Floored (33 page)

“You know this has to happen, Sean.”

He kept his voice low and steady, though his brain was screaming. “I know you think it will.”

“I’m ready.”

Stud turned and blocked his view of Cait, but his gut tightened at the sight of Tracy with a t-shirt he’d left over a chair held in front of her otherwise naked torso with her one good arm. He stepped around Stud and his whole body clenched. Cait wore Tracy’s knee high boots over her own fitted black running skins and Tracy’s white shirt, one undone button short of her waist. No bra and her hair was loose and curling around her face. She was painting her lips a bright red, half a wary eye on him in the mirror. She was utterly transformed. She looked more rock chick than biker in her improvised outfit, didn’t matter, there was absolutely no frigging chance she was leaving this room looking that way.

“That works,” said Stud and he followed it up with, “Tracy, sit down before you fall down,” while multitasking with a body block that stopped him getting to Cait’s side.

If it came to an official report, Sean would call what he did next a shove. Make it sound like how he dealt with Stud was no worse than what happened everyday to people boarding a late-running, crowded train during peak hour at Town Hall station.

Stud would call it assault.

It would’ve been a more serious scuffle if Cait hadn’t put herself too close to them, close enough to be hit with a flying elbow or a charging shoulder.

“Isn’t there a deadline we have to meet?”

Her tone, her presence, stopped them and they both backed off. Stud with a hand to his jaw, already reddening.

“I’m ready. But I’m scared.”

“That’s the appropriate response, love. You don’t make eye contact with anyone, other than Fetch. If anything happens you look for me. I’ll be somewhere you can see me.”

“This is not happening.” All he had to do was get Cait to back off. She’d do it for him if he could manipulate her into thinking it was her idea.

“Sean, how many times has that guy beaten you till you couldn’t piss standing up? I’m not giving Stephen Wackenheim one more reason to be suspicious about you. This whole thing is a giant risk, but we can manage it. I will put myself and the lives of the team outside in between Cait and any danger. But you need to make this happen.”

Cait hadn’t needed to hear that. He reached for her, but she stepped back.

“I want to do this. I understand the risks. I want to help.”

“Your woman has more guts than you, slugger.”

He focused in on Cait. Nothing Stud could do short of knocking him out was going to distract him now. “You’re not helping, Caity. I won’t be able to think straight.”

She came to him, both her hands to his chest, under his vest, cool against his skin. She was completely steady, only the creases at the edge of her eyes gave away her tension. “Fetch was always twitchy. You protected me once. You can do it again now.”

“This is not the same as what happened in Sydney. Let this go. It’s a bad idea. Let it go for me.”

She shook her head. “I get to make this call myself. I understand what I’m doing.”

“You don’t. You think this is a game.” He wanted to shake her hard to make her give this up. “You’re putting us both in danger.” He was running out of options and out of time. The door opened, the ambulance was here. “I’m asking you not to do this.”

She put her hand to his face as though that softness would make up for the disaster about to unfold. “I’m making my own decision.”

He set her back from him. She’d left him no alternative. “I’m telling you no.”

Her mouth flat-lined, her eyes narrowed. Frustration and anger warred in her face, and he knew he’d lost this round with those four words more than with any other tactic he’d tried.

Stud was all over the moment. “Sean, the only way this is not happening is for you to hand in your badge right now.”

He was all over Stud. Nose to nose, chest bumping his chest. “You watch her like she’s your own wife. Anything goes wrong and she gets hurt I will come for you so hard Mrs Stud’ll have to identify you from your dental records.”

“I hear you. Now stand down.”

He backed off. He felt cornered and surprised his feet were still on the carpet. He was so tense he might’ve been levitating. A paramedic entered the room and went to Tracy. Outside a car roared to life.

Cait tucked herself under his arm and he hugged her close. “Ever been on the back of a bike?” He watched her face. She thought about lying, then shook her head. This got better and better. “Stick to me like skin. You hang onto my back and you don’t make a move I don’t make. When we get there you stay with the bike. Anything bad happens you go with him.” He looked to Stud, briefly wondered how much he’d put the other man offside. He took a deep breath and tried to steady himself. He had the twenty minute ride across town and into Bold Park to settle back into Fetch’s skin.

Cait’s eyes popped when she saw the bike. “That’s what you came off when you hurt your knee? It’s no wonder you limped.”

He pulled her into his body. “I don’t fucking like this.” She threw her arms around his neck and he kissed her hard, like he’d kissed Tracy back when she was Trinity, and her body jerked in his arms. Now she belonged to Fetch too. “I’m going to do that to you when they’re watching. You need to play rough with me, baby. Can you do that?”

She was breathless. She nodded. He sighed and turned to mount the bike and hold it steady for her to climb on and she slapped him hard across his butt. He heard Stud laugh in the earpiece he wore and he swung his head back to look at her. Up went her chin and she smiled like she had no idea she was about to ride into a battle with a soldier who had the shakes.

She hugged so close, on an ordinary night he might’ve forgotten she was there. But this was no ordinary, this was a freak show. He could hear Stud in the follow car, co-ordinating their surveillance. In the daytime the park would’ve been an ideal place to contain, at night it was fraught. Any car would be heard. Any jogger at midnight suspiciously out of place.

Approaching the park he knew there’d be a least three bikes and two cars in the lot. One was surveillance. Supposedly broken down. Two undercover officers would be tinkering under the hood. The other car was being traced. People used this part of the park at night to go bat watching. The intelligence sounding in Sean’s ear told him Wacker had arrived and stood with four other men about twenty metres from the lot. Twenty metres would give Cait good cover in the amber-coloured safety lighting of the car park. That was a break. He’d pull up as close to the surveillance car as possible without crowding them. But four men and only three bikes. Was someone riding pillion? Neither Toddy, Johno or Grumble were the type. Maybe good old Fetch’s replacement was along for the party and without his own wheels, or someone came in the car. Stud ran the plate, it was a hire car. He’d have to get someone out of bed before they knew who it was hired to.

He slowed at the turn and cruised into the car park, pretending they weren’t the centre of attention, every attraction under the big top all rolled into one. He could see Wacker, Johno and Grumble, the fourth man was hidden from view.

He parked four spaces over from the surveillance car and helped Cait with the helmet he’d insisted she wear. She shook out her hair. He opened the pannier on the back of the bike, fished his earpiece out and dumped it inside. He took the cake tin out and put it down on the tarmac, carelessly, as though he didn’t know it held eighty thousand dollars. Then he went to Cait took a handful of her hair and pulled her head around to kiss her. Back in the room he’d sensed her reaction when he’d told Stud he loved her. He wanted to tell her properly, privately, in his last pure moments as Sean.

“Cait…” She didn’t let him finish, both hands going to his skull, her tongue in his mouth. She knew. He hauled her off the bike and backed her into the pole of a No Standing sign. The hooting and whistling should have been his signal to stop, but fuck, the risk, the woman, the adrenaline. He dragged her leg to his hip and ground into her pubic bone, all the while devouring her as she did him. Wacker’s hollered obscenities brought him back. He pulled away, panting heavily. Distraction achieved in more ways than one. Her hands were in his back pockets. Her head kicked back as she braced against him. He licked a line up her breastbone and neck to her ear. “Thank you.” He couldn’t risk more words. She shuddered and he stepped away. This was it. Showtime.

When he swooped down to pick up the cake tin he got his first clear look at the fourth man. Not a Black Pariah member. Not wearing colours. Not one of them. The car driver. He fixed a foolish grin on his face and a swagger in his step as he approached the men.

Before he got level, Wacker shouted, “Rumour has it you’re a cop, Fetch.”

He faltered, watched Wacker carefully. It was easy to telegraph insecurity because it was real, but the belly-busting laughter that came out of Johno and Grumble gave him back his bluster.

“Nah, Wack.”

“You’re too stupid to be a spy, Fetch. But apparently not too stupid to steal my money and follow me to Perth. Is it all there?”

“Yeah, Wack. It’s all there. I never touched it.” Strictly speaking someone in Stud’s team had done the touching. He let his eyes flit from Wacker to Johno and Grumble. He got a grunt from Johno and a backslap that made him take a step forward from Grumble. He used that to position himself so he could see Cait. She was back on the bike, her head down, eyes hidden.
Good girl
. He moved his eyes to the fourth man. He wasn’t going to get an introduction, so they have to ID him from photo surveillance.

Wacker took the tin from his hand. “You better not be lying to me.”

“No Wack. I ain’t.”

“Then what’ve you been living on? Maisey’s little slut cos took your moolah.”

He grinned and inclined his head towards Cait. The men laughed their approval.

The fourth man spoke. “What’s her name?”

“Abby.” His mum’s name and so much more fitting than Trinity.

“Abby what?”

He bit back, Gail. So tempting. Instead he shrugged and got another round of laughs, another clap on the back, but the fourth man persisted. “You don’t know her surname?”

“Nah, man.” He gave the bloke a sour look.

“You really don’t know her surname?”

He stepped in to him. Got his face angled to see under the cap. Brown hair, brown eyes, classically handsome face, early thirties, well educated, woody aftershave. He was dressed down, but his clothing was designer label. “What’s it to you?”

“Ease off, Fetch.” That from Wacker, from behind him.

He stepped back, but grunted his annoyance. Who was this dude? Wacker was mildly respectful towards him, yet he wasn’t a gang member.

The bloke addressed Wacker. “I want more information on the woman.”

“She’s fluff, ain’t she, Fetch? Just a wallet.” That got a rumble of laughter but the man didn’t join in.

He took the chance to glance at Cait, eyes still down, hair partly obscuring her face. Stud was now talking to the two cops at the car. He swung an empty dog leash in his hand. There was a lot going on for a park at midnight.

“You can’t know what he told her.”

“He doesn’t know anything that can hurt us.”

The man pointed to the tin. “He had that. She saw it.”

“He brought it back like the good little boy he is.” Wacker’s voice took on a serrated edge. So he was deferential but only to a point.

The other man was cruising into aggravation. “That’s it. He takes off with eighty G and you let him walk back in without a word.”

“Did I say it was going to be that easy?” Sean saw the hand signal and tensed. Grumble had him in a chokehold. Last thing he wanted was to lose consciousness. First thing he wanted was the attention pulled off Cait. He struggled but only for show, letting Grumble hold him fast. Now all he could see was trees, bats in the sky and colour haze as his breathing constricted. He heard the bloke say. “I want to talk to her.” He’d been worried he’d be defending Cait from Wacker, not this ring-in.

He gasped, “Fuck off,” and Grumble wrenched him sideways to shut him up and then released him suddenly so he staggered, pain slicing through his neck. This was why he hadn’t wanted her here.

“Bring her over, Fetch.”

He stared at Wacker and the other man’s eye narrowed. He was too aggressive, out of character, giving things away. Wacker’s ugly mug split into a grin. “You like this slag eh, Fetch. Go get her.”

“Leave her out, Wack. She’s done nothin’.” He needed to think of a way to stop this.

“That’d be my place to say, eh.”

The or else was implied by the way Grumble cracked his knuckles. Fetch had always been the team no-hoper, the one who existed for the sport of the others. He could use that. He charged Grumble, hitting him shoulder to thighs. Crashing him backwards. They hit the ground with a thud and the echoed sounds of laugher and cheers. He let Grumble roll him over; hurt him with his fists, with a headbutt. The others were close in on them, he saw boots: steelcap, army, but not the kind of footwear the new bloke would wear. He needed to see where he was. He took a punch to the stomach and broke free, scrambling to his feet, coughing.

The bloke was halfway across the grass to the bike—to Cait, and her face registered shock, fear, and something else.
Recognition
. He bolted. She knew this bloke and he knew her. Stud moved away from the car, in position. Behind him Wacker roared for Fetch to stop. Too late, he was on the bloke, standing in front of him, shoving him backwards away from Cait. He could still save this.

He towered over this guy. Got right up is face. “Fuck off away from her.” The guy’s eyes widened, but he pushed back. “I know her.”

“You don’t fucking know her.”

“I do.”

Bearing down on the bloke, he couldn’t see Cait. “Keep the fuck away from her. She’s mine.”

The bloke stepped back and Sean had a moment to think this was going to be all right, and then the bloke yelled her name. Her real name. And the night cracked in half and splashed them all with insanity.

36: Trust