Floored (37 page)

He knocked, called out to ask her what she wanted to eat. She came to the door and said she wasn’t hungry. He could appreciate that. He went to the phone and ordered a burger. Thought about ringing back and ordering Cait one as well. But then the light under the door went out and so did his incentive to try feeding her. He took a shower. He ate the burger when it arrived and flicked around the channels on the TV. He kept the sound low in case it bled through to her room. Nothing caught his attention. It kept wandering to the mirror image room next door. She’d be curled up in there exhausted and anxious while he was in here frustrated and restless.

Get used to it, mate
. This is what you signed up for. Days of keeping her safe both from anyone who thought about hurting her, and your own warped desire to shake her to death and hug her to back to life.

He checked the window twice more before he tried to sleep and then it was stop-start till sunlight filtered in through the curtains. The further they got from Perth the better he’d feel about not being ambushed. Stud’s text indicated Wacker was still in the city and it made sense he’d stay to bail Johno and Grumble; still, it hadn’t make for a restful night.

He called room service and ordered them both breakfast. He had to sweet talk the kitchen staff because he’d forgotten to fill out one of those door hang things. When it arrived he knocked on the connecting door. He wouldn’t go in—he’d hand her the tray. When she didn’t answer he listened to see if she was under the shower again. Nope. Which meant she was ignoring him. He wrapped the toast in a serviette and packed the yoghurt and the apple with a teaspoon he stole. He didn’t want her passing out on him.

He checked out and packed the car before he knocked for her. The follow car team was ready to pull out a discreet distance behind them and then scout ahead. No answer. Now he was getting pissed off. He checked his watch. He’d said eight and it was only seven forty-five, so maybe she was deliberately making him wait. He cooled his heels another couple of minute before it dawned on him, he was angry with her, not the other way around. Why would she ignore him? Then he panicked. But before he could do anything with the flood of aggression David was tapping him on the shoulder. “We’ve got her.”

“What the fuck do you mean?”

“Look, she’s here.”

He followed David’s eye line. Cait was coming along the street front at a furious pace, running like she wanted to forget she was human.

He turned on David, furious. “You didn’t have her.”

“We did. Look.”

He swung back around and on the other side of the street clocked another runner. Obviously one of their crew.

“She nearly got away on us. You could’ve told us she ran, Sean.”

“I told her not to leave the room.” He’d be telling her a whole lot more than that. He broke away from David as she approached.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

Her steps faltered and she stopped well back from him. She glanced at her watch. “I only need five minutes to shower. I’m not late. I won’t hold us up.”

“I told you not to leave the room. Do you have any idea how stupid what you just did was? We had this discussion. But since you still don’t seem to get it, let me spell it out to you in terms you can understand. You fucked with some very dangerous people. They will want to fuck with you. I can’t keep you safe—not even with help,” he gestured to the Land Cruiser, “if you don’t do exactly what I tell you.” The colour left her cheeks. He hoped he was scaring her, but he didn’t like how it made him feel—like shit. He didn’t like how he’d felt unplugged from the earth when he thought she was gone either. He ran his hand through his hair. “Christ, Cait, you can’t go off on your own.”

He couldn’t keep yelling at her in the middle of the car park. He turned his back on her and walked across to the Land Cruiser. He hadn’t intended to tell her they had an escort. He figured she’d been freaked out enough already. Obviously not if she thought it was no issue to ignore him and go wandering off. That wasn’t happening again and to make it clear he’d enforce it. He gave David’s team very fucking clear instructions and to punctuate his point they all heard the low down dirty, throaty rumble of a Harley. The rider was a grey nomad joyriding his grandkid. The collective out-breath when it passed was audible. Still it was enough to have Sean take a bite out of his own heart.

When Cait came out of her room he was waiting in the car. She was right on time, wet hair and eyes that wouldn’t meet his. She’d reverted to those crappy clothes she’d bought at Target, the shapeless jeans and baggy tee. He’d done that to her; made her retreat from him in every way possible, right down to her choice of outfit. But if it made her listen to him and kept her safe it was worth it.

Then she opened the back door and got in and he swallowed that piece of heart. Not only had he frightened her and made her pull back inside herself, he’d done it deliberately, because he wanted to punish her for breaking something in him.

He didn’t trust himself to speak because there was no way his anger wasn’t going to come romping through. It was better to just drive. But then he remembered her breakfast.

“Cait.”

Her eyes came up, met his in the rear view. Her brow was pinched with tension.

“I saved you some breakfast.” He scooped up the yoghurt and spoon and held it out so she could reach between the seats and take it. “There’s cold toast and an apple too. We can stop on the other side of town and get you a coffee.”

When she didn’t reach for the yoghurt he waggled it. “You have to eat.” She still didn’t take it. He risked a quick look behind him. She was huddled into the seat, arms folded, eyes down. “I’m sorry I shouted at you.”

“No, you’re not.”

He checked the mirror. Annoyed eyes looked back. He was sorry, but he could see why a simple apology might not cut it.

“You enjoyed that thoroughly. But it’s okay. I’ve got the message now. I won’t make your job any harder for you than it has to be. I knew about the other car. I figured they’d shadow me. I thought that’s what they were there for. I’ll defer to you for all instructions on how I should behave until we get to Sydney.”

Sean wasn’t sure what disturbed him more about what she said. That she’d picked up on the existence of the follow car, or the hard-edged sarcasm in her tone when she talked about deferring to him.
Well, fuck
. This was his show and she would need to defer to him. If she’d done that earlier and not fronted at Bold Park things would be different now. She’d be free and he’d be one step closer to bringing Wacker and the Pariah network down instead of worrying about being tracked by them.

“I didn’t enjoy it.” She was looking out the window. She should at least know that. “Cait, I didn’t enjoy it.”

She ignored him. He’d have driven past the last coffee stop if he didn’t need one badly himself. When he invited her upfront she politely declined. But she did accept the flat white. He dialled Pete Murray up and drove. The plan was to skip through Eucla and hit Ceduna tonight. A long day at the wheel, longer than Cait would’ve liked, but these were his rules now. Having control should’ve made him quietly happy, especially given the circumstances. It made him edgy. There was no reason to keep checking the back seat. It’s not like she was going to dematerialise, but that’s what he kept doing. Endlessly, needlessly, even when it was clear she’d dropped off. Especially when she’d dropped off, he could watch her without getting caught out. There were dark smudges under her eyes and even though she was breathing easily in sleep she was frowning and there was tension along the line of her jaw.

She woke when he stopped at Eucla to fill up and grab food. Their conversation was politely functional: “Would you like coffee?” “I’ll get more water for the cooler bag.” “Yes, please, I’d like a coke.” “No, thanks I’ll stay where I am.”

Back on the road, the follow car became the advance car and shot past them and Sean settled in for the rest of the drive. This totally blew. He and Cait had never been purely functional, not from the beginning; they’d always had a spark of something between them, plain brown wrapper interest if nothing else. Now there was barely eye contact and not enough spark to light a paper bag. It was as though all that heat between them had burned out to ash.

A couple of hours in and the silence was gnawing a hole in his head, but what did she want from him? Apparently nothing. Nothing at all. Except the sex. She’d definitely wanted that. Even if it took a while for her to warm up to the idea, but once she’d warmed up,
Jesus, Mary and Joseph
, he’d never felt anything like it before. What they’d done together, how it made him feel. He needed to stop thinking about it because it was distracting the driver. So much so he nearly missed the dog.

“Hey, did you see that?” He checked the rear-view, then the driver’s side mirror. “That was a dog. I’m sure it was a dog.”

Cait unclipped her belt and was up on her knees looking out the back window. They were still roaring along at full speed, but he was sure he’d seen a dog, sitting at the side of the road. He slowed, pulled over and ueyed. A couple of clicks back there was the dog sitting at the edge of the tarmac in the dust. There wasn’t a car, a sign of life around. Just the dog. A filthy blue cattle dog. Black ears and patches over its eyes, black, grey and tan coat, all ribs and hipbones.

Sean ueyed again and pulled up next to it. He figured it would do a runner, but it watched, panting in the heat. Cait sat forward between the seats and they both watched the animal watch them.

“Would someone dump a dog out here?” she said.

“It must be lost, or hurt.” He unclipped his belt and got out. The dog whined and pawed the earth in front of him. It looked friendly enough. It looked starved. It could still do some damage if it attacked. “Stay in the car.” Waste of breath. She got out, but stood back at least.

He approached. “Hello, Blue. What’re you doing on your own out here?” More whining and a slow, cautious wag. “Are you going to lure me in then take a chunk out of me, Blue?” Like a certain female he knew, who’d come to stand beside him. He got down in a crouch, a hand held out for the dog to sniff.

It barked, once, twice and then went down on its haunches, head cocked, looking at them, tail doing that slow wag.

“Are you hurt, Blue? Shit, look at those ribs sticking out. Have we got anything it can drink from?”

He heard Cait pop the boot and rummage. She brought back the lid of the thermos and a bottle of water and handed them over. The dog started whimpering in earnest when it heard the water pour, and when Sean held out the lid, it drank with great gulps and sighs, but the lid made a poor bowl. He put it down and cupped his hands.

“Pour it in here.” Cait did, standing at his side and laughing when Blue went at the water like that was the last handful on earth.

He looked the dog over. “She’s either lost or got dumped. No collar. She’s been out here a while.”

“She?”

“Yep. We got anything she can eat?”

“Cold toast.”

“Yeah we could try that. She’s hungry enough she’ll eat anything.”

Cait brought out the toast and they watched as Blue devoured it. “We can’t leave her.”

He got off his haunches. “You want to take her with us?”

“God, yes. We can’t leave her in the middle of nowhere.”

He sighed. “I guess we could take her to Ceduna. See if anyone’s reported a missing dog.”

He was about to ask her how she felt about a dog in the car, but remembered it wasn’t her car anymore. Cait was back at the boot. She took her gym towel out and spread it on the back seat. Obviously she was fine with it. Blue watched with a lolling tongue and a cocked head. The dog hadn’t taken a step, and maybe it wouldn’t and he wasn’t going to wrestle with it.

“Who’d leave a dog like this?” she said, disgust in her voice. She patted her thigh. The dog stood. “Look at that.”

“She likes you.”

Cait was focused on Blue and the dog on her. “Come on girl, in you go.” She did. That desperately filthy bag of bones got up, trotted to the car and jumped in the back seat, settling on the towel like she knew exactly what was expected of her.

“Good girl!” Cait was elated. Her smile was huge and it felt like smack on the back of the head. The mongrel got her laughter now. He was fucking jealous of a fucking abandoned fleabag dog. But since Cait got in the front seat, maybe that wasn’t so bad.

39: Pizza

She shouldn’t have left her room. She knew it. It was stupid and thoughtless. Not to mention dangerous and absolutely inspired to make Sean lose it. So it was no surprise he had. But even knowing that, having him shout at her was a shock.

She had no idea what came over her. But it was a close relation to the same feeling that infected her standing in her designer kitchen looking into the open safe after watching Justin and Detective Martin enjoying each other in her bed.

Some switch in her brain flipped and the only course of action she was capable of taking was the very worst one available. It’d lead to her take the money and run decision, and this morning it had led to putting herself in danger and freaking Sean out for no good reason. As if she needed to feel any more ashamed, any more indebted to the people around her who were mopping up her mess.

She’d just needed to run. To go to that place in her head where all that mattered was the next breath in and the next breath out. She didn’t think she’d get through another day in the car with Sean, feeling frozen from the ice wall he’d built between them, if she couldn’t run. The cops in the other car knew what she was doing, but still it was a truly stupid thing to do and she felt scalded by the knowledge she’d caused even more trouble.

Sean had enjoyed dressing her down, despite saying he was sorry, because if he was truly sorry he’d have shown it. All he showed was how finished they were, how he regretted they’d ever started.

Which provided not one ounce of justification for why she’d given him lip then sulked. Somehow it was easier to want to fight with him than to acknowledge how she’d brought this all on herself in the first place. That was screwed up.