Marrying William

by Trisha David

  The police sergeant came in then. He'd been talking to a couple of officers outside when William had pulled up but William had raced straight past. Now William turned to face him, still holding the girls close.

  'Sergeant?'

  'I can't tell you much mote than Beth's given us,' the police officer said heavily. He put a hand up and ran it through his thinning hair. 'We can't even prove it was Harbertson.'

  'They can't prove it because I'm blind,' Beth said dully, and her hand tightened convulsively in William's grasp. 'But it was him. I'd know his voice anywhere.'

  'He'll have waited until only Beth was here.' The policeman's face was almost as ashen as the girls'. This was a small town and he was taking it hard. 'He'll know...'

  Yeah. He'd know. He'd know that Beth's evidence would be weak because she couldn't see. A good defence lawyer could make mincemeat of her.

  'He was driving the Jag, though,' William said quickly. 'Maybe... If you put out a search... His car's unmistakable.'

  'He wasn't driving the Jaguar,' Beth told him. 'I could pick out the sound of the Jag. It was an older car. An old Holden or a Ford, with a hole in the muffler, I think.'

  'Good girl.' That was something, but William's heart still sank. If he was driving an unknown car...

  'The Jaguar was repossessed this week, along with the rest of his belongings,' the policeman said. 'We don't know what he was driving. That's one of the things we're working on.'

  'But what would he take her for?' Rachel wailed. 'What for?' Her brittle sophistication had left her entirely, and she seemed younger than Beth.

  'I don't know,' William said.

  But William did know. He remembered the look on Ronald's face as he'd left him. The sick loathing.

  Ronald was past reason. The man was past thinking of consequences. He'd lash out at anything he could.

  And what he had was Jenni.

  William lifted his head and met the police sergeant's eyes across the room, and the bleakness he saw there only confirmed the worst of his fears. The police sergeant knew Ronald, and he knew what he was capable of.

  Jenni...

  It was the longest night he'd ever known.

  Towards three a.m. there was a message for the police. A youth coming out of the local nightclub had just reported his car stolen. It was a fifteen-year-old Holden, its silencer had cracked a week ago and he'd parked it almost directly outside Ronald's boarding house.

  At least they knew now what he was driving.

  So what? They were now searching for one green, fifteen-year-old Holden, but it could be anywhere. The youth said he had a tank full of petrol. Ronald could be in New South Wales before he had to stop to refill.

  With Jenni?

  No. Without Jenni. He'd dump her.

  But...

  Don't let yourself think of that, William told himself. Don't!

  More than anything in the world, William wanted to get in his car and go and search. But where? Where?

  And Rachel and Beth were clinging to him as if they were drowning. Even Sam pressed his big body against William's, as if drawing comfort from his presence.

  Dear God, please...

  The police said they had a widening search in place already. William held the girls close and waited. He just had to leave it to them.

  He just had to hope.

  Four a.m.

  The radio on the police sergeant's belt crackled into life. He'd assured William there were scores of police involved in the search now, but the sergeant's task seemed to be to keep William and the girls under his eye.

  'I'll stay here in case you get a phone call' he'd said. 'We've tapped your line. Just in case of blackmail,' he'd added—but William was past hoping for that.

  Ronald was too far gone to be thinking of blackmail, and he believed William was on his way back to the US. Rachel and Beth had nothing to give as ransom.

  Now the policeman lifted his receiver and listened intently. He nodded and grunted. Then...

  'Okay. It'll take time to get men in there, but I want everything you have. Tracker dogs. The lot. Three hours? Okay, if I have to wait three hours I will, but get them here as soon as possible. Now.'

  Then he put down the receiver and turned to William. Beside him, Beth and Rachel could hardly breathe.

  'We've found the car,' he said heavily. 'Abandoned.'

  'Where?' William was aware of his heart, thumping in his chest like a sledgehammer.

  'By Bryces Gulf. It's the National Park area. Wilderness, twenty miles east of here. It's virtual rainforest.'

  'Why...?'

  'The car's just been left,' the police sergeant said heavily. 'The keys are still in the ignition but no one's around. We can only assume he had someone meet him there, or he's hitched a ride.'

  'But...but why there?' Beth's voice was a frightened sob.

  'Because it's a great place to dump a body,' Rachel whispered. 'Oh, William, I bet that's it.' Her fingers were digging into his arm so hard that later he found she'd made him bleed. 'He's mad. He's evil and now he's completely flipped. I bet he's killed her.'

  Half an hour later William pulled the truck off the road beside Ronald's abandoned car. He'd wanted to join the police here by himself, but there was no way he could. Not with Rachel and Beth clinging like limpets.

  Dear God, he was responsible for them. He'd never felt so old and so responsible and so...so absolutely terrified.

  What the hell was happening? Where was she?

  Block out the thought. Block it out.

  He glanced sideways at the girls. Rachel was white faced and staring straight ahead into the night, as though her eyes could pierce the unknown, and Beth was clinging to Sam as if her life depended on him.

  If they'd telephoned just ten minutes later he would have already boarded the plane, he thought bleakly. He'd be somewhere above the Pacific Ocean, and they'd be facing this on their own.

  He couldn't leave them now. Regardless of what happened...

  Don't think of that!

  But he couldn't leave them. How could he ever have imagined that he could? These kids were his stepmother's sister's children. They were no relation to him at all, and yet he loved them...

  They were Jenni's sisters, and he loved Jenni. They were his wife's sisters.

  His wife. Jenni.

  A ragged sob rose in his throat and it was all he could do to hold it back. To shove the terror aside and somehow get himself out of the truck and face the group of policemen clustered around Ronald's abandoned car.

  'What's happening?' he managed, and it was all he could do to get the words out. A senior officer broke away from the group and came across to him.

  'You are?'

  'William Brand. Jenni...Jenni is my wife. And these are her sisters.'

  'I see.' The policeman looked grave and sympathetic all at once, and William's gut churned in fear. 'Well, I'm afraid there's nothing to tell you, sir. There's no one here. Whether Harbertson's taken her on...'

  'He'll have stopped here to dump her...'

  'We don't know that, sir.'

  'No. But why else would he choose such a desolate place?' William looked around at the cluster of policemen. 'Well? Why aren't you searching?'

  'We can't,' the policeman said apologetically. 'There's a track here leading down to a creek at the bottom of the gully. We've been along it but it peters out when it hits the water and there's nothing there. If we go off the track we'll be bush-bashing through unknown territory. I'll lose men. So we wait for tracker dogs at dawn.'

  'But...' William lifted his face to the sky. It was starting to rain, lightly now—just mist—but he could smell the oppression of thunder in the air. The weather forecast had predicted storms.

  'If this rain sets in...won't you lose any scent?'

  'It's a risk we have to take, sir,' the policeman said. 'There's no way we can find anything here in the dark, and the bush is almost impenetrable. People have been lost here before.'

  'No.' It
was Beth, coming up behind them to listen, Sam still harnessed at her side. With her free hand she grabbed William and tugged him urgently. 'No. We can look.'

  'I'm afraid we can't, miss.'

  'Yes, we can,' she said fiercely. 'Just because it's dark... Sam and I will go. It's dark for me all the time. I can go: There's no way Sam will let me get lost.'

  'But...'

  'And Sam's better than any sniffer dog,' Beth said firmly. All of a sudden it was the child who was taking control here. Beth, whose whole world had been snatched away from her once... Beth was fighting with everything she possessed to ensure it didn't happen a second time. 'Sam knows,' she said. 'William, you've seen us work together. It's one of the first things I taught him. If I say "Find Jenni," he'll take me straight to her.'

  'I don't see it's possible, miss,' the policeman said, but Beth wasn't listening.

  'Make them let me, William,' she said urgently. 'Make them.'

  'I have torches in the truck,' William said slowly, his eyes on Sam as he thought this through. It was true. He'd seen. This dog knew Jenni almost as well as he knew Beth. If he could...

  It was worth a try. Anything was worth a try. 'I'll go,' he said firmly. 'I'll take Sam. Alone if I must, but I'll go.'

  'You can't go by yourself, sir. Not into bush like this.' The policeman stared down at Sam, his expression doubtful. As if in answer to his doubts, a fresh spatter of raindrops fell on their faces. They had to move fast or not at all. And Sam looked up at him, intelligence written in his eyes.

  'Very well, then,' he said finally. 'It's worth a try. But my men will do this. We have lanterns. We'll take the dog.'

  'No. He only works for me and he only works in harness,' Beth said fiercely. 'You'll just confuse him. William, take me to Ronald's car.'

  'I'll take Sam, Beth.'

  'No,' she said fiercely. 'He works for me!'

  William paused. This was a chance. He saw what was in the policeman's face and he knew what was unspoken. If there were horrors waiting to be found, the girls were best out of it. But Beth was right. Sam worked in harness for her, and Beth and Sam could well be Jenni's last chance.

  'Let's go, then, Beth,' he said finally—heavily—and he led her to the open door of Ronald's car. 'Put him in. Let him sniff.'

  'Okay, Sam.' Beth encouraged the big dog inside the car. 'Okay. Where's Jenni? Sam, find Jenni. Find Jenni.'

  And Sam took a few intent sniffs of the car—then a couple more outside the rear passenger door.

  And then he put his nose down, checked for a moment as Beth gathered herself ready at' his side, his harness in her hand, and he headed for the walking track down to the river.

  What followed were thirty minutes of harrowing walking.

  They got three quarters of the way down the track before Sam paused. He sniffed, sniffed again, and then veered sideways into thick, dense bush.

  'Hell, we'll have to bush-bash,' the sergeant said. 'They can't have gone this way. Wait. This is crazy.'

  But one of his men held a lantern high.

  'Look here, sir,' he said urgently. 'These twigs have been snapped off at shoulder height and the break's recent. Someone's crashed through here. I think the dog's right.'

  'But...why would they go off the track? And why leave the car?' Rachel said. 'If Ronald was just...just dumping her...then surely he'd just leave her at the bottom of fee track and go. I mean...if the car hadn't been parked up fee top, then we'd never have looked here. Not in a million years.'

  There seemed no reason, and yet Sam was sure.

  So they bush-bashed, with Sam sniffing forward and the men hacking a path around and after him.

  And finally William could bear the silence no longer.

  'Jenni,' he yelled into the darkness. 'Jenni.'

  They all took it up then, checking to make sure their yells didn't deflect the dog. Sam, though, was intent on his task. He kept shoving forward, and every time they checked where he was leading they could find bits of broken twig or squashed undergrowth to show the search wasn't stupid.

  The mist was becoming wetter, turning to rain. How long could a scent last?

  Please...

  It was a silent sob echoing drearily in William's heart, while his deep voice echoed out through the bushland.

  'Jenni... Jenni...'

  And then, as if by magic, there was a faint answering cooee.

  At first it was so faint they hardly heard it. Only Beth, her ears tuned to search by sound as other people were tuned to sight, stood stock-still and halted Sam in his progress. William was walking just in front of her, clearing the bush at head height so girl and dog wouldn't be impeded. Now she stood still and gripped William's arm. Hard.

  'Listen.'

  Nothing.

  'Yell again, William,' Beth said urgently, and William did. He cupped his hands and his voice echoed out around them and away into the reaches of the night.

  'Jenni...'

  And this time it was unmistakable. 'Cooee...' Faint. Quavering. But close. Not more than two hundred yards.

  And Sam put his nose down and lurched forward, and Beth and William were running—crashing through the undergrowth and ignoring scratched faces, with the others left behind to follow as best they could.

  Jenni was lying under a rocky outcrop, dug in behind a mass of fern and grevillea. The group could have walked straight past her and never found her. But Sam put his belly down on the ground and wriggled forward, his whole body quivering with delight. Beth had to release the harness to let him go where he wanted.

  William flung himself down on the ground and hauled himself in behind.

  And two seconds later he had her, cradled in his arms and holding her to his heart as if he would never let her go in her life. Or his life.

  Not ever.

  She was hurt, but she wasn't hurt to death.

  The policemen macheted the ferns and grevillea and formed a clearing. Then, somehow, the sergeant prised back the girls and dog, and he and his men lifted William and Jenni clear of Jenni's niche. To separate them was impossible. Where Jenni went, so did William.

  'Let's see what gives, sir,' the policeman said gruffly, his voice barely concealing his emotion. They'd known Harbertson and they'd been looking for a tragedy—but Jenni was alive and no one could cling like this if they were near death.

  And finally William released her enough so they could see—so Rachel could step in with her third-year medical training and run trembling hands over her sister.

  Her arm was broken and there was a gash just above her breast. It was jagged and bleeding sluggishly.

  'But it's not deep,' Rachel said on a sob. 'Oh, Jenni, it's not deep. You'll be okay.'

  Jenni didn't answer. She just clung to William with her good arm, and her whole body shook. And William folded her to him once more. Bother pressure pads on her wound. His body would do as well.

  What in heaven's name had he ever been thinking of, about to get on a plane back to the States? This was his home. This was his woman.

  This was his life, and he'd been given another chance.

  'Where's Harbertson?' the sergeant was asking, as if he didn't really expect an answer. Jenni seemed too deeply shocked to speak.

  But she did—her voice muffled by William's sweater. By William's love.

  'He's somewhere here,' she whispered. 'I think...I think he's lost, too. I heard him crashing around just before you came. I,.. He's still looking for me.'

  'He's here!' William put her back from him then—not much, but a fraction so he could see her face. 'Jenni...'

  'He was going to kill me,' she said, and her voice was matter-of-fact. Too matter-of-fact. Her face was deathly white. 'Down at the river. He told me. I think... I think he must be on drugs or something. He was just...mad. He shoved me out of the car and held me, with a knife against my back. He was going to kill me at the river and then throw my body in the water. He kept saying it over and over. But then...'

  'You fought him off?' Wil
liam asked, in a voice that shook. His lips went into her hair. 'Jenni...'

  'I could hear the water when we were getting near the river so I knew... I knew he'd kill me soon. He was behind me and the knife was in my back, pushing me forward. But I thought...well, what have I got to lose? So I pretended to stumble. And then I turned and lashed out at him. He...he hit me with the knife and grabbed me by the arm, but I managed to grab the knife and pull away. I threw the knife into the bush, and then I kicked him—just as hard as I could.'

  She gave a half sob, half laugh. 'But he was still between me and the track. So I took off into the bush. And he came after me.'

  'Jenni...'

  'That's all,' she said. 'He's been searching. For a while he was searching for me. But.. .1 ran and ran until I couldn't go any more. Until I thought I was out of his earshot. Then I just lay here. Lay here and waited. After a while I heard him again. But the last time I heard him...he sounded frightened. I think...I think he's lost the track, too.'

  'Oh, Jenni...'

  But the sergeant was barking into his radio transmitter.

  'Get a watch on the car. Get men stationed along the road. We'll wait. If Harbertson comes out, I want him.'

  He put a hand on Jenni's uninjured arm. 'You're sure of this, miss? You're sure he intended to kill you?'

  'Quite sure,' Jenni said wearily. 'Quite...'

  And she looked up at William and sighed. And then her eyes closed, and she slipped into unconsciousness.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  She'd been here before.

  Jenni opened her eyes to see the same walls and door and furniture she'd stared at four weeks before—the night before her wedding.

  Hospital. She was in hospital.

  She stirred and a jolt of pain shot down her arm. She winced, but before she could stir again a large hand came over from behind her and held her still.