Blood Ties (5 page)

“Oh, I bet you know how cops operate,” I interrupted heatedly, labouring to maintain my grip on his arm. He was strong. “A creep like you who sneaks around people’s houses at night is bound to come into contact with them all the time.”

He moved his right hand to reach around to his back pocket. “I can –” he started to say, even as he arched his back again in an attempt to throw me off.

“I
said
don’t move!” For all I knew, he had a weapon in his pocket. Maybe even a gun. I pulled out my knife and ground his face into the dirt with my forearm across the back of his neck. His resulting moan was muffled by the soil. “Keep still!” I shouted, touching the blade of my knife to his neck. “I have a knife at your throat and you better believe that I won’t think twice before using it.”

“For God’s sake,” he mumbled into the earth, ignoring my threat and thrashing his body around, trying to free his face. I had to quickly re-sheath my knife, not wanting to accidently stab him or, even worse, myself. It was all I could do to stay on top of him. He reached for his back pocket again, so I pushed his face further into the ground, virtually lying on top of him in an attempt to subdue him.

“Stop moving!” I yelled in his ear. It was impossible to cuff him while he was struggling so much.

“I can’t breathe,” he gasped, trying to twist his face to the side.

“I’m not falling for that one, buddy.”

I managed to clamp one handcuff around his left wrist and vainly reached for his right. His body twisted, curved and bowed in a frantic last-ditch effort to dislodge me from his back. It worked.

“Get off me,” he snarled, showing teeth as he flung me off him. His voice sounded smothered, like he did have a throat full of dirt.

He staggered to his feet, coughing, and made a run for the side of the house.

“Hey!” I shouted and leapt from a crouching position to grasp him around his calves, bringing him down again. I scrabbled to move up his body, stretching my fingers out to clutch at his arm.

He grabbed my shoulders and flipped me on my back, looming over me in the darkness. “Are you crazy or something? Give me a chance to –”

“Escape? I don’t think so, matey.”

I clutched his upper arms and endeavoured to roll him onto his stomach again so I could finish handcuffing him. But he wasn’t interested in that plan and pinned me to the ground by my shoulders. In a flash, I raised my knees to my chest and propelled him backwards with my feet. Surprised by my sudden move, he tumbled, losing his balance. I sprang up and pushed him prone to the ground with my foot between his shoulder blades, his face back in the dirt. I dropped to my knees onto his back, causing him to yell in pain, and reached for his right arm, yanking it ungently behind, fully cuffing him.

“My eyes! They’re full of dirt. I can’t see!” he called out, coughing and choking. “Water! For God’s sake, get me some water!”

I climbed off him and hauled him to his feet. Stumbling together, I forced him towards the house, roughly smushing his face up against its weatherboards. He turned his face to the side and I saw that his eyes were streaming, grit-induced tears flooding his cheeks. I patted him down quickly, searching for any concealed weapons. He was clean.

“Who the hell are you and what are you doing creeping around my house?” I yelled into his ear, furious and pumping with adrenaline. “I’m arresting you for suspected break and enter.”

He gasped for oxygen, coughing some more and sniffing loudly. His nose was running freely by now. Swallowing a pile of dirt couldn’t be considered a dignified experience for anyone.

“My name’s Finn Maguire. I’m the new officer-in-charge at the police station,” he was able to splutter after a few further minutes of choking. “Check my wallet. Rear right trouser pocket.” The pocket he’d been reaching for when I’d stopped him. “Then get me some water. Please! For the love of God.”

A heavy knot of dread settled in my stomach. I slid my hand into his pocket and pulled out his wallet, flipping it open. Unfortunately, he wasn’t lying. The unsmiling face of Sergeant Fintan Liam Maguire stared back at me from both his police identification card and his driver’s licence. I stepped backwards away from him, releasing his arms, appalled at this unpromising turn of events.

Oh dear.

I’d just tried to arrest my new boss.

Chapter 2

We didn’t speak for the next ten minutes. Hurriedly, I uncuffed him and marshalled him into my house to the bathroom where he stood at the vanity basin splashing his eyes liberally, with no regard for the expensive tailored shirt he was wearing. I watched him silently, guiltily, handing him a large glass of chilled water that he gulped down without breathing.

He thrust the glass back at me without looking my way, busy splashing. “More,” he demanded.

I brought him another glass that he also drained in one gulp, leaving the empty glass on the counter. When he had washed all the dirt from his eyes, he gently patted down his face with the clean towel I handed him after another brusque demand, and tried to mop up his wet shirt as well. Hanging up the towel neatly afterwards, he finally turned his sore, red-rimmed eyes to me, giving me a slow once-over.

His eyes widened as he took in my short nightie, bare feet and tousled bed hair. His eyes grew even larger when he noticed the utility belt I still had slung around my hips and the knife strapped to my thigh, before returning to my face, carefully considering my every feature as if he needed to memorise me for a future identikit picture. I endured his scrutiny with increasing edginess, beginning to fidget, but reminded myself that he had no idea who I was and a good cop always eyeballed a suspicious stranger.

“I thought country people were supposed to be friendly,” he said finally, in a snide tone. He had a posh voice, typical of the graduates of one of the city’s elite private schools.

“I’m sorry that I restrained you,” I said sincerely. “But I did warn you not to move. A number of times.” And that was as apologetic as I was going to get. He could take it or leave it. He was the trespasser after all, and as a cop himself, he should have known better than to disregard a police directive.

He regarded me silently for a moment, before frowning and pulling out a torn scrap of paper from his pocket. “I was looking for Senior Constable Fuller. I was told he lives at this address.”

“Looking for him in my backyard in the middle of the night, were you? Thought he might be in my kitchen, did you?” I asked tartly, not caring for his automatic assumption that his new work partner was a man. God only knows who he thought I was in that case, running around barefoot in the darkness with a gun and a knife, tackling men. Some kind of vigilante wild woman?

He had the grace to redden slightly. “I was told that he’d gone home not so long ago, so I was hoping to find a room with a light still on before I woke up the whole household.”

I put my hands on my hips and drew myself up to my full height, a respectable five-eight (and a quarter), noticing as I did that he was considerably taller – maybe even six-three or six-four.

“
I’m
Senior Constable Fuller,” I enlightened him.

He stared at me some more, confused, then frowned again. He’d be giving himself wrinkles soon if he kept that up. “I was told I was looking for a Terence Fuller.” And he held out the scrap of paper. A name and address was scrawled on it in Maureen’s notoriously illegible handwriting.

“I’m
Teresa
Fuller. Tess for short,” I informed him, with a little less acid. Maureen’s ‘Teresa’ did look a lot like ‘Terence’.

“Oh,” was all he managed to say. I hoped he wasn’t one of those men who have a problem working with women, because he seemed at a loss for words at that news, still staring at me rudely. You would have thought that he’d learnt better manners at that fancy school of his. I hadn’t at my humble public school though, so I stared back.

He wasn’t particularly good-looking, but he had a commanding presence enhanced by his height, muscular body and impeccable grooming. His hair was black and curling and his eyebrows equally black and nicely arched. His eyelashes were long and lush and his eyes a lovely but moody dark blue, deeper than an ocean. He had a patrician nose, a shapely but serious mouth and a determined jaw, his chin having one of those cute clefts in the middle. But overall, his features combined into a formidable expression that was probably intimidating to a lot of people. He didn’t look as though he was going to be a lot of fun to work with. He was elegantly dressed, but now appeared tired, scuffed and extremely pissed off.

“I wasn’t expecting you until next week,” I said, wondering if I should offer to shake his hand or whether it was now too late for such niceties. What on earth was the proper etiquette when you’d just mistakenly tackled someone? Nana Fuller had never given me any advice about that specific social situation.

“It seems there was a miscommunication somewhere. I was assured that the police house would be ready for me to move into today.”

“But Des and Maureen are still there. They’re not moving out until Sunday.”

“So I was told by the very angry woman who flew out to attack me when I opened the door to the house fifteen minutes ago. When I finally managed to calm her down and convince her not to call the police . . .” He stopped. “Which would be you, I presume? She ended up directing me to your place anyway. So, one way or another we were destined to meet tonight, Senior Constable.” His lips compressed with displeasure. “I just didn’t expect it to be in such personally painful circumstances.”

I remained quiet. I had no intention of apologising to him again.

“And I don’t know what procedure manual you were working from tonight,” he reprimanded, “but it wasn’t the one that I’m used to. We don’t threaten suspects with knives in the city.”

I continued to regard him silently. I had good reasons for being so aggressive with someone creeping around my house at night, but I wasn’t going to tell him on our short acquaintance.

Suddenly I realised that he was bone-weary and had probably driven from the city straight after work that afternoon, a good seven hours drive.

“You’re welcome to stay here until they leave,” I offered. He took a while to respond, giving it some thought.

“If you don’t mind, I’d appreciate it,” he said reluctantly. “There don’t seem to be many accommodation options in this place and everything is booked out.”

“There was a big party in town tonight,” I explained. “For Des, who just retired. You’re his replacement.”

We both tried unsuccessfully to suppress a yawn.

“Follow me,” I said without any further conversation. I just wanted to get back into bed.

I showed him to our spare bedroom that was directly across the hall from mine. It wasn’t luxurious or modern, but it was clean and much more comfortable than sleeping in his car. His gaze wandered around the room, taking in the timber hardwood floorboards, cream-coloured VJ walls, sash windows, high ceiling and ornate cornices. It was simply furnished with a cast-iron double bed covered by a white
broderie anglaise
bedspread, two bedside tables with lamps, a combined dresser-wardrobe, a plain timber chair and a threadbare rug that had been in the family for yonks. While he brought in his luggage, I stowed my Glock and belt away again. When he was done, I unwisely asked him if he was hungry. He admitted that he was.

I subdued my sigh. I’d had a load of practice in patience since I’d returned home. I led him to the kitchen and used the microwave to heat him up some of the food I’d left for Dad that evening. When I realised that Dad hadn’t even touched his meal, I determinedly swallowed my distress at that unwelcome piece of information. He was eating less and less each week. I’d especially made his favourite lamb casserole to tempt him, but instead I fed it to the stranger sitting at my old, battered kitchen table.

I sat there for a while to keep him company, head propped up on my hand, despite the fact that he didn’t speak a word to me, busy forking up the food at double rate. He must have been starving. I think that my eyes closed and my head drooped, because he suddenly spoke sharply to me, shaking my arm as my head nudged towards the table. I sat up, instantly alert, blinking furiously.

“Go to bed, Senior Constable. You don’t have to wait up with me.”

“Sorry Sarge,” I said, yawning. “I’ve had a long day. Don’t worry about the plates. I’ll wash them up tomorrow morning.” And I stumbled back to my bed and fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. I didn’t stir until my alarm went off at seven.

Unwillingly, I forced myself out of bed, which I really didn’t want to do, but if I slept in any longer it would screw up my biorhythms. The house was silent and I guessed that both men were still asleep. As I padded to the fridge to pour myself a glass of juice I noticed that the dishes the Sarge had used last night had been neatly washed and left to drain.

Dad wasn’t someone to be alarmed by the sudden appearance of a stranger, so I decided not to wake him to tell him about our visitor. I hit the road for my customary morning jog, admiring the cute midnight-blue sporty BMW now parked in our driveway next to the patrol car as I walked down the stairs. My new boss travelled in style.

I headed off on my favourite route that took me past the secret bikie retreat and nudist community to the beach cove that was reached by a set of steep stairs leading down from the road. The morning air was already warming up and I soon fell into a nice rhythm jogging along the road, waving to the surprising number of people up and about at this time on a Saturday morning. It was always reassuring to see people around when I jogged by myself because it made me feel safer. For that same reason, I never listened to music when I jogged. I negotiated the stairs down to the sand and ran on the beach for a couple of kilometres, some of it in the soft sand because I like to torture myself sometimes, before turning back.