‘I didn’t see her,’ Allie said.
‘Maybe Grandpa did then,’ Reg said. ‘Mind if I nip out back and have a word with him?’
Allie just stood there.
Reg winked. ‘Grandpa’s not out back, is he?’
Frank leaned against the wall, watching as Charlie worked.
Delilah switched her gaze between them. ‘This is crazy. Can’t we just call someone?’
‘I thought you said I knew what I was doing?’ Charlie said, threading a needle without looking at Delilah.
Frank said nothing.
‘This is bad, though,’ Delilah said. ‘Really bad. If someone is after her and we’re in the middle of it . . . Charlie, it’s not about what you can or can’t do. It’s that we don’t know the first thing about this girl and how this happened.’
‘We know that she didn’t want us to call anyone. That’s all we can work with.’ Charlie was focusing on the wound now, the needle held in a steady grip.
‘You’re stitching her up with a fucking sewing kit,’ Delilah snapped. ‘What part of this seems responsible to you?’
‘The part where this girl clearly thinks calling anyone is a bad idea. She practically begged us.’
‘So what?’ Delilah’s voice was rising. ‘What kind of person doesn’t want an ambulance to help? It’s obvious she didn’t know what she was saying.’
‘How’d you figure that?’
‘Well . . .’ Delilah gestured at the girl. ‘I mean, look at her. She’s completely out of it. If she’s dehydrated and has lost blood, she won’t be thinking straight. She could have been hallucinating or something.’
Charlie looked at her. ‘Hallucinating not wanting an ambulance or police? Pretty specific, Del.’
Delilah shook her head. ‘This is ridiculous. We shouldn’t be dealing with this.’
Frank crossed his arms. If he was being honest, he agreed with Delilah. He should have made them call triple-0 the second the girl collapsed out the front. It was years since he had had any run-ins with the police, but the old instincts were still there. His prior record might be enough for them to decide to search the place, and he wasn’t especially willing to take his chances with how they’d react to a fake gun licence. A stupid, selfish thought. In any case, with an ambulance, with police, came complications. And Frank didn’t want complications. He just wanted this kid to patch the girl up and then hopefully the lot of them would get out of here and leave him be. He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. He exhaled. ‘Charlie knows what he’s doing. If she gets worse or it seems too much, we make the call. Fair?’
He opened his eyes. Charlie shot him a grateful look, Delilah shifted on the spot, but didn’t argue.
‘Who do you think she is?’ she asked.
‘Someone in trouble.’ It was as close to the truth as Frank was willing to get.
‘But how?’ Delilah pressed. ‘I mean, you’ve got to be curious.’
‘That’s not the word I would use.’
‘Then what?’
Frank didn’t reply. Charlie took a deep breath, placed the tip of the needle at the end of the first gash, and pushed. Involuntarily, Frank flinched. The girl didn’t move.
‘He is out the back,’ Allie said, hearing the tremor in her voice and hating it.
‘Give him a yell, then,’ Reg said.
Allie just looked at him.
Reg bared his teeth in something well past a smile. ‘Don’t stress, love. You don’t need to lie to me. I’m not a bad guy.’ He turned and headed for the shelves. With a shaking hand, Allie took her phone out of her pocket.
She stopped. Frank had only given her his home number. She didn’t even know if he had a mobile. And the lines were down. Her heart was speeding up by the second. Why were the lines down?
‘Doesn’t look like the business is thriving.’ Reg turned.
Instinctively, Allie shoved her phone beneath the counter. There was a louder clatter than she’d intended.
Reg watched her. There was a hateful amusement in his expression, something not dissimilar to Hannah Bond and her taunts. But far worse. He took a packet of chips from one of the shelves. ‘Doesn’t look like Grandpa can afford much trouble.’ He opened the packet. Reached in and took out a handful of chips, half of which he stuffed into his mouth with a loud crunch, the remainder peppering the floor. His eyes stayed on Allie as he chewed.
Allie said nothing.
‘Whaddya reckon?’ Reg swallowed the mouthful and went for another. ‘Can Grandpa afford trouble?’
‘I . . . I don’t know.’
Reg’s eyes were wide, as if telling a cruel joke. ‘Well, you better figure it out quick smart. Because, love. That girl is trouble. More than trouble. She’s dangerous.’
In the kitchen, Frank rinsed the sponge and refilled the bucket with hot water. Charlie’s orders, and fine by him. His stitching up the girl’s leg, her sleeping through what had to have been an agonising procedure, was not putting him at any more ease. A sense of water closing over his head, of a situation he couldn’t control slowly dragging him down, was constricting his chest, making him feel out of breath and on edge. Once the bucket was full, he turned off the tap. It kept dripping.
‘The phone here is dead, too,’ Delilah’s voice, from behind him.
Frank didn’t reply. It didn’t make any sense.
‘Where’s the nearest hospital?’
Frank tightened the tap. ‘Define nearest?’
The drip kept going.
‘You don’t have a mobile,’ Delilah said. It wasn’t a question.
‘I do,’ Frank said. ‘But it stopped working about a year ago.’
‘And you didn’t get a new one?’
Frank gave the tap a hard, violent wrench. The dripping stopped. Allie should have been back by now. He picked up the bucket, turned and pushed past Delilah, crossed the hall and strode back into the living room. He needed to get back to the roadhouse, as much as he didn’t want to leave these people alone in his home. Delilah would have to come with him, as insurance.
Behind him, he heard the dripping start again.
‘Now look, this ain’t your problem or your grandpa’s, and I don’t mean to change that.’ Reg tossed the packet of chips hard to the ground. They scattered everywhere. ‘But you gotta understand the situation. This sheila . . . she’s a bad egg, love. Done the kind of stuff I don’t want to repeat around a nice girl like you, y’know?’
‘So call the police,’ Allie said.
Reg had reached the counter again. He placed his hands on it. ‘Wish it was that simple, love. But the cops . . . nah, the cops never do what they need to around these parts. They’d take one look at her pretty face and decide they had to go easy. But that’s the thing. Some people don’t deserve easy. You understand that, right, love?’
Allie said nothing.
Reg cocked his head to the side slightly, examining her. ‘This probably all seems pretty scary to you, eh?’
Allie said nothing.
‘That’s why you need to trust me.’ Reg came further forwards. He was almost all the way across the counter. ‘Because Reggie ain’t lying to you, love. Reggie’s trying to help you. Trying to save you from being the next person this bitch hurts. You don’t want to get hurt, do you, love?’
‘No,’ Allie whispered.
‘No. ’Course not. Pretty face like yours.’ Reg’s grin grew. ‘I’m not gonna hurt ya. I’d never damage a pretty face like that.’
‘I think . . .’ Allie swallowed. Her fists clenched. ‘I think you should go.’
Reg’s grin didn’t falter. ‘Looks like I made a bit of a mess on the ground there. Reckon you should clean it up before Grandpa gets back?’
Allie could feel the tears coming and she hated it.
‘Won’t look good for business, chips all over the floor like that. Bit of advice: you wanna keep a place like this presentable. Otherwise people might start to ask questions about the kind of bloke who doesn’t
keep his livelihood in order. Might start to get suspicious.’
‘I think you should go,’ Allie said again. Her voice was high, unsteady.
‘Bit rude, darlin’. I’m just trying to help.’ Reg winked. ‘Tell you what. You clean up, I’ll supervise. Make sure you do it right.’
Allie stayed put.
‘Go on now,’ he said.
His hands on the counter looked bony but strong. His fingernails were chipped; one had a dark red mark in the middle. Allie’s heart was getting louder, each beat unbalancing her a fraction more.
Reg’s hand went up, fast. Allie flew back as Reg slammed the counter, the sound enormous in the close quarters of the roadhouse.
His smile was gone. ‘Now, love. While I wait for Grandpa.’
Slowly, certain that her legs were about to give way, she knelt and, trembling, found the dustpan. She moved around the counter and started to sweep up the chips. She could feel Reg’s eyes on her, hear his breathing. She swept up the last of the mess and stood. She made herself face him. ‘I haven’t seen any girl. Neither has Grandad.’
‘But that’s the thing,’ Reg said. ‘I reckon you’re telling me a bit of a porky there. I reckon you have seen this girl.’
‘I haven’t.’ Her voice was almost a squeak. She sounded desperate to convince him. She sounded like a liar.
‘Then where the fuck is Grandpa?’
The internal door behind the counter opened. Frank, jaw set, stepped out. His eyes were on Reg. Allie had to stop herself from running to him. She hadn’t noticed before how tall he was, how he filled the doorway. There was no hunch to his shoulders now, no worn sadness to his face. He didn’t look away from Reg.
‘G’day, mate.’ Reg stepped back. ‘Name’s Reg. Was just asking your granddaughter where you were.’
‘Out the back,’ Frank said without moving. ‘You mind telling me what the fuck you want?’
Reg raised his hands. ‘Whoa, chill out there, mate. Just want to ask a couple of questions.’
‘Ask me outside.’
‘Lead the way,’ Reg said, with a flourish.
For a moment, Frank just stood there. He looked at Allie. Then walked past the counter, past her and to the front screen door.
Allie didn’t move. Reg looked at her. Mouthed something. Trouble.
Frank opened the screen door for Reg, turning briefly back to Allie as the other man stepped out. ‘Head back home. Now.’
Allie waited until both men were outside and the screen door had swung closed. Then she moved around the counter and reached for where she’d put her phone.
It was gone.
She looked up and through the glass to where Frank was talking to Reg.
She dashed through the storeroom and hurried out the back entrance. Delilah was standing in the storeroom and tried to say something, but Allie ignored her and pushed past. Outside, the sky had dulled to a washed-out blue, the few clouds brushed with dark pink. The weather had changed, a cool edge had entered the summer air. A gust of wind, short and sharp, made Allie shiver. She wanted to be away from here. She found Frank’s rusty old bike, propped up against the back of the building where she had left it. She didn’t bother with her helmet. She jumped on and started cycling as hard as she could back to the house.
Frank stopped in front of the roadhouse entry and crossed his arms again. Reg walked ahead, eyes scanning the empty road, then turned back to him. ‘I’ll level with you.’
Frank did not reply.
‘I’m looking for a girl,’ Reg said. ‘I know she went this way. I know she can’t have had much fuel. There’s about a ninety percent chance she stopped here. And, believe me, you’d know her if you saw her. She woulda been in a right state.’
Frank said nothing.
Reg looked him up and down. His mouth twitched. ‘You ever find yourself in a situation where the law wasn’t quite enough? Where somebody had done something so fucking shit that you knew no prison was gonna give that bastard what they deserved?’ He waited for a reply that didn’t come, then nodded. ‘Yeah. Yeah, I reckon you did. I’m not gonna bullshit you, mate. That’s what’s going on here. This girl is a piece of fucking work. But that doesn’t concern you. No reason you can’t just keep on with your life. If she’s here—’
‘She’s not here,’ Frank said. ‘I haven’t seen her.’
Even as he said the words, doubt prodded hard. He owed this girl nothing. She could very well be as dangerous as Reg was claiming and, if so, he was putting everyone at risk by letting her into his house. It wouldn’t be the first time he had stood up for the wrong person and suffered the consequences. And even if she wasn’t a threat, then he could well be inviting a whole different kind of disaster.
But he didn’t say anything more. He just stood there and waited for Reg’s reply.
Reg seemed to be searching his face. Then he shrugged. ‘Alright. Didn’t mean to scare you. Just a complicated situation, y’know? Gotta make sure it’s handled right.’ He turned to the road. His head tilted as he looked over the concrete.
Frank saw it in the same instant that Reg did.
The other man pointed at the spot where the girl’s car had stopped. ‘That’s not blood, is it?’
Dark droplets from the girl’s wounded leg had dried on the concrete.
‘I cut myself,’ Frank said. ‘Cleaning the pumps.’
‘They look pretty grubby to me.’ Reg turned back to Frank. Looked him over. ‘And I don’t see any Band-Aids.’
‘It was a couple of days ago.’
‘Right.’ Reg looked down the road. He sniffed the air. ‘Fair enough, then.’ He put his hands in his pockets and nodded to Frank. There was no mirth on his face anymore. ‘Best of luck, mate.’
He started walking. Frank watched as he left the roadhouse behind and kept going, heading east.
Frank looked at the sky. It was changing to a light purple. In the distance, sunset flames streaked the horizon. Evening was almost here. He looked back towards Reg.
He had vanished.
CHAPTER SIX
Then
The day played out in silent heat as the car tracked along the highway. They passed a couple of roadhouses and stopped once, but hardly said a word. Simon took the chance to check his map, but there wasn’t much ahead. The fact that he had no idea where he was going had never felt so obvious.
When, as afternoon neared evening, Maggie spoke, Simon was ready for the worst.
‘I was thinking,’ she began, and Simon braced himself for her asking to be dropped off, ‘that maybe we need to head off the beaten track.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, right now we’re on a highway that sooner or later will just take us to another big town, or a city. But I saw on the map there’s a turn-off soon. Why don’t we take it and see where we end up?’
‘Lost, probably,’ Simon said. ‘Besides, I already have no idea where we’re heading. I don’t want to make that worse.’
‘West,’ she pointed at the sun. ‘Didn’t you say you wanted to see something genuine? Do you think you’re gonna find that in the places this highway leads to? Why not shake things up?’
He was sure there were reasons not to, and good ones too, but at that moment none seemed to occur to him. He looked back at her. Thought about the night before, about lying awake in the swag while she slept in the car at her own insistence, about the buzz of uneasy excitement that made him wonder if the sleeping arrangements would change in the nights to come. If there were nights to come. Up ahead, Simon saw a sign that marked the turn-off, sun bleached to the point of illegibility, and slowed. He tried to think of an excuse, but had none that didn’t sound pathetic. He wasn’t even fully sure himself why he didn’t want to take it. So he nodded and turned the wheel.
The new road was narrow and in pretty bad condition, all crevices and potholes. The scrubby grass on either side soon gave way to bent, knobbly old trees, at first just a few, but then thickening the further they went, hemmi
ng them in on either side and obscuring the remaining sunlight. After looking at the map again, Maggie said there might be a dirt road coming up. Simon muttered something non-committal, privately hoping that there would be no road and they could turn back, but a few minutes later he saw what amounted to little more than a wide dirt path pulling off the road and into the trees. He put the blinker on, though he didn’t know who for, and berated himself for being so cautious, so citified, as he made the turn.
The shift was instantaneous. The background of wind and birdsong vanished into the silence as soon as they took the path. The ride became rougher. The track was littered with rocks and the car was quickly covered in dust – at times, it was almost as if it were trying to throw them both out, jumping hard as it went over bumps and thick eruptions of spinifex in a road on the verge of being reclaimed by nature. The trees, at first a pleasant backdrop, started to feel more oppressive the deeper they went, branches stretching over them like fingers about to close tight, the knotted roots buried in bushes, leaves hanging so low in places that they scraped the roof of the car. In some places the road vanished altogether, taken over by the dry, twisting furrow of what once might have been a riverbed. The further they went, the heavier the canopy got. The light fractured, feeble beams barely illuminating the broken curl of the dirt road. Decaying branches almost blocked their path in places. One old tree was bent so low Simon wasn’t sure if the car would fit underneath it.
‘Maybe we should head back,’ Simon said. ‘I don’t think this goes anywhere.’
‘There’s still a road.’ Maggie’s eyes remained forwards. ‘If there’s a road, there’s a destination.’
‘Road’ seemed a bit rich for what the track had turned into, but Simon said nothing. It eventually peeled off in a few different directions, so Simon took one, then another, occasionally glancing at Maggie as if for guidance. But her eyes were fixed on the window, scanning the trees as if looking for something. It seemed like she was paying more attention to their surrounds now than she had been before. Or was he imagining that?
The Hunted Page 5
