Thin Blood (12 page)

Deciding to let
himself in, he clamped the mail between his teeth and fumbled in his trouser
pocket for the key. He unlocked the door, gave it a gentle push and stepped
inside. The doors leading to the dining room – or rather, Jacinta’s makeshift
office – and the bedroom were closed, leaving the hall in semi-darkness.

Puzzled, he
crept up to the first door and put his ear to it. When he didn’t hear anything,
he opened it wide enough to poke his head through. His nose twitched; the warm,
stuffy air inside was laced with an unfamiliar perfume. Light filtered through
the unlined calico curtains, giving the room a hazy feel.

His gaze swept
the room, taking in the dining table cluttered with various papers, newspapers
and magazines; the absence of the laptop was only made evident by the small
empty space it had left. Soft snoring sounds came from the daybed near the
window.

He opened the
door wider and crept into the room. A few steps in, he started, almost dropping
the flowers and the mail. The dark-haired head on the pillow was certainly not
the blonde one he had expected.

Backtracking, he
left quickly, shutting the door behind him. Feeling that perhaps he had landed
in some surreal video game, he took a deep breath and moved on to door number
two.

From behind it,
he heard light, irregular tapping. He opened the door a fraction, and saw
Jacinta sitting cross-legged on the bed, typing on her laptop. Grateful that he
had it right this time, he exhaled, his breath coming out in a loud huff.

Jacinta spun
around, her eyes wide. “Jesus, Brett! Scare me, why don’t you!” she hissed, her
voice a strangled whisper.

He went to speak
but she stopped him, placing her index finger to her lips and pointing at the
door. He stepped into the room, nudging the door closed behind him with his
foot.

“Please tell me
it’s not who I think it is in the other room.”

She explained
briefly what had happened. “What was I supposed to do? Turn her out on the
street?”

“No, but…” He
shook his head, knowing it was pointless to argue. Besides, what would he have
done in her place?

Jacinta cocked
an eyebrow, a small smile playing on her lips. With a jolt, he remembered the
roses in his hands. He stepped forward, proffering the cellophane and tissue
wrapped bouquet. With an impish grin, she accepted it, lifting the roses to her
face and inhaling.

Dropping down
onto the end of the bed, he angled his body to face her, setting the mail down
next to the laptop. “I guess this means any ideas I had about a romantic
evening for two are out of the question.”

Jacinta pursed
her lips. “Sorry, Brett,” she said, laying the flowers gently on the bed beside
her. “I didn’t plan on…” Distracted, she picked up the top piece of mail, a
white, hand-addressed envelope. She frowned and turned it over. The back was
blank and it wasn’t until she flipped it over again that she realised it had no
postage stamp.

She ripped the
envelope open, unfolded the contents and began to read. Her frown deepened, her
face becoming pale and pinched as she gripped the single sheet of lined paper.

Jacinta hadn’t
noticed the small card that had slipped from the letter as she opened it. Brett
picked it up to find he was holding a business card for Detective Inspector
Daniel Lassiter. What possible reason could the police have for writing to
Jacinta?

He glanced up in
time to see her screw the sheet of paper into a tight ball and hurl it at the
wall.

“Bastard!” she
screamed, her sleeping guest in the next room evidently forgotten.

Jacinta buried her face in her
hands, smothering another scream. Praying that their paths would never cross
hadn’t been enough. Daniel Lassiter was alive and well, married with two sons
and another on the way. He had been living in Victoria for eight years. In a
city the size of Melbourne, what were the odds of them both being in the same
place at the same time?

Emerging from
behind her hands, she glanced up to see Brett watching her, his eyebrows drawn
together in a mix of concern and confusion. She couldn’t skirt the issue any
longer. At the very least, she owed him some sort of explanation.

As she opened
her mouth to speak, he extended his hand, a business card pressed between his
thumb and forefinger. Her eyes darted back and forth between his face and hand.
She plucked the card from his fingers, read it, and then reread it. Somehow,
the police mission ‘to serve and to protect’ did not sit well with the
testosterone-fuelled adolescent she remembered.

Unable to speak,
she held her hand up, palm out. Brett gave her an understanding nod, allowing
her the space and time to compose herself. Uncrossing her legs, she flipped
onto her stomach and stretched across the bed, her arm extended as she used her
fingertips to snare the ball of scrunched-up paper from where it had landed on
the floor.

Back in an
upright position, she smoothed out the letter on the bed and reread it, hoping
to find answers. Any answers. What galled her most about the letter was the
chatty long-time-no-see tone. He apologised for not making himself known at
Café Face: he had been running late and he wasn’t sure it was her. As if the
past had never existed, he made no mention of her mother or his father or
anything that had happened all those years ago. It would have been so much
simpler if he had just pretended not to see her.

Not only had the
past come back to haunt her, but now she would be forced to put years of
suppressed emotions into words. Voicing aloud what she and her mother had
endured at the hands of her bully and tyrant of a stepfather would be like
reliving the nightmare. Even his own son hadn’t escaped unscathed. Nothing
Daniel ever did was good enough for his father. Jacinta never saw Tony hit
Daniel, but she saw the effect of the tongue-lashings. But knowing that Daniel
had also been a victim didn’t make it any easier. He carried his father’s
genes. Like father, like son?

“Are you going
to tell me what the hell is going on?” Brett waited, his chin jutted forward in
expectancy.

Inhaling deeply,
she nodded. Brett’s patience was wearing thin, and who could blame him? “It’s a
long story and I promise to tell you everything as soon—”

The phone on the
bedside table rang. She pounced, answering it before it could ring again. The
fury-filled voice on the other end had her wishing she hadn’t. Listening to
Craig Edmonds’ slurred torrent of abuse, Jacinta understood the intent, if not
the words. Finally, he screamed some incoherent threat, burst into loud sobs
and slammed down the phone.

She replaced the
receiver and turned to Brett. Her first instinct had been to tell him it had
been a wrong number. Then she had second thoughts. If she was going to give
their relationship any chance of survival, she had to start being more open with
him.

“One guess who
that was,” she said, trying to make light of it. She nodded as he gestured in
the general direction of the dining room. “Right now I don’t think I’m his
favourite person. But at least Narelle is safe.” She slid to the side of the
bed. “Perhaps I should go and check on her.”

As she went to
get up, Brett barred her way, standing legs apart, directly in front of her.

“Narelle is
fine. Forget everyone else for the moment. We’re more important.” He sat on the
edge of the bed, pulling her down with him. “You,” he reached for her hands,
“are more important. I love you, Jacinta Deller. Someday you may trust me
enough to confide in me. I can wait for however long it takes.” He briefly
squeezed her hands before releasing them.

Intended or not,
his reverse psychology worked. He hadn’t pressured her — quite the opposite —
yet she felt compelled to talk. She had put it off for long enough. No matter
how difficult, she had to do it, if only to prove her love for him.

An uneasy
silence enveloped them as they sat side by side, but not touching, on the edge
of the bed. Fearing her fragile composure was on the verge of crumbling, she
dared not even look at him.

She clamped her
hands tightly between her knees to stop them shaking. Taking a deep breath, she
filled her lungs and began.

Brett listened
without interruption as she shared parts of her life she had never shared with
anyone. From time to time her voice wavered, but somehow she managed to keep
her emotions at bay.

Starting from
her early childhood days, when life was uncomplicated, she moved into the
school years. As she grew up, she had started to pine for the father she never
knew. All her friends had fathers, even if they weren’t living with the family.
She didn’t even know who her father was, and she never would. Her mother had
taken the secret of his identity to her grave.

Yet Jacinta had
survived and got on with making the most of what she had. That was until the
Lassiters came into their lives.

Keeping her
voice low and without intonation, Jacinta told Brett about what in the
beginning had held so much promise. She touched on her mother’s infatuation
with the charming Tony Lassiter, their whirlwind romance and the equally fast
marriage that followed. Life was beautiful. Or so her mother thought.

Swallowing hard,
Jacinta continued.

Halfway through
recounting how her mother had stoically faced her new husband’s unrelenting
intimidation, manipulation and abuse as if it had been a punishment to be
endured, Jacinta stopped.

If Daniel hadn’t
come into her room that night, would her mother ever have found the courage to
flee? Had he inadvertently done her a favour? She shook her head, refusing to
dwell on the what-ifs.

By the time she
had filled Brett in on the period between her and her mother’s landing in
Melbourne and the sighting of her stepbrother in the café, she felt wrung out.
Empty. Numb. Strangely, she also felt lighter, as if in the retelling she had
offloaded some of the burden of the past.

Without a word,
Brett put his arm around her shoulder, pulling her in close. His skin felt hot
against hers.

“I never meant
to keep any of this from you.” She sniffed, the tears welling in her eyes.
“Keeping it locked away just seemed the easiest way of dealing with it.”

Brett kissed her
lightly on the forehead, and shuffled back on the bed, taking her with him. For
a long time they lay still and quiet, snuggled in each other’s arms.

Then she
remembered her houseguest.

Brett’s eyes
opened as she started to pull back.

“I’m just going
to check on Narelle,” she whispered. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

Yawning, he
rolled onto his side. She reached the door and turned. He watched her through
half-closed eyes, the corners of his mouth lifting in a playful grin.
Sexy
.
She smiled, tickled by the unexpected thought.

However, this
light-heartedness proved fleeting. The door to the dining room stood wide open,
the empty daybed mocking her. Narelle’s suitcase and toilet bag were gone,
leaving no evidence that she had ever been there.

Cursing, Jacinta
ran from the room. In her panic to check if Narelle might be elsewhere in the
house, she almost missed the note propped by the phone.

Narelle’s large,
round handwriting filled the torn notebook page. Jacinta skimmed over the
apology and thank you, her dismay intensifying as she realised that Narelle had
returned home to the man who only hours ago she had fled. The same man who, in
a drunken rage, had phoned Jacinta, spouting threats.

Narelle’s
postscript promising to call her the next day did nothing to quell Jacinta’s
growing fears. Her first reaction was to search for her car keys. But logic
told her she was overreacting. Craig hadn’t harmed Narelle to date. What made
her think he would now?

“Don’t get
involved. It’s not your problem.” Brett caught her by the elbow. “It’s time you
put yourself first.”

She shook him
off. “That’s not what you said last week.” His accusation that she always put
herself first still smarted.

He dropped his
gaze, looking suitably contrite. “Yes, I know. I’m sorry. I said a lot of
things I didn’t mean.”

As pleased as
she was to hear that, she didn’t have the time to pursue it. “Look, for
whatever reason, Narelle came to me for help. What do you want me to do? Turn
my back on her?”

“She says here
she’ll call you tomorrow.” He waved the note in her face. “I’m sure she knows
what she’s doing. After all, she’s survived on her own all these years.”

So had
Kirsty, until that fateful night
, she thought.

“If you’re that
concerned, why don’t we get the police to check on her? And if you’re worried
about getting the run-around, why don’t you call Daniel direct?”

Before she could
take umbrage, he continued.

“You said
yourself you were only kids. Maybe this is a chance for your stepbrother to
redeem himself; prove to you that he’s not the monster you remember.”

“You’re not
serious?”

“What harm could
there be in talking to him?”

Plenty
.
It would mean acknowledging his existence, and she wasn’t ready for that.
“Brett, I know you mean well, but can we please just take it one step at a
time?”

“Would it help
if I phoned him and explained the situation?”

She wasn’t sure
what situation he was referring to, but shaking her head in an emphatic no
anyway, she said, “Besides, the police turning up at the house would
undoubtedly only make matters worse.”

Brett grinned.
“And you turning up wouldn’t?”

In a roundabout
way, he had forced her to answer her own question.

Jacinta had lost count of the
number of times she had picked up the phone, listened to the dial tone and hung
up again. Brett had left for work early, leaving her alone to prowl the house
and wait for Narelle’s promised phone call.