But the park wouldn't be deserted. One of the rangers was always there. She calculated the time it would take Charles to reach her. With the engine still running she threw open her door and jumped down. At Matthew's door she pounded and shouted. There was still no response. She willed him to be home; she pleaded with him to be home. He wasn't. She rattled his doorknob, but his door was locked.
From Matthew's porch she could see one light upstairs at Harry's. She had honked and shouted, but there had been no response from his house, either. The light on the road behind her was growing brighter.
Caught between the possibility of not rousing Harry and taking her chances on the road through the park, she gambled on the latter. The Chase was a maze of tracks. She knew many of them now. She could lose Charles.
She fled back to her car and pulled out on the road. In moments she had picked up speed, careening past wide-eyed animals. She narrowly missed a kangaroo, praying that no more would block her way. In a minute she was deep in the woods. So well did the trees hide her view that she didn't know Charles was there until she dipped into a small clearing. The headlights fifty yards behind her were a shock. She had lost precious time banging on Matthew's door.
She realized in a flash how foolish she had been to leave the homestead. There would be no chance to drive off the main road and hide. Charles was right behind her. She had no choice now but to follow the road toward the lighthouse. It made a wide loop just before the cape. If she followed it and Charles followed her she would eventually end up at the homestead again. Then she could decide what to do.
Her gaze dropped momentarily to the gas gauge. She had enough gas because she had filled up recently at the tiny station between the Chase and Hanson Bay. If even the slightest bit of luck was hers, Charles's gas would be getting low. If he had rented the car in Kingscote or Penneshaw, he had traveled many miles to reach her. If she was lucky
She forced all her concentration back to the road in front of her. She was gaining a little on Charles. She knew what to expect from the road because she'd been on it before. Charles didn't. She silently, fleetingly blessed Peter Bartow for advising her to get a four-wheel-drive wagon. It was made for the roughest terrain, and it was getting the test of its life. It was performing magnificently.
She swerved around curves, applying the brake judiciously, speeding up once more. Her hands were slick with perspiration, but she couldn't lift them off the wheel to dry them. She gripped it harder until her knuckles were white.
Minutes passed, and she made more gains. Charles's headlights were still visible, but dimmer. She was just beginning to believe that she might escape him when a crater the size of a small canyon loomed before her. She spun the wheel and hit the brake, trying desperately to avoid it, but her right front tire went over the edge. The car rocked dangerously, then found purchase on the edge of the crater. In a moment all four wheels were on smoother road again, but a fierce grinding noise sounded from the right side of the car as she picked up momentum.
Even without the ominous grinding, she knew she was in trouble. The steering was no longer responsive to the slightest twist or turn of the wheel, and although she pressed the accelerator to the floor, the car couldn't regain most of the speed it had lost.
She had gone half a mile before the engine began to miss. She didn't have to check the mirror to find that Charles was closer.
The landscape was bleaker. They had long ago left the forest and now traveled along limestone ridges adorned by nothing taller than heath and mallee. In the distance she could see the night shattering glare of the lighthouse. There was no place to pull off, no place to hide if she left the car on the road. And clearly, the car was not going to take her back along the road to the rangers' homestead.
There was no time for despair. The engine missed, sputtered and, for a terrifying second, nearly died. Alexis eased up on the accelerator and hurled a prayer into the darkness. The engine caught, and she continued at a slower speed.
She knew there would be no place to hide at the lighthouse. For a moment she considered running to the cliffs edge there and descending the steps to Admiral's Arch. But Charles would surely find her, and there would be no escaping him when he did.
The only other possibility was Weirs Cove. She remembered the limestone ruins of the storehouses where the lighthouse keepers had stored supplies. It was little enough shelter, but shelter it was. The engine missed once more, and her decision was made. She flicked off her lights and concentrated on driving the short distance to the parking lot.
The engine missed one last time, then died just before she could pull into the lot. She guided the rolling car to a spot sheltered by brush.
She was out in seconds, running with the wind.
Chapter 17
SHE WASN'T HOME.
Disappointment and concern warred in Matthew's head. Concern won. He hadn't passed her car on the road from Parndana, yet Alexis wasn't home; her car was gone, and there were two lights on in the house with an almost full cup of cold coffee sitting on the front steps.
She was too well-organized to overlook either detail unless she had left in a hurry.
Or unless she had just been too upset to think clearly.
Not for the first time that day, he felt a sickening pang of regret at the way he had treated her. Because she loved him, she had forced him to look at himself.
Because he loved her, he had been able to.
Now he had come to tell her what he had found, but she wasn't here.
She wasn't here. Silently, Matthew apologized, then pulled out a credit card to jimmy the lock on the front door. He twisted the knob as he slid the card between the door and the frame, and the door came open in his hand. She hadn't locked it.
He strode inside, giving each room a cursory investigation. In the kitchen he found more reasons for concern. A lone lamb chop sat in a pan on the stove, uncooked. Beside it was an opened tin of corn. Another pan held cubed raw potatoes in several inches of water. And the coffeemaker was still on, keeping most of a pot warm.
She had left in the middle of preparations for the evening meal. She had left without putting anything away, and despite her recent experience with fire, without turning off the coffeemaker. If she lived in a city, the signs would tell him that he could expect her to be coming right back. But she didn't. She lived on one of the remotest spots on a remote island a hemisphere away from her home. There was no place to run out for another liter of milk, another kilo of sugar.
Concern was replaced by fear.
Where was she?
He was dredging up possibilities and rejecting them when the telephone rang. He gave no thought to not answering it. The call might just provide him with a clue.
"Matthew?"
The voice on the other end sounded quizzical, as if Matthew were not the person the man had expected to find. Matthew recognized it immediately.
"Is that you, Gray?"
"Yeah. I was calling for Alexis, but you're even better. Look, I've got bad news, and she shouldn't hear it over the phone."
Matthew leaned against the telephone table. "What is it?"
"I just spoke to Ron Bartow, her attorney. He tried to call her a little while ago, but he didn't get an answer there or at your house. So he called me. Julianna and I are still here in Cairns, so I told him I'd keep trying until she answered."
"What is it?" Matthew repeated.
"Her ex-husband’s left the U.S. He's supposed to be in Frankfort, at a convention, but the investigator who's been watching him dug a little deeper. Cahill put in an appearance at the convention, covered all his bases, then vanished. It took the investigator most of a day to find out that he wasn't there anymore, because everything is operating as if he still is. It looks as if he's establishing an alibi."
"Can you tell where he went?"
Gray didn't hesitate, but it was clear he wished the news were different. "It's not certain yet, but it looks as if he might have taken a flight to Australia by way of
Singapore."
Matthew clutched the receiver.
"Matthew? Are you there?"
"What about Jody?" Matthew asked, the muscles in his throat as tight as his fist.
"She's still in Coober Pedy. I've alerted Dillon. He and Kelsey won't let anything happen to her. It's Alexis we're worried about. Can you tell her what's happening and get her out of there until we're sure she's safe?"
"She's not here, but I bloody well intend to find her."
"You don't know where she is?"
Matthew ran a hand through his hair. Guilt and fear were a seething pit inside him. With the poachers in jail he had let down his guard and submerged himself in grief without thinking of the danger Alexis could still be in. He had sent her back here alone.
"Matthew, where the hell is she?" Gray asked angrily.
Matthew knew that Gray would be no help pacing the floor for the next hours. He decided not to share his own fears. "She's probably in town. Give me a number where I can reach you." He listened as Gray recited the number of his hotel in Cairns and committed it to memory. "I'll be back in touch as soon as I find her."
Gray didn't waste any time on additional questions or information. "She's no match for Cahill," he said tersely. "He's the devil incarnate."
"If he comes after Alexis," Matthew said, "I'll be sure he's a dead devil." He replaced the receiver and headed for the door.
Outside, he cupped his hands and shouted through them. "Alexis!" He didn't expect an answer, but he listened intently. More shouts produced the same lack of response.
Since her car was gone, Matthew knew better than to waste any more time here. He pushed away the vision of Alexis lying somewhere nearby, wounded or worse. He had to trust his intuition. Her car was gone. She was gone. Now he only had to find where.
He was a hundred yards down the track when his headlights illuminated mangled brush to his left. He stopped, jumping out to investigate. Branches dangled from damaged limbs. One small mallee had been uprooted. The destruction was recent; sap still oozed like fresh blood.
What would have caused Alexis or anyone to drive off the road and through the scrub? An animal? Then why wouldn't she just have slammed on her brakes? She never drove the road to her house—or any road, for that matter—at high speed. She was cautious behind the wheel.
But caution could be easily discarded if there were danger.
He jumped back into his ute and continued on. Tensely he watched for more damage, more signs that would help him piece together what had happened. By the time he had reached the main road his frustration was building right along with his fear.
The island didn't seem small now that he was trying to find Alexis. It loomed before him, ninety-six miles long and thirty miles wide. His chances of finding her were infinitesimal unless he could successfully guess what had happened. Had she gone to Parndana or one of the two larger towns, as he'd assured Gray? And if she had, why?
When was more obvious. She had left sometime after she had begun dinner preparations. And that answered at least one other question. She hadn't gone to Parndana, because he had come back from that direction himself, and he hadn't seen her wagon. He had driven aimlessly for hours through an endless afternoon, drawn to the road because his house and the Chase itself had been brutally painful reminders of both Jeannie and Alexis. He had driven, stopping once for petrol and once to walk a deserted beach.
While he'd been searching his soul and heart, what had happened to Alexis? He slammed his palm against the steering wheel. She hadn't gone to Parndana. And she wouldn't take off for Kingscote or Penneshaw in the middle of making dinner. Then where in the hell had she gone?
Gone at high speed. Gone without locking her doors. Gone as if she were being pursued. He shut his eyes and imagined her careening down the track, dragging the remains of twisted mallee with her. Someone had been after her. Before I Sleep told him who.
If she hadn't fled toward Parndana, there was only one other place she could have gone. She had gone for help to the one man on the island who knew her story.
And he hadn't been there!
Matthew gunned his engine and pulled onto the main road, gaining speed quickly. Halfway to the park, shards of glass glinted at the outside perimeter of his headlights. He pulled closer and jumped out to examine them. The glass could have been from anyone's windows, but the flecks of paint still clinging to the limbs that had done the damage were dark red, the color of Alexis's wagon.
He was back on the road in seconds. In minutes he was at the rangers' homestead. There was no wagon parked in front of his house, no sign of Alexis or anyone else.
Where had she gone?
"Matthew?" Harry's front porch light was a sudden glare. Shielding his eyes, Matthew jumped down from the ute. Harry closed the front door behind him, threading a belt through his trousers. "We've got some sort of trouble."
"Have you seen Alexis?"
Harry descended the steps. "I haven't seen anyone. I was upstairs taking a quick shower. I had me box off." He pointed to his hearing aid. "I thought I heard honking, but I couldn't be certain. By the time I got out and threw on a dressing gown, there wasn't anyone out here, but I saw lights going south on the Shackle Track."
"Lights?"
"Two cars, I think. Might have been more, but that's all I saw. Probably some local blokes out for a good time. I'm going to go see."
"How long ago was this?"
Harry screwed up his face in thought. "Seven, eight minutes? I had to dress and—"
"Get your rifle."
Harry didn't even ask why. He turned and took the steps back up two at a time while Matthew ran to get in the ute and pull it closer. Harry was beside him in moments, shouting, "Go!"
Matthew knew he was going to have to tell Harry Alexis's story. Luckily she had made that simple. He took the road too fast, aware that he was gambling that the park wildlife was prowling or sleeping somewhere else. He was out of the woods and on a clearer section of the track before he spoke. "You know that book, Before I Sleep!"
"She wrote it, didn't she?"
Matthew didn't ask how Harry had known. He had asked Harry about the book when he was adding up the facts himself, and Harry wasn't a man to let anything past him. "She wrote it," he acknowledged. "She lived it. Now she may be living the ending."
"You think it's Alexis in one of those cars?"
"I pray to God it's not."
Harry sat back, bracing himself. He began to mutter softly.
"What are you doing?" Matthew snapped.
"Praying in earnest."
* * *
WITH NOTHING TO frustrate it for miles unending, the wind swept across the cape and out to sea with the scream of a space-age jet. Alexis bent low against it, moving as if in slow-motion. She'd had dreams where she was running from Charles, running as fast as she could but barely moving, while he steadily closed in on her.
She didn't know what kind of progress he was making now, but the wind was like a giant's hands holding her back from her goal. By the time she reached the ruins she was exhausted, as if she had already fought Charles and lost.
There was shelter from the wind against the crumbling limestone walls, but the wind still whipped away all other sound. She could tell nothing about where Charles was, and there were no headlights to guide her. Apparently he had turned his off right after she had. The cat was using the mouse's own stratagem.
Not only was the wind her enemy, but the moon, which had guided her this far, was now her enemy, too. The sky was too clear, too bright with stars, to offer any hope of cloud cover. She flattened herself against one end of an interior wall of the storehouse, one of the few parts of the structure that still stood, and prayed that its shadow would camouflage her.
There was a chance, a faint one, that Charles hadn't seen her turn off at the ruins. He might have believed she would follow the road to the lighthouse. He might have continued on himself. If he had, his mistake would cost him precious minutes. Frantically she
tried to think of a way to make use of them, but she couldn't. She had no weapon to use against him; there was no place to run to that would be safer. The most she could hope for was that Charles would somehow overlook her.
She might as well hope that he would have a last-minute change of heart. There had been a shortage of miracles in her life.
Except Jody. And Matthew.
She knew that thinking of them now was a way of preparing herself for the worst, but the timing seemed right. She had once told Matthew that as tragic as his wife and son's death had been, at least they had died knowing they were loved. Now she knew the same was true for her. Jody loved her with the unqualified love that only a child can give. Matthew loved her, too, although his love was more complex, more difficult to admit.
Her death would devastate them both.
She tried not to dwell on that. She wasn't dead yet, and she wasn't going to give up. Her resources were meager, but she would use them all. Her eyesight and hearing were keen. She was in good physical condition. And she wanted to live more than Charles wanted to kill her—if that were possible.
She wondered what would happen if she left the ruins, crawled through the stunted heath and mallee away from the roadside and along the steep cliff. She tried to remember if the loop road leading back to the homestead followed the cliff. It seemed to her that it did, potentially making her a target for Charles's headlights.
The only other possibility was to cross the peninsula and follow the other coastline, a coastline with no road beside it. But if she remembered the terrain correctly, the peninsula was half a mile wide or wider, and the bush wasn't tall enough to conceal her as she crossed. She couldn't crawl that far, and even if she did, edging along the Cliffside was suicidal. The long drop to the sea and the rocks below would mean certain death.
"Dana!"
She shuddered. She couldn't tell which direction the shout had come from because of the wind. She only knew that Charles was frighteningly near.
She flattened herself tighter against the wall.
Out of the Ashes Page 22
