The Delta Chain (15 page)

She went through to the kitchen. ‘Smells
incredibly good,’ she said.

He turned away from the stove, where several
pots smouldered, rich with the aromas of vegetables and stewed
meats, and placed his arms around her tiny waist. He drew her near.
‘So do you.’ His lips touched hers, lightly at first, causing
sparks to ignite at the base of her spine, then spreading and
unleashing the warmth to her loins. As his mouth pressed harder
against hers, he lifted her skirt above her thighs and his hands
explored the soft white skin there. Her breath came in short, sharp
gasps. ‘Hardly the time…or the place…’

‘With you, it’s always the time and place,’
he said, trailing kisses from her cheeks and down along her
neckline.

‘The meal…’

‘Won’t be ready for thirty minutes.’

‘Since when is thirty minutes enough for
you?’

‘Just consider it a teaser.’

Later they lay exhausted, tenderly caressing
each other’s thighs and buttocks. ‘We should have brought some wine
in with us,’ Stephen said.

‘You’ve got a meal to check on and I need to
visit the little girls’ room.’

Minutes later she came out of the bathroom as
Stephen was heading toward the kitchen in T-shirt and boxer shorts.
‘Slip something on and come to dinner,’ he said, turning in the
doorway to look back at her. ‘But I wouldn’t bother putting
too
much on.’

She pursed her lips at him seductively.

He disappeared into the kitchen as she paused
by the open door of his study. She glanced in at the tiny room,
noticing the laptop and printer on his desk, surrounded by sheets
of paper. Melanie gave way to a momentary stab of curiosity and
tiptoed over to take a peek at what he’d been working on. He was
always boasting about his work whilst being secretive about the
details, something that both amused and often irritated her.

The printout she was staring at was covered
in rows and rows of numbers. There must have been thousands of
numerals on that page, closely spaced. Across the top she read:
10/9 – 5
^TH
revision, G sequence, modified data. Class:
Experimental – simulations.

It meant absolutely nothing to her, no reason
why it should, but she was struck all of a sudden by a devious and
delicious thought: there were a number of pages, similar in
appearance, plus there were a number of pages in the bin by the
desk. A paper shredder stood over in the corner. Chances were,
Stephen would never know this particular page was missing, he may
think it hadn’t printed, or he may think he’d already shredded it.
Either way he wouldn’t suspect Melanie of having taken it. She had
no reason to.

But in fact she did. The germ of an idea was
turning over in her mind.

She dashed through to her lover’s bedroom and
stashed the sheet of paper in her handbag, and then slipped into a
pair of panties and a bra.

Without missing a beat she joined him in the
dining alcove, her smile mischievous, eyes sultry, shapely hips
swaying with seductive intent.

James Reardon arrived in Northern Rocks at
4.30 that afternoon and went straight into a lengthy meeting with
Westmeyer and Donnelly. The meeting ran longer than expected so he
buzzed Kate and told her to go home, he’d call by her place later.
He was staying at the Colonial, the town’s plushest hotel.

Kate hadn’t been home long when Reardon
arrived. She’d always marvelled at how her young boss never lost
his composure. After a long, busy day, a flight and an intense
meeting, James was as vital as though he was just starting his day.
If this quality had a visual side, Kate imagined, it would manifest
itself as slivers of electrical current that sparked from his every
touch. The man was a live wire.

Despite being late thirties, Reardon exuded a
boyish enthusiasm. An easy-going bachelor, he was passionate about
his company, and it was in his wide-eyed love of the cyber world
that he retained something of the nerd he claimed once to have
been.

‘You were right about Westmeyer,’ he said,
stretching his arms and legs, then easing down onto her sofa. He
placed his hands behind his head as he settled back. ‘He’s a self
important man and he needed to see the head of his IT service
company –
moi
-make a personal appearance and get
involved.’

‘Long meeting. I guess he did most of the
talking.’

‘You know him well.’

‘That’s William.’ Then, on a more serious
note: ‘James, there’s some things I need to discuss with you about
this virus.’ Earlier she’d agreed with Betty it was too soon to
raise her suspicions. However, the discrepancy with the design
plans had changed her mind.

Reardon held up his hand in ‘stop’ motion.
‘We’ll do that tomorrow, Kate. Right now I’m absolutely wasted,
couldn’t take in another piece of information.’

‘I thought you could go on forever.’

He grinned. ‘Don’t go pulling that super CEO
stuff on me. I’ve been on the go since four this morning.’

‘Four?’

‘Yes, four. I need sleep. One thing I will
tell you, though, is that Westmeyer is, quite rightly, pissed off
over this on-going problem. He doesn’t blame us – or you – but if
we can’t solve it quickly he’s going to bring in someone else…’

‘No one else is going to solve it
quicker.’

‘Westmeyer accepts that for the moment, but
only for the moment.’

‘How about Donnelly?’

‘Oh yeah. Him. What’s his problem?’

‘Nothing. Being negative and antagonistic is
just his sweet, natural self.’

‘The guy sucks.’

‘Tell me about it.’ They both laughed.

‘Tomorrow I’ll review the case history so
far,’ Reardon said, ‘and I’ve already started formulating some new
ideas on how we tackle the problem from this point on.’

‘How long will you be here?’

‘At least a couple of days. Don’t worry, this
virus is more complicated than we expected but we’ll beat it.’

‘I know.’

‘Good – well, a soft bed at the Colonial
beckons.’

‘I’ve heard it’s very nice there.’

‘I’m so bushed I probably wouldn’t notice
either way.’ He headed for the door. He was reaching for the
doorknob when the buzzer rang. ‘Company?’

‘That’ll be Adam,’ Kate said. She released
the security lock and Adam came up from outside. Kate introduced
him to James. ‘At least stay and have a coffee with me and Adam,’
Kate suggested.

Reardon winced. ‘No caffeine. I want to
sleep, remember? Make it tea.’

Adam and James made small talk while Kate
went into the kitchen.

Adam had heard a great deal about the
A.B.C.S. chief from Kate but he hadn’t really formed a mental image
of him. He might have expected a serious looking, bespectacled
businessman, conservatively dressed, but that wasn’t the man before
him now. James’s dress was smart but casual – open necked sports
shirt, designer jeans, polished black boots. He had a strong jaw
and prominent white teeth, real pearly whites that gave Adam a
fleeting image of the early Bee Gees. He wasn’t handsome in a
conventional way: he had an interesting, expressive face that
quickly and fluidly matched his enthusiasm on certain subjects. His
eyes, though, were intense and dark brown and he had just a trace
of fashionable stubble across his chin.

When Adam enquired how A.B.C.S. was doing
commercially, Reardon excitedly explained how the business had been
expanding, with clients in South Pacific regions and in the U.S.,
contracting their specially tailored software packages and
soliciting their consulting staff to short term projects. ‘In fact,
I first consulted to Westmeyer when he was in Florida. When William
moved the operation out here he contracted us to design a whole new
computer network. Things were going great until this blasted virus
reared its head.’

In his detective work, Adam came across
corporate chiefs from time to time. For the most part he’d found
them to be self absorbed, arrogant men. Westmeyer was like that.
James Reardon didn’t strike Adam as having those characteristics.
He came across more like a vintage cars enthusiast.

Adam sensed it was this eccentric charm and
intelligence that gave Reardon his winning edge in business.

Reardon, in turn, was just as interested in
hearing from Adam about a typical day in the life of a detective
sergeant. Adam, who’d never found it easy talking about himself or
his work, found himself opening up, as he did with Kate.

He briefly sketched in his background,
joining the local station after his training at the Police Academy,
progressing from probationary to senior constable, attending
detective school, his stint as a junior detective in a city
suburban centre, then his posting back to Northern Rocks as the
solo detective sergeant.

Kate returned with a tray of tea and coffee
just as the phone on her wall began ringing.

Adam’s eyes followed her to the phone,
watching as she picked up the receiver.

She listened.

She sucked in a sudden breath of air, an
exclamation of shock escaping her lips. Adam’s words to Reardon
trailed away, as Reardon too turned his gaze toward her.

Adam knew, from the horror in her eyes and
the bewilderment on her face that this was no ordinary, everyday
piece of bad news. He sensed, in that instant, that everything was
about to change.

For Kate, the next twenty-four hours were an
emotional whirlwind. Grief, disbelief, anxiety, confusion and anger
mixed together to form an explosive cocktail – but the fuse to
light it was drained away, her energy consumed and depleted by the
sheer enormity of the tragedy.

‘Ms. Kovacs, it’s Harold Letterfield from the
Wildlife Conservation Commission. I’ve been trying to contact your
parents in Sydney for several hours but there’s been no answer.
They’re not away, to your knowledge, at the present time?’

‘No. I’m sure they’ll be back before long.’
Her words sounded strange to her ears. Calm. Distant. But her heart
began to pound – for some reason she knew what was coming. She
didn’t know how, she just knew.

‘Ms. Kovacs, I’m calling about Greg-’

‘Yes.’ She hadn’t waited for him to complete
the sentence. She felt certain she knew the words that were coming,
but she wanted to be proved wrong, prayed she was wrong. She
breathed heavily and was vaguely aware of Adam watching her as
James turned.

‘I’m terribly sorry to inform you that Greg
has passed away.’

She didn’t want those words, or this moment,
to be part of her life but she knew now they always would be –
frozen in time and imbedded in her consciousness, a vivid memory
that would always be there, part of her history, part of her life
story. Not Greg. Please, God, anything but that.
Not
Greg
…

There wasn’t a flight from the local airport
to the Northern Territory until later the following day. Even then,
Kate would need to catch a small four-seater to take her from the
Territory’s main centre, Alice Springs, and out to Settler’s
Gorge.

James Reardon wouldn’t hear of it. He
insisted on chartering a private aircraft to fly Kate straight to
Settler’s Gorge the following morning. He couldn’t go himself, but
Adam declared he was taking some time off to accompany her. Reardon
was glad of that. He also arranged another charter plane to collect
Kate's parents and younger sister and fly them in.

Kate had never been to an outback township
like Settler’s Gorge.

It was a large town covering a wide area.
This was because it had grown outward – not upwards, like the big
coastal cities. The absence of skyscrapers, and the similar heights
of many of the buildings and homes, gave it the appearance, from
the air, of a family of gnomes out in the rolling spaces.

The airfield was a large oval, a single
runway and a small cluster of buildings made of timber and fibro,
each with a tin roof. For some reason Kate had the unusual,
pointless thought that the shiny, reflective surface of those
rooftops must have been a distraction to approaching pilots.

She and Adam were met at the airfield by
Letterfield and Trish Watts. They were whisked away by chauffeured
car to the Wildlife Preservation HQ. Both Letterfield and Trish
offered their condolences, but said little else on the trip other
than to enquire how the flight had been and to report that the
charter from Sydney with Kate’s parents was expected later in the
day.

Kate found herself staring intently out the
window at the passing landscape. This was the place where her
brother had spent the last few years of his life, a place with
which he’d become totally familiar, which looked so…alien to her.
Newer buildings and houses stood alongside older dwellings and
overall the town had a colonial feel that belonged to an earlier
age. The streets were wide and framed by rows of trees that had
been allowed to grow and spread their branches. The foliage seemed
to rotate like great, green fans when rustled by breeze.

At HQ they went to the executive meeting
room. Kate was pleased to find it had a relaxed, informal feel. A
light morning tea was served.

‘It will take us all a long to time to learn
to cope with Greg’s passing,’ Letterfield said gently, ‘he was more
than just a work colleague, he was a good friend to everyone here.
Not to mention an outstanding ranger.’

‘The best,’ Trish Watts offered.

‘Greg loved his life here,’ Kate told them.
Adam’s hand reached instinctively for hers. ‘Do I need
to…identify…him,’ she stammered.

‘No need for you or your parents to be
concerned with that,’ Letterfield said. ‘We’ve made the necessary
ID.’