Beyond Fear (30 page)

‘No.’

‘A girlfriend?’

‘No.’

‘Well, you’ve got a father and a brother and . . . and . . .’ She stopped, looked like she wasn’t sure how to go on.

There wasn’t anything to go on to, Matt thought. He was thirty-five years old and no one needed him to come home. He’d fucked up more than his career in the last six months.

‘And you haven’t had one of my steaks.’ She said it with more resolve than it deserved.

He frowned. ‘Did you just tell me the only thing I’ve got to live for is a steak?’

She lifted her chin a little. ‘No, I said
my
steak. I do a great steak. My steak is a damn good reason to stay alive. You got that?’

‘Not just any steak then?’

She paused a second. ‘You have to survive so
I
can cook you a steak.’

Well, that was unexpected. ‘You mean like a date?’

She nodded tersely. ‘Yeah, okay, it could be a date.’

Definitely better than the alternative. ‘That could be an incentive.’

‘Make sure it is.’ She said it firmly, like an order, but her eyes gave her away. She looked down a moment then back up at him. Gutsy and coy at the same time.

He felt the corner of his mouth curl up. ‘That thing you said on the verandah before, about last night being the best. Did I enjoy myself, too?’

She smiled then. Not a big smile. Not a grin, either. Just a small, bold upturn of the lips. ‘Yeah, Matt, you had a great time.’

‘For God’s sake!’ Corrine almost howled the words. ‘We’re not in a bloody singles bar.’ Then she screamed as a thud shuddered through the barn.

‘What the . . . ?’ was all Jodie managed before the walk-in robe vibrated with another tremendous thump. Corrine was wailing again. Hannah was cringing. Lou was trying to lift her head. Jodie saw the perplexed look on Matt’s face and tried to rein in the fear that was ricocheting through her. Don’t give in to it, Jodie. That’s not how to survive.

She could still feel the surge of energy that had pulled her on course. Corrine’s desperate declaration that they were all going to die had pushed her to the edge. She’d come so close to falling apart, to letting every ugly memory fill her up and shut her down. Then she’d heard Angela.

Run, Jodie.

The words that had left her sweating and shaken this morning. The same words that for years had filled her with terror and shame. But the voice was different this time. Not tremulous with tears but hard and tough and angry. It was the voice Angela had used that last hockey final they’d played together, when they were one point down with ten minutes to go. Angie had belted the ball across the field at her. ‘Kill it, Jodie!’ she’d yelled. And Jodie had – she’d smashed it right past the keeper into the back of the net. They weren’t meant to win that day but they’d equalled the score then totally demoralised the opposition.

Run, Jodie.
Maybe she’d remembered it wrong all these years. Maybe Angie had been angry and defiant that night. Maybe her words had filled Jodie with the same raw, intense energy that flooded through her now.

Run, Jodie.
The game wasn’t over yet.

Jodie was on her haunches as a third thud was followed by a screech. Voices hooted from the other end of the house. She had no idea what it was but she was on her feet and stumbling over her friends’ legs as the fourth crash reverberated. The light went out. Then came back on. Matt was scrambling to get up, one hand on the door, the other gripping his bad knee.

‘Corrine,’ Jodie said. ‘Move over and hold the door.’

Corrine pushed herself along the wall, away from the door. ‘No way. I’m not going anywhere near the door. I’m not getting any closer to those awful men than I have to.’ She flinched as another thud shook the floor.

She was scared, probably still drunk unless terror had sobered her up, but Jodie wanted to slap her. Like in the movies when the panicking character is brought back to earth with a loud clap across the chops. Except the shock of it would probably make Corrine cry more.

‘Come on!’ Jodie said through gritted teeth. ‘We need the light and Hannah’s looking after Lou.’ If it could be called ‘looking after’. Hannah’s hands were on Lou’s shoulder but it seemed to be more by chance than choice. Something was wrong with Hannah. Her eyes were flexed wide, she was shaking and every move she made was like slow motion. She’d been that way since Travis had held the gun to her head. And it scared the hell out of Jodie.

‘What about you?’ Corrine said.

Jodie unzipped the suitcase in the corner of the wardrobe, threw open the lid. ‘I’m looking for weapons.’

‘Hey, that’s my bag. I don’t do
weapons
.’

‘Then do something useful and hold the door.’

Corrine complained but crawled across the small room and propped herself against the door. Matt was on his feet, holding onto the wall with one outstretched arm as he limped across the wardrobe. There was a fat graze on his left cheek and his bottom lip was swollen on one side but it had stopped bleeding. His eyes looked wrong though, as if he was having trouble focusing. Concussion for sure, but at least he was conscious and on his feet. And the sudden noise had obviously given him the same injection of urgency as it had Jodie.

The crashing continued from the other end of the house. Short, sharp thumps that rocked the floor of the barn and echoed in her head.

Jodie pulled Corrine’s belongings out of the suitcase. Sweaters and trousers, a massive bag of bathroom supplies, the boots with the broken heel. She dumped the ruined shoe back in the case, put the other one on the floor beside her. It wasn’t called a stiletto for nothing.

She looked up as Matt yanked on the clothing rail above her, trying to break it out of the metal cups holding it to the wall. It ran the length of the room, secured to an overhead shelf halfway along. It was probably in two halves. That would give them two metre-long pieces of steel – not a weapon they could hide under a shirt but it could inflict some damage if they got a chance to use it.

‘What do you think they’re doing out there?’ she asked him.

He looked down with eyes that were grave but more focused, as though the effort to shake the rail had cleared his head somewhat. ‘It sounds like they’re smashing up the place.’

He heaved his weight against the rod again, his jaw squared with determination. A ripple of fear ran through Jodie’s spine. She wanted to grab him by the shirt front and tell him he had to get out of this, too.

He’d said he wasn’t a cop anymore but he was kidding himself. She’d seen it on his face when she’d been ranting about getting out. And she saw it now. He wanted to do his job. He wanted to save them. But Jodie didn’t want a hero. She wanted him alive. She wanted to cook him that steak. She wanted to sit in a park and drink coffee with him again. She wanted to get hot and sweaty and passionate with him and she hadn’t felt like that in a long time. Most of all, she wanted to have enough time to discover what it was that she recognised inside him.

As he pulled down, one half of the rail bent in the middle and came cleanly out of its metal cup. Matt dropped it to the floor, the clatter disguised by the crashing from the other end of the house. The sound had a rhythm to it now – thump-thump, thump-thump. Like Travis and Kane were working as a team. Like a giant piston crashing against the barn. As Matt moved on to the other half of the rail, Jodie pulled a white sweater from Corrine’s case and put it on. It was stuffy in the wardrobe but she didn’t want to be half naked when Travis or Kane came back. She unzipped Corrine’s bathroom case and up-ended it. Amongst the make-up and hair goo, she found spray deodorant, a metal nailfile, tiny scissors. Weaponry.

She crawled to Louise, pushed the deodorant into the palm of Lou’s hand, curled her fingers tight around it. Lou looked awful – her skin was pasty, there was a sheen of perspiration on her face and the blood on her shirt was slick and bright – but when she opened her eyes, Jodie saw the anger that burned in them. ‘Aim for the eyes,’ she told her.

‘Here.’ She passed the scissors to Hannah, the nailfile to Corrine.

Hannah looked at the small scissors with a blank expression. Jodie wanted to snap her fingers in front of Hannah’s face. Come on, girl. You can’t run for your life if you’re paralysed by shock.

Corrine held the nailfile out on the palm of her hand and thrust it back at her. ‘What the hell am I meant to do with this? Grind my way out?’ There was panic in Corrine’s voice and she was on the verge of hyperventilating.

Jodie felt it infecting her. Louise was hurt, Hannah was a statue and Corrine was losing it. She grabbed Corrine by the shoulders, shook her. ‘Stop crying. You can’t help yourself if you’re crying.’

‘Help myself!’ Corrine repeated, her voice high and incredulous.

Jodie saw the terror in her eyes, knew there was no point telling her not to be scared. They were all scared. But panic would make her useless. And terror might make her too frightened to act. Anger, on the other hand, was a different story. Corrine needed to get mad. She needed that slap across the face.

Jodie shook her again. ‘Remember what Roland’s partners did to you? Do you remember that, Corrine?’

Corrine frowned, her panic interrupted by the sudden change of subject. ‘What?’

‘Remember the day they came to your house and told you that you weren’t getting any of Roland’s money? Tried to tell you he’d been having an affair?’ Jodie saw the jolt of memory, the hurt in Corrine’s eyes. Wasn’t sure if it was the bitter three-year court battle or the fact Jodie had brought it up that had upset her. Either way, it didn’t matter.

All four of them had been there that day, had watched in horror at what followed. Corrine had refused to talk about it ever again but right now she needed to dig it up out of her memory and roll around in its stench. ‘Remember how angry you were, Corrine? That dinner set was worth the price of a small car. And you smashed every goddamn piece of it. One by one. All over the kitchen. Remember that?’

Corrine tried to pull away from her. ‘Why are you bringing . . . ?’

‘They were going to take your children’s inheritance away. The future Roland had wanted for them.’

‘Stop it,’ Corrine said.

‘Jodie, don’t,’ Hannah said from behind.

Jodie turned, relieved to see a sign of life from her. Hannah still looked stunned, pale, but she seemed cross, too. Good, Jodie thought. Two for the price of one. She pushed Hannah a little harder. ‘You’re in no position to tell me what to do.’ Yep, Hannah was cross now. Jodie turned back. ‘You need to remember it, Corrine.’

‘No, I don’t. I sued their arses off. I don’t
have
to remember that.’

‘Yes, you do. Because you have to be angrier than that. A hundred times more angry. These guys want to take your children’s
mother
away. They want to make Bailey and Zoe orphans.’

Corrine’s mouth pulled into a tight line, her eyes filled with new tears but they shone with bitterness. ‘Christ, Jodie. Do you have to be so bloody graphic?’ Corrine jerked out of her hold, folded her arms and looked away.

Jodie felt a buzz of success. She’d made Corrine mad. It might’ve been better if she was pissed off at Kane and Travis instead of her – but angry was angry. She prised Corrine’s hand from her folded arms, positioned the nailfile so the sharp end pointed from the base of Corrine’s palm, closed her fingers around it in a fist. ‘Do it like this.’ Jodie lifted her own hand, swept it downwards in a stabbing motion. ‘If you can, aim for somewhere soft. Try to hit hard. Make it hurt. You got it?’

Corrine snatched her hand back. ‘Yes, all right. I got it.’

Jodie looked at Hannah. She held the scissors loosely in one hand, the other was clasped to the collar of her shirt, her face turned away. ‘You too, Hannah.’

Hannah didn’t move.

‘Hannah?’ She couldn’t tell if she was blank-faced again or just cross and ignoring her. ‘Are you with me?’

‘Yes,’ she answered quietly, without turning her head.

Jodie was torn between shaking her and hugging her. ‘Come on. Don’t do this. You have to look after Lou.’

‘I
am
.’ Hannah’s eyes flashed briefly to Jodie’s before she dropped them to Louise. ‘I am looking after Lou.’ As if to prove it, she released the collar of her shirt and pushed a lock of Lou’s curly hair from her forehead.

Jodie saw the anger had gone. The blank look wasn’t there either, at least not like before. Now she just looked stunned. Her eyes, her whole face. Overwhelmed by it. Cowed and embarrassed by it. Hannah’s tough, bossy persona had taken a hit. She didn’t like what shock had done to her. Get over yourself, Jodie wanted to tell her. This was not the moment to wallow over a fright response. There wasn’t the time for mollycoddling, either.

‘For God’s sake, Hannah. Hold the damn scissors like I said and show me you can use them,’ Jodie snapped. It had the desired effect – Hannah looked up, a flash of ice in her eyes. But she was going to need more than that. ‘Is that it? You’re just going to sit there and play with Lou’s hair? Come on, Hannah, you’ve always got plenty to say. Why stop now?’