by Sarah Barrie
‘I think we work together just fine. And this is as properly as I need.’
He laughed out a breath, took a deep one. ‘I mean, I’m not just going to – shit, dinner.’ He untangled himself and took a few quick steps away to open the oven. ‘I was going to check it.’ Taking a couple of oven mitts, he lifted a roasting pan out. ‘It’s okay.’
‘Smells good.’
‘I hope so. I can roast things or barbecue them, and I don’t do a bad spaghetti. That’s about it. So roast lamb. Not very inspiring, I know, but edible – hopefully.’
She melted. He’d cooked her dinner – had worried over it. ‘Thank you. I love roast lamb.’
‘I know – I mean, you’re not big on beef and you have chicken a lot and last time Ally cooked lamb you made that “I love lamb” comment so … I’ll carve.’
Favourite wine, favourite roast, house clean and tidy, table set – if she hadn’t already been in love with him, she’d be pretty close based on tonight alone.
So they ate and talked and Ebony wondered what more he could possibly need to say. What was so obviously worrying him?
When they’d finished, she helped him clear the table. She knew whatever it was was coming because he pulled her down with him to sit on the lounge. He looked tense.
‘Ebs, do you remember the first time we met?’
‘Of course. We were at Cam’s for that Boxing Day party. I was curious about you because of the months of dramas between you, Cam and Dad, and I wanted to meet you. So I said hi and you started flirting with me, which was nice, then Cam came over and introduced me as his sister and you took off like a scalded cat.’ She grinned at the memory for the first time.
‘Was it that obvious? I thought I’d come up with a good excuse.’
‘“I forgot I had to do the thing?”’
He laughed out a sigh. ‘I did not say that.’
‘Yes, you did. Just like you did that afternoon you untangled my hair from the zip of my dress at Ally’s. Exactly like that.’
‘Yeah, that was …’ He blew out a breath at the memory. ‘Yeah. The point is –’ He picked up her hand, played his fingers through hers. ‘Geez, look at these nails.’
‘My nails?’ Ebony asked, bemused.
‘They’re perfect. That day at the party, you looked … untouchable. I was surprised you wanted to talk to me at all. There were plenty of curious people there, all wondering about the man who had caused the rift in the Blakely family, wondering why I was invited, and here was this lovely, friendly, warm woman with this infectious smile and no pretence and I wanted nothing more than to find out more about you. To monopolise you, to ask if you’d let me do it again. Then Cam came over, so happy to see us getting along, and told me who you were. I felt like the rug had been pulled out from underneath me. I’d just torn the family apart and there I was thinking those thoughts about Ebony Blakely. You should have hated me for that.’
‘The rift in the family might have been over you, but it wasn’t your fault,’ she told him gently. ‘Do you know when my dad fights the hardest and acts the meanest? When he knows he’s in the wrong and his pride – or his job – won’t let him admit it. Because of that, he lost Cam. He doesn’t hate you, Lee, he hates the situation and you’re a walking reminder of it. That’s his problem. Not yours or mine.’
‘I don’t want to ruin the relationship you have with him.’
‘I love my father but I’m not blind to his faults, and he absolutely does not dictate my life to me. Enough about Dad. He’ll cope, or he won’t.’
‘It doesn’t change the fact that I’m a broken-down cop with a questionable reputation. Is that really what you want?’
‘You’re a successful self-made businessman with a past as a great cop with a perfect record. A lawyer destroyed that to win a case. Cam proved him wrong.’ She paused. ‘If Dad comes into this one more time, I’m going to get pissed off. I’m already pissed off that it seems as though you’ve kept your hands off me all this time thinking I’ll be happier if you do, when in reality all you’ve done is make that part of my life miserable. So, anything else?’
‘I’m significantly older than you.’
She lifted an eyebrow. ‘Six years is significant?’
‘Nearly seven, and it is, in lots of ways.’
‘You’re what I want. You’re what I’ve wanted since I met you. I only want you more because you care enough that all those things are important to you even though they’re not to me. And they don’t change a thing.’
He cupped her face in his hands and touched his forehead to hers. ‘I didn’t want to ruin what we already had. I didn’t want to risk that.’ He kissed her gently while her hands explored his chest, his shoulders, the muscles of his back. She touched him the way she’d dreamed of touching him, learning the planes, the angles. He trailed kisses down her neck while his hands ran over her too, brushing the outside of her breasts as he made his way to her hips. Desire shot through her so sharp and unfamiliar that she gasped at her body’s reaction. His fingers paused, clutching her hips, then softened. He drew back, got to his feet and took a few steps away.
‘Lee?’
He pulled her to her feet, kissed her one more time. ‘How did I keep my hands off you this long?’
‘More importantly,’ she asked, kissing the base of his neck, ‘why are you keeping your hands off me now?’
‘Because I’m not going to rush you, rush this. I’m going to do this right.’
Her hands slid up his back and over his broad shoulders. ‘I don’t need to be wined and dined.’
‘But you deserve those things – and more – and you’ll have them.’
CHAPTER
30
‘He’s driving me mad.’ Ebony complained. ‘I swear he would have had any other woman in bed by now.’
Ally’s grin was huge. ‘You’re not any other woman. You mean more to him.’
‘And while a very big part of me may be doing little cartwheels about that, my hormones are killing me. I feel like I’m set to self-destruct.’
‘So do something about it,’ Mia suggested. ‘He’s hardly going to say no.’
‘He sidetracks. If I couldn’t see how flustered he gets when he feels he should stop, I’d be offended. And then there’s Cam. He walked out when Lee was kissing me goodbye yesterday and I swear he would have looked less uncomfortable sitting naked to the waist in a tank of piranhas.’ Ebony grinned. ‘He’s trying to be so calm about it, but it’s weird for him. I’m not saying he’s not happy about it but –’
‘He’s got to get his head around you two,’ Ally said. ‘Don’t worry about it.’
‘Living here makes it hard not to be obvious. If I don’t come home one night –’
‘He’ll call out the national guard?’ Ally asked. ‘Ebs, these are pretty bizarre circumstances, so yeah, we need to know if you’re not planning on turning up, but don’t let that stop you. Besides, a couple more days and you’ll be back home.’
‘Ben’s here,’ Mia said, looking out the window. ‘And Cam and Lee just pulled up behind him.’
‘They were meeting him at the surgery for some reason,’ Ally said.
‘I didn’t know that,’ Ebony said. ‘Ben’s been gone more than a week – I was beginning to think he’d forgotten us.’
‘We couldn’t be that lucky,’ Mia muttered. ‘I wonder what they’ve been up to?’
Cam came in, then Ben, then Lee. They all looked too serious not to make a sliver of concern slice through Ebony.
‘Is everything okay?’ she asked.
Lee kissed her lightly. ‘Ben’s got some news. Come and sit down.’
When she did, he draped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her in close.
‘Rob’s in the city,’ Ben told Ebony. ‘We’ve got him on CCTV meeting with the guy who swapped cars with Martin.’
‘You let that guy go?’ Ebony asked.
‘First, there wasn’t enough to hold him on, and second, we were
hoping he’d do just what he’s done.’
‘So where is Rob?’
‘Security footage showed him getting into a taxi. Taxi driver gave us the location he dropped him off and we checked out more CCTV cameras in that area. We picked him up again this time with a prostitute in tow, before he disappeared down a side street and didn’t reappear on camera. The woman was well known in that area of town, so when a homeless teen crawled into a skip and landed on her, she was quickly recognised. She had a hole in her neck.’
‘Have there been any more dead women in that area?’
‘We’re looking into some disappearances. It can be difficult to find women in that line of work who go missing. They sometimes stay missing on purpose, especially if they think the police are looking for them.’
‘Easy pickings,’ Lee said.
‘So when confronted with what we knew – and the threat of an accessory to murder charge – this associate of Martin and Rob started being very cooperative. He didn’t know where Rob was staying, but admitted he’d been in contact with him. Rob had even been helping himself to his computer once in a while. Results of that are that our hackers have found the new website the hunters are using, and they’re already in.’
‘I’m on it, aren’t I?’
Ben nodded. ‘Yeah. Sorry, Ebs.’
‘And?’
‘We know with reasonable certainty when the next hunt is going to be. We know how much time we have.’
‘How long?’
‘Three weeks.’
‘Three –’ This was confirmation. This made it real. More real than it had been since Rob had held a knife at her throat. There was no doubt, no chance they’d changed their minds or Martin had been lying. Someone was coming for her. And what they had planned terrified her.
‘Ebs, we need to be prepared.’
‘Should I go back to the city?’
‘We can hide you, no question. But the problem is going to be this: what about the next hunt, or the next? We have the best chance we’ve ever had of finding these bastards – of shutting them down and locking them up. I went out to the surgery this afternoon for a really good look around, and I have an idea. If we can do this, we can catch them, and you can get on with your life. But the decision is yours.’
A life of waiting, of wondering when she would be captured, was out of the question. ‘What are you thinking?’
‘We want to set him up. We need to let him come for you.’
‘Rob?’
‘No, the guy in the mask.’
‘Do you know who he is?’
‘He calls himself the Demon.’
She got to her feet – she needed air. ‘I just want to go outside,’ she said when Lee and Ben also stood. ‘Just to the veranda. Would you give me a minute?’
She’d had five when Lee came out to find her. He didn’t ask if she was okay, he just wrapped his arms around her and held on for several moments. ‘In a month this will all be behind us. Try to think of it that way.’
She turned her face into his chest and breathed him in. ‘I’ll do whatever Ben wants me to do. I just want to get past this.’
‘I know, honey. We will.’
She lifted her head and spotted something out of the corner of her eye. ‘What is that?’
Down below them, somewhere on Ally’s farm, a light was darting around.
Lee went to the door. ‘Ally? Anyone supposed to be at your place?’
‘What?’ She came outside, followed by Ben and Cam. They all watched. ‘Is it moving?’
‘Not sure,’ Cam said. ‘Could it be the moon reflecting off something?’
‘No,’ Lee said, ‘it was more like a torch.’
‘I think it’s in the windmill paddock. Hard to tell from here,’ Ally said. ‘Oh yeah, the beam just moved away from the windmill.’
‘I’ll go check it out,’ Cam said.
‘No need,’ Ben said. ‘I’ve got the guys on the street.’
‘Guys? Who?’ Ebony asked.
‘For the next three weeks you’ll be under constant surveillance. We want to flush this guy out – we don’t want him getting too close to you. It’s temporary and it’s for your own protection.’
‘No argument,’ Ebony said.
Ben pulled out his phone and called his men, and they watched a car drive onto Ally’s property. The headlights did a 360-degree pan of the paddocks, then drove around, covering every inch of ground in the immediate area. Torches came out as men checked the yards, the stables, the arena areas. After half an hour, they called Ben.
‘Nothing,’ Ben said unnecessarily.
‘That’s just weird,’ Ally said, still staring down the hill.
‘The whole situation’s weird,’ Ebony said. ‘I want to help you get him, Ben. What do I have to do?’
‘We’ll have more cameras throughout the surgery,’ Ben decided. ‘Men set up across the road, a couple more patrolling the park, six at the station and, of course, Indy will continue posing as your secretary right here in the surgery. You’ll be tailed everywhere you go, watched every second of every day, but mostly covertly. Just because you don’t see us, don’t think we’re not there. We don’t want to scare them off.’
It was easy at times to not notice the surveillance, but it was always in her mind. For a week, Ebony expected something to happen every second of every day. But nothing did. Back in her flat she locked up every night, knowing there were police on duty round the clock, but it was hard to sleep well. ‘Surely it will be sorted soon, Ebs.’ Carla placed a sympathetic hand on hers at the end of another long, uneventful day.
‘Two more weeks, max, according to the website.’
‘There’s a website?’ Nick asked. ‘You’ve got to be kidding.’
‘Don’t talk about that,’ Indy warned quietly. ‘You don’t want the wrong person to overhear we’re in.’
‘Yeah, sorry.’ Ebony stood. ‘Here’s Ally. I’ll see you tomorrow.’
She went out to the car and got in. ‘Hi. Hi, Luna!’
‘The other two are home minding Jasper. But if I leave Luna at home with Jasper, she gets his cage open.’
‘Clever girl. He can come out for some gentle playtime, but he doesn’t need you stirring him up.’ She gave Luna a pat then put on her seatbelt and watched a car across the road start up. ‘You know, I suppose the cops could just drive me to and from work. They follow me everywhere anyway.’
‘Then they wouldn’t be undercover.’
‘It’s pretty obvious out here though, isn’t it? It’s not like we have traffic for them to blend into. What if this Demon person just waits and waits until the day no one follows me home anymore?’
‘You’re letting all this get to you.’
‘I guess. It’s the waiting. It’s killing me.’
‘Why don’t you help me feed the horses? Cam and Lee were heading down there this arvo to finish another one of the stables. The followers can follow and you can get some fresh air. It’ll make you feel better.’
‘That could be good, thanks.’
At the property, Ebony helped Ally mix horse feeds and fill buckets, then jumped on the gator with her and filled feed bins. At one point, Ally stopped to look through the trees at a car on the side of the road.
‘That’s them isn’t it?’
‘Yep. But you’re right. It’s easier to forget I’m being watched out here. It doesn’t feel so claustrophobic outdoors as in.’
‘Everything seems less stressful when you’re out here.’ They picked up some more feed buckets and walked along the outskirts of the horse area, along a grassy avenue with horse yards on one side and large cattle paddocks on the other. Rolling hills created a backdrop in the distance. Ally’s herd of Belted Galloways, interested in the feed buckets, were milling around, hoping for a treat.
‘Drop that bucket in that blue bin. Luna!’ Luna ran in a large arc, almost, but not quite, getting away with chasing a curious calf on the edge of the herd. ‘One of the cows almost kicke
d her in the head yesterday, you’d think she’d learn.’
‘Many a kelpie has lost teeth for that reason,’ Ebony said. ‘There she goes again.’
‘Damn it! Luna! No!’
Luna barked frantically and the herd jumped out of her way. Then the dog decided to head off further into the paddock, past Ally’s old windmill, which was spinning lazily.
‘Do you really feel peaceful out here? After everything that happened to you on this place? Doesn’t it haunt you?’
Ally put some thought into that before answering. ‘The events do, of course, but not so much this place. I don’t know if I could say that if the house was still standing – I think that would be hard. But once that went and we cleaned everything up, it was like a kind of purging of the past. It helps that the property is barely recognisable. In some ways, I think I even feel more connected to it than I would have otherwise. Are you worried –’
A high-pitched yelp interrupted her.
‘Luna?’
Another yelp, a bark.
‘Where is she?’
‘There’s nowhere to hide – did she get kicked? Is she in the long grass?’
‘The cows are too far away. She sounded close.’ Ally and Ebony slipped through the fence and headed towards the barking.
‘Luna!’
‘There!’ Ebony said, pointing to the windmill.
‘What, where?’
‘Listen!’ Ebony grabbed Ally to stop her charging ahead. Just a few metres on was another fence surrounding a hole, partially covered by a large metal sheet. ‘Over there. Is that a hole in the ground?’
‘Cam and Lee decided it might have been a well before the windmill went up – it’s full of stagnant water.’
‘I hope it’s not too full.’
They approached the hole and peered into the darkness. ‘It’s okay, Luna, we’ll get you out,’ Ebony called.
‘How?’
Ebony turned on the torch on her phone and shone it into the well. ‘I can’t see Luna, the bottom or the water level. There’s a rusty old ladder on the side here.’
‘Is that splashing?’ It was hard to tell over the noise Luna was making.
