Right As Rain (34 page)

“Your mum is,” Adam replied. “He has her wrapped around his little finger.”

“He's been misleading people about his relationship with Mackenna too,” Hugh said.

“What does that mean?”Adam looked from Hugh to Mackenna.

“It's only gossip,” she said.

“It becomes gospel quickly with some people,” Hugh said.

“So back to my plan.” Mackenna tapped the table again. “Cam's slack with his work but always seems to shift the blame elsewhere. That's annoying but it's not illegal.”

“He gossips by the sound of it,” Adam said.

Mackenna glanced at him. “Once again not illegal.”

“Do you want to get rid of him?” Hugh asked.

“There's no point in having a working man I can't trust.”

“Cam has been selling things at the pub but we've no proof they're stolen.” Hugh held up a finger. “I saw him dropping things off at his mate's place but we don't know they weren't his.” Hugh held up another finger. “He takes your truck on long trips that don't seem to be related to your farm.” He raised a third finger. “That's three strikes but none of them can call him out.”

Mackenna bolted upright. “Yes,” she said. “Garry Finn said he thought he'd seen Cam before. He reckons Cam was carting for the farm where Garry and his team were crutching, out the other side of Naracoorte.”

“What does that mean?”Adam asked.

“He's driving our truck to do jobs for other people.”

“And I'd be guessing he's charging them cash to do it and filling up at your diesel tank,” Hugh said.

“How am I going to catch him out?” Mackenna pushed back her chair and started pacing the floor. “I need a plan.” It was all very well to say it but she was no closer to working out what. She thought about the truck. It was the best bet. Everything else was too tricky, but if he was doing jobs for other people in the Woolly Swamp truck . . . She patted her chest with her hand.

“What's the matter?”Adam asked.

“Nothing.” She pulled her notebook out of her shirt pocket, flipped through the pages and stared at the numbers she'd scribbled there.

“What is it?” Hugh asked.

“The odometer reading for the truck.” She waved the little book at them. “I'll keep jotting it down. Next time he drives it I'll be able to tell if he's done the job we asked him to. If he's doing another job for someone else there will be a whole lot of extra kilometres.”

“He'll have an excuse for it,”Adam said. “He's got a smooth tongue.”

“Not if I've followed him and watched what he's up to,” Mackenna said. “Then I can talk to whoever he does the delivery for.”

“Hang on a minute.” Adam's face was serious. “Cam thinks he's getting away with stuff now. You don't know how he might react if he's cornered.”

“Adam's right.” Hugh pitched in. “He'll get cagey if he notices you. We need a person he won't recognise if he sees them.”

“Who's that going to be?” Mackenna put her hands on her hips.

“And you'll need a vehicle,” Hugh said.

“Or a bike.”

They both looked at Adam.

“He knows you, though,” Hugh said.

“But a guy on a bike under a helmet could be anyone.” Mackenna grinned. “And I don't think he even knows you're here.”

“Not unless you've mentioned it,” Adam said. “I've only been out of the house for our trip to town yesterday.”

“He doesn't know you're here.” Mackenna said it with such conviction both men studied her.

“It's just a feeling I get.” She shrugged her shoulders. “The things he says. He thinks we're alone on the property.”

“I don't like the sound of that,” Hugh said.

Adam's chair scraped across the floor. “Neither do I.”

“Perhaps we should be visible.” Hugh stood up, too. “So he knows you're not alone.”

Mackenna glanced from one to the other. She covered her unease with a laugh. “For goodness sake, you two, you look like you're about to arrange a shoot-out at high noon.”

Adam slipped an arm around her. “I don't like the idea of that creep making eyes at you.”

“I can handle Cam.” She gave Adam a quick kiss. “Besides, he might not know you're here but I do.”

“My cue to leave, I think,” Hugh said. He shook Adam's hand. “Thanks for the meal.”

Mackenna gave Hugh a hug. “Thanks for coming.”

“You take care,” he said with a pointed look.

They waved him off and began to clear up the dishes.

“Maybe I should put in an appearance tomorrow,” Adam said. “Let Cam know I'm here.”

“No,” Mackenna said quickly.

Adam's eyebrows shot up.

“I don't want him to know yet. I like coming home to you with no-one else around.” She threw her arms around his neck, kissed him then leant back to look into his eyes. “And you can cook.”

“That's why you've got me locked up here, as your slave.”

She pulled his head closer so their lips were nearly touching.

“There are other benefits,” she said.

“Is that so?”

His deep brown eyes smouldered. She felt his arms tighten around her and then she was lost in his kiss.

“You want me to do the abattoir run with those sheep for the restaurants?”

Mackenna was on her knees checking the seeder. She pulled herself upright and turned to face Cam.

“Have you finished all the troughs?” she asked. She glanced at her watch. He hadn't been gone that long.

“I don't waste time,” he said. “They're all done.”

She held his gaze a moment. His look dared her to call him a liar. She shrugged her shoulders. “I was going to go to the abattoir myself. . .” She hesitated. If Cam was off doing that job, Adam could come with her to shift some sheep without the risk that Cam might see him. “Okay, thanks. They're in the yard behind the shearing shed.”

She watched him walk away then returned to checking the seeder hoses. Smiling to herself as she imagined Adam by her side for the afternoon. She forgot all about Cam until she heard the truck. She jumped up to see what he was doing.

The truck was pulling up beside the diesel tank. The very tank she'd just had refilled. She hurried over. Her carefully selected sheep were penned in a corner of the tray.

“Why are you taking the truck?”

Cam lifted his head at the sound of her voice.

“The trailer had a flat tyre.” He grinned and flicked his eyes over her. “I'll change it tomorrow.”

Mackenna clamped her lips shut. She'd been about to tell him he had plenty of time to change a tyre when she suddenly realised this might be their opportunity to see what else he got up to.

“Okay,” she said.

“I might stay in town again tonight.” He hooked the fuel hose back on the tank and stepped closer to her. “That's if you think you'll be okay on your own?”

“Of course I am,” she snapped.

He smirked and climbed into the truck.

As soon as he started moving she dashed back to the ute and followed him down the drive. She pulled in at the Gatehouse. Adam was already at the door with his helmet.

“I assume Cam's going somewhere in the truck?” he said.

“The abattoirs. It's quite a distance but he may have plans for afterwards. He doesn't normally volunteer to do that run. He should be taking the trailer but he reckons a tyre's flat. There's no rush,” she said. “I'll show you a different way to get there. You'll be able to watch from a distance to see where he heads afterwards.”

Adam studied her rough map and asked a few questions then they walked out to where they'd stashed his bike out of sight yesterday.

She put a hand on his arm as he threw his leg over the bike. He smiled, leant over and kissed her. “I'll be fine,” he said. “If I'm not back by dinnertime you're the chef tonight.”

He pulled on his helmet and kicked the bike into life.

She waved as he rode away. Once again she listened as the bike slowed at the gate, revved and then roared out onto the road. Only when she could no longer hear him did she move.

“Not back by dinnertime,” she murmured. She hadn't thought past Adam following Cam. What if Cam went somewhere a long way off? Adam could be gone late into the night. He didn't know his way around the district. If he did see Cam doing jobs for other people, what then?

They hadn't really thought this through properly.

She walked back to the sheds. The dogs met her, King keeping a discreet distance but Prince dancing in front of her, eager for attention. She patted them both and glanced towards the crumbling stone shed behind them. It was a leftover from the original days of the farm and full of relics from the past and drums of bits and pieces that often came in handy when something needed fixing. It was her dad's Aladdin's cave, but it also housed the trailer.

Mackenna stepped inside. The pup still played at her feet, stirring up the musty smell of the dirt floor. She waited for her eyes to adjust to the gloom. Sure enough, one tyre was flat as a tack. She poked it with the tip of her boot then bent down to take a good look. It probably had a nail or a bit of wire in it. She stepped back and the pup yelped as she caught his foot under her boot. She jerked away and banged her face into a bit of pipe jutting out from a drum of spare parts. Her teeth jarred together. She groaned and put her hand to her cheek. She shoved the pipe away with her free hand and glared back at the trailer. There was nothing strange about a flat tyre, it was just convenient for him if he had been planning to use the truck all along.

She pressed her hand to her throbbing cheek and went back to the seeder. Prince kept a mindful step away. Mackenna replayed the times Cam had driven the truck and come back late or the next day. None of it had seemed odd until now. If he did work for other people, she'd need proof. Hopefully Adam would get close enough to take a few pictures with his phone. She'd be happier to confront Cam if she had a bit more evidence that he was actually using Woolly Swamp's truck to do cash jobs.

Garry had been sure Cam was the bloke he'd seen driving the truck. She should have thought to find out who that farmer was.

Mackenna snapped her fingers. “Garry! That's it.”

King lifted his head to look at her and Prince began dancing in circles again. If she got the name of the bloke Garry had been working for, she could ask him outright. Pretend she was looking for someone to do a carting job for cash and see what he said.

She took her notebook from her pocket.

“Damn!” she muttered. She hadn't made a note of the truck's odometer. Still, it hadn't been used since she jotted the last reading. That would still be a good indication. She took out her phone to ring Garry.

Adam pulled up on the side of the road and watched the trail of dust made by the truck as it turned off the bitumen. Now it would be tricky to follow. While they were on main roads he could have been anyone travelling the same direction but this road was dirt, which would make the bike much more obvious. The sign named it Shaggy Rise Road. The part he could see was straight with very little vegetation.

He wasn't sure what to do. It had been easy to watch Cam as he delivered the sheep to the abattoirs. Another bloke had met him there and they'd gone on together in the truck. Adam had followed them to a town called Penola, where they'd taken a road towards Millicent and then turned off at this point. Where he was in relation to Woolly Swamp he had no idea.

He did have a phone, however. He unzipped his jacket. The new phone had more apps than he knew how to use. At least with a map he might be able to get a rough idea of the area he was in. He reached into his top pocket but his phone wasn't there. He searched his jeans then sank back onto his bike. He remembered exactly where it was. He'd been sitting at Mackenna's table about to call his mother when he'd heard the truck coming. In his hurry to grab his helmet he'd left the phone on the table.

On the side road the dust had cleared and there was no longer any sign of the truck. The sun was getting low on the horizon. It would be dark in a few hours. There was nothing for it but to keep going. He edged forward. With one last look around, he turned on to Shaggy Rise Road.

After a couple of kilometres, what had started out as a straight road changed into a sweeping bend around a rocky outcrop and low bushes, then it swung back the other way. It continued its winding course and every now and then Adam caught sight of some dust in the distance. He assumed he was still following Cam in the truck.

He came to a property entrance. He slowed and peered ahead. Trees blocked his view of the track. To his left the road continued on with its telltale dust cloud. He kept going. After a few more kilometres he came to another tree-lined entrance to a farm. A sign declaring it to be Shaggy Rise was nailed to the rails beside the open gate and underneath in smaller print was the name A. & A. Bennett.

Once again Adam slowed. He looked along the road but there was no dust. Perhaps Shaggy Rise was Cam's destination. There was little vegetation around other than some clumps of trees and bushes along the driveway. Adam rode in, turned off his bike and rolled it behind the thickest of the bushes. It was exposed to the paddock behind but would be out of sight from anyone using the driveway.

He hooked his helmet over the handle and waited. He couldn't see the house, but ahead there were bigger trees and he could see assorted roofs and a television tower poking through. If he walked up the driveway he would be visible for all to see. If he didn't, he wouldn't be able to find out what Cam was doing.

The bleats of sheep and a dog's bark pressed him into motion. If sheep were being loaded on the truck, he guessed there wouldn't be anyone watching the driveway. He decided walking briskly was the best option. That way, if anyone saw him, he could say he was lost and looking for directions.