Dance with the Devil (16 page)

Diane hustled Emma out the door. Once inside the takeaway, they ordered lunch then sat at a corner table.

Emma's mind reeled. From the moment he'd come into her life, Drew had continued to surprise her. Now…

'It must have been a shock for you, Emma, finding Drew like that.' Diane's grey eyes clouded with concern. 'How is he? Not just physically. Emotionally.'

'Considering what he's been through, I'd say he's managing fairly well.' But Emma knew the emotional scars would take longer to heal than the physical ones. 'Tell me about The Centre.'

'It was Drew's idea - somewhere street kids could get together without being hassled. Where they can let off a bit of steam on the basketball court or play pool somewhere other than the hotels. He got some sponsorship, but most of the money needed to set it up came from his own pocket.

'Then he decided that having a counsellor on hand would be a good idea.' She gave a short laugh, and again Emma smiled at the uninhibited throaty chuckle. 'He can be very persuasive when he needs to be. You should see him in court. He's magnificent.'

Emma could imagine. With his piercing blue eyes and deep voice, he'd certainly have the female jurors mesmerised. But she was beginning to realise there was more to Drew Jarrett than she'd assumed. 'He's very…self-contained. He never mentioned anything about The Centre. I…' she felt the colour rising in her face, 'imagined him as a smart city lawyer.' She didn't want to repeat what she'd really said to him.

'Drew's an outstanding lawyer, but he'll never be successful - not in the monetary sense. He has too much compassion. When he's fighting in the courtroom for one of these kids, it's a joy to watch him. But he won't defend them if he knows they're guilty and they refuse to acknowledge it. He tries to make them see it's better to be honest and cop their punishment.'

'But how does he make a living? Dale didn't look as though he could afford new boots, let alone legal defence.'

Diane sighed. 'It's not only street kids who need legal representation, Emma. Kids from perfectly good families go off the rails too. Drew has a fine reputation as a youth lawyer. If he believes in a kid, he'll fight like crazy to get him a fair trial. Some parents show their gratitude by contributing to The Centre.'

'Doesn't the name
The Centre
sound just a bit
institutionalised
?'

Their order number was called, and as they walked out Diane asked, 'Did you ever see that television series called
The Pretender
?'

Emma shook her head.

'The main character in the show is held captive from childhood in a research facility called "The Centre",' Diane explained. 'He finally escapes and learns what the real world is like. When Drew asked some street kids for name suggestions, one of them commented that The Centre for them would be a place to
escape
from the real world.'

As they walked back into the office, Emma's breath caught in her throat. Drew was sorting through some paperwork on one of the desks. Grey trousers and pale blue shirt moulded to his athlete's body in a way that seemed to accentuate his virility and remind her just how sexy she found him.

She finally found her voice. 'Fishing clothes?'

He grinned. 'When my cooking got too bad, I'd drive into the nearest town for a meal at the hotel. Couldn't waltz in in my jockstrap and thongs.'

His tone was teasing, but she had a sudden mental image of him in a jockstrap, which led to another of him without the jockstrap, and desire coursed through her. Heat flushed through her body.

'Come on, coffee's ready.' He led the way past two equally spartan offices to a back room set up with a kitchen and bathroom.

'Home away from home,' she commented.

'He just about lives here.' Diane positively snorted her disapproval.

As they ate, Diane briefed Drew on The Centre's news. Emma noticed she didn't query Drew about his ordeal, just keenly observed his every action, every nuance in his tone. But once they'd finished eating, she asked him.

Drew was quiet and controlled as he recounted everything. But Emma watched as Diane's soft questions prised at his feelings, tested his strengths. She saw the chinks in his emotional armour; saw the way he sealed up the chinks as swiftly as they'd been revealed.

His voice became strained as he told Diane the details of Dario's murder and the burning of his house. Her shock was palpable. More so when Drew expounded his theory that the killer was including Drew's friends in his list of victims.

'So promise me you won't go anywhere alone, Diane,' he finished. 'I don't want to lose another friend.'

Diane assured him she would now cling to other people closer than a barnacle. She also confirmed that their shared secretary was safely on holidays overseas and the barrister they sometimes used had recently moved to Melbourne.

Emma was pouring herself another cup of coffee when Dale's pregnant girlfriend raced into the room, her eyes saucered with fear. She screamed at Drew.

'You gotta come quick! He's dead! He's dead!'

Judge Aloysius Abercrombie scanned the rocky slopes with a practised eye. The countryside was a profusion of greens, from the olive of wattles, the khaki of gums, to the lime of new grass. But it wasn't the living colour which excited the judge, rather the prospect of finding a precious gemstone exposed by the recent heavy rain.

He was a sprightly man for sixty-four, thin, wiry, with a nervous energy that often chafed under the burden of his judge's robes. The pomposity of his position seldom allowed him to express his rather offbeat sense of humour, and he took secret delight in the circuit-court joke that 'old AA was coming, better hide your grog'. A temperate man when working, and a strict believer in keeping his private life separate, he knew he was viewed as a
wowser
, a man who frowned on others drinking. The fact they related his initials to Alcoholics Anonymous tickled the funny bone of the owner of one of the best wine collections in Queensland.

He picked his way across the uneven ground, occasionally stooping to pick up a specimen which looked promising. The early morning coolness and the crisp, clear light were a pleasure to be savoured after the sultry heat of the previous days.

At midday, he stopped in a grove of gum trees, swung his pack to the ground and sat on a smooth lump of rock emerging from the ground like a half-buried dinosaur egg. The sandwich his wife had prepared for him was kept cold by a small, chilled bottle of wine. The plastic glass was a minor irritation, but necessary in such rough terrain.

He sipped the mellow golden liquid, gazed up towards the stark grandeur of the mountains and sighed. Only birdsong and cicadas broke the perfect peace. Contentment flowed through his veins with more effect than the alcohol.

'You can almost
feel
God talk to you up here.'

The voice jerked him from his reverie; wine flew across his shirt, the plastic glass clattered onto the rocks. He whirled around, almost falling off the rock.

By the time his heart had slowed to a soft canter, the judge had taken in the appearance of the man who had spoken. A tall, big-boned man, he was dressed in khaki, his greying hair cut in a severe military style. Recently, judging by the pale strip of skin in front of his ears.

The judge wondered how a man so big could have crept up on him so quietly. Then he corrected himself. Of course the man had not
crept
up. If he'd wished him harm, he would not have spoken and alerted the judge to his presence. Perhaps, AA felt, he had been daydreaming and simply hadn't heard the man's approach.

'Yes,' he agreed, 'it's easy to feel you're close to God up here.'

The man smiled, his body relaxed slightly. Even so, AA sensed a tension, an alertness, in him. AA placed his glass back in his pack and stood up. He was suddenly acutely conscious that they were alone on the hillside. He and this man who had, one could almost imagine, materialised from the trees.

'Do you want to be close to God?' the man asked. His smile had gone and a slight severity coloured his words. He walked closer and AA saw his eyes; saw the fever-bright gleam of them, the passion vying with patience.

Instinct scuttled warning vibes down his spine. He stepped back.

The man stepped forward, deliberately, unhurriedly, until he was within reaching distance. AA noticed his hands, big, work-roughened hands, swinging lazily at his sides. He looked again into the man's eyes, and terror squeezed his heart.

He felt the hands close around his neck.

His own hands reached up, gripped steel-muscled forearms. His nails tore skin in futile desperation.

The hands tightened, lifted him. His hiking boots scraped rock, then kicked in the air.

'Ask for His forgiveness.'

Aloysius Abercrombie, circuit judge, lover of fine wine and offbeat humour, heard the words through a dim haze as powerful fingers cut off the blood supply to his brain.

The last sound he heard was his own spine snapping.

'Where, Carly?' Drew's voice cut like steel through the girl's hysterical yelling.

'The toilet!'

Then they were all running after Drew as he sprinted for the door.

The toilets for The Centre were situated between the kitchen and a small storage room, and in the few seconds it took Drew to reach them, he felt he'd aged a hundred years. Not another one! He didn't know if he could cope with being the catalyst for another murder.

Drew pushed his way through the throng of teenagers. Seeing the unfamiliar body lying on the tiles brought no sense of relief. The boy looked about sixteen, red-haired and skinny. The rubber tubing and hypodermic beside him told its own story.

'Let me look.' Emma knelt beside him. Quickly she checked the boy's vital signs. 'He's alive,' she said grimly, 'but only just.' She tossed her car keys to Drew. 'Call an ambulance and get my bag.'

The ambulance wailed its way through the traffic, slamming to a halt outside the Emergency entrance.

Emma gave the admitting nurse a medical run-down on the boy the other kids knew only as 'Baker' as he was trolleyed in. A doctor barked orders and a young nurse scurried in compliance.

Emma walked out into the waiting room and sank onto a chair. She hated death in the young and fought it with a vengeance. She wondered about Baker, about what had brought him so close to death by his own hand. In her work, she'd seen so many young lives lost because of famine and war, and she had mourned the waste. To see life squandered on drugs was something she found abhorrent.

The minutes ticked by. A magazine flipped slowly through her fingers but her mind didn't register the words.

A middle-aged couple rushed into the room, Drew following behind them. The man spoke to a nurse and they were ushered into the casualty ward.

Drew walked over and sat beside Emma.

'How is he?'

'They're working on him.'

'He'd dropped his wallet outside the toilet. One of the kids gave it to me.' He sat down on the chair next to her. 'I went to see his parents. A phone call's too callous at a time like this.'

She looked at him. And saw him,
really
saw him, for the first time. Saw the caring and compassion that was as much a part of his nature as his strength and determination. She thought the caring he had shown her had sprung from his gratitude. Now she recognised in Drew the qualities she'd sought and never found in the man she'd married. It was a startling revelation. One she'd need time to come to grips with.

'Did they know - about the drugs?'

'They'd suspected something was wrong, but they'd blamed adolescent hormonal swings. Allan's their only child.'

'And if he dies, they have nothing,' she sighed.

Drew reached out and covered her hand with his. Emma looked down at his hand, the long, strong fingers, the ugly red wound in the centre. She shuddered. If the killer had succeeded in getting the cross upright, Drew's weight would have caused the nails to rip through his hands and possibly cripple him for life.

She turned her fingers to twine with his.

An hour later, Allan's parents walked back into the waiting room. Their faces were strained but Emma hoped she wasn't mistaken at the relief in their eyes.

They stopped in front of Emma. The woman clutched her husband's arm as though she would fall down if she let go. 'Thank you,' she said to Emma. 'The doctor said if you hadn't treated Allan before the ambulance arrived, he wouldn't have made it to the hospital. At least now he's got a chance…a chance to…' Sobs racked her body.

Her husband hugged her tightly and led her away.

Emma watched them with sadness. Their battle had only just begun.

Drew drove the Land Cruiser slowly back to The Centre.

Emma watched his tight grip on the steering wheel, the drawn brows betraying his intense concentration, and a funny sensation fluttered in her heart.

'Why did you start The Centre, Drew?'

'It was needed,' he replied simply, and she knew it was the only explanation she would get. But she remembered what he'd told her about becoming a street kid himself and the girl who'd died of a drug overdose, and she felt she knew the answer. The title of an article she'd read sprang to mind -
Who's looking after the children
?

A smile touched her lips. Drew was.

'Drugs aren't allowed in The Centre,' Drew mused. 'Allan must have been desperate to shoot up there. Hopefully it was a cry for help. If he's willing, he can start counselling with Diane as soon as he's well enough.'

'And if he's not willing?'

Drew shrugged. 'We won't give up. But in the end, it's up to him.'

Emma frowned. Drew was as dedicated in his own way as she was in hers. It added another dimension to his personality, which she was finding increasingly hard to ignore.

When Drew stopped in front of The Centre, he didn't turn off the engine. Instead, he turned to her as he opened his door.

'I have some work to do. I'll see you back at your mother's place. Keep an eye out when you're driving home. If you see a white van following you, drive straight to a police station.' He smiled, but it didn't relieve the haunted look that had returned to his eyes.