Under The Hood

by Juanita Kees

  “It might. I’ll ring my lawyer tomorrow for advice. I’m more concerned about the focus it might bring to the program. All it needs is for an ambitious reporter to pick up on the negative side of the program and bring all we’ve achieved so far crashing down around our ears. Especially with Tiny missing again.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of.” TJ tucked her legs up under her and twisted to face him, resting her head against the back of the couch. She propped her empty mug on her knees. “God, I hope he’s okay. I just have this really sick feeling.”

  Scott leaned over to take her mug from her nerveless fingers and put both his and hers on the coffee table next to the couch. He reached over and entwined his fingers with hers as they lay in her lap. Gently, he squeezed her fingers. Since she’d echoed the feeling that had settled in his own gut, he said nothing.

  When a tear slipped down her cheek, he raised their joined hands to wipe it away. He tugged her closer until she sat curled up against him with his arm cradling her close as she cried for the boy they’d lost. Most likely for the last time.

  Chapter Thirteen

  TJ stretched languorously against the warm, firm body beneath her. What? Her hand stilled in its mission as it crept up the strong cords of a neck and stubbly chin. Her eyes popped open at the hardness pressed against her abdomen. Frozen, she realised she lay sprawled over Scott’s supine body with her head tucked under his chin. Carefully, she attempted to roll off him and fell off the couch, squarely on her arse.

  “Shit! Ouch.”

  A large hand flipped out from the couch, palm up. “20c for the swear jar.” Scott followed through with an annoyingly sexy, throaty chuckle.

  “Put it on my tab,” she answered grumpily.

  “Not comfortable enough for you, Tiger?”

  Perhaps a little too comfortable, but she wasn’t about to admit to that. She glared at him as he turned his head to meet her stare. Sarge got up from in front of the fire to flop down next to her and lay his head in her lap. TJ bristled as Scott’s arm slipped over her shoulder, tantalizingly close to her breast, to rub the dog’s ears. As the sleep haze receded, she remembered.

  “Marty!” Pushing Sarge’s head off her lap with one hand and Scott’s hand off her shoulder with the other, she leapt up. Outside Marty’s room, she stopped to take a breath before knocking. “You awake, Marty?”

  “Yeah.”

  The lazy drawl was followed by the sound of feet hitting the floor, and TJ released the breath she’d been holding. He’d stayed. He hadn’t run away to follow Tiny.

  “Sweet. I’m going to make coffee and toast for breakfast. Be ready in fifteen minutes.”

  “Yep, sure,” came the reply.

  Relieved, she turned to see Scott leaning against the wall. “Everything okay?” When she nodded he said, “Okay, I’m going to have a quick shower then I’ll get breakfast started while you have yours.”

  Or we could save water and shower together. As the random thought popped into her head, her eyes followed the line of his body, quickly skipping past the area she’d felt hard beneath her, until she met his eyes. The flicker she saw there before he pushed away from the wall told her they were on the same wavelength.

  Cupping her face with his hands, he kissed her forehead. “Hold that thought.” Those strong, capable hands fell away and he brushed past her to his room.

  Half an hour later, they sat in companionable silence around the kitchen table. TJ checked her phone again for what seemed like the hundredth time. Still no word from Tiny or the police. She dialled Tiny’s number but it rang out. With a sigh, she dropped the phone on the table and sipped her coffee.

  The brew was strong enough to put hair on her teeth, but it gave her the zing she needed. Not unlike the zing she got from touching or being near Scott. She looked across the table to where he sat back, at home in the hard chair as he held the morning paper in front of him to scan the news. That was a zing she was best to ignore. It didn’t matter how well they got along. A relationship was not a good idea.

  She’d mulled over the consequences almost as much as she’d checked her mobile phone in the last half hour. No matter how sexy he was, or how safe he made her feel, she had to ignore it.

  As if he sensed her stare, he lowered the paper. And there it was: that devastatingly sexy smile that creased his cheeks and made his blue eyes come alive. The one that stopped her heart mid-beat and sent heat rushing in all directions.

  “Problem, Tiger?”

  His voice slid over her like dark, smooth, liquid chocolate. She closed her eyes and let the sensation flow over her to soothe her rigid spine and relax her knotted neck muscles as surely as if it was his hands doing the soothing. Her eyes opened and slammed into the answering heat from his. The intensity of it burnt through her with a force that had her tearing her eyes away. She stood and abruptly started to clear the breakfast dishes from the table.

  “Nope. No problem,” she replied as she turned to stack the plates in the dishwasher.

  The newspaper rustled as he folded it. It landed with a thump on the wooden table. The sound of his chair scraping back on the wooden floor skittered up her spine.

  “Marty, can you go across to Bill’s and let him know we’re going to be laying the floorboards in Cabin One today? He said he’d bring over his new circular saw for us to use.” He spoke to Marty, but she could feel his eyes burning between her shoulder blades.

  “Sure can. Be right back.” Marty slipped out the kitchen door, oblivious to the tension that had the room in its grip.

  She felt rather than heard him behind her as her nerve ends screamed.

  “This is not a good idea,” she whispered even as she turned into his arms.

  “Probably not,” he agreed and placed his hands on her hips to draw her closer.

  Her hands grazed his forearms in an attempt to stop what she knew would come next but his skin was firm and warm beneath her hands, so she let them trail up to his shoulders.

  “Definitely not.”

  Her head tilted back as he lowered his eyes to her lips. With a sigh they parted and she stretched up to bring his head down to hers. And she did what she’d promised she’d never do. She kissed him, softly, sweetly, with all the emotion she’d been bottling up since he’d breezed into their lives and changed it for the better.

  He returned her kiss, taste for taste, gently increasing the pressure until she relaxed in his arms and gave herself up to the sensations that coursed through her. Gentle hands at her waist lifted her up onto the kitchen bench top as he moved to stand between her legs. She hooked them around his waist and scooted closer, needing to feel his strength.

  Her hands strayed to unhook the buttons on his shirt and push it aside. The feel of his heated skin against her hand sent a shiver through her. She pulled her lips from his and placed them against the cord that pulsed in his neck, absorbing the beat of his heart as it drummed through her. His hands played rhythmically up and down her back with a gentle motion that sent trails of fire in its wake.

  A car door slammed and set Sarge barking madly on the veranda. With a sigh, Scott straightened and lifted her off the bench. He cradled her against him for a second or two longer.

  “Later,” he promised.

  She touched his face once more. “Later,” she agreed.

  At Sarge’s warning growl, he gently set her aside. “Whoever it is, he doesn’t recognise them. Stay here. I’ll go and check.”

  “TJ?” A voice called up from the driveway below the veranda. “Can you call your monster off, please?”

  She breathed out slowly. “It’s Mark. He must have news! Stand down, Sarge,” she ordered as she stepped through the door.

  Mark’s face was grim as he stepped onto the wooden boards. TJ froze and her hand flew to her mouth. She shook her head at the look in his eyes, knowing before he even spoke that her worst nightmare had come true.

  “I’m sorry, love. We found him in a toilet block along the river.”

&n
bsp; The weight of Scott’s arm settled around her shoulders and drew her in to his side. For a moment, she buried her head in his chest. Pain seared through her heart as sharp as a knife. Tiny was gone.

  “Overdose?” Scott held TJ tightly against him. One hand stroked her hair, the other stroked her back as he directed the question at Mark.

  “Detective Jones is down there waiting for the coroner to confirm it, but it looks that way.”

  “And the black sedan?”

  “False plates, as we suspected. The dark tint on the windows made it impossible to see who was driving or if there was anyone else in the car. Even the windscreen shot was no good. The driver was wearing a wide brimmed hat and kept his head down.”

  “Bastards.”

  “I can’t tell you much right now but what I can tell you is that he didn’t administer the dose himself.”

  TJ’s head jerked up. “He was murdered? He was afraid of that. They both were. What about Marty? Will he be safe?” She pushed against Scott’s chest until he let her go. Tears glittered in her eyes.

  “I don’t believe Marty is a target. He was a user, not a runner like Tiny was. We’ll find out who did this, I promise.”

  TJ looked over Mark’s shoulder to where Marty, Bill and Rose came up the drive. They laughed and joked happily together with Bill ruffling Marty’s hair and delivering a few mock jabs. It broke her heart that what she had to tell them was about to destroy that tenuous thread of joy.

  As if sensing the tension in the air, Marty stilled his sparring with Bill and dropped his hands to his side. His eyes darted between the TJ and the detective.

  “TJ?” When he saw the tears on her cheeks, his voice hitched.

  TJ tried to speak but the words lodged behind the lump in her throat. She looked up at Scott.

  “They found Tiny,” he said, quietly.

  “Where is he? Is he coming back?”

  Scott shook his head. “They found him too late.”

  Marty hung his head and toed the gravel at his feet. “I warned him. I told him it was a bad idea to go back. I swear I tried to talk him out of it.” His voice broke on the words as he spun around and ran down to the creek.

  “Sarge, follow!” Scott commanded.

  Marty stopped and waited for the dog to catch up, putting a hand on his collar when Sarge nudged his hand.

  Rose stepped forward to take charge. “Come, TJ. I’ll make us a nice cup of tea.” She took TJ’s hand and patted it between hers. “Let’s go inside, love.”

  “Marty. I can’t let Marty out of my sight now,” TJ said. “I can’t lose him too.”

  “Scott and Bill will keep an eye on him. Then we’ll come out and sit on the veranda where we can see him.”

  TJ nodded. “Okay.” She let Rose lead her inside. Emotions hammered at her as they walked up the steps. Guilt, regret, hopelessness. “I let him slip away, Rose.”

  “No, you didn’t, love. He made his own choices.”

  “If I’d been watching him, he wouldn’t have slipped out. I would have seen him go. I could have followed him. Instead, I was…” TJ remembered vividly what she had been doing. It probably wasn’t a good idea to confess that to Scott’s mum.

  “You were what? Enjoying yourself for a change? Letting your hair down? Having fun instead of worrying about everyone else? There’s nothing wrong with that. Tiny had a choice.”

  TJ shook her head. “No, not this time. He was really happy here. He’d turned a corner. I can’t believe he went willingly.”

  “Mark will get to the bottom of it.”

  “But it won’t bring him back.”

  “No, it won’t. But you still have Marty, Luke and Connor to think of. And all the others that will come after. You can’t save them all, love.”

  TJ sighed as she stepped through the door into the kitchen and flipped the switch on the kettle. Her movements were mechanical, born of habit, as she reached for mugs from the cupboard and took teabags out of the jar. Mundane tasks when a young life had been cut short.

  “What if the mayor pulls the funding on the building project? Then they have nothing. Still nowhere to go.”

  “Scott will make sure that doesn’t happen. You’re not alone in this anymore. Besides, the community has already had a taste of volunteering for the project. They’ve come to believe in it as much as you have. They’ll be behind you this time because they’ve seen for themselves that it works.”

  “I feel as if I’ve lost control, Rose.” TJ dropped the spoon in the mug with an angry splash. She turned around and folded her arms.

  Rose stepped forward and pulled her into a hug. “No, you haven’t. What happened with Tiny is all the more reason you need to get the shelter up and running. Come on. Where’s that fighting spirit we love so much. You can’t give up. For Marty’s sake, if not your own. Has he run away again? No, he hasn’t. He had the opportunity and he didn’t take it. That’s because of you.” She thumbed the tears from TJ’s cheeks. “Now, finish making that tea before it gets cold.”

  TJ nodded and turned back to the bench. “I’ll take a cup down to the creek for Marty and have a chat with him.”

  “You do that, love. I’ll finish up here. Did you want Bill or Scott to go with you?”

  “No,” TJ replied, shaking her head. “I’ll take care of it.” The mugs seemed to weigh a ton in her hands as she willed her feet to move. She heard Mark’s car drive away with a sinking feeling that things were going to get a lot worse before they would get better. The sound of Scott’s voice coming closer spurred her on. She didn’t want to face him right now. What had happened to Tiny was yet another reason why she couldn’t become involved with anyone. The moment she turned her back, something bad happened. She detoured through the lounge room and out through the French doors that led to the opposite side of the veranda to avoid him. If Rose thought that was strange, she didn’t say a word.

  Marty sat against the old gum tree, head back, eyes closed with his fingers stroking the dog’s fur gently. Sarge lay close to his side, his ears twitching as he tuned in to the sounds around him.

  “Hey,” said TJ, holding out the mug to him.

  “Hey.” The response was tired, deflated. He reached up to take the mug from her nerveless fingers.

  She sat down next to him and ruffled Sarge’s ears. “You okay?”

  Marty shrugged. “I guess. It sucks, TJ.”

  “I know. I’ll find out who did this. With or without help. That’s a promise.”

  “It’s too dangerous. We’re better off forgetting it. No one messes with these guys. Tiny didn’t OD. He disobeyed an order and they killed him.”

  “We don’t know that, Marty. We have to wait for the coroner’s report. It looks like accidental suicide according to preliminary investigations.”

  “No! They made it look like suicide. They came to work looking for him to do a run. He said no. He told them he was out and getting clean. They threatened him. He was scared. He wanted me to come with him, shadow him, so that if something happened there was a witness, but I was too scared after what happened last time. I don’t want to die, TJ. I’m happier now than I’ve ever been. Tiny was too.”

  “So why did he leave the function then?”

  “I don’t think he left on his own. He really did go to the dunny. I think they were waiting for him.”

  “They took him? The perfect setting for it. It makes sense, I guess. A lot of people milling around. No one would really notice more black suits coming and going.”

  “I should have gone with him.”

  “Then you would both be gone. Promise me something?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Please don’t run away again? No matter what it is, I want you to come to me. If you can’t speak to me, please speak to Scott. Promise?”

  Marty nodded as TJ stood up and held out her hand for his mug. He swallowed his tea and handed it to her. “Thanks.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  TJ was securing the bolts on a newly
overhauled cylinder head when a black sedan pulled into the driveway under the cover of the workshop reception area. Her blood ran cold as she looked around to see where Marty was. She breathed again as she spotted him working on a car with Tony.

  Straightening from under the bonnet, she walked out to where the car had parked in a visitor’s bay. Fear flooded her veins as she realised it was the same make and model car that had been in the staff car park only weeks before Tiny’s death. As she approached, the passenger door opened and Serena Snow got out. TJ would have preferred to face down Tiny’s kidnappers.

  “Can I help you?” she asked.

  If there was one thing Serena did well, it was her imitation of an ice queen. Her tone froze everything within five hundred metres. She eyed TJ critically from the tips of her scuffed, steel-capped boots to the now grimy collar of her yellow and blue reflective shirt.

  “I don’t think so. Where can I find Scott Devin?”

  TJ needn’t have worried. There wasn’t even a flicker of recognition in Serena’s eyes. With her cap pulled low to keep her hair off her face and her only makeup the grease from the car engine, TJ considered it a blessing. She wasn’t in the mood for another showdown with Scott’s ex.

  For any other customer, she would have offered to show them the way. Instead she said, “Through the double doors and to the right. His office is the third door on the right.” And she walked away. TJ heard her mutter about something about good help being hard to find but ignored the jibe and went back to work.

  Scott was in a foul mood. He’d spent the last half hour on the phone convincing the mayor not to withdraw the funding for the project. Tiny’s death had been ruled accidental. There’d been insufficient proof for the coroner to rule otherwise, even though there had been reasonable doubt. The mayor was terrified of bad press. Scott managed to convince him that there was no ongoing danger to the community, but it had been hard work.

  He was tired. Since Tiny’s death, neither he nor TJ had had much sleep. At night he’d hear her moving quietly around the house. Every creak of the floorboards made him want to get up and go to her. But he couldn’t.