Floored

by Paton, Ainslie

  The question made her shut her eyes to concentrate. This interrogation was about her crime not her passion. “Is that an official cop question?”

  He tapped the middle of the table, as though her attention had wandered and needed to be recaptured. “That’s me officially wondering if you ripped my boy’s heart out intentionally.”

  She ducked her head. She’d answer because if Stud had listened earlier, maybe Sean was listening now. “I was going to tell him in Kalgoorlie. But you called and he was preoccupied. Then I was going to tell him over night but all this happened.” She signed and tugged at her shirt. Even with the safety pins holding it she felt exposed. “I knew he’d have to turn me in, but I was ready for it. I know I did the wrong thing. I should’ve gone to the police in the first place.”

  “Isn’t that one of the big questions, Cait? That’s the reason it’s hard to trust you. Why didn’t you?”

  “I was greedy.” She shrugged. Isn’t that what he’d want to hear? Greed was a sin and she made it a crime.

  “I’m not buying that. You lived like you were on the run. The greedy don’t do that. They flaunt, they go back for more. You make three regular payments every month. Two fixed amounts for rent, and your car loan and one variable. What does VOC stand for?”

  “Victims of Crime.”

  “The charity. Why do you make a payment every month to a crime victim’s charity?”

  She looked down at the table. “Because they deserve it.”

  Stud grunted. “You’ve got to give me more than that.”

  “I was scared.”

  Stud leaned across the table and eyeballed her. “I’ve seen scared. Scared makes mistakes. You didn’t make any mistakes. Except not letting Sean help you. And because I figure you’re smart enough to know if you took the money to the police and told them what you knew, things would’ve turned out all right for you, I’m not inclined to believe anything you say.”

  “Then I can’t convince you, either.”

  “Try harder, sweetheart. Or I might have to start thinking Sean isn’t so innocent in all this.”

  She slid forward on the chair, that accusation so shocking. “He didn’t know any of this. I swear he didn’t. I didn’t even tell him Justin stripped my bank account. I said it was a clerical error.”

  “That’d all be hearsay.”

  She looked at her hands spread on the table where she’d pushed against them in her effort to make Stud believe. “The day I took the money Justin was in bed with a blonde. Her clothes and things were on the floor outside our bedroom.” She pulled her hands back to her lap and looked up at Stud. “She was a cop.”

  He blanched, his shaggy brows jumped. “Did you get her name?”

  “Detective Martin. Carolyn Martin.”

  He sighed noisily, and scratched his head, but said nothing.

  “What’s going to happen to me?”

  Stud put his elbow on the table and his chin in his hand. He looked almost like he could be someone’s grandad patiently listening to a badly told joke. A bad-arse grandad with a bent for command and control.

  “More or less depends on what you do next, Cait.”

  “I’ve admitted stealing the money. I’m in custody. I don’t have a lawyer. I was just in a shootout. Sean thinks I set him up. I’m not sure what choices I have open to me here.”

  “You’re in protective custody. You don’t need a lawyer because we’re not charging you with anything. Yet.” He sat up and folded his arms. “I don’t think you set us up. I think you were knocked off your arse by Justin showing up. I think you did an extraordinarily brave thing tonight. I also think you’re a common garden variety thief with a warped perspective on justice. But some of my best friends are liars and thieves, so I don’t hold that against you.”

  Stud didn’t think she’d set them up but Sean did, or was that part of their bad cop, less bad cop show? “What does Sean think?”

  “You’ll have to ask him that yourself.” He gave another grunt. It sounded like ‘good luck with that’. “We might be able to work something out.”

  “Like what?” She almost said, ‘cut a deal’ in the parlance of TV shows. Whatever words were used it sounded like a lifeline being flung at her.

  “Like where you continue to help us, and we’ll help you. But you see, I have a problem with that proposition.”

  “I want to co-operate. How can I help you solve the problem?”

  He grinned. “Now you’re getting the idea. See the thing is, I think you’re a good person, Cait. You’d have to be for my boy to fall for you. You’d have to be to be paying money you could use to live on to a charity. But good people don’t steal four hundred thousand dollars and think they can get away with it. They don’t find themselves involved with something that’s not right, that’s looks illegal and not report it. Yet that’s what you did. I’m not sure I can trust someone who won’t trust a cop.”

  “There was a cop in my house. She would’ve seen the open safe and the money. Maybe I was being set up.”

  “You don’t know why she was there.”

  “She was in my bed. Are you saying…?” God. Was he saying Carolyn Martin was undercover like Sean? A wave of fatigue washed over her. She’d never considered the possibility the blonde was anything more than the other woman and a dirty cop. She felt the colour in her face drain down her spinal cord and pool in her gut as bile. All this time, she’d been running for nothing.

  Stud reached across the table and put his hand over hers. “No, I’m not saying she was definitely undercover. It’s frankly unlikely. But I have some homework to do on this before I can confirm anything about Detective Martin.”

  He withdrew his hand; she’d lost Sean, but she needed Stud’s support. She looked him in the face. “When I was nine my dad was arrested and jailed for a crime he didn’t commit. Two crooked cops placed him at the scene of a break and enter. He was accused of assault and robbery and found guilty. His only crime was having an argument with his boss. That man’s friends on the police force backed his story. Dad couldn’t prove his innocence, though he spent his savings trying to. He did jail time. When he came home he was sick—cancer. Mum said it was from the stress. He never worked again and he never cleared his name.

  “As a kid I was protected from all this. When I learned about it as a teenager I was ashamed of my father. I thought he was lying, because I didn’t believe two cops would. You were supposed to be able to trust the police. Before Dad died I finally understood he’d been framed.

  “Crooked cops put my father in jail. A crooked cop was screwing my fiancé. You’ll have to forgive me for not being willing to trust anyone with a badge.”

  37: Reverse

  Without a watch Caitlyn had no idea what time it was, and time had been an elastic thing since Sean had come back into their motel room as Fetch. It’d been tight packed, but slow ticking with furious activity, then stretched wide with endless zones of nothing except waiting and not knowing.

  Not knowing if Stud would trust her. Not knowing if she’d need a lawyer. Not knowing if she’d ever see Sean again or what would happen next.

  When her adrenaline crashed what seemed like hours after Stud left her, she put her head on her arms on the table. Those rivulets of salty water that ran inside the crook of her elbow were tears she couldn’t hold back any longer; tears of guilt and exhaustion, and relief that the running and hiding was over.

  She must’ve slept because when she next sat up her satchel and overnight bag were in the room. She searched for her watch. Her wallet and the new phone were gone, so were her keys. It was six in the morning. Cowering in the corner, suspicious of hidden cameras, she swapped Tracy’s shirt for a bra and a t-shirt. She’d have given anything for a shower, or just the chance to wash her face. She put her hair up and waited some more.

  Stud arrived at seven. He was wearing yesterday’s clothes, a salt and pepper stubble and a grumpy expression. He smelled of stale sweat. But then so did she. He handed
her a flat white and a paper bag holding buttered toast and it made her sigh. She needed the coffee, but it made her think of Sean.

  “Would you rather tea?”

  “No. No, this is great.”

  Stud downed his tea. “Here’s what’s going to happen. It’s possible you’re in danger now. We’re going to protect you. We’re going to get you back to Sydney and put you up somewhere safe until we can qualify any threat. There will be an officer with you at all times. I want you to work with my forensic team to see if we can crack those ledgers.”

  “What kind of danger am I in?”

  “The kind you can’t deal with alone, love.”

  “So I can’t go home?”

  “No. One of my team will bring you what you need.”

  “My job, my car…”

  “Your car is in our custody and your licence was brought with the proceeds of a crime.”

  She closed her eyes, both hands around the Styrofoam cup and opened them again when Stud said, “Don’t worry, Cait. You’ll be fed and watered.”

  “What happens if I don’t know anything else that helps?”

  He stood. “We’ll skin that rabbit when he blows the hole.” He picked up her overnight bag. Cait stood as well and took her satchel.

  They rode in a marked police car to the airport. She had a hundred questions to ask, but the gate lounge was crowded with business travellers and holiday-makers, and Stud looked busy. He was standing beside her but he was watching the room and the two connecting corridors carefully. The two uniformed officers who accompanied them and the way Stud was so nonchalantly vigilant made her feel very awake.

  It was embarrassing to board first. All the waiting eyeballs on them as the officers walked her and Stud to the ticket barrier. At least she wasn’t handcuffed. But then, she wasn’t under arrest either and that was a minor miracle. Not a courtesy extended to her dad. When the police had come to get him they’d put a coat over his hands so she wouldn’t see the cuffs. She was a kid, but not blind or stupid, she’d still seen, though at the time she’d bought the line he was helping the police and now years later, those same words applied to her. But not the cuffs, and not the jail term. Yet.

  Stud led her down the boarding tunnel and onto the plane. He didn’t appear to have boarding passes, but they were waved on in any case. He took the first aisle and moved towards the back. He had her bag and a backpack of his own. She followed, trailing exhaustion and nervousness. At the very back of the plane he stopped. They must’ve had seats in the last row. He gestured to the open door and the rear stairs.

  “After you.”

  “We’re not…?” She took one look at his face and decided to do what he asked. This is why they hadn’t needed boarding passes.

  At the bottom of the stairs was one of those golf-style carts baggage handlers used. Stud followed her down. She had to hang on to the railing. She was still wearing Tracy’s stiletto heeled boots and they made tripping a distinct possibility. It was hard to believe they’d been what she wore to a shootout. Stud took the front seat and an airport official drove them away from the plane. She wished she’d finished the question. This had all gone suddenly cloak and dagger and she didn’t understand why. Wasn’t sure she wanted to.

  It was so bright and glary, the sun glinting off metal planes and roofs and bouncing off the tarmac itself, but she’d left her sunglasses in the car, so when they pulled into a hangar she couldn’t see anything. When her eyes adjusted she could tell the hanger was empty except for a black Statesman.

  And Sean.

  Oh God!

  Her heart donkey-kicked her ribs and her fists clenched. He was leaning against the closed driver’s door, arms folded across his chest. He looked fresh in jeans and a tee. No hint of Fetch about him. He looked at ease. But behind his aviators and the savage bruise on his cheek he might’ve been a stranger. He offered not the flicker of recognition and she couldn’t stop staring at him. Had he come to say goodbye, was this some obscure courtesy to her? She didn’t know why they were here, or what she was supposed to do, but what she wanted was for Sean to acknowledge her, a lift of his chin, a look that didn’t ice through her, a movement of his hand—anything. She got nothing and she knew she had to be okay with that.

  She sat in the cart while Stud went to Sean. They talked in low voices and her bag got thrown in the boot. But not Stud’s. So whatever was happening next she was going in the car. Not her car, and not with Stud.

  Stud started back to the cart and Sean resumed his spectator sport posture.

  “Sean is going to drive you back to Sydney. He’ll set you up in a safe house when you get there and then someone on my team will take over.”

  She heard Stud, every word, clear and distinct, but she didn’t know what to do with the information he gave her. Why would Sean want to take her anywhere, unless he’d forgiven her, unless he was going to give her a second chance, but no, the hostility he projected across four car lengths in the hanger was like frost on fence posts in winter.

  “Did you order him to?”

  Stud snorted. “No, but I’m ordering you out of this dinky toy.” He slapped the side of the cart. “Go.”

  She gathered her satchel and got out of the cart as Stud got in. It made a beeping sound as the driver backed up and spun around. She watched it till it vaporised in the sunlight and then there was nothing left to do except face Sean.

  When she turned around he had the driver’s door opened. “I don’t care if you ride in the front or the back.”

  Just looking at him made her choke up. If she’d had a hundred questions for Stud, she had a thousand for Sean, but they never made it to the part of her brain where they could form properly and pass to her tongue to be said. Why? Hurt? How? Please. Sorry. Sorry Please. Forgive me, forgive me, forgive me.

  “Come on, Cait. We need to get moving.”

  He got in the car and shut the door. The sound of it slamming made it possible for her to move too. She went to the car, crossed in front of the bonnet, and opened the passenger front door.

  “You wouldn’t prefer the back?”

  “Ah…”

  “Doesn’t matter. Get in.”

  She sat, tossed her satchel between the seats into the back and buckled up. He’d started the engine. There was another cart waiting for them in the sun. They followed it, the glare almost painful to her sleep deprived eyes. She used her hands to shield them.

  “Your sunglasses are here.”

  Her hand went to the centre console and then stopped. She’d forgotten this wasn’t her car.

  “Yeah. They’re in there. This is your car.”

  “Black.” The first words she’d been able to say to him and they described a colour. The colour of night, fear, despair, and endless emptiness. She looked in the console: her glasses, her iPod, CD cases, a packet of tissues, exactly as she’d left it. She opened the glove box: an old, worn street directory, a note pad and pen, a packet of Wet Ones, her mileage logbook.

  “Why?”

  He shrugged. “Why not.”

  The only thing that told her was he was going to be civil.

  “Why are we driving instead—”

  “A precaution.”

  “Why are you—”

  “Someone had to.”

  “Are you—”

  “Fine. You might like to sleep. I assume you didn’t get much.”

  That told her everything else. This threat to her safety was real. He’d drawn the short straw, and he wasn’t up for a chat. These were his rules now. Odd how much they felt like hers in reverse. She watched him navigate through the city traffic, constantly checking the mirrors. When they moved onto the highway he appeared to relax, settle more comfortably. He didn’t glance in her direction once. Behind her sunglasses her eyes felt swollen, felt red and gritty but watching him, so remote and shut off, hurt more than the lack of sleep. She closed her eyes and let the comfort of the leather, and the vibration of one hundred and ten k’s lull her into obli
vion where no imagined scenario could be tougher than the one she found herself in.

  When next opened her eyes the clock on the dash told her it was lunchtime and her stomach was on board with that.

  “There’s a sandwich and a bottle of water in cooler bag in the back seat.”

  “I can eat in the…?”

  “Don’t play cute, Driver.”

  “Ah—” Like all her sentences since she’d seen him in the hanger this one was stuttered and incomplete, stalled somewhere in her throat. She hadn’t meant to annoy him, thought he might smile at that. But he had no lightness in him. She ate a salad roll and watched the flat orange earth of the Nullarbor roll by while his silence weighed down on her with everything he didn’t say.

  Still a good hour out of Kalgoorlie he shocked her by speaking. He had to clear his throat first. “Are you all right after last night?”

  He never took his eyes from the road. They’d seen kangaroos and emus and it was prudent not to be distracted, but that’s not why he ogled the bitumen. Everything about him was a promotion for distance, for clinical, detached reserve. He was much further away than the width of the car and so much more separated them than the centre console. The vastness of the Nullarbor wasn’t enough to describe it.

  “I still don’t understand what happened?” Too much had happened. She felt like she needed the crib notes to make sense of it, because her own eyewitness account was full of great whopping gaps.

  “No one got badly hurt. Justin is fine. He got away with Wacker, but we arrested Johno Breznicki and Greg Grumble Hayes.”

  She spun around to face Sean, the seat belt sheering meanly across her neck. “You think I care about Justin?”

  “I don’t know what I think, Driver.”

  She pulled the belt away. “That’s funny because I do. You think I set you up. You think I lied to you out of—I don’t know—spite, one-upmanship. You think I played you for a fool.”

  He didn’t reply. He ate kilometres. He was using cruise control so only his hands on the wheel made any movement at all.

  “I didn’t set you up.”