Blood Sport (46 page)

“Dammit, Tessie,” she complained softly. “You’ve made me blubber like an Oscar winner and you know I fucking
hate
that.”

“I’m so sorry, Fiona,” I rued, and then spent the next ten minutes saying the same thing to everyone who spoke to me. I’d been in the shower for so long that most of the people who were at the house when I’d arrived back had since drifted off, or more likely had been ordered back to Big Town. That was fine by me, because it had been too crowded and simply too much to handle. But the ones who remained were those most difficult to face. After I thanked and hugged everyone (even Bum), I looked around, missing an important person.

“Where’s the Sarge?” I asked.

Chapter 27

He was in the kitchen preparing some food for me, his profile stony and grimly unapproachable. He chopped an onion with unwarranted and reckless passion, his expensive Japanese knife wielded with much skill but even more anger. I stood in the doorway watching him for a few moments, unsure of what my greeting would be, concerned for the safety of his fingers.

He glanced up from chopping and noticed me, his blue eyes even darker than normal. His face was drawn with tiredness and anxiety and his clothes were crumpled as if he’d only managed to catch a few hours sleep while still wearing them.

“I’m home. Safe and sound,” I said brightly, the illusion of lightheartedness spoiled by my voice wobbling with unexpected nerves.

He turned his head back to the food on the bench and threw down the knife with little care for its well-honed edge. He slammed his palms flat on the bench and stood staring down at those onions, his chest heaving, chin set harder than granite.

Oh dear
, I thought.
He’s more than a little angry with me.

He twisted his head sideways to look at me again, but remained silent.

“I’m so sorry,” I said quietly, voice barely above a whisper.

He stalked over to me and grasped me by the upper arms with no regard for my wounds. I gasped in pain, staring up at him.

“Why didn’t you tell me what you were doing?” he demanded through clenched teeth, his lips barely moving.

I didn’t know what to say and continued to look up at him, mute. I had no defence. I could easily have picked up the phone instead of leaving him such an uninformative note.

“
Why?
” he bellowed into my face. I flinched backwards, but he only tightened his grasp on me. I yelped in pain. “I thought we were a team.”

“We are,” I managed to squeak, faintness washing over me. I needed food and I needed painkillers. And I didn’t really care which came first, but if they didn’t come soon I didn’t know what would happen. My legs started shaking again.

“No, we’re not! In a team, people communicate with each other. They don’t go off alone on stupid missions, putting themselves into incredible danger.” He was more upset than I’d ever imagined, but I couldn’t think straight. I couldn’t remember all the reasons I’d come up with to rationalise my actions.

All I could say again was, “I’m sorry.”

“You think that saying
sorry
makes up for everything I’ve . . . we’ve all been through? Really? Is that all you have to say, Tess?”

I did something completely out of character then – I burst into tears.

He looked away, still gripping me tightly, then looked back. “God! Tess, don’t do that. Stop. Don’t cry. Please.”

“I’m so hungry,” I sobbed out in a watery voice.

Despite himself, he laughed softly. “Of course you are.” He wrapped me in his arms and we embraced for a long time. And I was surprised to find myself hugging him as tightly as he was hugging me.

“You can’t imagine what we’ve all been through,” he said in a low voice in my ear, stroking my hair. “Not knowing where you were or even if you were still alive. We’ve all been to hell and back a thousand times.”

“I’m so sorry,” I repeated quietly and more calmly, my head resting on his shoulder. My muscles felt like jelly and I wasn’t sure how much longer I could keep standing. “I never meant to worry anyone.”

“I learned something very important yesterday,” he said, pushing me away slightly and looking down.

I looked up at him. “What’s that?”

“That you’re a terrible troublemaker who causes me no end of grief.”

I managed to smile. “You already knew that.”

“True, but I learned something even more important this morning.”

“What?”

“That you’re worth every bit of that grief.”

I smiled again. “You already knew that too.”

He smiled back at me briefly, his emotions still too raw to let it go completely. He wiped away the tears on my cheeks with his thumb. “You don’t cry.”

“Who said I’m crying? That’s just the onion juice wafting over to my eyes.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, I guess I better keep cooking for you.”

“Yeah, you better. I’m
starving
! I hope you’re cooking –”

“Hold on!” interrupted a familiar voice. “You can’t eat anything until I’ve given you the once over.” It was Dr Fenn, the prison doctor.

I groaned. “But I’m
so
hungry! I haven’t eaten anything since Wednesday night.”

“I don’t care. That poor girl looks as though she hasn’t eaten for longer than that and I’m not going to let her have anything either.”

“Is she awake?”

“On and off. She’s very traumatised. Some of her injuries are . . .” He shook his head sadly. “Well, I shudder to imagine what she’s been through.” He patted me on the shoulder. “Tess, no matter what anyone else says to you today, and no matter how much trouble you get into, you did the right thing. She’s just a kid.”

I was touched by that. “Thanks Doc. That’s really nice of you.” I pulled a hangdog face. “Can you tell the Super that for me too?”

He barked with laughter. “Come into the bedroom so I can check you over.” He took my hand. “My God, your skin’s like ice still.” He turned to the Sarge. “She needs more clothes – a big jacket or a blanket or something.”

The doctor led me into my bedroom and tried to close the door on everyone who’d followed us. The Super pushed it open and slipped in, disregarding the doctor’s glare and shutting the door in Mr X’s face. Kylie was lying on the bed, snugly wrapped in a pile of blankets, an electric blanket on top, its cord snaking down to the powerpoint. Her tiny face peeped through the cocoon, her eyes shut. She looked young and vulnerable, ugly bruising vivid against her unhealthy pallor.

“She’s stabilised now, so stop worrying about her for a second and lie down on the other side of the bed,” he ordered. I did as I told, patiently waiting while he ran the usual checks on me, snapping out questions the entire time. The Super watched as he did, taking a few notes when she thought I’d shared something significant about my exploits.

“You’re both hypothermic,” the doctor explained. “Not severe enough for medical intervention though. You’re lucky that the cloud cover is keeping temperatures higher than normal at the moment. If it had been below zero last night, you both would have been in a lot of trouble.”

He splinted my finger for me, felt the back of my head gently, disinfected my scratches and the self-inflicted knife wounds on my wrists and palms. Tutting over my previous wounds, he decided that they wouldn’t need further attention and questioned me carefully about the drug with which Kylie and I had been injected. I really wasn’t able to tell him anything about it, except that it was colourless and was delivered by syringe.

He scoffed rudely at my observational skills, a knock at the door breaking him off mid-sarcastic comment. It was the paramedics. He discussed with them the important details about Kylie and they busied themselves hooking her up to a portable IV, wrapping her in thermal blankets and transferring her to a gurney.

“You can get in the ambulance too,” the doctor ordered.

“I’m not going anywhere,” I responded, heading back to the kitchen. I wasn’t kidding when I’d said I was starving. I was ready to start gnawing on one of my own limbs.

“Tessie, you need to spend the day in hospital for observation. You’ve been drugged by an unknown substance. There could be some after-effects,” he insisted.

I paused at the bedroom door. “I’ll call you if there are,” I said, smiling at him sweetly.

He snorted. “I’m not your personal physician, you know. I have a job and it’s a very busy one even without factoring in you.”

“I’ll make sure someone’s with her all the time,” the Super promised as I pouted at him. “She’s staying at my place tonight and after that will be with Jake all weekend.”

He gave in good-naturedly, recognising two stubborn women when he met them. He patted me gently on the cheek as he left. “You take care now, missy. And don’t forget to ring Jake. He’s been going insane with worry at work.”

I turned to the Super in dismay. “You didn’t tell Jakey, did you? God! What about Dad? Did you tell him too? He’ll be frantic.”

“Tess,” she said sharply. “We couldn’t keep your disappearance quiet. For a start, Maguire rang every person in this town when he realised that the patrol car was gone and you weren’t responding to his phone calls or the car radio.
Of course
he fucking rang Trev and Jake. He was desperate to find out where you were. Don’t blame him for that.”

“No ma’am, of course I wouldn’t,” I said, surprised. She had just stuck up for the Sarge.

“That man . . .” She shook her head, seemingly lost for words. “I accused him of caring for you too much, but now I’m glad if that’s true. He hasn’t rested for a second looking for you this last twenty-four hours.”

“I told you he was a good man, Fiona.”

She sighed heavily and rubbed her eyes. “I’m getting too old for this all-nighter shit. I’m completely fucking shattered.”

My guilt compounded. “I better ring Dad and Jakey and let them know I’m okay.” I pushed her towards the kitchen as we spoke. I loved to chat, but I needed to eat.

“Maguire took care of that while you were in the shower. Everyone’s up-to-date.”

I gladly sank onto one of the kitchen chairs, hoping for a quiet moment to eat. But every other chair filled up with curious people, and it became clear that I was going to have an audience while I ate. Martin himself was sitting at the head of the table, blissfully sipping on a coffee, enjoying the excitement of the morning. The others were throwing him curious glances, not knowing who he was or why he was there. For a bunch of detectives they weren’t too good at establishing basic facts.

The Sarge abandoned his cooking to pull me upwards again by the arm. He draped a huge puffy skiing jacket over my shoulders, helping my arms through the armholes, zipping me up, pulling the hood over my head and adjusting it. When he was satisfied, he tweaked me on the nose and pushed down on my shoulder gently. I assumed that meant I could resume my seat. It was hard to move in the bulky jacket – I felt like Kenny from
South Park
. Including the part about everyone trying to kill me.

He didn’t keep me waiting and placed some steaming porridge in front of me, with brown sugar and milk, my favourite way. I smiled up at him and stirred it before spooning it into my mouth greedily. He then placed a mug of coffee and a glass of orange juice on the table. I swiftly scoffed and slurped everything down, refusing to answer anyone’s questions while I ate. When I’d finished everything, I looked over at him imploringly, hoping like hell there was more.

He didn’t fail me, placing a perfect omelette in front of me. Stomach somewhat appeased, I told them everything that had happened to me while I ate that. The Super, Mr X and Zelda scribbled furiously in their notepads as I spoke. The Sarge sat frowning, watching me closely, his arms crossed. Martin was entranced as if I was telling him a fairy tale at bedtime. Bum sat with concentrated attention that seemed impressively intelligent on first glance, but I could see different muscles on his body moving and I think he was exercising as he sat there, his mind fully concentrated on tensing and relaxing different muscle groups. It was quite distracting and the others had to keep prompting me to continue when my focus wandered over his way again.

I took them through my discovery of Kylie’s identity, my frantic late night tip-off, my experiences in the bikie retreat and the consequent tramp home from Mountain Road. Of course they were very interested in the skull that I’d seen, but everyone agreed nothing could be done about that until the rain stopped.

I had a good two minute rant about the Bad Samaritans in the silver station wagon who had not stopped to help us. The Sarge asked me if I’d caught their number plate. I had, and innocently told him. Later I learned that he and Fiona tracked down the couple from interstate who owned that car. Fiona had rung them up and berated them mercilessly about their lack of human decency, until the woman was crying and the man angrily threatening to report her to her superiors. I understand at that point she suggested that he do something to himself that was not only physically impossible but morally undesirable, before hanging up on him. No complaint was ever lodged.

When I’d finished saying everything I wanted to say, I directed a question myself.

“Why didn’t you come after me at the bikie retreat?” I asked, twisting my head to look over the Sarge as he washed up at the sink. “I left you a note telling you where I was.”