Or he’s a great actor. We’re all of us actors, really. Some are just better at it than others.
Kirsten didn’t think she was one of them. When Stafford hauled out a large tin of processed ham, she couldn’t hide her sigh of relief. Didn’t even try. It was, to be fair (Why in God’s name do I care about being fair, here?) a very expensive, top-of-the-line brand; even she could recognize that. But it was still processed ham, not raw meat that required cooking. Thank God!
Stafford made a show of pouring more wine, then began to dish up dinner, once again issuing mock apologies for the quality of their surroundings, the lack of proper tableware. It made Kirsten fume, inwardly, but she made herself even more angry because of what she desperately wanted to control – but couldn’t!
She was ravenous. She hadn’t eaten in nearly twenty-four hours, and it had been longer than that since she’d had a proper meal. And much as Stafford’s performance fascinated and terrified her at the same time, the fact of the matter was that she was salivating like Pavlov’s dog as her stomach growled along in unison. It was disgusting, maddening, embarrassing. And she couldn’t stop it.
She was further angered when Stafford refused to release her hands so that she could eat like a civilized person. He insisted instead on making a great show of cutting up her food, as if she was an infant. He didn’t, thankfully, also insist on feeding her . . . Kirsten was certain she couldn’t have managed that, starving or not, but the psychological effect of having to eat so clumsily was wounding.
Which is just what you intended, you cunning bastard. And you’ve won Rose over by doing it. She’s getting more sustenance from me being humiliated than from the food she’s shoving down her gullet. Sadistic bitch! I hope you choke on it. And I hope Stafford has you for dinner, once he’s through using you.
Kirsten had no doubt in her mind that Stafford would do just exactly that. What she couldn’t understand was why Rose couldn’t see it, too. The woman was a highly trained nurse; she couldn’t be entirely stupid. Or could she?
Kirsten got her chance to find out – or try to – when the meal was over. There was no way to avoid the inevitable effects, and within only a few minutes she found herself having to ask if she could be allowed some privacy.
“And soon, please. I don’t know what spices you used, but they aren’t agreeing with me.”
She thought that with luck everyone would simply go outside and leave her alone, but Stafford surprised her.
“There’s a dunny out back,” he said. “That’s an outhouse, Kirsten, if you didn’t know. Rose can take you.” And before Kirsten could even think, he’d reached into a pocket for some keys and was there, behind her, reaching down for the padlock that held her chain through the eyebolt.
Her first reaction was of total panic. How much had she loosened the bolt? And would it be obvious? She could only hold her breath and wait, eyes closed, praying he wouldn’t notice what she’d done.
Rose exhibited great delight in leading Kirsten out behind the shack, to where a privy nestled so overgrown with bracken ferns it was almost invisible in the beam of the flashlight. Rose yanked Kirsten along like a recalcitrant dog, but at least had the decency to let her go into the sagging, decrepit outhouse alone. But she wouldn’t free Kirsten’s hands.
“You’ll manage,” she said. “You obviously did before we arrived.”
Kirsten didn’t reply, didn’t argue. She was convinced there was no sense to that. Better to allow Rose the domination she so obviously relished. But once her business was done, she used the time spent struggling to get her jeans back up and tried to plant at least a seed of suspicion in Rose’s mind.
“You do realize this guy eats people?” she asked. “Attractive young women, by choice. Which makes you probably even more tempting to him than I am. Have you thought of that?”
“If he’d wanted to eat me, he had plenty of opportunity when he was here in Tassie before,” Rose replied casually. “I used to work with him, in case you weren’t paying attention.” If Kirsten’s barb found a target, Rose was doing a good job of disguising it.
“That was then; this is now. Things are a bit different now, in case you hadn’t noticed. Now he has nothing to lose, and you’re going to end up being a witness, at the very least. Hasn’t it occurred to you that maybe he doesn’t plan on leaving any witnesses?”
“I know one he doesn’t plan on leaving behind,” was the abrupt reply. “Now get yourself out of there.”
“Do you really mean you’d be a party to this . . . this craziness?” Kirsten said. “I find that hard to believe. Stafford is crazy as a loon, but you’re not. Surely . . .”
“You don’t know what I am,” Rose said. “Now hurry up or I’ll drag you back inside with your pants down around your ankles. Maybe I should, anyway . . . give him a chance to see his rump steak all laid out and ready for butchering.”
And she meant it. No room for doubt. Kirsten scrambled to avoid that particular humiliation, but was, indeed, physically dragged back and into the shack with no regard shown for her inability to use her arms for balance. And then she had to endure the suspense of having Stafford reattach the chain, again the worry that he’d discover how she’d loosened off the eyebolt, the fear that he might notice but not show it, that she might simply be fooling herself with any hope of escape.
There was no chance of escape that evening, not even the hope of any chance. Nor was the next morning any more promising, but at least it brought some relief from Rose’s sniping, which had continued throughout the evening until finally, thankfully, everyone else’s tiredness matched that of Kirsten herself, and she was allowed to stop paying attention and just let herself escape into a sleep that was intermittently broken by the hideous, terrifying screams of Tassie devils somewhere out there in the night. Screams like those of souls in torment. Like her own soul in torment. Which it was.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Rose found that bringing Kendall to the party was easier than finding her car keys, and it took only marginally longer.
Finding the keys took her and Ian virtually the entire morning. Ian hadn’t paid any attention to where he’d thrown them, and Rose’s judgment was out by about twenty feet. By the time they did find the keys, tempers were hot, Rose was both hot and sweaty, and the relative pleasure of the breakfast Ralph Stafford had made such a production of was long gone.
Rose didn’t stay for lunch.
She set out instead for St. Helens, went straight home and into the shower, then spent most of the afternoon napping. She had not slept well the night before. The shack was cold and dank, and she had not enjoyed the camp cot one bit. Rose had never liked roughing it and wasn’t about to change her views. Beside her, Kirsten had been phenomenally restless – hardly surprising given her circumstances. Ian had rolled his swag outside, but he’d have needed to be fifty yards away if they were to ignore his chainsaw snoring, and he was only just outside the door.
Between Ian’s snoring and the cacophony of screams from a nearby mob of devils fighting over something dead, sleep was a fleeting respite. And then there was Stafford.
Stafford was the worst element in the long, mostly sleepless night. Stafford spent his night sprawled in a folding camp chair. But his presence, his aura, seemed to fill the tiny shack like invisible, odorless smoke. Rose couldn’t determine if he actually slept or not . . . but he watched. She knew that, could feel him watching despite the stygian blackness inside the shack, where it was darker within than outside. He watched both her and Kirsten, sometimes so intently that Rose imagined she could hear the wheels going round in his mind.
But in the morning, as he prepared them a breakfast of ham, eggs, even toast made in a nifty little rack over the fire Ian built, Stafford was the epitome of a gracious, even generous host. Not generous enough to help with the search for the missing keys, of course, but at least he didn’t criticize the time it took.
Before Rose departed on her mission, he’d consulted with her about what
must be done, and how, and when. They’d held that discussion in the privacy of her own vehicle and she’d been surprised, slightly, when he didn’t jack up at her insistence on going home to shower and change before heading west to Launceston.
“It’s probably best, actually, if you bring him here in the dark,” Stafford had said. And after that, the rest was fairly straightforward. She rehearsed the details in her mind as she showered and laid out clothing for the mission. Nothing too showy or flashy . . . jeans, a warm wooly jumper – comfortable, casual clothes appropriate to the season.
She drove carefully, as instructed, never breaking the speed limit, so the trip took her longer than it might normally have done. At Kendall’s hotel, she got lucky and was able to step aside into the gift shop as Constable John Small emerged from the lift. She noted his concerned expression, wondered briefly if he had anything to do with Kirsten’s disappearance, quickly decided it didn’t matter.
Stafford had prepared her with a plan for any eventuality, and in the end, it was the simplest one that was required: She knocked on the door of Kendall’s suite, offered her warmest, most sincere smile when he opened the door, and held up one finger for silence.
If he’s not alone, you must immediately get him alone. Tell him you simply MUST speak with him in private.
“Are you alone?” Whispered so quietly she could hardly hear the words herself.
Kendall nodded. “Rose? What—”
Explain nothing. Nothing! Just show him the ring and insist that he go with you. He’ll object, perhaps, but he’ll do it in the end. But you must tell him nothing!
She cut him off quickly with a gesture. “You have to come with me.” And then clinched the demand by lifting Kirsten’s ring from beneath her sweater and thrusting it into his field of vision. The effect was suitably dramatic, Rose thought.
“What? You? What the—?” And Kendall stammered into silence, could only stand there in the doorway, staring down at Rose, at the ring, and flapping his lips soundlessly. It was actually funny, she thought, if you could ignore the horror in his eyes. She could.
“You have to come now,” she whispered, forcing urgency into her voice, feeling the urgency herself. This would be the tricky part, getting him out of the hotel, into her vehicle, and on the move.
“But . . . but . . .”
“She is all right,” Rose assured him. “But she needs you. And I can’t explain it to you – I have to show you. We have to go. Now.”
“But—”
“Now, dammit! Can’t you see I’m trying to help you, here?” She reached out, grasped his wrist. It was the first time they’d touched since well before their divorce, and the last time she’d physically touched Kendall it had been to slap him across the face as hard as she could. He’d never retaliated, never attempted to defend himself. Damned sissy, that’s what he was.
Nor did he this time. Rose wasn’t surprised. She had plenty of experience dealing with recalcitrant patients, crazy patients. Kendall was, she could tell at a glance, not quite crazy . . . merely fatigued by worry and the lack of sleep, right at the end of his tether, almost at the point of physical and mental collapse.
Easy to handle. She’d done it before; Kendall was a pussy.
Under her direction, he gathered up his wallet and room key, then followed her down the hall to the lift, docile as a lamb. Every time he tried to speak, she shushed him. By about the fifth attempt, he gave up asking questions.
Until they were on the road. Even exhausted and worried as he was, Kendall could see they were headed east, out of Launceston and toward the coast. But again Rose was able to follow her instructions to tell him nothing. She just kept insisting that she didn’t know anything, couldn’t tell him, had to show him. And that Kirsten was all right.
So long as you can convince him that his lady love is unharmed . . .
“Why don’t you try and get some rest?” she finally said. “I need to concentrate on my driving. This road is a proper bitch at night.”
And, somewhat surprisingly, he acquiesced. The combination of stress and lack of sleep – he hadn’t slept at all since noon the day before – combined to have him slumped in the seat beside her even before they reached the start of The Sideling, and he stayed asleep until Rose turned off the bitumen onto the first of the bush tracks leading to Ian’s cabin, waking only briefly once before that when she paused at one point to get her bearings.
~~~
Kendall came awake abruptly to the sound and feel of the gravel road Rose had turned onto. At least his body came awake. His mind was somewhat slower. His eyes followed the headlights into the night, his body instinctively wanting to steer the car, since he was on what was, for him, the driver’s side. Then he looked to his right, saw Rose’s profile, and the earlier events of the evening came back to him with a rush.
“Rose?”
She ignored him, all her attention focused on keeping the SUV from drifting off the skittery surface of the deteriorating track.
“Rose! Will you please stop?”
This gained him a brief shake of her head but no vocal response. Rose had both hands firmly on the wheel, either didn’t or wouldn’t look at him.
“Dammit, Rose – what the hell is going on?”
“It’s all right, Kendall. Your lady friend is fine. You’ll be seeing her soon . . . quite soon. Just . . . trust me. You have to trust me.”
Not in this lifetime.
The problem was, he couldn’t do much of anything else. He didn’t dare try to wrest control of the vehicle from her. Not on this rugged track . . . they’d end up in the ditch for good and certain. But actually trust her? Rose?
He tried again to get some useful information out of his ex-wife, but each attempt was met with a rebuff or an excuse. “You’re distracting me.” . . . “I have to concentrate.” . . . “Just be patient.”
Be patient? Kendall found himself clenching and unclenching his fists, fighting for control, for any semblance of sanity in all of this. The simple fact of Rose’s involvement was warning enough – it had to mean trouble, couldn’t mean anything but trouble. Some sort of kooky kidnapping? He wouldn’t put it past Rose – wouldn’t put anything past Rose. But it made no sense.
Neither did this journey through the night on a maze of bush tracks that deteriorated more and more as they progressed. This wasn’t Rose’s thing . . . Rose hated and loathed and detested the bush. Which meant . . . ? Kendall pondered the options as the vehicle lurched its way along, Rose fighting the wheel. Her bush driving skills were such that he found himself worrying whether they’d finish their journey at all, or end up stuck for the night in some bloody ditch!
And some bloody ditch where? He had only the vaguest of notions where they might be. Somewhere south of the Tasman Highway, obviously. He’d wakened at the turn, knew that much. And somewhere back in from the coast, for all that told him. Not much. During his earlier career as a journalist in Tassie, he’d seen most of it, but there were whole regions so remote that hardly anyone ever saw them.
And damned sure not Rose! No way known she’d be out here by choice. She must be hooked up with somebody, then. But who? And why?
“Not long now,” Rose said, once again fighting the wheel, then stamping on the brakes as her vehicle slewed from side to side, climbing out of one set of ruts only to fall into worse ones. They skidded one way, then the next before she finally got a semblance of control.
“Jesus, Rose! I don’t suppose you’d like to let me drive,” Kendall said, unable to bear it any longer. Wherever they were going, wherever Kirsten was and why, he wanted to be sure of actually getting there!
Rose’s response was to flash him a determined, savage grin, then a shake of her head.
“Don’t be stupid.”
This whole thing is stupid, dammit!
Kendall braced himself against the lurching of the vehicle and tried to focus his thoughts. It was hard. He kept trying mentally to control the vehicle, his subconscious mind c
reating reactions that made his right foot stamp on a brake pedal that wasn’t there, his left foot reach for a clutch that also wasn’t there.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Kirsten spent all of Monday watching for some opportunity – any opportunity – to escape this madness that seemed only to grow with the passage of time. But she got few such opportunities, and none of them worth anything.
The morning, during which there was the relative distraction of listening to Ian and Rose squabble as they trampled through the mud and bracken fern searching for Rose’s keys, was endurable only because it also diffused Ralph Stafford’s focus on Kirsten herself.
Then, once Rose was off on her mission, Stafford spent time in a huddle with Ian Boyd, the two of them involved in an occasionally heated discussion, but doing it just far enough away that she couldn’t hear them properly or follow the thread of their conversation. Something about an old man and a dog, she thought. They stayed close enough, however, that Stafford could look back through the open door of the shack to check on Kirsten.
Which he did. Constantly.
She didn’t dare even try to further her attempts to free the eyebolt, and wasn’t sure she ought to, now, because if it became obviously loose, he would notice, and do something to thwart even that tiny chance of escape.
It’s loose enough that I can force it. I’ll damned well have to, somehow. Assuming I ever get the chance. Maybe when – if – Kendall gets here? But what can either of us do against a gun? And what if Rose can’t make him come with her? What if they chain him up more securely than I am? What if Stafford just shoots him? What if . . . ?
She tried to quell the second-guessing in her mind, but it was impossible. Tried to figure out what evilness lurked in Stafford’s mind, but that opened too many doors to the kind of speculation she couldn’t face. Didn’t dare face. Not until she had to.
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