Leopard Dreaming (29 page)

‘Actually, it’s better if you don’t know that much,’ Mira argued.

Gabby clasped her hand over her heart. ‘Please tell me Benny’s not in trouble again?’

‘How should I know?’ Mira snapped. ‘Sorry … I mean, he refuses to speak to me.’

‘He’s stopped answering the phone for me too, sweetie. That doesn’t mean he’s refusing. That nurse can be a nastier bitch than my dinghy.’

‘He can’t see me at all,’ Mira argued. ‘You’ve at least been allowed to visit him. None of the nurses would let me go in with you.’

‘Oui, doctor’s orders. Too many cables to trip over. Let’s face it, your sight’s not the best, darling.’

‘About your boat,’ Lockman said, preferring to put an end to that subject.

‘Wait, what about the message then?’ Mira asked. ‘The one you gave me from him?’

‘That never said anything about refusing to see you.’

Mira withdrew the note from her cleavage, and recited it from memory.

Sorry, we need time.

You’re better off with Lockman anyway.

News to him, but at least it helped explain why she’d been doubly resistant around him.

‘That’s not …’ Gabby snatched it off her. ‘Who added this last line?’

‘Don’t look at me,’ Lockman said. ‘She resents me enough already.’

‘You’re the one who was there when he wrote it, aren’t you, Gabby?’

‘Sure, and this last line of the scrawl isn’t his handwriting.’

‘You’re sure?’ Lockman snatched it off Gabby.

‘Like she said, I was there. But even if I hadn’t been, I’ve known Benny since kindergarten. He makes the tails on his
y
’s straight like these in the first line. No hooks like the ones down here. See?’

‘Hooks,’ Lockman said, trying to tell the difference. Hard with so many wrinkles in the paper. ‘All I see are lines that were scrawled by someone with broken fingers.’

‘They’re still different,’ Gabby argued. ‘Who else had their hands on it?’

‘Only his mother,’ Mira said. ‘She read it to me. I know she hates me, but she wouldn’t … would she?’

‘Oh, oui?’ Gabby laughed bitterly. ‘Mel read it to you, did she? How soon after I did?’

‘A few minutes. She came out of his room right after you went for coffee.’

‘And made it seem as if I’d only told you half the story, obviously. Listen,
mon amie
, maybe you are safer with Adam while Ben’s off his feet. Maybe not, if you’re back in trouble again. It’s hardly Mel’s place to judge either way. That’s between you and Ben, just as soon as he’s well enough. And I’m pretty sure that’s
all he was trying to say. He wrote that before they bandaged him. Before the painkillers kicked in.’

Mira brightened as if a sun had switched on inside her. ‘You’re saying he
does
want to see me again?’

‘Of course he does!’ She glanced at Lockman with a pained expression; more worried for her friends than herself obviously. ‘Just as soon as he can face his own reflection. In the meantime, he has this bizarre notion that he’s not man enough to be fit company for any girl.’

‘He’s trained as a social worker,’ Mira argued. ‘If anyone knows he should be pushing his limits, it’s him. I want to see him now.’

Lockman folded the note into her palm, wishing he’d never seen it. ‘Now?’ he asked. ‘As in
right now
?’

‘Sure, why not? We’ve got at least six hours up our sleeve before … we’re busy. And they virtually dared me to go there first, so now I’m really worried.’

‘They?’ Gabby asked, frowning. ‘The same “they” you need my boat to sneak up on?’

Lockman glanced at Mira, wondering how much she might be prepared to elaborate.

‘Okay, that’s it!’ Gabby declared. ‘We’re all going.’

‘You don’t have to come,’ Mira said, hoping she could change her mind, but Gabby had taken the lead, while latching onto Mira’s hand like a barnacle. ‘Mel will be cranky enough seeing me show up. There’s no point making her cranky at you too.’

‘Oh, no! I wouldn’t miss seeing this for anything. I want to be there when you nail her for that note, and if you don’t, I will. Controlling bitch. I haven’t forgiven her for the make-up she gave me for my sixteenth birthday. I had zits for a month! And the prawns she poked down in the engine of my first car. Stank so bad I needed my diving gear just to drive it. You ever tried wearing an oxygen mask over hair that’s spent all day in curlers for your prom night?’

‘Can’t say as I have,’ Lockman replied, sounding amused. ‘Is she like that with all his girlfriends?’

‘Only the ones who don’t fit her checklist. Mira fails because she’s got such poor sight and spent time in a nut house, and I’m out because my parents were rivals with her and Ben’s dad over the ferry runs.’

‘All the more reason not to stir her up,’ Mira pleaded. ‘I’m not going to disturb the peace they need to recuperate. I only need to check and be sure they’re okay.’

‘And how do you expect to find the shortcut from here, without me? Too easy to get lost, honey. It’s not like the beach house is signposted. It’s on an old mining lease; a few hundred acres, and we crossed out of the public trails nearly ten minutes ago.’

‘So who made the tracks here? They seem no different …’ Mira faltered at her mistake, since Gabby didn’t know anything about her hindsight. ‘Underfoot, I mean.’

‘Well of course they wouldn’t. Wild horses and wallabies blazed the foundations for nearly all the trails through the forest. If you take the wrong one, you’ll end up at the nearest waterhole. In fact we’ll have to circle around a big one before we can get to Ben’s place, or the water’s too deep.’

‘Are you still suspended from duty?’ Lockman asked from the rear, and managing to change the subject effectively.

‘Suspended, no. More like compulsory holiday. Full pay and I get to go back next week — as skipper of the new
Edu-kitty
. Yay! Well, so long as my pig-faced boss doesn’t renege on the deal. He’s got a water scorpion up his arse over me for some reason, and that was before I gave you a lift on the cat when I was technically off-duty.’

‘You sound happy though,’ Mira said.

‘Happy? Honey, I’m ecstatic. Lending you a lift
in my cat was the best thing I ever did. Not that I’m in any hurry to tempt discipline for misuse of a government vessel again, but it certainly got my boss off my back. He had me doing public relations crap and mail pick-ups, and now I’ll have my own catamaran
permanently.
I’ll get to do real conservation work again on every island in the bay. And all thanks to that nice general smoothing things over for me.’

Mira growled, knowing Garland’s hidden agenda. So much harder for Mira to turn her back on the general if her friends remained ingratiated.

‘In exchange for
what
?’ Mira asked, suspiciously. ‘Sounds too good to be true to me.’

‘No strings,’ Gabby assured her. Then she chuckled. ‘Unless you count the promise to give her a call if ever I want to switch careers. Apparently, she thinks I’m officer material. How funny is that?’

‘Hilarious,’ Mira scowled. To her it seemed more like defection.

‘You’d be great,’ Lockman said, sticking close to Mira. ‘You’re a tough, talented team player.’

‘Thanks, but I prefer it here in the wetlands, where I can … Oh, crap! Look!’

Mira glanced ahead in reflex, then reminded herself she wasn’t likely to see the same scene. The only things that stood out were two small shiny cylinders beside the trail, about the size of aspirin tablets.

‘Shell casings,’ Gabby said. ‘Do you know what this means?’

Mira wondered if she meant casings for surveillance devices, but if they were, they looked much older and chunkier than the disabled one attached to her zip. They also looked to be metal and hollow.

‘Poachers,’ Gabby spat, using the word as a profanity. ‘They get everywhere.’

‘Let me see those.’ Lockman overtook Mira on the narrow trail, and while she waited to hear his assessment
of the situation, she glanced around the scrub and glimpsed Ben’s beach house further ahead through the trees and gardens, at the nearest edge of a placid lagoon. She couldn’t hear any surf yet on the far side of the house, but she could make out the distinctive roof line huddled amid tropical palms. Sitting at the end of a blunt sandy peninsula, the A-framed home had doubled in size during its life until it now looked more like a capital M. Additional balconies on all sides confused the shape even more, while also adding to the appeal. And the views, inside and out, had seemed sublime.

Mira saw the patio where Ben first kissed her. She touched her hand to her heart and the memory flooded back to her; Ben getting hit and falling away from her.

‘Army issue, 9 mm,’ Lockman said, ripping her back to the present.

Her fists clenched tight until her fingernails dug into her skin. ‘This is the garden where Kitching stood the first time he tried to abduct me.’

‘Who’s Kitching?’ Gabby asked as if she’d never overheard enough to figure it out herself. ‘And what did he want with you?’

‘That’s classified,’ Lockman replied. ‘If you don’t know already, it’s best if —’

‘His colonel,’ Mira said bitterly, ‘so he’s not allowed to say anything.’

‘
Was
my colonel,’ Lockman argued. ‘And it’s army business, so I’m duty bound by an oath, even after discharge or resignation, same as any government employee who comes in contact with sensitive material. You probably signed one too, Gabby.’

‘Oh, oui,’ she said, as if she didn’t care. ‘We got another memo after the catamaran incident. So what’s the big deal?’

‘He’s been stealing weapons and military secrets.’ Mira took the lead on the trail, even as the house passed out of view momentarily.

‘Mira,’ Lockman interrupted. ‘Loose lips could put her in danger.’

‘She’s here, so she’s already in danger. And it’s my secret. I’ll tell who I like. She might as well know as much as she needs to so she can save herself if anything bad happens. Ben tried to hold back, and look where that got him — while his mum didn’t know enough, so she had nothing to blab to save herself.’ She fumbled to find Gabby’s hands to implore her more personally. ‘That’s why I’ve decided you need to know this, Gabby. If I couldn’t scare you off, or talk you out of it, it’s my only choice. So if anyone ever threatens you to get information about me, don’t hold back. Tell as much as you can to save yourself.’

‘Back up, what secret?’

‘That’s what I’m trying to tell you. It’s the reason why trouble follows me, and it’s about time I took all the blame. And all the consequences.’

‘Do you mean your little tricks with ESP, and the way you can detect shadowy shapes enough to help you walk around without tripping?’

‘It’s only ESP as far as it means that when I went blind, my other senses developed to compensate — not just hearing and skin sensitivity.’

‘Mira, are you sure?’ Lockman asked.

‘Oh, oui? You mean like radar?’

‘Stranger than that.’ Mira smiled grimly and set off for the beach house, taking the lead and ignoring Lockman’s plea. ‘The colonel is determined I’m an asset. To be used, or sold or even replicated.’

‘Replicated, as in clones?’

‘Partly, maybe. He calls it reverse engineering. Do you know how normal eyes work?’

‘Sure. I did a thesis on night vision in Australian marsupials, so I needed to understand the basics first.’

Mira wished it could be that simple. She explained how her lenses had over-crystallised when she was a
kid and how her synapses had adapted to compensate, then hesitated, deciding to land the punch line a little more gently. ‘So I can see certain things.’

‘Over-crystallised, how? By genetic predisposition, disease or environmental contaminants?’

Mira explained briefly about Fragile X Syndrome, and how she’d most likely inherited it from her mother, trying to swing away from the details and back to the punch line.

‘Wow, that works the same for most genetic mutations in wildlife. Except any juveniles that develop abnormalities are usually rejected by the other members of their species, and rarely survive.’

‘Then we’re all animals.’ Mira sighed heavily. ‘Humans reject their mutants too.’

‘Oh, wait.’ Gabby gasped, as if embarrassed. ‘This is where Ben’s work at the asylum comes in?’

Mira nodded. ‘You’re smart, Gabby. I can see why Ben’s always liked you.’

‘Not enough to hook up more than once or twice. Don’t let that distract you, honey. Tell me, how much can you see? Details, details.’

Mira shook her head, distracted. She could still recall the initial sting of learning that Ben must have kissed other women, even before she’d realised one of them had been Gabion.

Gabby laughed, as if reading her expression. ‘Hey, if the attraction isn’t as strong as the one between you and Adam, I don’t want it.’

Mira flushed hotly, embarrassed, while Lockman shuffled his feet. ‘We aren’t —’

‘Glowing so neon hot for each other you’re about to light up the whole forest? Nobody’s
that
blind, kiddies.’

‘I’m not —’ Mira snapped, before she caught herself. ‘I mean, I’m only blind to normal light. And you’re wrong about me and him, by the way.’

Gabby chuckled. ‘Okay, so, you’re blind to normal light? What other kind is there?’

‘All light is radiation, so it’s not too strange to imagine is it?’

‘Are you kidding me? If you have infrared or ultraviolet vision, that’s brilliant!’ She giggled. ‘I could use you at night, hunting poachers.’

‘Different wavelengths, sorry. I see a band of radiation which was previously undiscovered. Much lower wave speeds and frequencies, so it can’t be filtered or detected accurately yet, except through me — with the help of these.’ She stopped abruptly and took off her shades to offer Gabby a closer look, but omitted to brace herself properly first, causing her to sway.

Lockman caught her by the arm, making her feel all the more dependent on him. She shook him off, and braced herself against a ghostly palm tree instead.

‘Bright light hurts me, so please be quick. You need to see my eyes for yourself, or you’d never believe it.’ She blinked twice, trying not to squint too much as time swept back more than a century. The sandy track swelled up around her body, consuming her neck-deep in a grassy dune, and making her catch her breath in reflex. She reminded herself it wasn’t real any more; just her brain struggling to cope with too much conflicting information. ‘Most of the nurses said they look like shattered mirrors.’