Caitlin caught up with him as he pushed open the bedroom door, then turned back, arms outstretched to ward her off.
But one glimpse was enough to see the devastation—a great gash like a black wound in the screen of her computer and thick shards of the shattered screen scattered across the bed.
Connor’s arms closed around her as the involuntary cry escaped her lips, and he held her close for a moment then moved her purposefully back into the living room.
‘I’m phoning Ned Withers, he’s the police sergeant,’ he announced, as he all but pushed her down in a chair. ‘Then I’m going to pack up your things and shift you over to my place.’
Caitlin didn’t argue. She was shaking too much for her lips to form words, while her mind seemed to have shut down, numbed by the violence of the attack on her computer. Then, as the numbness thawed, the questions surfaced.
‘Why?’ she asked Connor. ‘How can my research upset someone to this degree? I’m not looking into family secrets, or trying to uncover illegal activity. We’re talking about children here, and the possibility of saving children’s lives!’
He’d finished his phone call and come to sit on the arm of the chair, slipping one arm around her shoulders.
‘I don’t know, Caitlin, but someone does resent your presence. I don’t suppose I can persuade you to leave town until that someone’s caught?’
She looked up at him and saw the deep concern she heard in the roughness of his voice reflected in his eyes.
‘No,’ she told him, straightening her shoulders. ‘And what’s more, I’m not leaving this house—scurrying over to your place like a frightened mouse. Whoever did this is a coward—leaving notes and smashing a computer.’
‘Leaving notes? What do you mean? You’ve had a threatening note?’
Connor had leapt back to his feet and now loomed angrily over her.
‘And you didn’t think to mention this to Mike or me? Good grief, Caitlin, it’s not as if you’re not an intelligent woman! You must know people who leave threatening notes aren’t right in the head, yet you did nothing about it.’
Caitlin glared right back at him.
‘I did do something about it. I screwed it up and threw it away. And it wasn’t a threatening letter, just a page out of a children’s fairy-tale book.’
Connor looked at her as if she was mad, but no way was she going to add any further explanation.
Fortunately, at that moment the lights went on again outside and a car pulled up. Connor walked to the door, opening it to admit a large man in uniform.
‘Ned, this is Caitlin O’Shea, a doctor doing some research here in Turalla. We had dinner with Nellie at the hospital then walked up to the lookout. Came back to find the door unlocked and this.’
He led Ned, who’d shaken hands with Caitlin during the introduction, into the bedroom.
‘Blimey!’ Ned said, crunching his way over shattered plastic to inspect the machine.
‘Best I take it with me,’ he said, then he looked around.
‘Anything else out of place, Doctor?’
Caitlin, who’d followed the two men, looked helplessly around. Her first view of the damaged computer had shown her the shattered screen, but now she looked again she realised whoever had done it had delivered not one blow but many, hitting at the silvery box over and over again, and with force enough to bend, buckle and in places shatter the outer case.
She put a hand over her mouth as nausea roiled in her stomach and headed for the bathroom, where she perched on the side of the bath until the sick feeling subsided.
Connor found her there some time later.
‘Come on,’ he said, his tone brusque, the would-be lover of earlier this evening gone. ‘I’ve packed your things.’
Caitlin stared at him, but her mind, already battling to accept the damage someone had inflicted on her computer, couldn’t make sense of the change.
‘I’ll go to a motel,’ she told him.
‘No, you won’t. You’ll come to my place. I told Ned that’s where you’ll be if he needs to speak to you. The choice is there, or Mike and Sue’s, and I know from my baby-sitting experience there that those kids wake with the dawn and the sofa bed is terrible.’
He took her arm and eased her to her feet, then moved away, picking up her suitcase and heading purposefully towards the door. Left with little option but to follow, Caitlin went after him, then remembered her laptop, tucked away under the bed.
‘Wait,’ she called to Connor, who either didn’t hear her or decided to ignore her. But she wasn’t going without it. Not anywhere. And possibly never again.
In the bedroom, Ned was dusting what she assumed was fingerprint powder over the table. Treading carefully, and keeping well out of his way, Caitlin worked her way to the side of the bed then knelt and reached underneath.
Her heart was thudding with apprehension as she felt under the mattress base, fingers seeking the slim outline of the laptop. Her relief when she finally made contact was so great she almost sobbed with joy.
She drew it out and clutched it to her chest, strangely reassured although she knew she had back-up for the work she’d done both on CD and on the computer back at the lab.
‘Oh!’
Connor must have returned to look for her, and met her in the doorway.
‘So you haven’t lost all your work?’
It was a question, but the tone of it was strange, as if he knew he should be feeling happy for her, but wasn’t.
‘I’m not totally stupid!’ she snapped, ‘and in case you’re wondering, this isn’t the only back-up I have. All the information I’ve gathered has gone to the lab in Brisbane as well, so all someone destroyed was an inanimate object.’
‘Someone violently destroyed,’ Connor amended, his words as cold and hard as chips of ice.
Caitlin shivered, perturbed as much by the change in Connor as the coldness in his voice.
‘Ned’s parked behind your car. Do you mind walking across?’
She wanted to protest again but knew he wouldn’t listen, the warm, sensitive man who’d urged her to have a swing replaced by this emotionless authoritarian. So she nodded glumly and trudged behind him, past the hospital kitchen, where they’d laughed with Nellie, and the park and swing, where she’d flown so high and joyfully just a few hours earlier.
‘I’ll put you in my room,’ Connor announced as he led the way up the steps and into the kitchen.
‘And sleep across the doorway?’ Caitlin snapped at him. ‘Don’t be silly, Connor. If the person wanted to harm me, there’s been plenty of opportunity while I slept at the house. I’ll use your spare bedroom—the one I used the day I arrived.’
He turned and scowled at her.
‘You’ll sleep in my room and, no, I won’t sleep across the door. I’ll sleep beside you.’
‘Beside me? In bed with me?’
His face lightened for a moment and he almost smiled.
‘An hour ago it wasn’t such a horrific idea,’ he reminded her. ‘But this will be purely platonic. I’ll even sleep on top of the sheet if you like.’
He’d dropped her case on the floor, and now he turned and walked across to the bench beneath the window. He put his hands on it and leaned forward, shoulders bowed as he stared out into the dark night.
‘You asked earlier if I knew Angie,’ he said, his voice little more than a harsh whisper. ‘The answer’s yes, Caitlin. I knew Angie. At one stage we were engaged. But she wanted to work in the outback and I didn’t want to leave the career I was carving out for myself in the city. We broke up and she came out here.’
Caitlin wasn’t sure how she felt—too many emotions chasing each other through her body. Then a flash of understanding and one emotion surfaced, pity beating off jealousy, astonishment and confusion. Pity for Connor who carried guilt that he’d let the woman he loved go alone to the country where she’d died a terrible death.
She stepped forward and put her arms around him, resting her bo
dy against his back.
‘Do you really think things might have been different if you’d been here as well?’ she asked him.
‘We wouldn’t have been here,’ he said, turning and linking his arms loosely around her body. ‘We’d have gone to a bigger town—one that needed two doctors. Turalla could do with one and a half, but the logistics of getting doctors to practise in rural areas are such that the department will only ever appoint one.’
He spoke without emotion and Caitlin felt his hold was less an embrace than somewhere to put his arms. She took a deep breath, then asked the question that had to be asked.
‘And how does you not going to the country with Angie lead to us sharing a bed tonight?’
He looked down into her eyes, his own dark with what she guessed were memories and regrets.
‘I’ve no reason for it, and I’ve no proof, though, believe me, I’ve looked for it, but I can’t believe Angie’s death was an accident.’
The words seemed to hang in the air between them, invoking a superstitious fear that made Caitlin shiver.
She stepped away from Connor, who didn’t try to hold her, and rubbed her arms.
‘So, tonight we share my bed and tomorrow you leave town,’ he said, picking up her case and carrying it into the bedroom.
Caitlin shook her head, unable to believe this new edict.
‘Like hell I will!’ she yelled, storming after him. ‘Neither will I share your bed. Give me that case. I’m sleeping in the spare room. If it makes you happier I’ll shut the doors and push something against them. Then tomorrow I’ll move into a motel which, I’m sure, will be modern enough to have doors with deadbolts and safety chains as well.’
She grabbed her case out of his hand and stomped back through the kitchen and laundry to the veranda and the spare bedroom where she’d slept not so very long ago.
She must have been mad to let her emotions run amok with Connor Clarke. The man was so screwed up! So riddled with guilt and remorse and bitterness he was seeing danger where none existed.
Well, maybe some, but danger to things, not people…
She had opened her case and was digging through it for her nightshirt while mentally berating herself.
Found it and threw it on the bed, then dug again, this time for her toiletries.
Fruitless effort…
They’d been in the bathroom—where she’d been while Connor had packed. And doubtless they were still there.
Well, she wasn’t going back there tonight, or asking Connor to go, so she’d rub some of his toothpaste around her teeth with her finger and get the rest of her gear tomorrow.
On her way to the motel.
Footsteps sounded on the veranda then Connor tapped on her door.
‘Would you like a cup of tea or some other kind of drink before you go to bed?’
‘The polite host offering succour to the unwelcome guest,’ Caitlin sniped, and saw his tall, rangy figure flinch slightly, but then he straightened.
‘I’ll take that as a no, shall I?’ he said, ultra-cool.
Caitlin nodded. The emotional strain of the evening had combined with her regret for the distance that now stretched between them and formed a lump in her throat.
She turned away so he wouldn’t see her trying to swallow it and hold back the foolish tears gathering in her eyes.
‘OK,’ he said, and she heard the footsteps retreat.
Slumping down on the bed, she buried her head in her pillow, but instead of crying, she pummelled it, releasing some of the tension that had her insides twisted into knots.
She must have fallen asleep, waking to darkness—had Connor come to check on her again and turned off the light? Her dress was crumpled and her mouth felt like the inside of a parrot’s cage, so she clambered wearily to her feet, stretched, then fumbled along the wall, seeking the light switch. Found it, and turned it on. She’d need the light it shed out onto the veranda to make her way to the bathroom.
It was too late to be splashing around under a shower, but she’d have a good wash and change into her nightshirt. She grabbed it and headed out, only realising she wasn’t alone on the veranda when a small sound, more like a snort than a snore, alerted her to another presence.
Connor wasn’t asleep across her doorway. Oh, no, he’d put his swag at least a couple of metres from it, but placed so anyone creeping around on the veranda would be sure to trip over him.
Caitlin held back the urge to kick him, instead creeping past, then once in the bathroom she realised the possibilities for revenge his action had provided for her. She’d sleep in his bed after all. Let him spend an uncomfortable night in his swag on the veranda, then realise in the morning how futile he’d been as a sentry.
She’d just decided this would serve him right when she remembered what had passed between them earlier. Remembered all she knew of him, and accepted that his behaviour stemmed only from an urge to protect her.
She might not want or need his protection, but he didn’t deserve that she make light of it. She crept quietly back the way she’d come.
Connor was gone when she woke again—gone from the veranda and the house, if the silence echoing through it was any indication.
Caitlin dressed, then walked into the kitchen, wishing Connor was there so they could talk properly again, without all the angst and emotion of the previous evening.
‘Hi, sleepyhead!’
It was Melissa who greeted her, coming in from the veranda, a magazine dangling from the fingers of her right hand.
‘Connor asked me to see you got some breakfast. He told me what happened—that’s terrible.’
Melissa was so genuinely sympathetic, Caitlin knew she’d be an ally.
‘Who am I upsetting in this town?’ she asked. ‘Who would do something like this, and why?’
Melissa obviously took the questions seriously, for she frowned as she filled the kettle and turned it on.
‘I honestly don’t know,’ she said, shaking her head to emphasise this point. ‘I can’t see how what you’re doing could hurt anyone, and yet surely only someone who was hurt, or feared being hurt, could do such a thing.’
‘Hurt!’ Caitlin echoed the word Melissa had used. ‘Hurt how? I know you don’t mean physically, but no one can ever be blamed for causing cancer, so finding out more wouldn’t hurt them that way. Reputation? That can be damaged, but not by what I’m doing.’
‘Relationships could be hurt,’ Melissa suggested. ‘Do you want toast? Or there’s cereal. Connor said he knew you ate cereal.’
‘Toast, thanks,’ Caitlin responded, then switched back to Melissa’s suggestion. ‘Relationships?’ she echoed. ‘But if the women I’ve interviewed feared that what I’m doing could harm their relationship with their husbands, surely they wouldn’t have talked to me.’
Melissa shrugged.
‘Maybe it isn’t the talking to them but what they think you might do next. Angie was taking blood samples from the families who had a child with leukaemia. You know, cousins and things. Maybe they think you’ll do that next.’
Melissa spoke casually, but the statement filled Caitlin with confusion.
‘Why was Angie taking blood? And if you think what happened to her was an accident, why mention it?’
Melissa appeared to be startled by Caitlin’s vehemence, for she turned, kettle in hand, frowning at the questions.
‘I think she was taking blood to check no one else in the family was affected. Isn’t what you’re doing completely different?’
Melissa ignored the ‘accident’ question, but Caitlin guessed that wasn’t deliberate. She’d wanted to clarify the first point first.
‘It is,’ Caitlin agreed. ‘That’s if the specimens she took were for testing for leukaemia, not for some other reason. I’d hate to think I’m wasting my time following a line someone else has already followed to a dead end.’
‘It was a dead end for Angie,’ a deep voice said, and Caitlin turned to find Connor had come quietly up t
he stairs and was standing in the doorway behind her.
His blunt words had shocked her, but before she could protest he was talking to Melissa, thanking her for waiting—dismissing her, but with kindness and a genuine smile.
He waited until she’d reached the bottom of the steps and turned towards the surgery next door, then he turned back to Caitlin. ‘I’ve phoned your boss—Mike had a home number for him—and he agrees you should return to Brisbane.’
The blue-green eyes were fixed on her, his resolve easy to read, but she hadn’t got to where she was without a truckload of resolve herself. She damped down the flare of temper his interference had caused, knowing she had to make her point without histrionics.
‘I’m not going, Connor,’ she said quietly. ‘I’ll be careful but I won’t leave town.’
He was, at the most, two metres away, yet as she looked at him she felt the great divide that now separated them. ‘You said something once before—about me not having had to choose between my career and something else. Or someone else, as it must have been in your case. Well, I’m choosing now, Connor, and if it means, thanks to your phone call, that I’ll lose my career, then so be it, but I am not leaving town.’
He looked so shocked she almost laughed, but the sick feeling in her stomach assured her there was nothing even vaguely amusing about this situation.
The anger she’d reined in earlier rose again.
Forgetting the breakfast Melissa had begun to fix for her, Caitlin swept out of the kitchen and through to the spare bedroom where she repacked her nightshirt, closed her case and headed back.
Connor was still standing where she’d left him, just inside the back door.
‘Excuse me!’ Caitlin muttered, not really caring if he moved or not. In fact, she was tempted to let the case swing out so its hard edge caught his knee.
She resisted the temptation and continued on her way, down the steps, across the park, past the swings—moving determinedly towards the little house behind the hospital.
Connor watched her go, worry twisting in his gut, his concern for her so all-encompassing he wanted to yell and rant and rave at her—or at someone.
First, though, he had to get through morning surgery. He was already late and patients would be cramming into the too-small waiting room. And surely nothing would happen to that stubborn, determined woman at nine o’clock on a Saturday morning.
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