Tell the Truth (28 page)

TWENTY-EIGHT

T
he address was a luxury apartment complex in Rhodes, with views of the city to the east and over the Parramatta River to the north.

‘I'm talking to security there now,' Dennis said on speakerphone as Ella drove, her foot hard on the pedal. ‘There's no answer in his apartment, but they're checking the car park for his car, and the CCTV as well.'

The sun was low and filled the car with an orange light. Ella could feel the tension in her jaw, her whole body. Cars were slow to move, not seeing her lights or hearing her siren until the last moment. ‘He must've had a bug in Rowan's place too,' she said. ‘To have heard him telling Imogen when he was going to Playland.' She braked hard and swerved around one inattentive driver and squeezed the wheel in frustration.

‘You realise we're no good if we're dead,' Murray said.

At the address, a young Indian woman in black pants and jacket, a radio in her hand, waited on the footpath. A marked car pulled up right behind them.

‘I'm Naseem Habib, duty security supervisor,' the woman told Ella and Murray. ‘We didn't find Mr Durham's car, but in his space in the underground car park there's a blue Holden with a child seat in the back. I just spoke to your boss and gave him the numberplate. He said it belongs to a Mr Rowan Wylie.'

‘The child seat's empty?' Ella said.

Habib nodded.

‘Any blood in the car?'

‘Not that is visible.'

‘What sort of access is there to the apartment?'

‘I'll show you.'

*

Rowan sat with his back against the wall and his arms tight around Emelia. She'd settled, thank goodness, and was playing with his keys. Her screaming had agitated James and that was the last thing in the world Rowan wanted.

‘Just tell me the truth,' James said again. He knelt facing Stacey, who sat against the wall like Rowan, three metres further along.

When Rowan had been forced in here, Emelia wailing in James's arms as he held the knife to her chest, he'd initially felt relief at seeing Stacey, even though she was pale and bound and gagged, with a bandaged foot, and then terror at the entire situation. James had clearly lost it, and they were trapped in here with him.

‘I have,' Stacey said. ‘Rowan has nothing to do with it. I wanted him to save Gomez, that's all. I knew you wouldn't just dump him somewhere. I knew you'd want him to be adopted so he'd forget all about me.'

Rowan tried to catch her eye, but she didn't look his way. Around her lay strips of the duct tape James had torn from her mouth and her limbs. To Rowan it looked like he was hoping she might make a break for it so he'd have a reason to stab her.

‘That's the truth,' she said to James, ‘so you should let them go. This is just you and me.'

James dug the tip of the knife into the carpet. Rip, rip went the fibres on the blade. ‘The thing is, I don't think that is the truth. So they can't go.'

Rowan went over the dimensions of the empty apartment once more. Three metres between him and Stacey. Four more to the glass sliding doors to the balcony, which were closed and latched. A metre on his other side to the island bench, and another two past there to the door. James had locked it and put on the security chain.

‘It's the betrayal I can't stand,' James said.

‘It's your baby, not his,' Stacey said.

James's mobile rang again. Rowan had heard sirens, guessed they were gathering outside somewhere. James had raised his head at the first one but hadn't reacted since.

‘James,' he said.

‘You shut up.'

Rowan rubbed his cheek on Emelia's hair. He couldn't see how this would end. A drawn-out hostage situation, with SWAT officers swinging onto the balcony and firing tear gas into the room? He'd already tried to suggest that Stacey could take Emelia and leave, and the two of them would talk it through, but James had told him, like just now, to shut up.

‘I never cheated on you,'
Stacey
said. ‘I asked him to find Gomez because he's my friend.'

‘It doesn't make sense.' James ran the knifepoint back and forth, fraying up the carpet. ‘You see how it doesn't make any sense?'

The phone rang again. The noise was harsh and Emelia started to cry.

‘Shut her up,' James said.

‘She's hungry and scared,' Rowan said. ‘Is there any food in the cupboards?'

If James was annoyed enough by the sound to let him get up, he could rush the door. Let the cops in before James knew what was happening, before he could hurt Stacey.

‘There's nothing,' James said.

‘Let them go,' Stacey said. ‘This is about us. They don't need to be here.'

‘If you tell me the truth, you can all go,' James said.

‘I am,' Stacey said.

Rowan shushed Emelia, nibbled her cheek with tiny kisses. She turned into his chest and put her hot arms around his neck.

‘I gave you everything,' James said. ‘I worked so hard.'

‘Stealing other people's money,' Stacey said.

‘You were going to get the life you always wanted – the island house, the walks at sunrise and sunset. We'd eat seafood every day and swim, and lie on the sand. We wouldn't have to work. We'd just be.'

‘That's not the life I want at all.'

‘It is. You told me on the honeymoon how much you wished you could stay there forever.'

‘Something I said in the moment is not me stating my life's ambition. Honeymoons aren't reality. I want to work, I love my job. I want kids. I want my family around me. I've tried to tell you all this, but you don't hear me. I don't want to live on an island where it's just us, and I don't want anyone to lose their life savings because you're trying to give that to me.'

‘Nobody lost their life savings,' he snapped. ‘If it wasn't me, it would've been someone else. It happens all the time; the banks even factor it in. And it's not like I'm gambling or drinking it away.'

‘That doesn't make it okay.'

Rowan wanted to tell Stacey not to provoke him, to say whatever he wanted to hear. If she really was pregnant, they both had children to get out alive.

Someone knocked at the door.

*

‘James, it's Detective Marconi. Can you come to the door and talk to me, please?'

Ella waited. Either side of her, Murray and Sid Lawson and Marion Pilsiger and four uniformed officers waited. SWAT were on their way, and paramedics with their gear were gathering in the stairwell.

The third-floor apartment faced the river, so there was no view into the place. They'd gained access to the apartments either side, but there was no way to get from one balcony to the next without ropes. Nothing could be heard through the walls. Once SWAT got there with all their equipment, things would be different, but for now all they had were their voices.

‘James, I just want to talk, and make sure everyone's okay. You don't even have to open the door.'

There was no response.

*

Rowan was sweating. Emelia was quiet, occupied with pulling all the cards and receipts out of his wallet, but James looked like he was getting angrier.

‘If you're telling the truth,' he said to Stacey, when the voice outside stopped, ‘that means you want to leave me.'

God
, Rowan thought.
Say no. Say whatever he wants to hear. Just get us out of this room
.

‘That's right,' Stacey said.

‘But I gave you everything.'

‘It's not about that. We want different things out of life. That's all.'

‘That's all?' He dragged the blade across the carpet. ‘You went off the pill. You put yourself in this situation. You made me do all this.'

‘I fell pregnant when I was taking it,' she said. ‘It happens, and it happened to us. I stopped taking it once I knew, but I didn't go behind your back.'

More knocking on the door. Emelia dropped the wallet and started to cry.

‘Just shut up! Everyone shut up!' James shouted.

His voice rang off the walls of the empty apartment. Emelia cried harder. Rowan tried to muffle her face against him, but she fought to push him away. James screwed up his face and looked like he was about to scream.

‘You know they'll kill you,' Stacey said through the noise. ‘If you hurt us, you won't get out of here alive. So what are you going to do?'

‘Shut up,' James said.

‘They're all outside,' Stacey said. ‘Probably about to come through those glass doors too.'

‘Shut up, shut up.'

Rowan shook his head, trying to catch her eye.

‘What did you think would happen?' she went on. ‘We'd live happily ever after?'

‘I thought you'd tell me the fucking truth,' he said.

‘And then what? Huh?'

At the look on James's face, Rowan put Emelia on the floor and tried to tuck her behind him.

‘We'd fix it and live happily ever after, just like you said.' James stood up. ‘But now you say you want out. So where does that leave me?'

‘In jail.'
Stacey
got awkwardly to her feet, pushing off the wall, hopping to keep the weight off her injured foot. ‘And for even longer after this little stunt.'

Emelia wailed.

‘Shut up!' James said.

‘Hey,' Stacey said. ‘Don't look at them, look at me. Your problem's with me, remember? Because you know what? I'm the one who sent the anonymous note to the cops. I knew you were up to something and I wanted them to find out.' She took a limping step sideways, towards the balcony. ‘You let it slip, just like you let slip that you were glad when I lost the baby.'

Another step. Rowan realised she was drawing James's attention, drawing him away. The police were right at the door. If he could get to it and let them in quickly enough . . .

‘I knew you'd guess I hadn't really been abducted,' she said. ‘I knew that when Rowan saw the car he'd ring you, and you'd ring the bank. I knew what that would look like to the police. I knew you'd pull dramatic shit like going to The Gap.'

‘Sit down,' James said.

‘No.' She kept moving.

James looked from her to Rowan and back again. ‘Sit the fuck down!'

‘No.' She took another step, then stumbled and grabbed the handles of the sliding doors.

Before James could move, Rowan was on his feet, scooping Emelia up and running for the entry door. Emelia was screaming, and James was shouting, and Rowan scrabbled at the chain and turned the locks with slick fingers and a hammering heart.

‘Go, go, go, go, go,' he found himself saying as he was bustled out and away, cops grabbing his arms and taking Emelia's screeching weight, while more cops poured inside.

*

Ella and Murray rushed in past Rowan and his wailing granddaughter with their weapons drawn. Stacey and James were fighting at the glass doors that led onto the balcony. They screamed at each other, and then the latch gave way and one of them, she couldn't tell who, shoved the door open. She saw the knife in James's hand, envisaged a close-up hostage situation, his back to the wall, the knife at Stacey's throat.

‘Drop it,' she shouted.

He looked up.

‘I told you,' Stacey said to him.

Ella saw in his eyes that he was trying to decide what to do. ‘Just put it down. That's all you have to do. Let it go.'

He looked at her, a thought
in his eyes that
she couldn't read.

He let go of the knife. It fell with a clink on the balcony tiles. Ella started towards him, but he grabbed Stacey's arm and lunged for the wall. Stacey shoved him and threw herself on the balcony floor, and he lost his grip, then Ella saw him grasp the top of the wall as if to leap over.

She launched herself at him. Her hands slipped off his waist, off his jeans, as he went over the wall, then locked around one leg. He kicked, caught on top of the wall, and she stumbled against Stacey, who was trying to get up. Ella felt something tear loose in the old injury in her shoulder, then he kicked again, and as Murray came racing out to help, she lost her grip and James fell.

Murray ran for the door. ‘He jumped. Send the paramedics down there.'

Ella looked over the wall. James lay on the grass, unmoving.

‘Is he dead?' Stacey said in a small voice.

‘I don't know.' Ella crouched beside her, her shoulder throbbing. ‘Are you okay?'

In the fading light, Stacey looked ashen, even corpse-like. Her skin was cool and as dry as paper. She seemed hardly able to stay sitting upright.

‘Get paramedics in here,' Ella shouted.

When they had her lying down, on oxygen, and were setting up to give her fluid, Ella stepped back, cradling her bad arm with her good.

‘Hey, look,' Murray said. ‘I bet that's what the psychic was warning you about. She knew that'd happen.'

‘Don't be a moron. If she knew, why didn't she tell us the address instead? Then we could've been waiting for him.'

Murray shrugged. ‘I'm just saying.'

She looked over the balcony wall again. James was moving in the centre of a huddle of paramedics. One was trying to get him to lie still. Police were gathering, and she saw Detective Sid Lawson give her a huge and cheerful thumbs up.
We got him!

‘He's alive,' she said.

‘Wet ground,' one of the paramedics on the balcony said. ‘All that rain recently – makes for a soft landing.'

Ella saw James look up towards her.

‘Tell her she'll have to visit me in jail,' he cried. ‘She'll have to bring the kid and visit me whenever I want. I'm still alive, and I'm never going to die. She's mine forever.'

Stacey was crying. ‘I know that's his voice, but what's he saying? I can't hear from down here.'

Ella shook her head. ‘Nothing but nonsense.'