In Safe Arms

by Christine, Lee

  His eyes softened momentarily, and then he pointed with the file again, indicating they keep going. ‘It’s not nice down here, but it’s better than the prison. Try not to look at the other prisoners as you pass. He’s down the end on the right.’

  Blood pulsed through Josie’s head, a furious cymbal keeping rhythmic time. She clenched her hands, stared straight ahead, reined in the turmoil when she wanted to scream and shout and rant.

  They came to a halt a short distance from her father’s cell.

  ‘Are you sure you’ll be okay?’ The kindness in Allegra’s voice brought a lump to Josie’s throat. ‘One of us will come with you, if you like.’

  Josie shook her head. ‘No — thanks anyway.’

  Nate’s eyes bored into hers, and he nodded once, as if he understood this was something she needed to do on her own.

  Allegra reached out and rubbed the top of her arm. ‘If you’re sure, I’ll go see Henry for a minute. I don’t want to — but I should.’

  Allegra’s words gave Josie strength. Life was full of doing things that you’d prefer not to do, like fronting up at kindergarten when you couldn’t speak properly, or leaving your primary school friends to attend boarding school, because that was your parents’ wish.

  She could hide away, take the easy route like her mother, and leave. Or she could stand up like Allegra, confront her father when it was the last thing in the world she wanted to do.

  And she would, because she’d done it before, and it was those hard decisions that had made her stronger — in the end.

  She looked into Nate’s eyes. ‘I’m ready.’

  ‘I’ll be right here if you need me.’

  A strange calmness descended over Josie as she covered the final ten steps it took to reach her father’s cell. It struck her that this must be the way people felt when they faced their death, recognition of the inevitable, an acceptance of their fate.

  And then she was there.

  Her father was sitting on a metal bench fixed to the floor. He was dressed in the suit he’d been wearing when Nate had arrested him, the suit in which he’d made the first of what was sure to be many court appearances.

  He looked up as the movement caught his attention. ‘Josie.’

  He got up off the seat and came towards her, slowly, a man she felt she didn’t know. Face lined, there was a grey pallor to his skin, and he was thinner, as she’d seen in the news broadcasts. Those times, he’d been upset, his voice cracking as he’d spoken of his only child, but now, his eyes were watchful, harder, as if the need to hide his true self was no longer there.

  She reached up and gripped the bars of the cell, and in that instant knew her father hadn’t been worried for her at all. What he’d feared was this.

  Exposure.

  Revelation.

  Capture.

  ‘How’s your mother?’

  Josie raised her eyebrows, let her voice drip with sarcasm as she repeated the words he’d said on TV barely a week ago. ‘She’s in the kind of state you would expect a wife to be in.’

  She sucked in a breath as he too reached up and gripped the bars of the cell, saw Nate move closer in her peripheral vision.

  Her father smiled at her fright, and in that moment something died inside of Josie.

  ‘Why?’ she asked.

  ‘Why? Because that’s who we are.’

  She shook her head, refused to back away any further, refused to let him intimidate her. ‘Not me.’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘That will never be me.’

  ‘Wait until you hit a downturn, wait until you hit a recession and the building company your father started is going down the toilet.’

  ‘Is that what happened?’ She needed to know, needed to find out the reason why.

  ‘Yeah, that’s what happened.’ Her father pushed off the bars then, shrugged out of his suit coat and flung it on the bench. ‘I needed to find another way of making money, of keeping the company afloat. The bikies were growing more powerful, but they needed a large injection of cash to really get going. I saw an opportunity.’

  ‘So it went from there?’

  Her father came back and stood on the other side of the bars, and this time Josie didn’t flinch, didn’t even blink.

  ‘It went from there.’

  ‘So, it was greed?’

  He smirked. ‘You never complained, did you?’

  If there was any flicker of feeling left inside her for her father, it was snuffed out right then. But this time, she refused to let him see just how devastated she was. He hadn’t even asked about her ordeal, hadn’t even enquired if she was alright.

  She just needed to say her bit, and go.

  ‘You’re wrong, Dad. Money never made me happy, and I would have given it all up for a two bedroom house in the suburbs. All I ever wanted was a normal family, so don’t you dare blame Mum and me for your weakness.’

  She steeled herself inside, determined to get the words out. ‘You destroyed people’s lives, destroyed whole families, grew rich feeding other people’s addictions. I can never forgive you for that.’

  He started to interrupt, but she stepped back, making it clear the conversation was over. And it was over.

  She only had one more thing left to say.

  ‘I wanted to see you, so I could tell you I won’t be seeing you again.’

  When he didn’t speak, she turned away. ‘And I needed to tell you that myself.’

  Body numb, Josie moved towards Nate, and this time he splayed a warm hand between her shoulder blades as he led her back the way they’d come.

  ‘That was a brave thing to do. Are you okay?’

  Finally, Josie let go of her breath. ‘Yeah. I mean, I feel like shit at the moment, but later I know I’ll be glad I did it.’

  His mouth quirked in a half smile and when they reached the elevator, he turned and gazed back down the corridor. ‘Allegra seems to have been caught up somewhere.’

  ‘It’s alright. I can wait here.’

  Before she could guess his intention, he pushed open a door leading into the fire escape. ‘Come in here for a minute. I need to talk to you.’

  Panic welled inside Josie. She didn’t want to be alone with Nate. It tore at her heart just to look at him. And it was agony being this close, and not able to touch him.

  But he left her no choice, and she followed him into the stairwell. And then they were standing on the cement landing, face to face for the first time since she’d fainted in the hotel.

  ‘Why aren’t you returning my calls?’ he asked bluntly, looking as pissed off as he had the night he’d run her off the road. ‘I want to be here for you, and you’re shutting me out.’

  Clean.

  Straight to the point.

  No bullshit.

  And she thought men were supposed to have a hard time expressing their feelings. ‘Oh, gees, let me think, Nate, maybe it’s got something to do with my life disintegrating around me.’

  He raked an impatient hand through his hair. ‘Yeah well, my life’s not that great at the moment either.’

  She didn’t want to fight with him. She wanted to lean into him, have him fold her in his arms and tell her everything would be okay. But she couldn’t forget the way he’d looked at her — like she’d known.

  ‘You’re life’s great, Nate. You’ve got “O”, you’ve got Kennett and the main players in the Altar Boys, hell, you even got Henry Grace and Ong Chung as a bonus. You’re being hailed as a hero cop, and you are. You should be happy. What more do you want?’

  ‘I want you,’ he said hoarsely.

  It was as if all the air left Josie’s body in the one puff. He wasn’t supposed to say that. ‘That’s just being greedy, detective.’

  ‘What kind of lame answer is that?’ he growled.

  Before she could reply, they had to step aside as two people came up the stairs. When she looked at him again, he was staring at her, eyes narrowed, jaw set in a brutal line. ‘Come on, Josie, you�
�re not usually one to play games.’

  When she didn’t answer, he tucked the file under his arm and raked an unsteady hand through his hair. ‘For the record, I always believed you. I never doubted you.’

  ‘Well you could have fooled me, detective,’ she said quietly.

  ‘I did it because Dickson was there. I had this feeling I just couldn’t shake. I had to force myself to treat you like anyone else.’

  ‘Well Dickson was kind to me that day. But that’s beside the point now. There’s something I need to say.’

  Come on, just like he did. Clean. Straight to the point. No bullshit.

  ‘I can’t do this. I’m sorry.’

  There, she’d said it. It didn’t matter that her heart was haemorrhaging, that he was staring at her with so much hurt in his eyes she wanted to take it all back and kiss his pain away.

  ‘Do I get a reason?’

  She moistened her lips with her tongue, looked up and down the stairwell to make sure they were alone.

  ‘I’m ashamed,’ she admitted, voice barely a whisper. ‘I’m so ashamed, Nate, and I’m not good enough for you.’

  ‘That’s crazy.’ He stepped towards her, but she pushed a hand against his chest. She wouldn’t be able to stand it if he touched her. Wouldn’t be able to get through what she needed to say.

  ‘Please.’ She blinked to clear her vision, sending tears overflowing onto her cheeks. ‘Just let me finish.’

  She pushed on before anyone else could interrupt them. ‘You’re an upstanding citizen, an outstanding detective with a brilliant career ahead of you. And I’m…’ To her horror her voice cracked. ‘I’m the daughter of a notorious crime boss.’

  She could see by his expression he was doing it tough, see by the way he stood with his hand covering the lower half of his face, he was having trouble staying silent.

  ‘If we stay together, this will haunt us. People will know, and there’ll be speculation about why you’re with me. You’ll be tarnished through association, just like I’ll be tarred with the same brush as my father. While everything’s new, it’s easy to believe we could conquer anything. But it will rear its ugly head later on, and you’ll resent it, resent me.’

  He closed his eyes briefly, and when he looked at her again, a telltale glisten glowed in his beautiful eyes.

  ‘I won’t do it to you.’ She dashed the tears from her cheeks with the back of her hand. ‘I won’t bring you down like that. Please, don’t ask me to do it.’

  He didn’t say anything for a while, and she knew it was because he couldn’t.

  Eventually he spoke, the words bitten off, harsh. ‘Please — Josie. Don’t quit on us.’

  She reached out and put her hand on the doorknob. ‘Goodbye, Nate. Just let me go. Let me walk away — now.’

  ‘I love you.’

  She turned away, and when she opened the door and stepped into the foyer, Allegra was waiting by the lift.

  Chapter 30

  5:50 p.m. Friday — Three weeks later

  Josie let herself into her Pyrmont apartment and sighed with relief.

  It felt so good to be home.

  She dumped her handbag on the lounge, picked up the dead plant from where it sat on the coffee table and carried it through to the kitchen. Unlike her, the poor thing hadn’t survived the last four weeks.

  Three days ago, her mother had gone to stay with a friend, and she’d moved back into her apartment. Luke had withdrawn the security guards from around Rainbows End, and she’d finally gone back to work at Grace and Poole. Some of the staff were awkward, didn’t really know what to say to her, but most were fine and treated her as they always had. Of course, she’d had to put up with Allegra saying ‘I told you so’ every hour, but she didn’t mind, and they were so busy she hadn’t had time to think about much else anyway.

  Working helped, and her life was inching its way towards a new kind of normality.

  The drug network still figured in the news, but as fresher stories began to take precedence, the spotlight turned away from the New South Wales police. Still, Josie sat down each night and watched every broadcast, just to catch a glimpse of Nate.

  He hadn’t called her again, and she hadn’t expected him to. Like the gentleman he was, he understood her position, respected her feelings.

  It only made her miss him all the more.

  She boiled the kettle and made some instant pasta, stirring it into a mug and carrying it back into the living room to watch the news. The turbulent emotions of the last few weeks had diminished her appetite, and the only thing she could bring herself to eat was creamy pasta.

  She was about halfway through her dinner when the news anchor introduced the nightly update on the recent drug arrests.

  A photo of Nate came on the screen. Josie froze, fork halfway to her mouth.

  ‘It’s been revealed today that New South Wales police were watching Detective Ignatius Hunter for two months in the lead up to him uncovering the drug ring. Aaron Michaels is at police headquarters in the city and has been following this breaking story. Aaron, these are extraordinary claims that police were concerned enough about Detective Hunter’s activities, to have his controller, or handler if you like, determine whether or not he should be pulled from the operation?’

  Josie lunged for the remote, increasing the volume, heart beating wildly as Dickson’s face replaced Nate’s on screen.

  ‘Yes, Michelle. Police were concerned because of the sheer length of time Detective Hunter had spent undercover. Two years is a long time away from your family, your loved ones, away from normal life so to speak. It takes a special kind of person to do this job, and they can be at risk of becoming so entrenched in their other life, it becomes normal to them. They make friendships, they enter into relationships, and they can start to care about the people they ultimately have to betray.’

  Josie thought of Mitch Kennett. There was no way Nate had come to care about the chapter leader of the Altar Boys. He loathed him.

  She tuned back in to the news anchor’s next question.

  ‘But there were also concerns that Detective Hunter might have been “turned”. Can you explain exactly what that means?’

  ‘There’s always concern that if the operative’s identity is discovered, he may get offered inducements. In Detective Hunter’s case, this would be by the Altar Boys. Corrupt police have in the past been paid for turning the other cheek when crimes are committed, bringing pressure to bear to make cases go away. They’ve even been paid to make files go missing.’

  Josie sat frozen on the lounge as the news anchor spoke again.

  ‘But it was determined that this actually wasn’t the case with Detective Hunter?’

  Josie breathed a huge sigh of relief.

  ‘Yes, that’s right. I spoke today to Detective Dickson Cross, the controller in this situation. Here’s what he had to say.’

  Dickson appeared on the screen. It was the first time Josie had seen him since that horrible afternoon in the hotel. He looked exactly the same, and the bump on his head had healed.

  ‘I was already working as Detective Hunter’s controller,’ he was saying in response to a question that had been cut out in the editing process. ‘That’s why I was given instructions to meet with him and determine the state of his health. I was able to do this when he removed Ms. Valenti from harm’s way. Look, this is not unusual. We’re always concerned about our operatives in the field. What I can categorically say is, from my observations of Detective Hunter, there was no indication he needed to be pulled out. Sure, he was deep undercover, but he was patient and strategic in what was an extremely dangerous situation. He exercised restraint until the very end. I have the highest regard for the skills he displayed.’

  ‘Oh.’ Josie clapped a hand over her mouth. Nate had been right being wary of Dickson. He had turned up with another agenda. Not an evil one as it turned out, but Nate’s intuition had warned him not to entirely trust him.

  And if she were honest, she�
�d had her reservations too.

  I always believed you. I never doubted you.

  But he’d doubted Dickson, and she understood now why he’d pressed her that day. They hadn’t been alone. He’d been trying to tell her with his eyes, but she’d been too distraught about her father to pick up on it. And he’d tried to tell her after she’d fainted, only the doctor made him leave.

  Oh God. She had to call him.

  She ran to get her mobile phone, then stopped. No, she needed to see him. A phone call wouldn’t do.

  Excitement raced through Josie’s veins. She’d survived the last three weeks, surely the worst was over now and things would improve from here. Maybe they could make it work after all. Luke and Allegra had done it, despite some incredible obstacles. Why couldn’t she and Nate do the same?

  Yes, tomorrow she’d drive up to the mountains and see him. She’d have to rent a car, because hers was written off, but hell she’d ride a bicycle if she had to.

  Nate loved her, and she hadn’t told him she loved him back.

  It was about time she did.

  Chapter 31

  9:30 a.m. Saturday

  When Josie knocked on the front door of Nate’s house the next morning, it was Dario Byrne who answered the door.

  ‘Josie! How lovely to see you again.’ He smiled, eyes dipping to the flowers and wine in her hands. ‘I’m guessing those are not for me and you’re looking for Nate.’

  A mixture of excitement and anxiety churning her stomach, she looked past him into the white tiled foyer, hoping Nate would suddenly appear. ‘Is he here?’

  Dario’s eyes turned apologetic and it was only then she noticed the can of furniture polish in his hand. ‘You’re a day late. He left for the States yesterday.’

  All the breath left Josie’s body.

  She’d missed him! And it was her own stupid fault. She’d pleaded with him to let her go, and he’d abided by her wishes.

  ‘Oh.’ Somehow she managed to speak over the mind numbing disappointment. He would have gone back to America to visit Jonathan. And that meant seeing Jonathan’s mother.