‘Friend? Hah!’ ejaculated Dallas.
Her father wiped a shaky hand across his eyes and nodded slowly. ‘He knew Rick. They’d known each other for years. They used to call him Rourkey. He was competing in the same race that day at Sandown and he crashed when Rick did.’ Jock sighed. ‘His legs were pretty badly smashed up and I heard he wouldn’t walk again.’
‘That’s not all, Danni,’ said Dallas, like a hawk coming in for the kill. ‘Everyone holds him responsible for the crash, and for the deaths of Rick and young Don Christie.’
Danni appealed to her father as he sat stiffly in his chair. Her heart seemed to jump in her breast and then constricted painfully. ‘Pop, please! Say it’s not true!’
The flashes of memories materialised out of the mist at the back of Danni’s mind. It was as though a curtain had been raised and little pieces began to tumble down into place. Shiloh hadn’t wanted her to question him about the past, about racing. He always managed to deftly steer her away from anything touching on the subject. That day on the practice track. At the restaurant. Her head was spinning.
If Rick had mentioned anyone called Rourkey at all in the early days she couldn’t recall it. ‘Butâ’ Her lips were stiff with shock. ‘How can he be to blame, Pop? You never said… I thought it was a clear-cut accident?’
Shiloh’s fair good looks and smiling face swam before her, quickly followed by the wariness in his expression on the odd occasions when he spoke of his association with Rick and motor racing in general. Now she recalled with absolute clarity how often he had actually turned the conversation away from those subjects during the night they went out to dinner.
Her father still sat pale and tense.
‘Humph!’ Dallas was looking disgusted. ‘An accident? Careless driving, more likely. It was only good luck on O’Rourke’s part that the significant section of the videotape was damaged so no charges could be laid.’
Jock Mathieson stirred and motioned Dallas to a chair. ‘You’d better sit down,’ he said tiredly, and turned to Danni. ‘Maybe I should have told you the whole story, love, but I just didn’t see the need to upset you any more than was necessary. And I just never thought to see or hear of Rourkey again.’
‘He should have been jailed for manslaughter as far as I’m concerned.’ Dallas sat down angrily. ‘The nerve of the guy, even coming near here, let alone making himself known to Danni.’ He hit one fist into his other palm. ‘Any other day I’d have been out at the practice track with her and I would have sent him on his way, believe me. I don’t know how he can have the gall to face people!’
‘I don’t suppose there’s any mistake it was him?’ asked Jock.
‘No, I don’t think so.’ Dallas shook his head, his face flushed with suppressed anger. ‘He came out of hospital in Sydney about five weeks ago. My mate tells me he’s also heard a rumour that O’Rourke wants to get back into racing. Formula 5000s. Anyone who’d take him on would need his head read,’ Dallas finished disdainfully.
‘For heaven’s sake, will you two stop talking as though I’m not here!’ Danni turned to her father imploringly. ‘I think you’d better tell me, Pop,’ she said quietly. ‘I have a right to know.’
Jock nodded his head sadly. ‘Make us another cuppa first, will you, love?’ He sighed and rubbed a gnarled hand over his face. ‘In the old days I had a lot of time for Rourkey, although I hadn’t seen him in years. Neither had Rick. He spent a lot of time racing in the UK. I think he was working over there before he came back here to Formula 5000s. That race at Sandown was his first since his return to the Aussie scene.’
‘He should have taken the advice given to him,’ Dallas butted in. ‘Everyone told him he should build up to that race by entering some of the lesser races.’ He looked at Danni. ‘Did he say why he had the cheek to call in here?’ he asked aggressively.
Danni shook her head. ‘He said he was just driving past and he saw my Lola on the track.’
‘God, he’s got some nerve!’ Dallas spluttered. ‘I wouldn’t have been able to show my face.’
‘Dallas, just tell me what happened.’ Danni turned to him.
‘Yes, you’d better tell her, Dallas,’ Jock said quietly.
‘I remember I didn’t get down to Sandown that weekend because my father was taken ill,’ he began, ‘but my mates told me all about it later. It was a great day for racing weatherwise, one of the best. They said Don Christie was the fastest qualifier but only a split second faster than Rick. They were on the first grid. O’Rourke was back on the fourth, wasn’t he, Jock?’
Danni’s father nodded. ‘He was racing his own car. He had a couple of independent sponsors, but I think he mostly financed himself.’
‘O’Rourke drove like a maniac,’ Dallas continued.
‘Now, hold on, Dallas. Let’s try to be rational.’ Jock waved a hand. ‘There was nothing wrong with Rourkey’s driving before the accident. He drove outstandingly well and made up three or four positions in half a dozen laps.’
‘That remains to be seen,’ remarked Dallas. ‘When he did get to the front he was going to stay there by fair means or foul. Don Christie and Lex Grant went to take him on the bend and O’Rourke braked too sharply, probably lost his nerve, and that was that.’
‘We’ve no proof that he lost his nerve, Dallas,’ Jock said softly. ‘He simply made a mistake and, God knows, living with that on his conscience ever since can’t have been overly pleasant.’ He turned back to Danni. ‘Rourkey ended up pinned in his car where he crashed into the fence. They said it took the rescue team ten minutes to cut him out,’ Jock said flatly. ‘Rick and young Christie spun into each other. Theyâ They didn’t stand a chance.’
Danni could almost hear the crowd, smell the familiar odour of petrol and oil and hot tyres, feel the excitement of the race, with the crowd roaring and surging to its feet, anticipating further tussles as the three jockeyed for the lead. Then would have come that fatal moment as a melee of cars came together in a horrific rending of metal and shatter of fibreglass.
In her mind’s eye Danni could picture the whole scene, the smoking, twisted cars, the rescue crews in action assisted by the fire fighters and paramedics as they worked frantically to free the drivers, the flag marshals waving two yellow flags to warn the other competitors that the track was completely blocked, and the stunned, shuffling silence of the crowd, watching on in horror.
She closed her eyes, a lump rising in her throat, trying not to think about Rick or…
‘I’m sorry, love. I didn’t want to have you know the details,’ Jock said quietly.
‘All the newspaper reports said it was O’Rourke’s fault. I reckon he should have been jailed, and so does everyone in the racing game,’ barked Dallas. ‘He’s a Jonah. Even his girlfriend dropped him like a hot brick. I don’t remember her name, but she was pretty well known. A model or something.’
‘The Board of Enquiry thought Don Christie’s inside front tyre blew on the corner,’ began Jock.
‘Rubbish, Jock! O’Rourke misjudged and braked and couldn’t pull his car out of it,’ exclaimed Dallas.
‘What’s the use?’ Jock’s voice was flat. ‘Nothing and no one can judge what happened. A thousand enquiries won’t bring Rick or young Christie back.’
‘Oh, Pop!’ Danni put her arm around her father’s shoulders.
He patted her arm. ‘There’s nothing to be gained by getting upset, love,’ he tried to smile, and sighed. ‘I take it you liked Rourkey well enough,’ he remarked.
‘Iâ Oh, Pop! It was his call I was expecting this evening. I went out to dinner with him on Thursday night and we had such a nice time,’ said Danni, forgetting for a moment Dallas’ presence.
‘Dinner?’ Dallas’ face turned impossibly redder. ‘You don’t mean to say you went out with O’Rourke?’ he asked her in part anger, part disbelief.
‘He asked me. It was a sp
ur-of-the-moment thing. I was going to ask him about, well, about Rick.’ Her voice caught. ‘We didn’tâ We didn’t get around to it.’
Of course she couldn’t mention, dared not even think of those burning kisses and caresses they had shared, but the fleeting memory of them brought the colour to her pale cheeks. She somehow felt now that she had betrayed them all, been taken in by the enemy. ‘I wish now I’d never met him,’ she said angrily.
She tried to keep Shiloh’s long thin face from her mind as a question kept churning in her mind. How much did she care? Those words hammered in her brain while the answer eluded her. Her father was so right. Nothing could bring Rick back, but if Shiloh O’Rourke was responsible for Rick’s death then he should be made to pay for it.
CHAPTER FIVE
On Monday morning, after rising early from her sleepless night, Danni drove her little red sedan along the highway on her way to work. Life had a habit of going callously onwards no matter how much pain had to be endured.
Shiloh O’Rourke. Her lips twisted cynically. Since his advent on that Saturday afternoon it seemed that her thoughts had seldom been free of him. Now her mind was in a turmoil over the whole situation.
She found herself trying to convince herself that she disliked him, disliked the way his eyes moved boldly over her, causing her heartbeat to accelerate, her breathing to become irregular. And after the revelations of the previous night it should be so easy to dislike him intensely. All at once, without warning, she was recalling the sensations she experienced as his hands moved over her, following the trail burned by his eyes. Her skin tingled at the thought, her lips parting in anticipation.
These fantasies only served to fan the spark of her anger and hurt. She recognised that it hurt, and it was a feeling of hurt that ran deep within her. She couldn’t deny the spark of attraction that burned between them. It was there no matter how much she wanted to deny its existence, and she could only be thankful that she had learned of his involvement in that fateful race before she had become more deeply involved with him. And that she could have lost her head over him, she admitted to herself as she drove across the Currumbin bridge with the early morning traffic.
A shaft of pain twisted inside her, the pain of loss and disillusionment. Why hadn’t he been honest with her from the beginning so that she wouldn’t have to hear it from Dallas and her father? That was what hurt the most. While a small voice inside her asked, in all fairness, how she expected him to have broached the subject.
His face swam before her. He wasn’t handsome, but then again, she had to admit that he was far from unsightly. His jaw was square and his chin firm, with character. Character? Her lips twisted. The creases in either cheek gave her the impression that he was always smiling, and the way the corners of his mouth lifted upwards only added to this impression. His eyes were his most arresting feature, she felt, due mainly to their unusual colour, light brown flecked with yellow-orange and fringed by thick almost fair lashes which matched his curved fair eyebrows. She suspected his hair would bleach to almost white if he spent any time at all in the sun. If the hollows beneath his cheekbones, which were apparently due to his prolonged stay in hospital, were filled out, he could be quite startlingly attractive.
The toot of the impatient horn of the car behind her brought Danni’s mind back out of her reverie and she pulled her thoughts up as she drove away from the already changed green light. She could cause an accident herself if she didn’t keep her mind on what she was doing.
Uninvited, the memory of the moment Shiloh had left her on Thursday night came vividly back to her, reminding her of the sensation of pure physical awareness that he evoked in her and her reluctance to see him leave. Had he wanted to stay that night she didn’t think she would have had the strength to deny him, and her cheeks burned now at her weakness.
Thank goodness he hadn’t phoned last night. She knew she wouldn’t have been able to speak to him. Her throat would have closed on her. And she still had that call to face, because she knew he would call eventually.
For two days Danni lived in dread of Shiloh’s phone call. She kept herself busy, knowing if she allowed herself to dwell on it at all, she would go steadily mad. She stayed chatting to Lisa at her flat until late on Monday evening and on Tuesday evening she was in two minds as to whether she should go out or stay home.
Eventually she decided on the latter and began to add the newspaper clippings about last weekend’s races to her scrapbook. She had started the scrapbook last year and it was nearly a third full of photographs and reports on the races she had competed in previously, races which had led up to her acceptance as a competitor in the Driver to Europe series.
She was glancing idly through the earlier pages, checking the times she had made, when the telephone jangled loudly in the hall. A couple of seconds elapsed before she could move, before she got to her feet and walked slowly into the hall. It had to be Shiloh, she told herself resignedly, and took a deep steadying breath before lifting the receiver.
‘Hello. Danni Mathieson speaking,’ she said calmly. At last she could get it over and done with, remove the time bomb she had been living with since Sunday.
‘Hello, Danni.’ His familiar deep voice, sounding deeper on the telephone, had her reaching for the telephone stool before her shaking legs gave way beneath her. How could he possibly have done what they said? How could he have been so careless, so negligent? How could he have caused such havoc?
‘Danni?’
‘Yes, I’m here. Howâ How are you, Shiloh?’ she stammered, wishing she could control the tremble in her voice even if her body responded involuntarily to his smooth tone.
‘Fine.’ His voice was smiling, caressing. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t ring you. I was tied up all weekend, until after eleven on Sunday night, and I thought you’d most probably be in bed by then.’
‘Yes. Yes, I was,’ was all she could say, and she forced a deliberate coolness into her tone.
‘I believe you had a successful day on Sunday, too. Congratulations. I’m sorry I missed it.’
‘Thank you. It was better than I’d hoped for and the car went superbly. How did you know?’ she asked, and then realised he probably read the newspapers just like everyone else.
‘Nathan rang me on Monday.’ He laughed. ‘As a matter of fact he gave me a blow-by-blow account of the events, right down to the last puff of exhaust smoke. Thanks for taking him under your wing, Danni. He’s taken quite a shine to you, if I read the signs rightly. Perhaps I’ll have to look to my laurels.’
‘Nathan’s a nice boy. I like him,’ she said carefully.
There was an infinitesimal pause.
‘Ah, yes. Well, I’m still in Sydney, but I hope to be home some time on Friday. I’ll call to see you on Friday evening. Are you working late?’
Danni steeled herself. ‘No, I finish early, but I can’t say if I’ll be home on Friday evening. I may be going out.’
‘Just may be?’ His voice had stopped smiling. ‘I’d appreciate it if you could be home when I call. Where were you going?’
‘Umâ To a cabaret with some friends from the raceway,’ she replied evenly.
‘Do you have to go?’ he asked.
‘Well, I said I would,’ she said, bending the truth a little. The cabaret was being held on Friday night, but she hadn’t intended going.
Shiloh began to say something when he was interrupted by noises in the background, voices laughing, as though a door had been opened. At least one of the voices was female. ‘Darling, hurry up with your silly old call. We’re waiting!’ The silky words drifted faintly along the line.
‘Danni? I have to ring off now. I’ll be there on Friday night. I particularly want to talk to you, so I’ll see you then.’
She went to tell him not to call, but he had broken the connection.
Danni replaced the receiver and walked back into the
living-room. So he wanted to talk to her and she was to be there waiting. He could jolly well go and take a long walk off a short jetty! She would definitely go to the cabaret and Shiloh would make a wasted journey. That should give him the message. She forced aside a tiny feeling of cowardice. As far as she was concerned he could stay in Sydney and she wouldn’t be sorry. And the owner of the sultry voice was welcome to him!
She walked across to her sound system and selected a DVD at random, setting it in the cradle and switching it on. She adjusted the volume before settling back in a comfortable chair.
It wasn’t until one particular song broke through her troubled thoughts that she realised she had unconsciously chosen Hot August Night. As the fullness of Neil Diamond’s voice flowed over her Danni felt the tears begin to fall ‘Shiloh, you always came …’
She sobbed long after the record had finished. She was unable to stop. She tried to believe that she only cried for the brother she had loved so much, but, deep down, she knew part of her mourned the loss of someone else who had been about to become so important to her, someone tall and thin with unruly waving fair hair. Someone who would always stand before her bathed in the shadow of her brother’s untimely death.
To say that Dallas was surprised to receive a phone call from Danni inviting him to go along with her to the cabaret was an understatement. Since he had dropped his bombshell about Shiloh O’Rourke on Sunday night he had cursed himself for all kinds of a fool. The look on Danni’s face had told him that she was more involved with the guy than he had suspected and he had been sure that she would hold against him the fact that he had been the one to tell her of O’Rourke’s true colours. When she phoned he jumped at the chance of taking her out. He would have followed her barefoot along the Birdsville Track, he told himself.
Thus, on Friday evening, Danni sat on tenterhooks waiting for Dallas’s arrival. She wanted to be a long time gone when Shiloh arrived. Standing up, she paced to the window for the tenth time, gazing anxiously along the street.
Race For Revenge (Lynsey Stevens Romance) Page 7
