Beyond Fear (14 page)

He turned onto the dirt track that led up to the barn, noted it was a little neater now for the nice city folk who wanted to visit. He took it slow up the incline, not wanting to damage the underside of the low-slung car, smiled at the sweet, guttural purr of the engine. He and Tom had lusted over that sound for hours in the old garage. Jesus, his brother would kill him if he wrote The Beast off. He changed back to first gear and gave it an extra couple of revs as he powered over the hump in the road. Up ahead, he saw the barn perched on its hill and a jolt of memory made him roll to a stop.

Seven years ago when he’d gone up there with the search team, the Old Barn had been like a rotting wound on the countryside. There’d been rats’ nests and fleas had crawled all over the cops. It stank of putrid garbage and mould and soot from a fire that had burned up one wall. Probably not much worse than the house Travis and Kane had left, their father’s dump out on the Dungog road.

That whole family had been a prison sentence waiting to happen. Bill Anderson had clocked up a couple of stretches before he was wiped out by a cattle truck. No great loss. He’d been a vicious drunk, a brawler, more likely to smack a man in the teeth or beat up a woman than say ‘G’day’. Taught Travis and Kane everything they knew. Just to prove it, Travis got kicked out of the army and Kane served time in Long Bay.

Travis signed up for the military about a month after the search was called off. Matt had been promoted to detective by then and moved to Sydney but according to Dad, word was that Travis wanted to make a new start. Matt figured it was more than likely Anderson’s quickest way to get out from under police scrutiny. Three years later though, he was back as a person of interest, rounded up in a sting on a military weapons racket. From what Matt could find out, a stock of rifles had gone missing from training bases over an eighteen-month period. Nine personnel had been pulled in. Travis was one of three dishonourably discharged when there wasn’t enough evidence to charge them.

Kane wasn’t so lucky. Matt had been working in Sydney for six months when his name popped up on the computer. What a crock that had been. Kane knifed a guy in a pub then got only two years because some idiot social worker claimed Travis’s absence had left him without a steadying influence, that he had anger issues because he’d suffered abuse at the hands of his father. It was the only favour Bill Anderson ever did his son.

Matt sat in the idling car, looked at the new roof on the barn, the wide verandah, the garden, the decay traded for charm. If he’d had his way seven years ago, the place would have been torn down. Now it seemed the Old Barn was doing better than any of them. Go figure.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw something red move in the bush. It was off to the right, a few metres up the track. He eased the car forward, stopped beside a rock platform. It formed a natural clearing, five or so metres deep, bordered by native scrub except where the road ran past. And someone in a red top was crouched at the far end. He watched as the person stood up and faced him, felt one side of his mouth curl up as he wound his window down.

‘Hey, Jodie.’

‘Matt?’

She said it like she wasn’t sure so he pushed his sunglasses up on his head and contemplated the way she was looking this morning. Great legs in trackpants, red top, a warmer one tied around her waist – and a baseball-sized rock she was gripping firmly in one hand.

‘You’re up early this morning. With all the wine I loaded in the car last night, I thought I’d have to wake you.’

She studied him for a couple of seconds, moved the rock about in her hand. ‘Is that your car?’

Matt hung an arm out the window and patted the chassis. ‘She’s a beauty, isn’t she? But no, it’s my brother’s. I’m driving it into town for him.’

‘Does he live around here?’

He hooked a thumb over his shoulder. ‘About fifteen k’s that way. Just a hop, skip and a jump out here.’

‘Was he driving it last night?’

‘No.’

‘Were you?’

He tapped the window frame with his thumb while he tried to figure out where the conversation was heading. He’d hoped for a friendly chat with the cool girl at the B & B but it felt more like an interrogation. ‘No. Why?’

She took another second, repositioned the rock in her hand again. ‘We heard a car like that driving around the hill in the night. Was it you? Or your brother?’

Matt turned his head and looked out the windscreen at the barn on its hill. Yep, Jodie Cramer had a laugh that could knock a guy’s socks off and she could body-slug a hundred-kilo man. It was also possible she was a little paranoid. But, hey, who was he to criticise? He’d just considered wrapping himself around a tree. He turned back to her. ‘Okay, I admit it, my brother and I have been guilty of hitting on the occasional tourist in our younger days, but stalking,’ he shrugged, ‘it’s never really been our style.’

It took a moment for her to return his smile. ‘Yeah, sure. Sorry.’ She lifted the rock and held it on her palm like she was testing its weight.

‘So what’s with the rock?’ Matt asked.

She cocked her head, watched him a moment, like she was deciding what to say. ‘Well, you see, I can hit a bullseye at ten metres with a baseball. It’s a very handy skill when you’re a PE teacher. Not much use for anything else, now that I don’t play baseball. But when I heard your car, I figured it might come in handy.’

Her voice and words were casual, jokey, but she looked tense and she still gripped the rock. Maybe he was being optimistic but he decided casual was the one to go with.

‘Is that right? What were you planning?’

She shrugged loosely. ‘I’d aim for the driver’s window. Not good for you, now that you’ve wound your window down.’

His mouth curled up in a slow smile. He’d got it right. ‘Okay. Then what?’

‘I’d call the police.’

‘No mobile reception out here.’

‘There is at the bottom of the hill.’ She raised an eyebrow.

He nodded, said, ‘So what if you miss?’

She put one hand on her hip, tossed the rock up and caught it. ‘According to one of my students, who also happens to be a maths whiz, I have a ninety-four per cent success rate. I wouldn’t miss.’

‘I don’t want to underestimate you but it’s a
rock
. Heavier than a baseball, not perfectly round and I’m not ten metres away. Maybe you aren’t as accurate over five or six metres. And you’d be throwing under stress. You’d know you only had one shot. That can make a person miss. What then?’

He saw his question pull her up. Her smile faltered for just a moment before she conceded with a shoulder shrug.

‘Okay, it’s possible I could miss. But I’m going to get damn close. I’d hit the car somewhere, make one hell of a noise, enough to give me a second or two while you worked out what happened. Then I’d run into the bush. You’d never catch me with that bad leg.’

Matt’s hand went instinctively to his knee. She had him there. If she was half as fit as she looked, there was no way he’d catch her. ‘But can you run to the top of the hill faster than I can drive it? Fast enough to warn your friends that the lunatic in the car was on the doorstep?’

He raised an eyebrow with a look he hoped was kind of cute then saw it was the wrong move. Her casual attitude disappeared and she was suddenly tense. The hand had dropped from her hip and her fingers were tight on the rock. He waited for her to say something, not sure where he’d gone wrong.

‘No, you’re right,’ she said. ‘Anyway, Corrine’s invitation to drop round was for later in the day. Now isn’t a good time.’

He was pretty sure that meant piss off and don’t bother coming back. ‘Actually, I’m not here on a social call. I came to tell you your car will be ready this afternoon. If you bring the loan car back around three, we can do a swap.’

‘You drove all the way out here to tell me that?’ Her eyes narrowed in suspicion.

What was with her? ‘As a matter of fact, yes. I couldn’t get through to your mobile and I thought you’d want your car as soon as possible.’

‘Oh.’ She gave her head a bit of a shake. ‘Oh, I’m sorry.’ She took a couple of steps towards the car, trying to do casual again but not quite getting there. ‘I forgot about the phones. Thanks, that was nice of you. I didn’t expect it to be ready so soon.’

‘It’s not as bad as it looked, apparently. Dad’s doing a patch-up job, a little panelbeating here and there. It won’t be an oil painting but it should get you home without the police pulling you over with a defect notice.’

‘Well, that’s good to know. I’m pretty sure I couldn’t claim that on insurance,’ she laughed.

She was just a couple of steps from the car now, smiling, like maybe she was trying to make up for the weird glitch in the conversation. He smiled back, enjoying the sight of her. The athletic body and those big, dark, way-too-intense eyes. School would have been a whole lot more interesting if he’d had a PE teacher like that. Well, don’t just let her run away. ‘So how’s the Old Barn? I see it hasn’t fallen down.’

She glanced up the hill and back again. ‘Nice.’

‘It looks like they’ve done a good job. What’s it like inside?’

Her smile was still there but it seemed a little forced now. ‘Comfortable.’ Her eyes flicked around the car, the clearing. ‘Well, gotta go. Breakfast is waiting. Thanks again.’

So soon? ‘Can I give you a lift up the hill? It’s pretty steep.’

She took a step away from the car. ‘No.’ She said it firmly. ‘It’ll be a good work-out.’

Oh Christ, she thinks you’re a dickhead trying to hit on her. Well, you are, aren’t you? Give it up. You’re embarrassing yourself. ‘Sure. See you this afternoon, then.’ He pushed his sunglasses down onto his nose, hit reverse, backed into the bush on the other side of the narrow track and waved briefly as he drove off.

Face it, Matt. Your instincts are shot to hell.

13

Jodie smelled bacon and fresh coffee as she ran up the steps to the verandah. She took a second to pull herself together. She was puffing from the world record time she’d just run up the hill and felt edgy and spooked. Bursting through the door and announcing that Matt Wiseman, the nice guy who’d rescued them last night, was more than likely a stalker would not be the best method of describing what had just happened. Corrine and Hannah wouldn’t exchange glances, they’d politely tell her to bugger off and let them enjoy the weekend.

But she had to tell them. Forewarned was forearmed.

Corrine looked up from the island bench as Jodie walked through the front door. ‘Breakfast is on!’ she called. She’d changed out of her satin nightdress, gone from stylishly sleepy to stylishly casual in white trousers and pretty blouse and had secured her hair in a spectacular swirl on top of her head. The big, rustic dining table was just as chic. She must have brought the white tablecloth with her and picked the spray of flowers from the bush outside.

Louise sat up from one of the sofas, tossed a paperback on the coffee table in front of the refreshed fire, stretched noisily in her PJs and said, ‘Were you running all that time?’

Jodie thought about Matt. She wanted to just blurt it out, point by point, how it all fitted together. But she was red faced and sweating, still breathing hard. Not a good look when you want to convince sceptics of a possible new threat. Better to wait until she’d had something to eat and pulled her thoughts in line, do it calmly, logically. ‘Pretty much,’ she said, kicking off her running shoes, turning the lock on the front door. ‘I thought you might have started without me.’

‘Absolutely not,’ Corrine said as she limped around the bench into the kitchen. ‘One for all and all for one and all that, right?’ She smiled, held out a bottle of champagne. ‘Have you got enough energy left to open the bubbly?’

‘I think I can manage.’

‘You’re meant to be putting your feet up, you know. Running around the countryside is not putting your feet up.’

‘I enjoy it.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Louise said, pulling out a seat at the table. ‘No one enjoys running. Runners just say that to make the rest of us feel guilty.’

‘It’s not good to do it after a lot of alcohol,’ Hannah said as she came into the room, showered, dressed sensibly in jeans and a thick sweater, and her short bob neatly blow-dried. ‘You should drink plenty of water this morning so you don’t get dehydrated.’

‘Yes, Doctor,’ Jodie said.

Hannah put a hand on Jodie’s bare arm, gave it a little rub. ‘You should put something warm on, too, before you start cooling down.’

‘Already onto it.’ Jodie kept the smile on her face until she’d turned away, then rolled her eyes as she headed down the hall for a fresh shirt. She’d been running most of her life, she knew how to do it without drying up or catching pneumonia.

Breakfast started with fresh fruit and kiddie talk. Louise said, ‘Let’s do one round of parent news before we ban domestic conversation for the day.’ So they talked about the twins’ reading success, the pros and cons of Hannah’s oldest staying at home alone while she was on afternoon shift, Corrine’s shock when her newly teenaged son dropped the f-bomb, and Jodie’s daughter Isabelle being selected for regional athletics.

There was no bragging, no trying to outdo each other with my-kid’s-better-than-yours stories. The conversation was honest and open, a safe place to air worries and mistakes and joys. It’s what came after eight years of sharing sleepless nights and terrible twos, tears over first days at school, learning difficulties, braces and brewing puberty. As usual, there was plenty of laughter amid the advice and Jodie was relieved the morning’s sharp words seemed to be forgotten.