by Jaye Ford
I fucked up, Katey. U were right. I was 2 tired 2 work, 2 tired 2 do anything but sleep in my clothes & wish I’d gone home 2 u. Now she’s dead coz I was tired. She told me 2 go, told me she was holding all the cards, but I should’ve stayed. I’d probably be dead 2 if I had. He’ll probably kill me anyway. He was there for the drop, said the boss was getting paranoid. I couldn’t b stuffed with another fucking covert op 2 get her 2 him so I left & she’s dead. I know what it’s like 2 want 2 give up, Katey. I never did. Not on u & Scotty. But I thought she had. He said he took her home, I told him it was his fault she went looking for a cliff. Then I heard it on the radio & I knew. I knew, Katey. I KNEW. They tried 2 get me 2 come in, they wanted 2 give me money. The boss had the cash. Enough 2 look after u & Scotty for a long time. I almost did, I almost got there but its like I killed her. Like her blood is all over me. I just drove. I cldn’t stop. They kept calling & I kept hearing her. Crying. He said I was already dead. Said if he didn’t find me, he’d find u & Scotty. I won’t let it happen, Katey. I won’t let you down. Trust me. I love u. B X.
Jax’s eyes were filled with tears by the time she finished reading. Anger and sadness, realisation and regret. Brendan’s words were disjointed, rambling, and he’d assumed Kate knew who he was talking about. Maybe he’d thought he’d already told her, maybe he’d wanted to, maybe it’s what the calls to her were about. Whatever the reason, there was no doubt he was talking about Nina Torrence – the ‘covert op’, ‘looking for a cliff’, the news of her suicide followed by reports she’d been stabbed.
In her mind, Jax saw Brendan in a post office – crumpled shirt, tense and agitated. Not like he was in her car. Not that desperate yet. Together enough to form a plan and make some sense: buy the bag, pay for postage, find someone to write on the envelope, use the receipt for a message to Kate in case he didn’t make it to her. He could have left his car by then and had nothing else to write on. Possibly he thought he could risk only one brief stop.
Jax remembered the package was posted hours before he got in her car. Did something happen after that to make him confused and out-of-control? Or did panic and ugly memories eat away at him?
‘He didn’t kill Nina,’ Deanne said. ‘You were right. He was the good guy.’
‘Yeah.’ It was what he’d wanted Jax to tell Kate. There were people after him, he did have something stuck in his head, he didn’t know what was going to happen to Nina when he left her.
There was a very real reason he was desperate enough to get in Jax’s car and point a gun at her. The phone, the knives and guns, being called Already Dead – it all made sense. Freaking out over the radio?
‘Was Nina’s murder still running on radio news last Monday afternoon?’
It was a few months since Deanne had read a bulletin but she listened every hour with a news hound’s interest. ‘It’s January, quietest month of the year. Nina was lead story right up until you were.’
Jax rubbed a hand around the back of her neck as reality started to filter into her thoughts. ‘Kate told me Nina was having an affair with Dominic Escott.’
‘That’s been around the traps.’
‘She said it’d been going on for years, that Nina was holding out for the ring, that she wanted to be Mrs Escott.’
‘I’ve met the real Mrs Escott. I imagine she wouldn’t go without a fortune.’
‘Okay, right. But Nina was his lawyer as well as his lover. She knew stuff – about him, about his business, maybe about his father and brother. So if she was pregnant after all these years …’ Jax paused a moment, waiting to see if Deanne was on the same track. ‘Nina told Brendan she was holding all the cards. Maybe she had something more than a baby to hold over Dominic’s head. Maybe the baby was her reason to use it. Or threaten to use it if he was hesitating about leaving his wife.’
‘I … don’t know.’ It sounded like she didn’t want to.
‘Kate said Dominic hired Nina’s bodyguards. Which makes him “the boss”. Right?’
Deanne pointed at Brendan’s note. ‘You have to give this to the police.’
‘Brendan doesn’t say who “he” is.’ She picked up his phone again, lit the screen, tapped until she got his call register. ‘He had a lot of calls – Kate, a few from his friend Marty. A bunch from unsaved and blocked numbers.’ She found Deanne’s eyes. ‘Someone, maybe more than one person, being cautious about leaving a trail?’
‘Jax –’
‘Whoever “he” is, Nina knew him. At least well enough to go with him.’
‘She defended some bad people.’
‘She knew cops, too.’
Deanne frowned. ‘You think a cop is involved?’
‘Why not? The Escotts are rich and powerful. Dominic’s brother had his fraud charges dropped, there were calls then for an ICAC inquiry.’ It wasn’t the first time the government’s Independent Commission Against Corruption had been urged to look at David Escott, the father.
‘Can you take it to the cop you kissed?’ Deanne asked.
Jax pushed a hand through her hair, not wanting to explain that the cop she kissed might be the cop who’d been after Brendan. She swallowed hard as the next thought took hold … that possibly Aiden was the man who’d turned up for ‘the drop’. Who’d stabbed Nina through the heart and thrown her from a cliff.
Could he have done that? Jax wiped sweat-damp hands on her trousers. He’d played nice with Jax for days, shared drinks, showed concern, kissed her like he meant it. He was a good actor but it would take more than acting to kill Nina then pull that off. He’d have to be a goddamn emotionless sociopath. She jumped as her phone buzzed.
‘A text from Kate,’ Deanne told her.
Jax grabbed it up: Don’t come to the house. Don’t want Scotty to be around when I see it. Meet me at Strzelecki Lookout.
Her jaw tightened. Strzelecki Lookout was on the tip of the headland Jax could see from Tilda’s lounge room. It was a long, sheer drop to the ocean below. The view was endless and breathtaking; the breeze on a hot day, one like today, was unbeatable. It was also a launching pad for hang-gliders, often crowded during the winter whale-watching season. And popular for people thinking about jumping.
Was Kate? Was the cliff a stand-by option if she didn’t like what Jax found? Or did she just need the wind in her hair and a place to breathe when she looked at Brendan’s phone again? Warn me before you show me, she’d said an hour ago. But Jax was thinking of another time.
She’d had a stand-by option. She wasn’t proud of it, but grief, frustration, desperation, the thought she might never have an answer for Nick, had made the idea of suicide cling to the edges of her thoughts. Not for long. A couple of weeks when Anita Lyneham first played hardball. She didn’t return Jax’s calls, told her detectives not to speak to her, accused Jax of engineering media stories about the case being mishandled. Then Jax decided there were better things to do than plead and cry and think about what happened if the police didn’t figure it out. She’d filled her head with questions and details and there wasn’t room for anything else.
But she wasn’t Kate Walsh. She hadn’t spent years watching her husband struggle with horrific memories. Hadn’t thought it was almost over, then blamed herself for his violent and exceedingly public death.
‘I need to show the note to Kate,’ Jax said. It was ugly and sad but Brendan wasn’t the crazy guy on the motorway with a gun. He was the hero trying to save his family.
‘I’ll come with you,’ Deanne said.
Jax remembered her bad days – a stranger in the midst could make it more difficult. ‘No. It’ll be better if it’s just me. I’m sorry to leave again. I’ll try not to be long.’
‘But …’ Deanne stood as though she might insist but just watched as Jax moved fast around the room, collecting her bag, the laptop, pulling her hair into a ponytail. ‘What will you do with the note?’
‘Talk to Kate about it. It’s up to her. But I’m taking out insurance first.’ She picked up her phone, fli
cked to the camera, took photos of the note. Both sides, open and folded, close-ups of Brendan’s handwriting and the post office receipt. Then she put the paper back in the rubber cover and took another shot of it there. Evidence, if she needed it – automatically saved to her own internet storage account.
Upstairs, Tilda was anxious about Jax leaving again, Zoe hung on her neck, wanting her to stay, and Deanne hovered with indecision, maybe regretting the promise to not stop her. Jax apologised and hugged and left anyway, running down the stairs to the car, more worried about what Kate was thinking. Outside, the heat had cranked up, the air was still and heavy with humidity, the sky a vivid blue – and the view, as she turned onto the downward slope of the hill, was breathtakingly clear and huge. She hoped Kate would be buoyed by it, not shattered.
Passing the surf, she was forced to slow for groups of meandering beach-goers taking their time to cross the road. She tapped her fingers on the steering wheel, registering the buzz of an incoming message, imagining Kate already at Strzelecki. Out of her car, standing above the cliff, texting desperate last words.
Jax pushed at the accelerator as she wound her way up to the headland, hung a right at the top, craning her neck for Kate’s car, unable to see into the parking bay above the street until she was there.
She stopped in its centre. The small space was empty. So were the bench seats beyond it. Would Kate have parked at the bottom of the hill and walked in this heat, while there was an empty car park waiting for customers? Jax pulled into a spot and got out, jogged quickly to the strip of grass that marked the lookout. Not a soul, just the stomach-lurching drop to the ocean.
Back in the car, she wound the windows down, let the afternoon breeze in before digging her mobile from her bag. Not Kate texting. Aiden: We need to talk. Soon. Call me. Should she? Before she talked to Kate?
There was also a missed call and a voice message from him. He’d rung from somewhere quiet, his voice low and serious, his words more order than suggestion: ‘Jax, I’ve got information. We need to talk. Call me.’
Was he crossing another line, wanting to pass on information he shouldn’t? Or had he spoken to Kate, knew about the phone and was trying to stop it before it went any further?
Jax heard a noise, raised her head, searched the scene through her windscreen: bush on her right, house to her left, grassy strip in between, and the empty car park. It was quiet, she was alone and a tingle of nerves up her spine felt like hackles rising. A movement in her rear-view mirror made her lift her chin for a better look. Something large and dark loomed on the passenger side of the car. She swung her head, saw a figure. Then the door was yanked open and her heart stopped.
49
Jax saw Brendan: wild-eyed, panic-stricken, desperate and with a gun in his hand. It was in her mind but she was already backed up against the driver’s door when the figure lowered itself into her passenger seat.
‘What the fuck? You scared the shit out of me!’
Hugh Talbotson smiled. ‘Sorry. Thought it’d be cooler in here.’
Her heart pounded against the hand she held to her chest. ‘I was carjacked four days ago. That’s not an appropriate entrance.’
His smile turned apologetic. ‘I figured you saw me.’
Turning away, she swallowed at the dryness in her mouth, held tight to the steering wheel while she waited for her pulse to simmer down. Two cyclists rode bikes across the parking area, standing up on the pedals, working hard on the incline, reminding Jax what she’d heard hadn’t been a car. He’d walked?
She frowned. ‘Where’s Kate?’
His smile didn’t waver but his hazel irises flattened to hard discs.
‘Hugh? Where’s Kate?’
‘Give me the phone, Miranda.’
Her body stilled as something inside her rolled and pitched like a ball in a bowl. Brendan was in her head again. Not the words from the motorway but ones he’d written to Kate. I knew. I knew … I KNEW.
Four days ago, when Brendan got in her car with a gun, Jax had wasted minutes in stunned incomprehension. Not today. Her flight instinct was primed. She swung around, grabbed for the door handle, was throwing herself sideways when a vice closed around her forearm.
Hugh’s hand was large and solid and strong. It yanked her from the door, hauled her body around to face him, squeezing her arm as though he wanted to crush the bones. His voice when he spoke was calm, passive. ‘Not yet, Miranda. Give me his phone.’
She watched him on the other side of the arm lock, trying not to wince, panic rising in her lungs. ‘Then you’ll let me go?’
His lips did a brief downward curl. ‘Sure.’
The phone didn’t matter, she told herself. Everything important was saved and photographed and in internet storage. And she didn’t have a choice. ‘It’s in my handbag at your feet.’
‘Nice try. I saw it in your hand five seconds ago.’
How long had he watched her? And from where? ‘That was my phone. Brendan’s is in my bag.’
‘I’ll have yours, too. Pass it over.’
She’d dropped it when the door opened. He kept hold of her forearm as she twisted in her seat to find it, maintained the painful grip as he lifted her bag from the floor and searched it one-handed.
He took a second to eye off the two mobiles. ‘Who were you texting?’
‘I wasn’t.’
His fingers tightened on her arm.
‘I was reading a text.’
‘Who from?’
If she told him it was a cop, would he still let her go? ‘From a friend.’
‘What do they want?’
She hesitated, struggling to think fast around her fear. ‘Lunch next week.’
Hugh watched her a moment, eyes narrowing. Watched her phone a moment more, maybe deciding whether to turn it off or keep track of her messages. He pushed both mobiles into the back pockets of his jeans. ‘Okay. Start the car.’
‘You said you’d let me go.’
He quirked an amused eyebrow. ‘You believed that?’ Reaching around his waist, he came back with a handgun – bigger than Brendan’s, black all over, with another lethal hole pointed right at her. Hugh laid it on his thigh, index finger resting on the trigger guard. ‘I release your arm, you start the car and drive. You attempt to get out and I shoot you.’
Her vision fixed on the gun. Her brain said, Here? The two cyclists had propped their bikes and were enjoying the view from the grass. Close enough for hearing damage if there was a gunshot – and she’d be a bleeding body in the driver’s seat. His escape would mean getting out of the car and running past them.
Maybe he saw her doubt or maybe he’d just paused for impact, but when he spoke, his voice was ice. ‘And then I find your kid and slice up her face. Do you understand me?’
Jax’s lungs seized as Zoe’s freckles flashed in her mind. Nina Torrence had been stabbed through the heart with a single thrust. Her killer knew what he was doing with a knife. Jax lifted her gaze, looked into Hugh’s flat eyes. She’d thought Aiden might have done it, figured he’d need to be an emotionless sociopath to pull off the last few days of earnest conversation and sympathy. She wasn’t sure yet what Hugh had done, but he’d smiled at her over coffee, expressed regret and sadness, and now he was holding a gun on her and threatening to hurt her daughter. In this moment, she had no problem imagining him wielding a blade. And he was waiting for an answer.
She clenched her teeth, found voice. ‘Yes. I understand.’
‘Start the car.’
She turned the key in the ignition.
He moved her other hand to the steering wheel, released his grip. ‘Drive.’
Again? Seriously?
Anger flared as she hauled the seatbelt over her shoulder and shoved it into its clasp. Slamming the stick into reverse, she backed across the parking bay and steered to the entry, lips tight as she turned to him for instructions.
He fastened his own belt then held her in his sights for a moment, taking in the attitude, m
aking her wait like it was some kind of power play.
She didn’t. ‘You want me to pick a destination?’
He straightened his gun arm across the space between them, pushed the muzzle into her thigh. ‘Turn left.’
She worked the clutch with gunmetal pushed into her flesh as though it was drilling to her bones. It stole her anger, replaced it with stark reality. This wasn’t a carjacking. He wasn’t stealing her car or making a getaway or hitching a ride. This was something entirely different. The man beside her wasn’t panic-stricken, he hadn’t lost touch with reality. He was cold and planned and trained. He was everything Brendan Walsh had been terrified of.
And Jax felt his fear all over again.
At the bottom of the hill, Hugh said, ‘Straight ahead.’
Passing the beach, more sandy pedestrians slowed her progress. She watched them through the windscreen, willing one to make eye contact and see the terror in hers. Turning her head as they passed near the driver’s side, she felt metal press deeper into her thigh.
‘Think about it, Miranda,’ Hugh said. ‘I know where your kid lives.’
Nausea swelled into her throat. She locked her jaw, keeping it down, holding back a howl.
‘Take the road up the hill,’ he ordered.
It was the way home. Up the hill, left turn at the top. Was he taking her to the house? Did he have Zoe in his plan now? She clamped her hands on the wheel. She wasn’t going home. She wasn’t letting him near Zoe. Tilda and Deanne were there too. Fuck the gun. She wouldn’t do it.
Breathe. Think. She’d done the what-ifs on this. Had pictured it in her mind. She could hit something. It would have to be close to the road so she didn’t lose pace, slew to the left so the passenger side took the impact.
Taking the winding path up the hill, she pictured what was at the top. Past the street on the left was a stretch of bush. No kerb, just tarmac meeting rubble, then grass, shrubs and a grove of gum trees. She’d need to floor the accelerator and hope she didn’t get stuck in a ditch before she hit something big enough to stop them. Hope she didn’t kill herself. She had airbags; so did Hugh. Right now, she didn’t care who caught the worst of it or her odds of survival – just so long as Hugh couldn’t get out and find Zoe.
