Black Mountain (12 page)

Now, he needed to take a few other things so it wouldn't be so obvious that the jars were what he was after. He crossed to the cool safe, opened the door and shone his light over its contents. At that moment he heard the sound of barking inside the house. Holy shit, a dog! Hurriedly he grabbed a handful of the bottles closest to him and threw them in the bag.

Climbing back out of the window he quickly shut it behind him as the light came on at the back of the house. To go back the way he had come would expose him to the light. Instead he shot around the other side of the house, which was still dark. Just in time, as the dog came tearing out of the door straight down into the mango trees, still barking.

Jackson broke into a run, his sneakers making little sound on the hard earth, hoping to gain the front fence before the dog picked up his scent. He just made it, for as he reached it the dog came sniffing around the corner, hot on his trail, and as he hurriedly scaled the railing the dog was jumping up behind him.

Racing along the road he reached the car and, wrenching open the door, scrambled into the passenger's seat.

‘Don't put your lights on,' he gasped, tossing the bag onto the back seat, ‘but get out of here as fast as you can.'

Without a word Greg started the car, swung it around, and sped away.

‘Jesus, that was close,' Jackson said when they were safely back on the highway. ‘Now what?'

‘We get you out of Cairns as quickly as possible.'

‘I want to go back to New Zealand, I'm sick of it here. And I need to leave Airlie Beach, anyway. Now the tourists are gone I stick out like a sore thumb.'

‘I can't take time off right now to take the yacht away for that length of time. Just be patient. After all you're on a good wicket, just think of it as an extended holiday, all expenses paid. Besides, I'd like you to hang around a bit longer. It's possible I might have another job for you.'

‘I'd still sooner go home.'

‘Look, the longer you're away, the safer you are from that widow.'

Jackson shrugged. ‘There's that, I suppose. So where do you suggest I go to wait?'

‘How about Cooktown? There's always an itinerant crowd up there. You've done a bit of fishing, you can pass yourself off as a fisherman.'

Reluctantly Jackson agreed, and the next morning saw him board a plane for Cooktown, glad to leave Cairns behind him.

Chapter 18

Halfway across the laboratory to the bench Elly stopped and took a sharp breath, unable to believe what she saw. With a racing heart she took the remaining steps and stared at the row of jars. They were all exactly as she'd left them, except the last two were missing. Spinning around, her gaze raked the room. The missing jars were nowhere to be seen. She narrowed her eyes. Surely her mother hadn't moved them without telling her?

Methodically she scrutinised the room, taking in every possible place they could stand. No. Nowhere. Crossing over to the cupboard she opened the doors, looking inside. Same result. Then the cool safe. The jars were not there, but she saw a gap in the neat array of essential oils and paused, her mind going back. Beth had not done much work in here recently because of the mango harvest, which had just finished. It was possible she could have taken her oils elsewhere, but most unlikely. She needed to check.

Closing the door of the safe she looked carefully around. Nothing else seemed to be amiss. She crossed to the window and checked it. It was closed but not locked. A chill of apprehension clutched her. She was sure it'd been locked last night. She remembered closing it and—yes—she distinctly remembered locking it. Someone had been in here, someone who had taken the two precious jars, and probably, a handful of essential oils as well.

She remembered Ben barking in the middle of the night. As she had let him out of the house and watched him race away down through the mango trees she'd thought it was because he'd heard a possum, but it must have been an intruder that he heard.

Elly hurried into the house, calling to her mother. Beth came running at the urgency in her voice, and she looked incredulous when Elly told her the two jars were missing.

‘And have you taken any of your oils from the safe and moved them?' Elly asked.

Beth shook her head. ‘No.'

‘Then some of those are missing too.'

‘How could it have happened?' A frown puckered her brow. ‘We locked up before we went inside yesterday, and that was after all the pickers had left.'

‘The window's unlocked, and I'm sure I locked it. So someone must have managed to open it, and climb in.'

‘I wonder if it could've been one of the pickers. I wonder if one of them snuck in when neither of us were in there during the day and helped themselves. Perhaps one of them fancied a few oils and came back later?'

‘Then why take the jars as well? They wouldn't know what was in them.' Elly shook her head. ‘No, I think whoever it was knew exactly what they wanted. They came to take the jars, and the oils were incidental.' She took a deep breath. ‘But the big worry is they were probably taken by whoever took Dad's journal, meaning they realise what they've got and plan to steal his work for themselves.'

The colour drained from Beth's face. ‘All his work,' she whispered, ‘all his plans and ideas for what he could do with this. Is this how it's going to end? With someone else benefiting from it?'

Elly set her lips. ‘It's not the end. They don't know what I've been doing, and I have made some advances, so I'm ahead of them. And we still have some of the formula from twenty-three that I've been working with, in a bowl at the bottom of the safe. Together with the dried plant.'

Beth shot her a worried look. ‘So what's this going to do to your work?'

‘I can continue for a while, but the reality is we can't do much more unless we find the plant.' She paused. ‘But neither can they, whoever they are.'

When Mitchell arrived a little later Beth told him to go straight down into the kitchen and take a seat while she put the coffee pot on.

Elly joined them, pushing aside the tumult in her emotions at the sight of him. Remember—it's strictly business from now on, she scolded herself.

Mitchell seemed not to notice her cool greeting as she seated herself at the table.

‘I've been in touch with some of my police contacts down in Brisbane,' he told them when they were all seated around the table with coffee in front of them, ‘and I've found information on Jackson Lee. He's from New Zealand, and the police over there identified him from the photo. His real name is Jackson Kincaid. He's known to the police as a con man.'

‘So he's not Canadian at all.' Elly frowned. ‘But his accent …'

‘That's easy enough for someone with a good ear. He was a small time actor over there, so he's used to playing a part. Apparently when he had no work on the stage he supplemented his income by any means he could. He sailed pretty close to the wind at times, but no-one actually pressed charges against him, so he's never been charged or in jail. And no-one has any idea how he came into Australia.'

‘And now he seems to have disappeared again,' Elly mused. ‘Could he still be around here, I wonder?'

‘That's anyone's guess.'

‘There's a reason for me wondering.' Elly told him about the missing jars. ‘Could it be him who broke in last night?''

‘It's possible. Did you report it to the police?'

‘Yes, and someone came and checked it out, but we've heard nothing since.'

‘Hmm. There's nothing in his background to show that he'd have any knowledge of chemistry, so if it was him I'd say he's working for someone else.'

Beth nodded. ‘Someone who does have that knowledge.'

‘Exactly.'

Elly sighed as she remembered the days and weeks she and her father had worked together on the project. Times when they had sometimes worked late into the night. Sometimes with her mother, but often just the two of them. One after another of the combinations they'd tried, and still he'd not been fully satisfied. A perfectionist, he was convinced he was close to finding the ultimate elixir. The fountain of youth. And they were so close. She sat up straighter and pushed her cup aside, her lips set in a determined line. No way was she going to stand aside now and let someone else, some thief, reap the benefits of Rob Cooper's expertise and tenacity. No way.

‘So
we
need to find the plant before
they
do,' she declared.

‘If you can't continue without it, yes. But it could take years, the way we're going. And you have to accept the possibility we may never find it.' Mitchell's expression was sober. ‘I don't want to hold out false hopes for you.'

Elly knew he spoke honestly, but she shook her head. ‘I'm not giving up.' She took a deep breath. ‘I'm going to call Della's niece, see if the daughter's back yet. I'm tired of waiting.'

Picking up her phone she scrolled through the contacts until she found the niece's number, and made the call. After a few words she clicked it off and dropped it back on to the table as disappointment seeped through her, and shook her head.

‘No, she's not back yet. And she's not even sure if she will be back. Sometimes she disappears for years.'

Beth set her lips. ‘We can't give up yet,' she said firmly. ‘I want to continue looking. I have faith that we will find it.'

Mitchell took a slow breath. ‘All right. I'll keep going.'

‘In the meantime, Elly—' she turned to her daughter, ‘—you need to see what you can do with the formula you have left in the bowl that you had put away. It's more important than ever to keep ahead of whoever has taken jar number twenty-three. We don't know what they might be able to do with the formula that was in it.'

Chapter 19

Carl Evert greeted Greg effusively as he opened the door to him. ‘So, you've managed to come up with the goods, have you?' he asked, eyeing the bag he was carrying as he entered the room.

‘I certainly have,' Greg replied, striding to the table. ‘At great personal risk and expense, I might add,' he told him, opening the bag and extracting the two jars and placing them on the table with a flourish. ‘Here you have the final two jars of formula Rob Cooper was working with before he died.'

‘How did you get them?' Carl asked.

‘Don't ask. But it cost me plenty. Now all you have to do is analyse them and come up with the goods, and neither of us will ever have to worry about money again.'

‘You make it sound simple. It's going to take a lot of work, you know. And time.'

‘How long?'

‘It all depends.'

‘On what?'

‘On how smoothly it all goes.'

Greg frowned. ‘You've already got all his notes, and now you've got the formula itself. What more could you want?'

‘I'll have to analyse both jars, work out exactly what's in them, and try to duplicate the plant components with chemicals.'

‘Well, you're a chemist. That's what chemists do, isn't it?'

‘Providing I can obtain the elements, yes. And providing the results are as good as we hope.'

Greg huffed. ‘For Christ's sake, you sound like a bloody lawyer. Just get on with it, don't stand there making excuses.'

‘I just hope it's as good as we want it to be. I don't want to do all this and find it doesn't work. I was hoping to see some test results on what he'd done.'

‘Then you'd better give some of this to Marie to test. She has a beauty salon, it shouldn't be a problem.'

‘No, of course not. But I don't really want to part with any of this …'

‘For God's sake,' Greg exploded, ‘give her half the bloody stuff to try out now, the jars are big enough, and get on with your part of it.'

‘All right, keep your shirt on, I'm as anxious as you are. But I'm the one who has to do the work …'

‘And I'm the one who took the risk to get it for you. I'll give you a month, and then I'll expect results. So move it along, partner.'

‘All right, all right! I'll give her half to try.'

‘Good.'

With that Greg left, and Carl picked up the phone and called his wife.

It was three days later that Marie came bounding into their office, brandishing a magnifying glass.

‘Whatever you're doing, stop,' she commanded Carl, her voice high with excitement. ‘I want you to take a look at this.'

Carl looked up from his work with a frown. ‘What now? What do you want me to look at?'

‘My eyes.' She held out the glass to him.

Slowly he rose from his chair and took the glass. ‘Why would I want to look at your eyes? I've seen them every day for the last twenty years.'

‘It's the lines
around
my eyes. Just look.'

He raised the glass and peered through it. ‘I can't see any lines,' he told her, lowering the glass.

‘That's just it. There aren't any. And there were three days ago. Oh, they weren't very deep, I grant you, but they were there, and now they're gone. It's a bloody miracle, I tell you.'

‘Is this with using the serum?'

‘Of course. Three days I've been using it, night and morning, and this is a better result than I could get with a laser or any of the other equipment.'

Carl sat down quickly, taking a sharp breath. ‘Impressive.'

‘I tell you, if I can incorporate this into a treatment, and sell a course of them, I can virtually charge whatever I want. And then there'll be the take-home products as well, once you can produce large quantities. I tell you, the sky's the limit.' She pulled at her bottom lip.

‘But first I have to devise a first-rate treatment. And then I'll need to do a proper trial on a client. Someone with deep lines, to show how good it is, and someone with plenty of money, because I'm going to charge them plenty.'