Beyond Fear (18 page)

For a moment, it looked like Hannah might make a stand and refuse to hand the keys over. Jodie glared at her, hoping she didn’t have to physically take them from her. Then Hannah reached into her jacket pocket and dropped them on the counter with a clatter.

Jodie swiped them up, grabbed her handbag from where she’d stowed it beside a lounge, checked quickly for signs of tampering – it seemed fine, but that didn’t prove anything – then stormed through the front door. She was so angry, she wanted to kick something. Her hands were shaking and her legs were like jelly and by the time she reached the unsealed driveway, tears were welling in her eyes. At the bottom of the drive, she was batting them away with the back of her hand. A kilometre down the road, she was crying so hard the view through the windscreen was a blur and her breath came in jagged gasps.

She was in the bend before she knew it and pulling the steering wheel to the right too late. Her left-hand tyres thunked off the tar and scrabbled in the rough surface on the shoulder. She hit the brakes, the bush at the side of the road scratching along the paintwork as she came to a jarring stop more off the road than on. The flood of tears halted in its tracks, adrenaline tingled in the tips of her fingers. She stepped shakily out of the car, went around to the passenger side and checked for damage. It was fine. She was fine.

Goddamn it,
she was fine!

She wasn’t having a breakdown. She wasn’t. She stomped around the car and kicked a tyre. Okay, she probably shouldn’t have been driving but her friends had pulled a damn intervention on her. What the hell was wrong with
them
? Someone broke into the barn and they thought
she
was nuts. Well, she wasn’t. She was mad. Angry. Pissed off.

She kicked the tyre again. They’d decided she couldn’t cope because she had a flashback and a bad dream. They didn’t have a fucking clue what she could cope with.

Jodie rubbed at the dried tears on her face. She was hurt and sad and angry
at herself
. After Angela, she hadn’t wanted any more friends. Didn’t want the responsibility of another friend on her conscience. If she hadn’t run that night, Angela might still be alive. The bastards might have left her alone if they’d been able to rape Jodie as well. Or maybe she could have fought them off – she was fit and fast back then, under-eighteen state hockey captain and she had three brothers, she knew how to throw a punch. But she hadn’t stayed with her friend. She’d made the wrong choice.

Jodie leaned against the warm hood of the car and closed her eyes. Louise was the first real girlfriend she’d had after Angela, and only because she’d refused to take no for an answer. Then Hannah and Corrine had come along and Jodie eventually let them in, too.

‘I’m better off without them.’ She said it out loud, as though she’d believe it more if she heard it. And she had to believe it because if she wasn’t better off without them, if she needed them around, if they were the good friends she’d thought they were, then she had to consider there might be some truth in what they’d said. And that scared the hell out of her.

She hauled herself off the car and got back in. She wiped at her eyes, started the engine and pulled onto the road. Was she having a breakdown? Was it possible she’d invented everything out of fear? Her reactions had been intense but she’d thought it was because the others wouldn’t believe her, their denials only making her more determined to convince them they needed to protect themselves.

She tried to think it through from their perspective – the tyre iron, not letting Hannah onto the verandah, following her with the brass Buddha. Then the car in the night and telling them Matt Wiseman was suspect, freaking out because the front door was open. They hadn’t seen her crying so hard she’d run off the road – but they’d predicted it.

‘Oh, Christ.’ A pulse started up in her temples, a loud hammering that made the blood rush in her ears. If she’d got it wrong, if she was having some kind of belated breakdown, then they’d won.

The filthy, murdering bastards had won. They’d got her, too.

A single tear worked its way down her cheek. ‘I’m sorry, Angie. I should have fought them for you. I’m so, so sorry.’

16

‘Hey, Wisey, you’re a fucking mechanic.’

Matt took a second to compose a smile before glancing up from his desk. ‘Christ, look what the cat dragged in.’ He pushed back his chair and held out his hand to the man in the doorway. ‘Dan the Man Carraro.’

Carraro ran a judgemental eye around the small room at the side of the mechanics bay. ‘You left the cops for this? You
must
be nuts.’ He laughed like he was a real blast.

‘Suits me fine.’ Matt sat on the edge of the desk and waited while Carraro smoothed down his tie, pushed his hands into his pockets. Matt had wondered who’d turn up. Had thought about it more than he wanted to. All the way to town this morning, his mind kept going back to John Kruger and the wheels that would be turning. Bald Hill’s single officer didn’t have the resources or the skills to conduct a murder investigation. He’d call for extra uniforms from Dungog to help set up the crime scene and detectives from Newcastle would be sent to handle the investigation. Six months ago, Matt would have been the obvious first choice – head of the squad and former local. As Carraro eyed off trade magazines on top of the filing cabinet, Matt felt a certain sense of relief. The smart-arse knew how to do his job, which meant one less thing he had to feel guilty about, even if he couldn’t escape it.

The rumours had started early. Someone at the post office said John’s face had been smashed beyond recognition, his skull crushed. The cashier at the mini-mart said she’d heard there was no sign of a fight, that maybe he’d walked in on intruders. Reg, who ran the pub, who knew everything that happened from here to the Queensland border, said he had it on good authority there was no evidence of robbery, that the local cops thought it looked like someone had walked right up to him and beaten him to a pulp, poor bastard.

After that piece of news, Matt had worked his arse off at the service station but cleaning and stacking and sorting and lifting hadn’t stopped his brain from worming its way back to it. And the buzz had started up – the tick-tick in his head, the hum down his spine – that he got when he knew something big was happening. He used to think of it as instinct, some kind of intuitive adrenaline rush. But that was bullshit – he knew that now. More like some egotistical urge to get in on the action. It was dangerous, it got people hurt. Killed. And he was mad as hell it was back.

‘So what d’ya reckon?’ Carraro said.

Matt shrugged, tried to make it look casual. He didn’t want to be drawn in. ‘I’m out of it, Dan.’

‘Yeah, right. As if Matty Wiseman wants to take a back seat.’

Matt pushed himself off the desk and distractedly shuffled papers about as he spoke. ‘No, seriously. I’m out of it.’ He held up a bunch of bills with a tight fist. ‘Got plenty to do here.’

A beat passed before Carraro pointed a finger at him like a gun. ‘Hey, good one. You almost had me convinced. Wait till I tell the others.’ He laughed loudly. It was hilarious. ‘So what about this Kruger bloke?’

Shame and anger burned in Matt’s chest. He didn’t want to be asked what he thought. Didn’t want to think about it. Any of it. ‘Look, I hardly knew him. His family knows my sister-in-law’s family. Go ask them.’

‘You’re the guy who reckons he can
read
people. What’s Kruger’s story? What’s the go with the builders?’

Matt tossed the papers back on the desk, crossed his arms over his chest, tried to contain his temper. ‘You’re the detective. You figure it out.’

‘Come on. You know you
want
to.’

What Matt wanted was Dan the Man out of his office. ‘Piss off, Carraro.’ He said it with a tight smile as he took two strides across the room and got into his face in the doorway. Carraro backed out into the mechanics bay and Matt put a firm hand on his shoulder, turned him towards the exit. ‘I told you, I’m out of it.’

‘Hey, take it easy.’ Carraro shrugged him off as he stepped into daylight. ‘Don’t kid yourself, Wiseman. You can’t stay away from it.’

Matt followed him all the way to his car. ‘Just leave me out.’ He made it sound like a warning. He didn’t want to be anywhere near the investigation. Didn’t want to be tempted.

He watched from the driveway until the unmarked cop car disappeared down the street. Arsehole. He rubbed a hand through his hair, dragged it down his face, turned around and stopped in his tracks. Jodie Cramer was standing in the afternoon sun outside the mechanics bay, thumbs hooked in the pockets of her jeans and a pair of sunglasses in place. He stood still for a second, thought his heart might’ve stopped.

‘Everything okay?’ she said.

How much had she heard? He threw a look over his shoulder. ‘Just my past catching up with me when I was stupid enough to think it was history.’

That seemed to amuse her. ‘I know how that feels.’

There was something different about her this afternoon. The boldness was gone, as though whatever it was that held it in place had been sucker-punched. Maybe everyone was having a bad day today.

‘Your car’s not ready yet,’ he said, nodding to where the vehicle was up on the hoist. ‘You’re earlier than I expected.’

He stood by the front bumper as she pushed her sunglasses up on her head and inspected the repairs. The paintwork was a mess where the dent had been beaten out and the headlight was still waiting to be replaced. She ran a hand over the damaged grille and looked over at him. He saw then that her eyes were a little puffy and kind of reddish around the rims, like she’d been rubbing them. Or crying.

‘It looks better than I thought it would,’ she said. ‘How much longer do you think it’ll be?’

‘Dad said another hour or so. He’s just gone up to the flat to take some medication.’ He saw her check the time at her wrist. ‘If you’re in a hurry to get back, you can take the loan car for another night.’

She gave a short, sarcastic laugh. ‘There’s definitely no hurry.’

Should he ask? He didn’t want to reduce her to tears. But then she didn’t seem the type to go all girlie. ‘So the Old Barn doesn’t cut it as a B & B?’

‘No, the barn’s great. The company’s a little . . . taxing.’ She shrugged, tucked her hands into the pockets of her coat. ‘You put four women in an isolated cabin and you gotta take a break some time.’

He thought of how she’d handled herself last night and the fearless way she’d told him she’d chuck the rock at his car if she needed to and thought it seemed unlikely a spat was enough to jag the mood she was in. ‘Sure.’ It wasn’t his business.

She walked back out to the driveway then turned around, like she’d had another thought. ‘Hey, um, about this morning. I’m sorry if I was a bit abrupt. You’ve been really nice. Gone way beyond the call of duty, really. I guess I’m not the best company before a morning coffee.’

Her smile was more embarrassment than apology. Kind of cute for a tough girl. He thought briefly about the invoices he’d been about to tackle and how he hadn’t thought about John Kruger since he’d been talking to her. ‘You know what? I really need to take a break for a while. How about we do each other a favour and go get an
afternoon
coffee? The bakery in the main street does a mean cappuccino.’

She looked him straight in the eyes for a long moment then down at her feet. For a good five seconds, the toes of her leather boots seemed to hold her undivided attention. What the hell? He hadn’t asked her to drive to Perth with him. When she finally lifted her face, her big eyes were dark and determined. ‘Yeah, sure, coffee sounds good.’

He tried not to smile too much as he turned away and hit the button for the bay’s automatic door. A hot babe takes an hour to decide whether he was worth a coffee break and he was overjoyed. Matt Wiseman, you
are
a desperate man. He fell into step beside her on the driveway, aware that she was walking with her arms crossed over her chest like she was worried her lungs might fall out.

‘You can be my excuse for not stopping at the pub for something stronger,’ he said.

‘Maybe we
should
have something stronger.’

‘Believe me, when life gets crappy, coffee is a much better road to take.’ He’d been determined not to be a cliché – the cop who drinks his life away to avoid the truth. These days he only drank in company. It was harder to blow your brains out when someone was sitting next to you.

‘Are you speaking from experience?’

‘Let’s just say I’ve had my fair share of hangovers. Today being no exception.’

‘Coffee’s great for that. Today being the proof.’ She gave a shortened version of her cool laugh.

Yeah, Jodie was an excellent distraction.

From a block away, he could see the two police cars still parked outside the pub. They’d been there a couple of hours, at least. John Kruger was a regular in town, so Matt guessed they were doing a door-to-door down the main street. No point canvassing neighbours for a possible witness when the nearest one was five kilometres away.

As they drew level with the pub, Jodie said, ‘Are there usually this many police cars here on a Saturday afternoon?’