If he claimed her, she’d be in his bed every night. He didn’t think he could get away with not showing off bloody sheets. Nikki was a present, or a reward, or a bonus, or some other fucking nasty kind of prize that was supposed to be a binding agent between him and Wacker.
Fuck. He had to get her out of here. It was the only way.
He gave her shoulder a prod. “Nikki, wake up.”
She came awake slowly. She’d been drinking heavily last night. She’d have a sore head and a sick stomach. Under the circumstances that was helpful. He could get away with saying she was too drunk and he didn’t fuck comatose chicks. That would win him another day and the usual round of ridicule over his being soft in the head, over his ‘sensitivity’.
She blinked up at him, eyes unfocused and bleary.
“How do you feel?”
“Um.”
“That good.” He hunkered down so he could look in her red-rimmed eyes. “Listen Nik, the party’s over. It’s time for you to go home. You’ve had your walk on the wild side and before it all goes too far, you need to go.”
She was all sleepy kitten. “No. Fetch, I want to be with you.”
“No you don’t. I’m too old and cranky. Anyway, I don’t do sixteen year old schoolgirls. So you don’t have an option.”
“Wacker said I was yours.”
“Wacker doesn’t own you. He can’t give you away. You own you. You have to start acting like it.”
“But I want to be with you.”
“No. You don’t. I’m not very nice.”
She showed her pretty teeth. She really was a cutie. And frigging young. “Yeah you are. You’re the nicest of everyone.”
He pushed hair out of his eyes. “Why did you come here anyway?”
“My parents don’t understand.”
She thought she was being winsome and damsel in distress. She thought that would work on him. “What, that you have ambitions to be a crack whore?”
She struggled to a sitting position, but her face paled from the effort to stop feeling motion sick. “My father pushes me around.”
Fetch sat straighter too. He kept his eyes resolutely on her face. “Your dad hits you?”
Her forehead crinkled, but her eyes widened. She’d been shocked by the suggestion. Her dad probably didn’t want her dressed like jail bait either. Fetch would bet he wasn’t hitting her, or doing anything worse. Nikki sniffed as if she was about to cry. It wasn’t good acting. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
He moved so quickly she gave a little gasp of shock. He grabbed both her arms and pulled her close. He breathed nasty morning breath on her. “So you’re used to being roughed up then. That’s good. You know your place. Crack whore on P plates.”
“No, I…” She tried to pull away. She had no chance. He moved a hand to the back of her neck and anchored her. She wasn’t going anywhere except home.
“No, you what?” he mocked.
“I—”
“You listen to me, Nikki. I’m going to work now. I’ll be gone all day. This is what you’re going to do. You’re going to get dressed, wash that black crap off your face. Tell Maise you’re going to run an errand for me.”
She nodded. Bambi caught in the crosshairs. Except she thought she was frolicking in the freaking meadow.
“You’re going to take the five hundred bucks I give you.”
She nodded again. She didn’t know where this was going.
“You’re going to walk to the station and stand at the taxi rank. When a driver pulls up, you’re going to get in and give him your home address.”
Now she got it. “No… I—”
He squeezed the back of her neck. Enough so she’d know he wasn’t mucking around.
“You’ll do it, Nikki. And you won’t ever come back here.”
He held her neck, he held her eyes. He was going to be late with the first drop. He’d be running behind all day. When he got back, Wacker would want to know why he was so incompetent he couldn’t manage to make a few deliveries on time. But he’d have given the poor kid her life back and sent her home, where bad things were less likely to happen to her.
It’d be easy to explain, once a runaway, always a runaway. He could let Wacker think he’d gone hard on her and frightened her off, or better, that he’d been a stupid enough fuck to be nice to her, and she’d run out and stolen his money. Yeah—that worked much better. It was more in line with his profile of not too bright, but earnest delivery boy. They’d laugh at him and forget about her.
There were tears in her eyes now. Poor silly kid. He relaxed his grip and leaned forward to kiss her forehead. “Go. Have a good life, Nikki.” She let go a genuine sob. He pulled her against his chest. “Go back to school, study hard, get a qualification. Fall in love with a nice boy who doesn’t think he owns you.” He gave her a little shake. “Stay away from Maisy and this kind of life. It’ll fuck you over.”
“What about you?” She was looking up at him with eyes like planets.
“I’ll be all right. You don’t need to worry about me.”
“But I will. You really are the only nice one.”
Fuck, he’d let himself get all soft there for a minute. She’d seen through his tough guy routine. He pushed her away roughly and stood up, shocking her with his sudden looming nakedness. The other men were all taller than him, heavier. He was a runt in comparison, but by no means small outside the company of giants Wacker kept around as enforcers.
He looked for his jeans. “Go home, little girl.”
He found them on the floor and pulled them on, grabbed a t-shirt that wasn’t too dirty and shrugged over his head. He sat on the bed with his back to her and stuffed his feet in socks and heavy boots.
“Fetch.”
He felt her little hand on his back. He stilled. He really was going to be late. He’d ditch the delivery protocol and take his bike.
“Thank you.”
He nodded in acknowledgement, making the bed bounce. She understood. She’d be all right. He combed his fingers through his tangled hair and dug cash out of his pocket, putting it on the bed for her. It felt oddly like prostitution. But he’d be the only guy in the house, in the chapter, in the whole damn club, who was paying a girl to leave him alone.
He didn’t look back at her, and he slammed the door on his way out. Best she was confused and forgot about him real quick.
He made the first two drops without incident. Coded paperwork, he couldn’t make head or tail of in one, and cash, probably around ten G in the other. Using the bike made it all quicker, but it also exposed him. The bikes tended to call attention to themselves; people noticed them, remembered them. Plus he could get picked up by a speed camera, or be unlucky enough to be pulled over. That’s why they used taxis for the drops. Quick, efficient, anonymous. And if they hit anything, you just did a runner.
It was drop number five where his luck ran out: a pedestrian crossing, a pensioner, awkward with a four-pronged walking stick, a woman with a toddler trying to wrestle an overfull supermarket trolley across the road and hold onto the kid at the same time. He watched the young mum struggle with the independent thought of the trolley wheels and the self-determination of the kid. He was the first vehicle in line. It was fifteen seconds of mayhem. The trolley veered sideways, the old bloke’s stick got caught in its struts. Mum let go of the kid to make a grab for the old man to stop him toppling, and the kid made a bid for freedom. He shot across the street, making straight for a guy with one of those dogs that looked like wolves, and Fetch’s face met tarmac as he was thrown sideways off the bike.
He hit the road, the bike crashing down on his leg as he scrambled away to avoid it. He looked up to see the driver behind him and the two behind her getting out of their cars. He’d been rear-ended in a four car pile-up.
“Are you okay?” It was the mum, leaning down over him. She had the kid by the hand. The guy with the dog was beside her. The old man was holding onto the trolley.
He got to his
feet; put a hand to his cheek, sticky with blood. But all his limbs were working, nothing broken, though the bruising would be a bitch. The bike however—DOA. Shit. He didn’t have time for this. It was way too complicated. He needed to keep moving. He’d have to risk calling it in. He took out his phone, and made the call.
“I’ve had an accident.”
“Didn’t you get a toilet training certificate before they sent you out?”
“Fuck off, Stud.”
Raucous laughter was followed by, “What do you need?”
He said, “Towie,” gave the address and hung up.
The dog guy and one of the other drivers helped him right the bike and drag it to the side of the road. Traffic started flowing around the other cars. He pulled his saddlebag off the bike and waited until the tow truck arrived. When they started to load it, he backed off. His knee was already stiffening up. He went down the street to a council bin, dropped his phone, crushed it under his heel, fished out the sim and pocketed it, and dumped the remains of the plastic.
He kept walking. He needed a taxi. Nothing doing. It was 3pm, driver changeover time. He found another bin and dumped the sim card. Two streets over his luck changed again.
4: Luck
He was a surgeon, famous for separating conjoined twins. Caitlyn would’ve been happy to drive him around for weeks. In a previous life: Before Justin—she’d have been happy to take him to lunch, dinner and breakfast the next morning. He was Indian, born in Madras, educated in London. He was handsome, with large dark eyes and milk coffee skin. He had a Daniel Craig accent and liked a good chat. It was his first trip to Australia. He was consulting on a case—another set of twins, joined at the spine. He was a cricket tragic and proud of it. And a practiced flirt, and it was hard not to give in to that.
She’d picked him up at the airport and driven him to Westmead Children’s Hospital. Someone else would get the gig to drive him anywhere else he needed to go. The job had been an extra, on top of providing transport for minor celebrities to and from a movie premier and a nightclub into the small hours of the morning. She’d had about four hours sleep and was feeling every missed moment in her gritty eyes and stiff neck. Parked in the hospital’s drive after the wonder surgeon disappeared inside, she dropped her head into the headrest and closed her eyes. Five minutes, if she could just sit here quietly for five minutes.
The back door went thunk, and she opened her eyes to see Grizzly Adams slide into the back seat. “I’m not a taxi.”
He leaned between the seats and slapped a fist full of cash on the console. “A thousand bucks says you are.”
He’d been in some kind of an accident, or more likely a fight; his cheek was grazed and bloody. She looked at the money. She saw a bathmat and new curtains, a rug for the bedroom floor. He was a passenger like anyone else, even if he looked like his job was to officially frighten small children. She could only really see his scratched up face in the rear-view mirror, tucked in between a lot of hair and sunglasses. God knows what the rest of him looked like.
“Where to?”
He wanted to go to three suburban addresses, two close by, and one further afield, and for her to wait at each. Then he wanted to be dropped off at home. Simple. She checked the addresses on her GPS and headed out.
Unlike Dr Wonderful, Grizzly wasn’t talkative. Unlike Dr Wonderful he didn’t inspire lust-filled musings. He sat slumped in the back seat, head turned to watch out the window. The first stop was a house in a quiet street. Front lawn needed a good mow and a coat of paint would’ve done wonders for it. She parked, and he got out and went to the front door. He carried a saddlebag over his shoulder, and he limped, favouring his left leg. When he disappeared inside she closed her eyes. There was no way to know how long he’d be. He hadn’t said a word after giving her the addresses. She could’ve asked, but there was something about him that made her want to limit contact. She pulled her hat down further over her eyes and smiled. This was a take the money and run situation if ever she’d seen one.
Caitlyn sighed audibly when the back door thunked again. He’d been gone less than a single Adele song on the radio. She switched it off and started the engine. He was settled back in the seat again, but now he had a bunch of tissues held against his cheek. She had tissues in the car; she should’ve thought to give him some. She had antiseptic too—a full first-aid kit. She’d been so worried about Grizzly being a bear and eating her, she’d completely ignored the fact he could do with some kindness.
“I have Dettol for that, if you’d like?”
His chin came up. She met his glasses in the rear-view. “Thanks. I’ll be right.”
She bit back the ‘are you sure’ that hovered in her throat. He didn’t look like a man who was unsure. Now she’d seen him full-length she realised he was a bikie. A fair dinkum Hell’s Angel, except the back of his leather jacket said Black Pariah. It was impossible to tell how old he was. The full wild man beard, the shoulder-length dark hair, the row of piercings up his ear, the dark sunnies. He was tall; filled out his dirty jeans with the promise of strength, and had a broad, square shoulder line and a deep resonant voice.
By the time they arrived at the third address, she’d decided he was up to no good. He wasn’t on a visiting spree because the stops were too short and no one appeared to greet him or wave him off. He was some kind of delivery boy, but there was no way to tell what he was delivering, other than it was relatively small and valuable. He never left the saddlebag in the car. He carried it to and from each ordinary looking house they went to. This really was a take the money and run job in more ways than one. The sooner she dropped him off at this last address the better.
“Driver, do you mind if we add another stop?”
She lifted her eyes to the mirror. He was sitting forward. “It’s on the way.”
He’d paid her a thousand dollars cash for three hours work that would ordinarily have earned her about two hundred and fifty, less if there’d been a booking fee on top. He looked fearsome, but he’d been no trouble and spoke politely. He was up to something, but it couldn’t be anything too terrible. Who was she to judge anyway? Yes—he could add a stop.
She drove him to a small shopping centre and parked in the adjoining car park to wait for him. He got out, then tapped on the driver’s side window. She’d already turned the engine off. She cracked the door and got out, standing in front of him, the door held between them.
“I’ll be a bit longer this time. You might want to go for a walk, stretch your legs. Can I bring you back anything?”
He smelled of old leather and petrol up close. His cheek had stopped bleeding, but it was savagely grazed.
“What happened?”
He looked surprised she’d asked, his eyebrows shooting up over the frame of his sunnies. But not as surprised as she was. What happened to limiting contact? “I mean to your face, and you’re limping.”
He smiled for the first time. Made him look younger. “I had a little run-in with some bitumen. Came off second best.”
“Oh, God. Are you okay? Should you see a doctor?”
He hooked a finger over the nosepiece of his sunnies and pulled them down. He looked at her with startlingly blue eyes, surrounded by thick black lashes no decent man deserved to own. But then he probably wasn’t a decent man. He was probably a drug courier. And she was consorting with a criminal. Wouldn’t be the first time. She’d been closer than consorting. She’d been virtually a conjoined twin.
“No, thank you. I’m good.”
He blinked at her, dropped his chin. “Sure?”
“Yes, thank you.”
He pushed the sunnies back up his nose and nodded. “I’ll try not to be too long. You look tired.”
“Me?” The way her voice squeaked was embarrassing, the blush that heated her cheeks was more so. He wasn’t supposed to notice anything about her. Under her hat and with her own sunnies on what could he possibly see to give him that impression?
He laughed. “Yeah, you. Y
ou’ve tried to have a catnap at least three times now. I keep interrupting.”
“Oh. I promise you I’m perfectly safe to drive.”
“Hey, I was kidding. I didn’t mean to suggest you weren’t safe.”
He was smiling, and trying to put her at ease, but she didn’t think he was kidding. He’d picked up on her weariness with deadly accuracy. In her new trousers she was covered neck to toe. She was almost as camouflaged by her work costume as he was, by his gang one, but he made her feel naked.
“How about I bring you back a coffee?”
“I have a thermos. I’m fine, thank you.”
“Now you’re kidding me. Thermos coffee!” He shook his head. “That wouldn’t keep a fly awake. How do you take it?”
A real brewed, hot coffee sounded wonderful. She turned to rummage in the compartment where she kept change for meters.
“My treat.”
She looked up. He’d backed off to stop her handing him the coins. “A flat white would be fantastic. Thank you.”
He gave her a salute, turned and walked towards the shopping centre doors, stepping to the side when he got there to let a woman with a stroller go through first. It made her smile. Mr Black Pariah looked like trouble but he spoke well, paid attention, and had pretensions to be a gentleman.
He wasn’t that long. But long enough for her world to feel blurry at the edges, for her body to feel like she’d pulled a dozen muscles. He didn’t forget the coffee. And now she really needed it, to help get a handle on her nerves. She watched him come across the car park, the limp still evident, his saddlebag slung over his shoulder, a phone company bag in one hand, and a coffee carry-out tray in the other. She had the window down and he held the tray out. She took it with a smile while he slung his gear in the back seat.
He came back to the window. “Can I drink in the car?”
She lifted the tray to him. “I think I can trust you.” What a laugh. He was the least likely candidate for trust. Well, maybe the second least likely.
He smiled. He’d taken his glasses off, and she was treated to the full force of his eye contact. It made her forget feeling tense. It made her toes curl inside her sensible shoes.
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