chook rejected the call and tossed the phone on the seat beside him. Means to an end, wasn’t it? He needed cash for fuel and food to get him to Queensland, and he could turn each one of those little baggies into more ready cash. There had been less than a hundred dollars in cash in the drawer with them, but it would do. Once he got to Tamborine Mountain, he’d get more from Shirley, and he could steal more cash along the way.

  He wouldn’t be going back to that crummy little converted garage in this lifetime, so Grant could suck it up. Everything he needed he’d crammed into the van. The cockroaches were welcome to the rest.

  The trip was around seventeen hundred kilometers, as near as he could figure. He’d tossed up whether to go inland or stick to the coast road, but practicality won out. The coast road offered more towns, more people, and therefore more opportunities to snatch a handbag or break into a car.

  His aim was to do the trip with as few rest breaks as possible, to catch her before she took off again—which she was likely to do, if Emma had told her he’d been looking for her.

  His ace in the hole was that she didn’t know he’d figured out where she was. Once he got to Tamborine Mountain, it’d be a snack to find where the caravan parks and campgrounds were.

  He might catch up with her Monday morning, he figured. He couldn’t help a smile as he pictured the scene.

  Halloo, Shirley! Surprise!

  He doubted she would be happy to see him.

  In southeastern Queensland, Georgie was relieved to find Louise sitting at the table in the kitchen in air-conditioned comfort rather than on the verandah. She was usually happy to follow the sun, but in a heatwave? Maybe not.

  Louise glanced up, the cards spread out before her. “Come and join me. Bet you weren’t expecting it to be this hot.”

  “You read my mind. But it’s not always like this, I guess?”

  “No. Right now there’s a heatwave along much of the eastern seaboard – and inland. That’s why I finally got moving on the bushfire evacuation info for our guests.”

  “I passed it on to Shirley.” Georgie sat in the chair on Louise’s right, watching while she turned over the cards.

  Louise leaned back and stretched. “I’ve been looking at these cards, and doing her horoscope. But before I say anything, how did you go?”

  “Her horoscope? How did you know her birthday?”

  Louise laughed. “I asked her as soon as she offered to fill in as caretaker. I said even if it wasn’t her thing, I always check people’s horoscopes. She was fine with it, even though I couldn’t persuade her to sit down and do the cards with me. Did you manage to get in a reading?”

  Georgie rested her chin on her hand. “Barely. She was tempted, and we managed to get started, but she’s holding back.”

  She filled in Louise on what she had seen in the crystal ball, and her concern that Shirley was on the verge of bolting. “I can’t quite figure it out,” she said. “She was upset when I mentioned the little girl, her granddaughter. But it was only when I said I saw her taking off in a hurry that she seemed to panic.”

  Louise’s eyes were thoughtful. “Ah. She took it as a warning, you think?”

  “Exactly. But immediately before that, I got the sense that she’d like to stay. Find a new spot near the creek, put up a ‘caretaker’ sign…” Georgie opened both hands out helplessly. “I think I may have done more harm than good.”

  “Unfortunately, that’s how it goes sometimes. You try to help, and sometimes it backfires.”

  They both sat in silence for a moment, before speaking at the same time.

  “I thought maybe if we both do it?” Georgie ventured.

  “How about if we do a reading together?” Louise said over the top of her.

  They both laughed, and Louise cleared a spot for Georgie’s crystal ball.

  “What are we asking?” Louise cut the cards a few times with the assurance of years of practice. “Do we want to know about Shirley’s immediate future? About threats? About her past?”

  Georgie thought about it for a moment. “She’s scared. We think she may be on the run, right?”

  “Running from someone, hiding from someone – a threat, right, for her to react like that?” Louise started to lay out the cards.

  “I’d say so.” Georgie drew the crystal ball closer to her. “Let’s see if we can get some information about the past. What’s worrying her, why she needs help? And maybe how we can help her.”

  She glanced up at Louise, who was staring down at the cards with a tiny wrinkle of concentration between her eyebrows. Georgie could see some of Scott in her, although he mostly took after his father: the same warm brown eyes, the same cinnamon hair – although Tony’s was dusted with grey now – and the same good-humored quirk to his lips. But Scott’s square jaw was all Louise, and those capable hands and fingers were the same shape. While she watched Louise dealing out the cards, she could imagine Scott doing the same.

  She focused on the crystal ball.

  What are you scared of, Shirley? she thought, staring into the depths of the crystal ball. Who are you running from? How can we help?

  She sat for several long minutes, but this time no mist appeared. No images, no vague shapes, nothing.

  Last time, she remembered, Shirley’s finger was touching the crystal ball. That could account for why she had such clear impressions of two people that meant a lot to her; her daughter and her granddaughter.

  Georgie ran her hands lightly over the crystal surface, letting herself relax, shutting out the world. She closed her eyes, waiting for impressions, some sort of innate understanding.

  Minutes went by, and just as Georgie was thinking that this might not be her day, a tiny fragment of knowledge disturbed the surface of her mind, like a pebble dropping into a pool.

  Something had happened, years ago. Almost holding her breath, she allowed herself to float, inviting the knowledge, making herself receptive. Under her fingertips, the crystal ball grew warmer.

  Something about Shirley and a man. She could sense what he’d been like: thickset, a big bear of a man, with a beard and a wide smile. Whoever it was wasn’t a threat; Georgie knew that instinctively.

  Shirley had been happy with him. And then something had come into their lives, and the man’s happy smile faded and disappeared, and Shirley was…Shirley was challenged in some way; that was the only way that Georgie could think of it.

  Further impressions flooded into Georgie’s mind. The man and Shirley were still together, but he was thinner, looking worried. They retreated into a house, and shut the door, as though they were hiding from the world.

  Had Shirley been on the run before? Hiding from the police?

  She wasn’t getting a definite ‘no’ on that one, but not a ‘yes’, either. But she was increasingly certain that Shirley had done something that could get her into serious trouble—and she was still paying for it, years later.

  Someone was looking for her, but Georgie had no clue why, or who. Which left her in much the same position she’d been in half an hour ago: knowing Shirley was scared, but unable to help her until she knew more.

  The crystal ball cooled slightly, and she opened her eyes. Just as she had suspected, there was nothing to be seen in its crystal depths.

  Louise was watching her.

  “You got something,” she said.

  Georgie made a face. “Not as much as I’d hoped. But yes, something. You?”

  Louise tapped the cards, still lying face up. “She’s at a crossroads right now. She can face up to it, or run, and she’ll be looking over her shoulder for many years yet.”

  Georgie could sense there was more, so she waited.

  “It goes back a while,” Louise said, her voice and eyes faraway, as she contemplated what she’d seen. She pointed to the Jack of Spades. “Taken in conjunction with everything else, in half a dozen different spreads, I’m seeing that there was a major life event involving this person. And looking at it in conjunction with t
he nine of Spades, she’s gone through a lot of misery, over several years, I think, but it’s hard to tell. You know how it is.”

  They exchanged a look. Georgie did indeed know.

  “There are two men involved. A big man, dark, and a smaller one. Related? That’s uncertain. These men, they’re at odds. And there’s a force ranged against them. It could be an army, but I’m wondering…”

  “Whether it’s the police,” Georgie finished for her.

  “Yes.” She raised an eyebrow. “You too?”

  Georgie swiftly filled her in on what she’d picked up.

  “Hmm. Well, we’re seeing the same thing, clearly. That’s a plus. But neither of us has got much that will help her.” Louise indicated one further card. “But see that? That tells me that there’s another confrontation of some sort coming. It’s tied in with all this that has gone before, and it’s going to decide how Shirley lives her life. She can’t keep running.”

  “Because this—thing—will catch up with her.”

  “Yes,” Louise said. “And sooner rather than later.”

  “So what do we do?” Georgie asked. “Tell her what we’ve seen, offer to help?”

  They stared at each other, then Louise said, “One more thing first. I’ve got her name, her birthdate. Let me give them to Bluey and see what he can come up with. I’d like to know what we’re dealing with here, if the police are involved.”

  Bluey, Georgie knew, was Scott’s red-haired brother Jeff. He was working on the other side of Australia, and she’d met him only via Skype so far.

  In response to her inquiring look, Louise grinned. “You know he’s something in computers, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s Internet security. That’s his day job. But he’s into other stuff that we don’t tell too many people about. Found out by accident.”

  Georgie was beginning to have a sneaking idea of what ‘other stuff’ might be, but she liked to have things spelled out.

  “Meaning…?”

  “He’s kind of a hacker,” Louise said with a wink. “With the good guys. Not the best in the world, he says, but from what I was able to winkle out of him, he isn’t half bad.”

  “Oh,” Georgie said faintly. “Right.”

  Scott’s family was becoming more interesting by the minute.

  “I’ll get on to him right away,” Louise said. “Meanwhile, I’ve got some magazines here you can take down to Shirley. And tell her that I’ve got Tony working on those ‘caretaker’ signs for her. Let her know we want her to stay.”

  “And don’t mention cards or crystal balls?”

  “You got it,” Louise said.

  9

  Family

  Since the most important thing was to keep Shirley from running, Georgie focused all her energy on making her keen to stay.

  “Knock, knock!” she called cheerfully at Shirley’s open door later than afternoon. “You busy?”

  “Come on in,” Shirley called back. “I’m just doing my Facebook page.”

  Facebook page? Georgie’s immediate reaction was one of horror. If there was one thing guaranteed to give away someone’s location, it would have to be Facebook. If Shirley was trying to keep her whereabouts a secret…

  Careful to keep her thoughts from showing on her face, she went in and sat down. “You make me feel guilty. My friends are all nagging me because I keep forgetting to update.” She tapped the half-dozen magazines that she put on the table. “Present from Louise. She’s finished with them, so she said to just pass them on to any of the other campers when you’re done.”

  Shirley glanced at them. “Oh, good – there’s a couple of craft magazines there. They’ll be welcome. I get through the gossip magazines in about five seconds.” She went back to typing out something on the laptop keyboard, and clicked the mouse. “There. I’m done. It hardly seems worth it, really. The only people in the group are a couple of friends from my card making classes and my daughter. Still, I guess it’ll be a record for myself.”

  Georgie relaxed again. So, it was a private group. She should have guessed.

  “I’ve got news,” she said. “There’s another present coming your way. A little surprise.”

  Shirley closed the laptop and pushed it to one side, her head cocked to one side in reluctant interest. “Honestly, that Louise. She’s always spoiling me – it makes me feel guilty.”

  “I might have only recently met Louise,” Georgie said, “but it strikes me she’s the kind of person who is never happier than when she’s looking after somebody else. But don’t sell yourself short, Shirley – she really appreciates having somebody down here on the site. Better than having people trek up to the house all day long to ask her things.”

  Shirley shook her head and rolled her eyes. “I do very little, actually. Do I get to find out what the surprise is? Or do I have to wait?”

  “I’d love to sit here and torture you and make you guess, but I won’t. Remember we talked about making a couple of signs?”

  “The caretaker signs?”

  “Got it in one.” Georgie relaxed back in the seat and deliberately looked smug, wanting to make Shirley laugh. “Now, you know Louise. Like you, she loves her craftwork. She’s got Scott and Tony on the job making the signs, and they’re going to fit one to the gate and put another one down here near your motorhome somewhere – but can you imagine her leaving it to them to paint the word “caretaker”?”

  Some of the tension left Shirley’s face as she pictured the scene and joined in Georgie’s laughter. “Not unless one of them is a sign writer. Well, good for Louise.”

  “I think they’re planning on bringing it down here at happy hour to celebrate – in your new spot near the creek. And that, I think, is our job.” Georgie made an expansive gesture to include the motorhome, the site and everything around it. “Want to go and choose a site, move your stuff?”

  Shirley looked at her and seemed to hesitate for a moment, but then clapped her hands together briskly and said, “Why not? I’m sitting here sweltering, and if I can get a tiny breeze from the creek, good. Let’s do it.”

  It looked like Shirley had calmed down a little. At least she wasn’t going to disappear overnight.

  She and Louise had bought themselves a little time.

  “Hey.” Just after dark that night, back up at the house, Georgie poked Scott in the arm. “What’s this I hear about your brother being a hacker? We’ve been hanging out together for over a year, and this is the first I hear about it?”

  They were in the kitchen up at the house, tidying up after dinner. Much as she adored their new Jabiru Outback, Georgie wasn’t entirely stupid. She wasn’t about to sleep in there in a heatwave, when there was a perfectly good guest bedroom in an air-conditioned house.

  “I told you he did something with computers. He works for a company in Internet security.” Scott passed her a few more plates to put in the dishwasher. “When we visit Western Australia we’ll be able to hang out with him a bit. He can tell you more then.”

  “Ha.” Georgie sent him a scathing look. She pretended to weigh something in her right hand. “Here we have a job in Internet security.” She switched to her other hand, and let it drop a lot lower. “Here we’re hacking. Definitely not equal.”

  “I think ‘hacker’ might be overstating it a bit,” Scott said. “He can probably do more with computers than most people, but forget about breaking into NASA.”

  “Whatever he does is enough for your mother to think he can find out something about Shirley,” Georgie pointed out.

  Scott grinned at her, looped a tea towel around her neck and pulled her towards him to deliver a teasing kiss on her lips. “You know what’s happening here, don’t you, Georgie?”

  She huffed out a sigh. “Yeah, I know. It’s another case. I can just imagine what Dad would say if he knew.” She slid her arms around his waist, and rested her head on his chest. It was one of her favorite places to be, listening to his heart thudding away bene
ath her ear.

  Solid. Comforting.

  “I’ve come to the conclusion,” she went on, “that there is absolutely nothing I can do about it. I always seemed to end up in places where people needed me in the States, and it’s happening again here. Being half a world away makes absolutely no difference.”

  He rubbed her back. “That’s part of what is happening, sure. But there’s more.” He pulled back a little, took her chin between his thumb and forefinger and tilted her face up to look at him. “Over there, it wasn’t just up to you, was it? You had help.”

  Georgie couldn’t help a reminiscent smile, tinged with some sadness. “The Crystal Ball Investigation Team. I miss them like crazy, Layla and Tammy. Soon I’ll even be missing my brother.” Then she shook her head in mock denial. “Okay, that could never happen.”

  “So,” he said, smiling down at her, “I guess we need a new team. Seeing you can’t seem to help being attracted to trouble.”

  Georgie’s mouth dropped open as she finally understood what he was talking about, and Scott took advantage of it by stealing another kiss before flicking her on the nose. “Yeah, you’ve got it.”

  “The Australian Crystal Ball Investigation Team?” Georgie felt a smile of delight growing. “And you’re saying your brother will be part of it?”

  “Well, we need someone to replace Layla. She was dynamite on the computer, researching. But Bluey will be even better. He knows how to get into places that Layla couldn’t.”

  “You’re right.” Already, in this first case, she could see how useful that would be. “All we need is a Tammy clone. I don’t suppose either of your sisters can shoot the eye out of a gnat at 500 yards, can they? Or can sing better than Patsy Cline?”

  “No, but Lissa is the best barista on the East Coast. She could provide the coffee while we’re up all night trying to solve a case.”