Winds of Change (Hearts of the Outback Book 4)

by Susanne Bellamy

  “Yes.”

  Jax bent and brushed a kiss over her forehead. “I’ll be right outside, babe.”

  Jax sat on a plastic chair and sipped the coffee provided by the desk sergeant. Caleb was right about this latest episode. It was sloppy and smacked of desperation, which meant whoever was responsible wasn’t a professional. It also meant they had to try again, and soon.

  On set provided the most likely opportunities, but Jax couldn’t discount travel to and from work, nor Willa’s house. His gut told him the film set was the key, if only he could work out the connection between the incidents, Willa, and the note to Brodie.

  He pulled his phone from his pocket and made notes of everything; key events, possible motives, and random observations. As he listed the shooting accident, he added a query to ask Caleb about the unused blanks. Visual inspection had shown only crimped tops on the remaining cartridges, but something about Willa’s scene niggled in his memory.

  If he saw the rushes it might help him to pinpoint his unease. He scrolled through his contacts until he found Brodie’s number.

  “What’s up, Jax? Is my girl okay?”

  “Not in a good place right now but Detective Richards is treating her well. Look, I need your help to see today’s footage as soon as possible.”

  “Do you think that’s a good idea?”

  “I don’t mean to let Willa watch it, just me you, Preston, and Caleb if he’s available. Can you arrange it for around eight tonight?”

  “Sure. Where?”

  “Somewhere in town. I don’t want to leave Willa alone.”

  “Leave it with me. I’ll text when I’ve got it organised.”

  “Thanks.”

  As he ended the call, the door to the interview room opened and Willa came out. She seemed a little calmer and Jax was glad it had been Caleb Richards conducting the interview.

  He stood and hugged her as Caleb appeared in the doorway.

  “Do you want me now?”

  “Yes. Go on in and take a seat. I’ll just ask Sergeant Henderson to get Willa a cup of coffee.” Caleb walked down the corridor and called for Doug as he entered the kitchen.

  “Jax, would you mind if I got a ride home while Caleb talks to you? I’m really tired.” She sounded exhausted and that love-of-life light in her eyes was dim.

  Jax tried to recall how he’d felt the first time he’d wounded a man. Not good, and he’d been trained and prepared for it. How much worse was it for Willa who loathed guns?

  “I’ll call Dave to pick you up.”

  “Don’t. He’s probably busy. Besides, I’d like to have some time alone. Just me and the bathtub.”

  “I’d prefer you have company until I’m finished here. Dammit, I’ve arranged to see Brodie later.”

  “All the more reason for me to head home now.”

  “Look, how about I pick up takeaway for dinner? Can you wait a couple of hours to eat?”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “You might feel like something later. Just let me organise a ride for you—”

  Caleb returned with a mug of coffee. “I can arrange a ride for Willa. Sergeant Henderson is just about to go home.”

  Reluctant to allow Willa out of sight, Jax couldn’t deny her need for solitude. He accepted the offer. “Lock all the doors and don’t invite anyone in until either I get back or Dave arrives. Only us. Promise?”

  “You worry too much. I’ll be fine.”

  She kissed him, and walked down the corridor with Caleb to find the sergeant.

  ##

  Jax rubbed his eyes and frowned. He’d arrived at Brodie’s suite after an intense session answering Caleb’s questions but without having caught the teasing wisp of memory. Several viewings of the day’s rushes hadn’t helped.

  He shook his head to clear the cobwebs. “Can we play the scene again, but really slowly?”

  “You want frame by frame?” Brodie reset the film and set it playing, and picked up a glass of wine. “What are you looking for?”

  “I don’t know. That’s the problem.”

  “Great; this is one of those I’ll-know-it-when-I-see-it things.”

  “’fraid so.” Jax concentrated on the immediate area around Willa. The high angle from the early film session gave a bird’s eye view of her position. Under that rock she’d hidden her canteen of water, and on a narrow ledge to her left were the blanks. He widened his scope, searching the edges of the shot.

  “Stop it there. Zoom in on the top left corner.”

  “What is it? What can you see?” Brodie put his wine glass down and manipulated the shot.

  As the image was enlarged Jax walked up and stood off to the side. He knew he’d seen something. Pointing to the patch of light, he looked at Brodie. “Here, it’s the tip of a rifle catching the light and it looks like it’s aimed at the crane, just like Willa’s third shot.”

  “You were up there keeping an eye on things. How come you didn’t see the shooter?” Justifiably angry, Brodie strode across the room and pointed at him. “Your job was to keep my star safe and my production moving ahead and now you tell me there was a shooter in the rocks? Goddammit, Major—”

  “The angle of the rocks at that spot hid him from me. What I don’t get is how Preston failed to see him and why the shooter is aiming at the crane.”

  “Instead of at Willa? But that makes no sense unless she isn’t the target after all?”

  “I don’t know but I’d like Detective Richards to see this.” Jax pulled his phone from his pocket and rang Caleb.

  The detective agreed to meet them as soon as he could get away. “Probably half an hour.

  “One question, Jax. Who knew where you would be positioned for that scene?”

  “Willa, Brodie, me, and Dave Preston. We didn’t share the info with anyone—”

  He’d positioned the corporal on the lower slope to Willa’s right, figuring that way they had her covered. He hadn’t spotted Preston but assumed he’d followed orders. What had his subconscious seen? Flicking through his memory of the afternoon, he willed himself to remember.

  A flicker of red hair at the periphery of his vision.

  Preston changing position uphill.

  Preston.

  “I’ve got to get to Willa before he does.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Willa pulled the plug and watched the bathwater and bubbles drain away as she dressed in jeans and a shirt. Jax would be annoyed if he arrived home before she got back but she wouldn’t be able to sleep until she’d seen Greg for herself.

  Dragging a brush through her hair, she rationalised her decision. The hospital was a busy place; lots of people and bright lighting equalled safety. She sighed as she picked up the keys to her mother’s moped, the only vehicle in the garage.

  It would have been preferable to phone for a taxi but her backpack was in the locker at the film centre, along with her wallet, phone, and keys. She offered a silent thank you to her mother for being predictable. The spare house key was still kept under a pot plant beside the back door. As she shoved it into her pocket, the doorbell chirped, followed by heavy knocking on the door.

  “Miss Raynolds? Willa, are you there?”

  Looking through the spy hole, she saw Dave Preston waiting on the other side. He turned towards the garden and seemed to be checking it. He seemed as anxious as Jax about the stalker.

  Quickly, she unlocked the door and let him in. “Hi, Dave. Great timing. I’m on my way to the hospital to visit Greg. Can we go in your car?”

  “Um, yeah, okay. The major not here yet?”

  “I haven’t heard from him since I left him at the police station. Just give me a moment.”

  Before she could change her mind, she scrawled a note to Jax on her mother’s shopping list and left it on the kitchen bench where he couldn’t miss it when he came in.

  Dave pulled the front door open as she approached and stepped out ahead of her. He scanned the garden before taking her elbow and hurrying her down
the steps and along the path to a midnight blue ute fitted with gleaming chrome bars. Beneath a layer of dust it was obviously new and well cared for.

  “Nice wheels. Yours?”

  “Yeah. Hop in.” Dave opened the passenger door and waited for her to climb in before striding around to the driver’s side. He pulled away from the kerb in a squeal of tyres and took the corner like a stunt driver.

  Willa grabbed the armrest. “Hey, no rush, Dave. I want to go to the front door of the hospital, not the emergency entrance.”

  “Sorry. I just want to make sure we’re not being followed.” He looked in the rear-view mirror and eased back on the accelerator.

  “Who would be following us? Surely you don’t think—” Her throat closed and her words dried up. Of course it was a possibility. Finding anybody’s address these days was a matter of a few clicks on the computer. Jax must be working on that assumption if Dave was behaving like this.

  She’d never felt so vulnerable except for the day Jax had left her standing alone at the bus stop.

  With a start, she saw they were passing the very bus stop where her teenage world had crashed around her ears.

  “Are you lost, Dave? This isn’t the way to the hospital.”

  “I know. I’m taking evasive action.”

  Willa turned and peered through the rear window. The road behind them was empty. “I appreciate your caution but there’s no one following us. I want to go to the hospital. Now.”

  “I can’t take you there. That’s the first place they’ll look when they find you aren’t at home.”

  “But you said you’d take me. Why didn’t you just explain what you were thinking instead of giving me a fright like that?”

  “A good soldier follows orders and explains later.”

  “And Major Heathwood told you to remove me from the house?”

  “If necessary.”

  “Would you have insisted on leaving if I’d been in my pyjamas? If I hadn’t asked you to take me to the hospital?”

  In the flickering light-dark of passing street lights, Dave’s expression was strained. “I have to keep you safe, Miss Raynolds. Whatever it takes.”

  Whatever it takes.

  She’d delivered that line in an episode that aired recently, where a kidnapper had taken a child and she’d made a promise to the parents.

  Willa clenched her hands in her lap and stared through the windscreen. Dave’s odd behaviour was out of character to the young man she thought she knew. He’d been so open and frank when they first met, but now it was as though he had a split personality. Half answers and his use of that line from her show raised concerns. The weird journey gave her the creeps. As though he was taking her away from everyone and keeping her to himself.

  They took a turn that led in the opposite direction from the hospital.

  Icy fingers ran down her spine as pieces of the puzzle fell into a pattern she’d never expected.

  Dave slowed for the corner at the eastern end of the shopping centre.

  Willa didn’t stop to think.

  She unclipped her seatbelt, thrust her door open and rolled onto the pavement. Heart thudding, she pushed to her feet and raced towards the car park and the late night shopping crowd without a backward glance.

  Her stalker was her biggest fan.

  ##

  Jax tore into Willa’s driveway, jumped off his motorbike and raced up the front steps. The sensor light turned on and he banged on the door. “Willa!”

  His heart raced as he unclipped his helmet and fought to maintain self-control.

  Think, man.

  If Preston had arrived already, there would be a vehicle sitting out the front. Either Willa was still soaking in the bath or she’d fallen asleep, although he doubted even she could sleep through his thunderous knocking. He took a deep breath. Letting emotion cloud his judgement wouldn’t keep Willa safe.

  “Dammit, open up.”

  Back when he and Willa had been going out, her mother used to keep a key under a pot plant near the back door. It was possible she still did. He jogged around the side of the house and lifted each of the pots without success. Finally, he peered through the French doors into the kitchen.

  A pool of light lit the island stove, and a notepad was propped against the bottle of oil. The pad hadn’t been there this morning.

  A lump the size of a tank lodged in his stomach.

  Willa wouldn’t have gone out. She must be asleep. But why hadn’t she woken up?

  He walked around the corner of the house and down the other side. The bathroom window reflected streetlights but the room itself was in darkness, as was Willa’s bedroom. He put his nose to her window and cupped both hands around his face to cut reflective glare.

  Through the open curtains he saw her bed was neatly made and her room was empty.

  Jax returned to the French doors and knocked out a pane with his elbow. Reaching through, he unlocked the door and let himself in, crunching over the broken glass.

  Willa had written him a note. Two words stood out: hospital and Dave. She’d trusted Jax and done what he’d asked. She had waited until Preston arrived and she’d gone with him.

  One thing Jax knew for certain; they weren’t heading to the hospital.

  He rang Caleb as he strode back to his motorbike. “Her note said she was heading to the Base Hospital with Preston. You head there and I’ll scout the eastern road out of town.”

  “Why east?”

  “Preston comes from Cloncurry. He’ll know the back roads and places to hide.” If he got Willa out of town onto his own turf, finding them would be a nightmare. His nightmare.

  “I’ll get the highway patrol onto the Barkly. What does he drive?”

  “Don’t know. He mentioned a new ute.”

  “Hang on, I’ll look up the rego so you know what sort of vehicle to look for.”

  Jax slung a leg over his bike and waited, his throat tight. If anything happened to Willa he’d never forgive himself.

  “Jax, he drives a blue HiLux, chrome bars, rego number—”

  Jax repeated the number. “Rendezvous one hour at the Base Hospital front entrance. Just in case we’re wrong.”

  He clipped his helmet strap, shoved the phone into his shirt pocket, and roared down the street. He turned right, then took a left into Kookaburra Street and opened the throttle until he reached the main road. He pulled out ahead of a semi and was quickly past the last houses and onto the highway to Cloncurry.

  The sudden change from town lights to starry skies would have blinded Willa. And yet she had loved camping out away from everything. Her words returned to him:

  I see three things at night out here, Jax. I see the flickering flames, heaven’s candles, and stars in your eyes, and I pray I never lose sight of any of them.

  They had lost sight of each other through no fault of their own. But life had seen fit to draw them back together and Jax never squandered a second chance. He vowed he would find Willa and keep her safe, and they would go camping again.

  Some time later he passed the highway patrol heading west. There had been little other traffic and no blue ute, chrome bars or otherwise. Praying that was a good sign he turned around and headed back to town.

  He turned left on Rodeo Drive, and onto Simpson. As he approached the roundabout near the Chinese restaurant that had once been Willa’s favourite, his gaze was drawn to a blonde-haired woman hugging the side of the building.

  He did a three sixty at the roundabout and peeled off into the driveway of the Red Lantern. The headlight pinned Willa in its beam.

  She turned her head as he switched off his engine, one hand blocking the light from her eyes. “Willa, it’s me.” He pulled off his helmet and dropped it beside the bike.

  “Jax? Oh, thank God.” She wrapped her arms around his waist and nestled her head against his shoulder, her lips soft on the skin of his throat.

  He held her tightly, and felt the tension drain from his body. “Are you hurt? I found you
r note. What happened?

  “Dave is the stalker, I’m sure of it. He said he’d take me to the hospital to see Greg only he didn’t. He drove around saying he wanted to be sure we weren’t being followed. He was acting really strange.”

  How could it have happened? Psychological profiling should have picked up such an anomaly in Preston’s personality. But there was nothing to be gained by allowing his anger with the system to cloud his thinking. The corporal was still at large. “I realised it was him when I was watching the rushes.”

  “Why were you watching the rushes?”

  “I saw something without realising its significance this afternoon. Preston moved uphill from his assigned post. Then, in the rushes I saw the tip of a rifle above your position.”

  He released his hold on her and reached for his phone. “I’ll let Caleb know I’ve got you. He should be waiting at the hospital.”

  “Can we go inside and wait?”

  “Sure, you go ahead.” Willa nodded and rounded the corner to the front door of the restaurant as the detective answered.

  “Richards here.”

  “Caleb? Willa is safe, I’ve got her.”

  “Good. Take her to the station.”

  “She won’t like it. Any chance I can take her home?”

  “With Preston still out there? Not a chance. He’s army trained and knows where she lives.”

  “I meant my home, and so am I. He doesn’t know where I live and Willa can rest there. She’s exhausted.” Jax paced up and down the car park, craning his neck to catch sight of Willa inside the restaurant.

  “Where are you now?”

  “At the Red Lantern.”

  “Wait for me there. I need to speak to her before you leave.”

  Jax ended the call and slid his phone back in his shirt pocket. His bike stood abandoned and in danger of being hit by vehicles entering the restaurant parking. He picked up his helmet and hung it over the handlebar, and backed the bike into a proper parking space.

  From now on, no matter what, he wasn’t letting Willa out of his sight. And somehow, he had to plan a workable solution for the two of them.

  He rounded the corner and lifted his foot to take the single step up to the front door of the restaurant. Hands grabbed him from behind and threw him into the tree on the footpath. Pain shot through his injured leg and he grunted as he rolled over to face his attacker.