Beyond Fear (28 page)

It was so completely unlike Hannah that for a moment Jodie didn’t know what to do. But she couldn’t wait. She hauled on their tether, pressed Hannah’s hand to Louise’s bloody shirt. ‘Keep pressure on it.’

Lou’s face crumpled in pain. ‘Oh God, it hurts.’

‘I’m sorry, Lou. I’m so sorry,’ Jodie said.

She wanted to hold her, to let her know she wasn’t alone. She lifted her free hand and froze. Something cold and clammy slithered up her spine. She turned her palm up, uncurled the other hand, held them side by side. And her throat closed over.

Her hands were covered with bright, fresh, red blood. As though she’d been washing in it.

As though she’d been holding them to her own stab wounds.

Her heart crashed against her ribs. Terror was a fist in her gut, squeezing, twisting, making her head spin. She looked down at her stomach, expecting to see more blood. A waterfall of it. Running down her thighs, dripping onto her bare feet.

But she didn’t. Her shirt was hanging open, torn down the front. The flesh underneath was white, clean, intact. She looked back at her hands. Looked at Lou.

‘Oh no.
No.
’ It’s not
you
, Jodie. It’s Lou. Lou was shot and bleeding and crying. ‘No, no.’ She thrust her free hand onto Hannah’s, made her push harder on Lou’s wound. ‘
Not
Lou.’ She gritted her teeth, breathed hard, fought to ignore the coppery smell of blood in her nostrils. ‘It’s okay, Lou. You’re okay. It’s going to be okay.’

Lou
had
to be okay. Because Jodie wasn’t going to lose her.

She wasn’t going to run and she wasn’t going to lose another best friend.

It was going to be different this time.

Jodie would
make
it different.

She had to.

‘Jodie, look,’ Corrine hissed.

Corrine’s face was still turned to whatever was happening behind them. But Jodie didn’t need to look. All she needed to know was that Travis and Kane were beating each other up instead of pointing a gun at them. ‘Help me get the ties undone.’

‘
Look
, Jodie.’

‘For Christ’s sake, Corrine. Help me here.’

‘
Jodie.
It’s Matt.’

Jodie lifted her eyes, not sure she’d heard right.

Corrine’s gaze didn’t move from across the room. ‘He came through the window.’

Jodie glanced at the back wall. One of the huge panes of glass was smashed, its curtain was torn from the track, the one next to it billowing gently in a draught of cold night air.
Matt
came through there? She swung around to the frantic sounds behind her. Two men were flailing and grunting on the floor. Above them, Kane lifted a knee, dropped a kick into the fray. One of the men on the floor raised a fist high and drove it into the other man’s gut.

Oh God. It
was
Matt.

Matt had come back. He’d understood.

Jodie couldn’t take her eyes off him as he wrestled Travis’s arm to the floor, slammed it against the timber. ‘Drop it, arsehole!’ he yelled.

The gun fell from Travis’s hand. Matt grabbed it, rose to one knee, held it with both hands, aimed it at Travis.

Matt was a cop. It was over.

Relief flooded her like a cup of sweet tea. Tears welled in her eyes. Louise was going to be okay. They were going to go home. She looked at Corrine, saw fresh tears. Maybe she’d never stopped crying.

She turned back to Matt, saw Kane raise his arm. She ordered her brain to scream, felt the sound welling up from deep inside but it was jammed in slow motion. ‘Noooo!’

Matt turned his head. The poker from the fireplace made contact just below his right ear. The momentum carried him to the floor.

Travis scrambled out from under him as Kane raised the long, lethal spike of metal above his head.

‘No!’ Jodie yelled again – this time in stereo.

‘No!’ Travis shouted, and from the floor threw himself at his brother, buried a shoulder into his thigh, knocked him down.

‘Get off me,’ Kane roared.

Travis punched him in the face.

It silenced him and sent a wave of horror through Jodie. He did that to his own
brother
?

Travis pushed himself to his feet, not taking his eyes off Matt’s prone body. ‘Fuck.’ He reeled away. ‘Fuck.’ He ran both hands through his hair, struck a foot out at his brother, connecting hard in the ribs. ‘You killed a fucking cop.’

‘No!’ Jodie screamed.
She’d
killed him. He’d come back for her and she’d got him killed. Oh God, no. She tried to stand, to go to him. Louise cried out as the movement jolted her injured shoulder.

‘Get up.’ Travis dragged Kane to his feet, shoved him towards Matt. ‘Go through his pockets. Get his gun.’

Jodie watched Kane use the toe of his boot to roll Matt over then closed her eyes. Shut out the sight of Matt’s lifeless body on the floor. She remembered the look on his face when she’d yelled at him on the verandah. Surprise, irritation but underneath it, that alertness. She thought he’d never see past her words – so few people in her life had. Now she wished she hadn’t taken the chance because he had understood her. And he’d been killed for it.

So look at him, Jodie. He’s taken a risk for you. Burn his face on your brain. You owe him that.

Kane was kneeling beside him, shoving him about as he went through his pockets. She ignored him, concentrated on Matt’s face. It was turned towards her now and she committed to memory his soft mouth, the lines around his eyes that she’d liked. She tried to remember the colour of them. She’d liked that too. Green, with a lighter shade that glinted in the sun.

And then she saw the colour she remembered was bronze. Because his lids were open and he was looking right at her.

25

The room swam into focus. Matt saw sparks of light glittering off shattered glass on the floor. Then the legs of the wrought-iron table he’d thrown through the window. Then Jodie. She was on her knees, leaning protectively over someone lying by the kitchen bench. Two others were partially hidden behind her but he’d have to look away from Jodie to work out which of her friends were where. And he didn’t want to do that. Not when she was looking right back at him like that.

Her face was pale, her eyes were almost black and the relief in them was like an echo of his own. When he’d smashed through the glass, he’d seen Jodie shouldercharge Travis Anderson. Like a movie at half-speed, he’d seen Travis slide sideways, the garden table knock him forward, the gun track around towards Jodie. When the blast went off, he thought Jodie was shot. Thought the next time he’d see her, she’d be dead.

Someone was patting him down, pulling his wallet from his back pocket. He wanted to move but when he tried, his head spun and his eyes rolled woozily away from her. When he looked back, she made a small side-to-side movement with her head, then quickly, discreetly lifted a hand to her face, two fingers up in a V, and pulled them down over her lids, telling him to close his eyes. As he did what she wanted, his insides went cold at what he’d seen on her hand. Blood. Enough of it to run through her fingers and stain the cuff of her shirt.

You’re in the middle of it now, Matt.
Four hostages. Two cold-blooded thugs. Killers. And he was lying on the floor like a stunned fish. He was pushed roughly to his other side, his head roiling nauseatingly as he was patted down again.

‘Two phones and car keys. No gun,’ Kane said from above and behind.

Matt cracked an eye, saw the evidence clatter to the floor in front of him. The phones were smashed under the heel of a workboot and meaty fingers picked up the keys.

‘Chuck ’em in the bush,’ Travis said from above and in front.

Matt heard the chink of keys being tossed and caught above him. Heard feet walking away, a door swung open.

‘Get the gear while you’re out there,’ Travis called.

‘What about more cops?’ Kane said.

There was a pause. ‘Nah. They’d already be here if there were more. Wiseman thought he could handle us himself.’

‘He always was a prick,’ Kane said and they both laughed.

From the floor, Matt could see Travis in front of him. Part of him, anyway. Jeans from the knee down, worn boots. Close enough to reach out and grab an ankle. He heard Kane take a step on the verandah.
Get the hostages out.
The words roared up from deep inside him, riding a wave of fear and rage. He couldn’t tell if it was instinct or training or bitter experience. It didn’t matter. He just knew it was the only chance Jodie and her friends had to survive.

Matt saw in an instant how it would have to go down. He’d have to be fast. Have it over and done with before Kane got back. Wrap an arm around Travis’s legs, drive up and forward with his shoulder to knock him down. He heard Kane start walking, loud footfalls on the timber decking outside. How long would it take him to ‘get the gear’? Even as he braced for action, prepared to drive off the floor with his good leg, he knew that wasn’t the only question he needed an answer to. How much would the crack on his skull slow him down? And where the hell was the gun?

He was barely off the floor before Travis lifted a foot and jammed it into Matt’s ribs. Pain curled him into a ball. The boot came back, swung like a wrecking ball, slamming into his bad knee. Matt cried out as the impact of it flung him away. His leg felt like it had been ripped off. He wanted to howl in agony but he forced himself past it. He might survive the beating if he knew where the next hit was coming from. Matt looked up at Travis and knew then it wasn’t a beating he needed to worry about. It was the gun pointed at his face.

‘Move and I’ll blow your fucking head apart,’ Travis said. He was standing over Matt, knuckles white on the weapon, a sneer on his face. A door banged open. Travis flicked a look across the room. ‘Hey, bro, you’re not a cop killer yet. Look who woke up.’

Matt felt the timber boards under him shudder as something heavy thudded to the floor. He saw two pickaxes – big, solid and well used. On the other side of the room, one of the women wailed loudly. Then Kane was over him, grabbing him by the collar of his jacket, hauling his shoulders off the floor.

‘I owe you this one,’ Kane snarled. He pulled back an arm and smashed a fist into Matt’s face.

Light strobed behind Matt’s eyes. The room lurched and rolled. He heard yelling. The floor was hard and cold against his cheek. He tasted blood. The floorboards were smooth and glossy and pitching under his eyes. Someone was shouting. Hard, angry words he couldn’t make out. He thought it was Jodie. Hoped it was. Thought she’d be good at it. He was jostled and then someone was trying to haul him up. He wanted to move but his limbs wouldn’t cooperate. Then Jodie’s voice was in his ear.

‘Try to walk, Matt.’ Her words were whispered, urgent. Her breath was on his face. ‘I can’t do this on my own. Matt, please.’

Her shoulder wedged itself under his arm. She felt slight and lean. He dragged his good leg under him, pushed up, heard someone groan as his bad leg hit the floor. Maybe it was him. He couldn’t tell in the confusion of sound and movement around him. The women were crying and crying out. Both the Andersons were shouting. Swearing, bawling orders, shoving, crowding. Matt hit a wall, back pressed flat against it for a second before he was thrust forward. Jodie dragged at his shirt, propelled him onwards, arm at his waist, hand like a vice around his wrist, taking his weight across her shoulders. Damn she was strong. Then his shoulder rammed into something and he was falling . . .

Matt didn’t move. It took a few seconds for the spinning in his head to follow suit. It was dark. So dark he had to blink a couple of times to be sure his eyes were actually open.

Someone was crying. A mixture of hiccuping and wailing. Someone else was breathing hard, forcefully. Big breaths in then blowing out again. He felt movement near his feet.

‘Where’s the light switch?’ It was Jodie. She was whispering. ‘Hannah. Where’s the switch?’

Someone said through a break in the hiccuping, ‘There isn’t one. The light comes on when the door opens.’

There was a burst of light, like an extended flash from a camera. Matt saw Jodie kneeling up at his feet, one arm outstretched into a small room, the other towards the door at his side, the pads of her fingers pressed against it. Her shirt was torn down the front, her face was white and her eyes were wild. In the pitch blackness that followed, the image of her crucifix pose was burned on his retinas in negative.

The light came on again. Her torso leaned a little more towards the door this time, her eyes narrowed in effort and determination. Then it was dark again.

‘Wait,’ he said. The pain in his knee flared as he moved. He pulled his good leg out from under the other, pushed his foot against the left side of a double door. Something was holding it closed but the slight shift in its position was enough to activate the light. A bare bulb in the ceiling filled the room with harsh light. Jodie looked at him and they squinted at each other for a moment in the sudden glare.