Marriage & the Mermaid (Hapless Heroes) (35 page)

“You
what?
“ Baz turned to face him.

“I can’t let you go, Mr Balthazar. I need to make amends.”

Baz was beyond confused, but Wynne was trying to push past him to get to Carlos.

“No,” she said urgently. “You don’t have to do this, Carlos. Please!”

Instinctively Baz held her back, frightened that Carlos might hurt her, but the big gardener merely shut the door in their faces and locked it from the outside.

His voice came muffled and disembodied through the thick timber door. “I have nothing here any more,” he said softly. “My duty is done. I must leave.”

“Carlos!” Wynne shoved past Baz and slammed a small hand on the timber door. “Stop. Listen to me.”

But the only answer from the other side was retreating footsteps before the garage grew quiet. Wynne turned to Baz, her face stricken, her mascara smeared down her cheeks. “He’s going to kill himself.”

Baz shook his head. “Why would he —”

“Just open the god damned door!” she shouted in his face.

Baz slammed a shoulder into it with no effect, then he turned to look for a screwdriver.

Chapter Forty–Three

B
etty crept away from the house, struggling with her heavy backpack. The silver cutlery had probably been overkill, but she’d been through a lot today. She deserved a reward, and this bag of booty would see her happily shoe–shopping in Melbourne for a month.

While Moore was off swimming, she intended to get as far away as possible. And with that purpose in mind, she crunched gravel underfoot, heading down the shadowed side of the house towards the back of the garage where the young spunk had hidden his shiny blue BMW convertible. Randolph Budjenski certainly wasn’t going anywhere in it, but Betty was, and as it came into view, sparkling like a pretty Christmas present in the moonlight, she felt like dancing in excitement. Only the backpack was too heavy, so she stopped beside the open–topped car and shrugged out of it, slipping it carefully onto the floor in the back.

She wriggled her shoulders to get the circulation back into them, then she reached into her handbag to retrieve the most important item she’d stolen today.

The convertible’s rotor.

But before she could gloat, a shadow came out of the cover of the trees beside her and the rotor disappeared from her hand. “I’ll have that,” he said.

She spun around and found herself facing the gun Ted had taken off her that afternoon. “Shit.”

“Good work, Miss Thief,” the young spunk said, his clothes sopping wet. “I was just starting to think I’d need to hitch a ride, and here you return my stolen car part —”

“
Your
car?”

“… plus a generous gift to recompense me for my wasted trip.” He nodded at her backpack.

“Like hell.” Betty hated being tricked. But deep inside a traitorous part of her admired his nerve. “What are you? Twenty?” she asked.

“Eighteen,” he replied and that surprised her, although a suit always did make a man look older. He went on, “You didn’t notice that the top was down and the car was dry inside? It rained an hour ago.”

She gave him a death stare but he only raised an eyebrow.

“And how were you going to start it without the keys?” he inquired. “Are you a car thief as well as a pick pocket?”

“Takes one,” she replied, undaunted. She’d never hot–wired a BMW, but give her ten minutes. She would have worked it out.

“Looks like you’ll be waiting for a ride with the police,” he said, gloating, and was opening his mouth to add to that when they both heard crunching on the gravel, headed their way.

Betty’s eyes flew wide. No point running. If it was Moore and he found the knapsack, he’d lock her up for sure. Her only saving grace would be the young spunk getting locked up with her. When he nodded at the car, Betty didn’t hesitate. Without a word they both dove in, Betty with the knapsack into the backseat and the elegant car thief into the front. Betty scrunched herself around the knapsack on the floor and tried to think
invisible
but her heart was pounding. She hated getaways, especially when they went wrong.

The footsteps approached the car and then stopped beside it. Betty felt like a five year old with her hands over her eyes, hoping no–one could see her.

“Miss Betty. Mr Randolph,” Carlos said, his voice oddly flat, as if he was making an observation rather than saying hello.

Betty opened one eye and turned to peek up at the big gardener.

“Are you both leaving?” he asked.

Randolph
cleared his throat. “That’s exactly what’s happening, Carlos. I was just leaving.”

“You dropping Miss Betty home?”

“Ah … yes.” There was more throat clearing as Randolph straightened and exited the car. “It’s late. I wouldn’t want her to get bogged and be alone out here in the dark.”

Betty had to smile. If any car was going to get bogged it was the convertible, but Carlos made no comment about that.

“I’ll just… check under the bonnet,” Randy–boy said, “and we’ll be on our way.”

“I has been good to make your acquaintance, Mr Randolph,” Carlos said formally.

Betty saw them shake hands.

“You too, Carlos. Thanks for… everything.”

“Miss Betty,” Carlos said and nodded to her.

She smiled back. Then she crawled across to the front passenger seat and strapped herself in.

Rand was behind the bonnet by this time, fitting the rotor, but when he dropped it shut again and saw her waiting in the front for him he closed his eyes in what she hoped was great exasperation.

“Carlos is watching,” she hissed. “Time to leave.”

“Pushy bitch.” He slipped into the driver’s seat and buckled himself in. “I swear I’m going to kill you and dump you in the bush.” He reached to the floor below his seat.

Betty turned the gun she’d found there over in her lap and pointed it in his direction. “We’ll see about that,” she said.

His eyes narrowed.

“Drive,” she told him. “Before the cops come out.”

He turned the car over and it purred like a turbocharged kitten. They both conjured a smile for Carlos as they pulled away, then they were alone together with the wind in their hair, the smell of wet bush around them and an odd wailing sound emanating from Randy’s side of the car.

She looked him up and down. “Are you making that noise?”

He sighed. “No, it’s Poss,” he said. “Blubbering fuckwit. I tried to shut off the vibrating while I was under the bonnet and I accidentally answered his call. If I ignore it he’ll hang up.”

They both listened to the completely infuriating whine for several minutes while Rand negotiated the snaking mud track. Then he snarled in frustration and reached into his jacket. The car slid on a turn and he snatched his hand back to the steering wheel.

Betty kept the gun in one hand and reached over with the other to extract the phone from his jacket.

“Up here,” he said and tilted his head.

She held it to his ear.

“Poss!” he shouted. “Shut up and listen.”

No change in the whining.

“I’m going to turn the phone off! I’m turning it off!”

Silence.

“Is he tiny?” she whispered.

“Fourteen,” Rand replied, then shrugged at her raised eyebrows before addressing the phone again. “Listen to me Poss. I’m coming home. You stay with Diamond Jack. Keep your bum against the wall if you have to. But stay there. I’ll be home by daybreak.”

Betty glanced at the road ahead, which was far more difficult to negotiate than she’d imagined, and she decided she liked his audacity. He smelt pretty good too.

“… don’t give a shit. I’ll sort it out tomorrow. Do as I tell you and no fuck ups, Poss.” He listened then while the boy moaned some complaint, then he said, “I said I’ll be home. We don’t need a
contingency
plan. Jeezus, what are you, the fucking State Emergency Service?”

Betty pulled the phone away from his ear and put it to hers. “Listen little boy,” she said. “Just shut up and do what your friend tells you to, or I’ll come over there and spank you good!” She terminated the call and put the phone into the car’s console.

Rand was smiling. He was seriously cute. “You’d make a good mother,” he said. “Can I take you home with me?”

“Let me guess, to Neverland? Not likely,” she replied, but she had to admit she was warming to his style, which was almost as outrageous as her own.

“I’ll let you keep your loot.”

“I’ve got the gun,” she reminded him.

“I pulled it out of the surf,” he replied, smugly. “It won’t fire.”

Betty tipped it up and water ran onto her lap. “Shit.”

“So, my place?” he said and glanced at her before returning his attention to the road.

“What’s in it for me?”

“What do you need?”

“Place to hide from the cops.”

“We don’t even blip on their radar,” he said. “If I drop this car back tomorrow it won’t be missed, and you’d be safe with us so long as you’re good to Poss,” he added.

“Can I fuck him?” Betty asked.

Rand laughed at that. “He’s not experienced —”

“Like you.”

Rand’s smile faded. “I’m taken,” he said categorically, “and experience is only as important as what it buys you.”

“Been there done that, eh?”

“I’ve done all the bad shit,” he admitted. “I don’t do it anymore.”

Betty smiled a secretive smile. “I like some of the bad shit,” she said.

Rand glanced at her sideways and she wanted to melt. “Naughty girl,” he said, with appreciation in his voice. “No drugs or prostitution. Those are my rules.”

“Then I’ll fit right in,” she said and tossed the soggy gun into the back seat before snuggling down against the plush leather and closing her eyes. A couple of seconds later she yawned. Housework was harder than she’d thought. No wonder she was tired.

“This trust thing,” he said, and she opened one eye to find him looking at her sideways again. “Do you think it can be learnt?”

“Nah.” She closed her eyes again. “You’ve either got it or you don’t.”

“So you trust me now?”

“Sure. I’m your Wendy. Peter always looks after Wendy.” She wriggled in the seat, her pink leather squeaking against the plush black. “Wake me when we get to Neverland,” she said. “Second star to the right and then …”
Yawn.
“ … straight on till morning.”

“I can pick ‘em,” Rand said and sighed.

Betty grinned as she drifted off to sleep.

Saturday

Chapter Forty–Four

L
iam Moore stood at the kitchen bench watching Baz Wilson and his fiancé share a bottle of whisky at the table. Traci Knowles sat beside them, still shell–shocked, with an untouched whisky in front of her. Despite the fact that Moore still had to drive back to Bundaberg, he had a glass in his hand too.

Dawn light drifted in the casement windows, competing with the overhead lights, and as Moore tossed back a swig he wished for nothing more than to take Traci back to his house and snuggle into bed with her, just holding her. She looked like she needed to be held, and God knew, he needed the sleep.

They hadn’t found old man Wilson body, and Moore doubted they ever would. For that, he felt sympathy for Baz.

But not for Waikeri who had organized the search for Ted Wilson then ostensibly gone ‘home’, only to be attended to by ambulance officers for suspected heart attack in his second cousin’s bed an hour later. Apparently the girl’s penchant for men ‘with meat on their bones’ had precipitated Waikeri’s gorge–fest, and when Waikeri’s ageing mother had found out, the shit had hit the proverbial. The big Maori would now be on a diet, and the girl’s husband was going to have something to say when his prawn trawler came back from Cairns.

Then there was the young thief Betty’s aunt coming by later with a spare set of keys and a new rotor to pick it up her VW bug. Betty herself was unaccounted for, much to the aunt’s dismay.
Her mother used to run off, but we’d had such hopes for Elizabeth,
she’d said.

Not any more. Well at least the sassy minx would be causing problems in someone else’s precinct, which was a blessing.

Moore tossed back the last swallow of his whisky. “We probably need to go,” he said.

Baz nodded. “I guess we’ve covered everything we can this morning,” he said. “If you need written statements we can do that later, can’t we?”

“Sure.” Moore had stayed as long as was respectful. It was time to leave. “I’m sorry about your father,” he said again.

Baz nodded, but his gaze unnerved Moore. It was raw and exposed, his eyes dark pools of hurt. “I want to feel sorry too,” he said softly, “but I don’t yet.” He nodded to himself. “Not sure I will.” Then he frowned and glance away.

Moore put his glass down on the table. “And you don’t want to press charges against the gardener for unlawful imprisonment?”

Wynne covered Baz’s hand with her own and they exchanged a glance before he shook his head. “Carlos was distraught,” he told Moore. “We all were.”

Moore nodded, but he was thinking
distraught
was a pale description of the big Spaniard’s condition when they’d pulled him from the water. Baz had met the launch and stayed with Carlos until the ambulance had arrived, then he’d organized to pay for any treatment Carlos might need.

One man had died and another had tried to kill himself, but Moore had nothing he could give his superiors except ‘secrets from the past revealed’.
Mermaid
wasn’t a word he was about to type into a report, so the Dalrymple girl had already left the premises as far as he was concerned. What he’d seen… Right now he was too tired and too bewildered to think about it. So he did the practical things, stepping around the table to hold out a hand out for Wilson to shake.

“Naturally we’ll ring if we find your father…” he said, but they all knew that wasn’t likely. The shark was nowhere to be found, although the QUT team had been tracking it towards the coastline off Saltwood when it had disappeared. Chances were it had snacked on old man Wilson on its way back to wherever it had come from, with the mermaid riding on its back for all he knew. He wasn’t a Bermuda Triangle sort of guy, but he’d heard people talking about ley lines off Bundaberg, and after what had happened in the last four days he was starting to think anything was possible.