Sticks and Stones (40 page)

‘Even so you'll be doing better than I did, because I only get to take
one
of them with me, not both. But I want you to feel a
little
of what I did, when
I
lost them. And remember this.' He paused as he squatted down by her side, so that his face was only inches away. And finally, his voice quavered with emotion. ‘That it's
your
fault, you fucking low-life bitch. You left me no choice, none at all. Understand? Your fault. The whole. Fucking. Thing.'

Tiny drops of spittle landed on her cheek with the last two words. Maddie dropped her eyes, staring instead at his hand and, bizarrely, her ceramic frog that was clutched in his fingers. Where had
that
come from? And
when
? One set of splayed, gold-tipped toes stuck out from between his fingers and then suddenly the frog began to rise and it was waving goodbye. Instinctively she followed its progress with her eyes and put one hand out to try to stop it. But she was too weak and it was too quick and by the time it began its descent all she could do was close her eyes. And then there was a split-second of the most incredible, amazing, mind-blowing pain before everything went black.

TWENTY-FIVE

S
he was staring at a ceramic frog. It had bulging tortoiseshell eyes and gold-tipped toes, as if it had just had a pedicure. And she wanted to wave but couldn't, because her arms and legs weren't working. Which was almost as annoying as the fact she
knew
there was something she had to do, something really important, and she couldn't remember. It floated just out of reach, but if only she could get moving, then maybe she could grasp it. Because this was critical. Urgent. Otherwise someone would be gone, someone precious, and it would be all her fucking fault. All. Her. Fucking. Fault.

Maddie came to slowly, her face pressed against the carpet. Light filtered in from the kitchen to spill across the room in a triangular swathe that didn't include her. Consciousness was rapidly followed by fierce pain that bloomed across her body, with nothing spared. She licked her lips, grimacing at the salty, metallic taste, and put a hand to her head as she sat up. Bringing it down again to stare at the blood that was smeared across her fingers. Watermelon juice. It all blurred quite suddenly, and then swam back into focus. She blinked and gazed around, her hand still held out as if making an offering. The room was empty. Was it supposed to be empty?

Ashley.

The thought slipped in, as slick as the blood on her hand, to coalesce within her mind with an urgency that was puzzling. Maddie took a deep, even breath, trying to unpack the feeling and what it might mean. She stared at the swivel chair by the computer and suddenly saw it being pushed at her, feinted this way and that. And there was Jake's face and he was punching her and she was curled forward with her back against the wall and now she was being choked and she was going to die. Maddie put a hand up to her throat, instinctively, and it ached with a dullness that went beyond skin and muscle and larynx, permeating even emotion. The shock, the fear, the terror. But why hadn't he followed through? Had she escaped?

Trying to turn the doorknob, only to have it slip between her sweat-slicked hands. Wiping them desperately down her pants before wrapping them back around the knob and twisting until it turned – oh my god, it turned – and the door came open, the night air rushing towards her and giving her strength. Flinging herself through the doorway as she felt, or thought she felt, his fingers brush against her back.

She stood up using the wall as leverage. Feeling her hip falter under the weight. Then she began a limping progress towards the brightness of the kitchen, vaguely remembering how desperately she had tried to reach it earlier. She could hear the rain outside, thrumming methodically on the roof. And now she could hear him too, talking to her, trying to tell her something.
I want you to feel a little of what I did, when I lost them.
She paused in the doorway, staring at her car keys on the table.

Ashley.

Suddenly it was all clear, swimming into focus. Making sense. He never intended to kill her, he intended to
punish
her and the best way of doing that was through the children. To do what she had, albeit with just one child.
Doesn't matter, one'll do.
He was going to take Ashley away. Now. Maddie turned quickly, swept by a brief wave of giddiness, and hobbled over to the phone. She pressed 000, jabbing at the buttons, feeling a wave of relief when the operator answered.

‘Emergency. Police, fire or ambulance?'

She licked her lips, moistening them for speech. Sliding the word out. ‘Police please.'

‘What town are you calling from?'

‘Badgerton. I need the police please.'

‘And what state are you calling from?'

Maddie felt tears of frustration prick at her eyes. ‘Victoria!'

‘I am now connecting you to the police service.' There was a hollow, echoing pause and then a male voice came on the line, sounding ridiculously young. ‘What's the problem, please?'

‘My husband is about to kidnap our daughter,' said Maddie rapidly, the words tripping over each other. ‘He's going to take her away to punish me.'

‘And he told you this?' asked the young police officer.

‘Yes!'

‘Do you have any court orders in place?'

Maddie hesitated, suddenly realising that, despite everything, today was Jake's day. This brought a hysterical laugh hurtling up her throat and she cut it off painfully, making it splutter wetly against the phone. But then there was the intervention order, surely that would make a difference. ‘He beat me.'

‘Tonight?'

‘Yes. Choked me and then knocked me unconscious.'

‘What is your address, ma'am?'

Maddie knew, quite suddenly, that he would send someone out here to talk to her. Assess the situation. Probably an ambulance as well, and she would be taken to hospital for examination. While the minutes trickled away, and Jake got even more of a head start than he already had. She leant sideways, so that she could see the clock on the microwave out in the kitchen. Seven-fifty.

‘Your address, ma'am?'

She hung up, another wave of dizziness hitting her so strongly that she had to grasp the back of the swivel chair for support. She used it to lurch forward into the kitchen. Here she paused, taking a series of even breaths until she felt quite steady. Then she swept the car keys from the table and limped slowly, carefully, up to the door, opening it, passing through and outside into the rain. Letting the thin, steady shower wake her even more. She slid into the car and stared at her handbag on the passenger seat. Where had
that
come from? Shaking her head as she turned the car over and then reversed down the driveway and out onto the road. Where she stopped, headlights shining ahead into the rain, while she tried to decide what was next. Where would he go?

Mont Gully. Without a doubt. Because he would need to pack, and that was where he had most of his things, and also because he wouldn't risk going back to the Silver's Creek house. He would know, for starters, that there were assault charges waiting to be served there. No, it would be Mont Gully, where he would get documents from the filing cabinet, empty out his combination safe in the study, and do whatever it took to convince Ashley to cooperate. Mont Gully, because a man's home is his castle and there was no better place to take stock.

Maddie pressed her foot down and shot forward, the car slithering sideways on the wet road. She straightened quickly, without slowing, and headed for the highway. Figuring he had about an hour or so head start and he probably would have counted on more, given the whack he had given her head. Which meant she might well make it, but only if she hurried. She sat forward in the seat, peering at the beams of light and the rain-slicked road, concentrating fiercely. Leaving Badgerton behind and heading bullet-like down the highway towards Melbourne.

Her concentration was so total that it was not until well past the halfway point that Maddie suddenly remembered Sam. Sitting at the Badgerton veterinary clinic, with Guess. She reached across the seat, scrabbling through her bag until she found her mobile phone. Holding it up and then glancing from it to the road ahead as she entered Hannah's number.

‘Hello?'

Maddie stretched her lips, licking them to give the words traction. Feeling the split pull. ‘Hannah, this is Maddie. I need you to do me a favour. Please.'

‘What's wrong?' asked Hannah quickly, instantly concerned. ‘You sound . . . odd. Are you drunk again?'

‘No! I just need you to
listen
.' Maddie paused as she passed a slow-moving station wagon and then swung back into the left lane. ‘I need you to go to Badgerton
right now
and pick up Sam from the vet clinic there. It's in the main street.'

‘
What?
'

‘And I need you to ring them first.' Maddie glanced at the clock on the dashboard. ‘Because they close soon. The number'll be in the Yellow Pages. Apologise, say it was an emergency. Ask them to hang on to him until you get there.'

‘Mattie,
what is going on
?'

‘I don't have time right now.' Maddie frowned as a truck whooshed past on the other side of the road, spraying her car with water. She flicked her windscreen wipers up a notch. ‘Just give Sam my love, tell him I'm sorry. That everything'll be okay. Keep him at your place, and whatever you do
don't
let him out of your sight.'

‘Mattie . . .'

‘I'll ring later.' Maddie pressed
End
and threw the phone over onto her handbag. On the seat where only yesterday her daughter had sat, close enough to touch. Safe and sound. How could she have sent her back? She sucked her lip and stared ahead, away from the seat and Ashley and what would happen when she arrived, focusing instead on the illuminated swathe of road before her and the rain falling sideways across it. Liquid diamonds glistening as they plummeted. Splattering lightly against her windscreen, only to be swept away by the wipers. Over and over and over, with the same hypnotising
thud-whoosh, thud-whoosh, thud-whoosh
, until that sound and that motion was all there was.

And she was crawling underneath a bush, a good place to hide. Huddling into a ball, arms wrapped around her legs, head down. Allowing the ache of her entire body to enfold her within like a patchwork quilt. Knowing she could match each segment, each patch, with what she had endured. The throat which rasped like sandpaper, the throbbing muscles of her thighs, the stiffness of her spine, the fierce, blinding headache that travelled from her skull along each strand of hair as if they were vital organs themselves. All coming together to blind her within the agony of their demands.

A truck horn exploded at her through the darkness and Maddie jerked the steering wheel across, bringing her car back into the lane. The horn roared past and then faded into her wake as she stared wide-eyed through the windscreen, her heart pounding. She continued driving for a few minutes and then slapped herself across the face, wincing at both the pain and the irony. The rain had become heavier, the thin sprinkly droplets now fat and heavy. Maddie wound her window down and put one hand out, scooping up some water and then bringing it inside to splash across her face. It felt cold, but wonderful.

She pulled across the rear-vision mirror, glancing from the road to her face and back again. Taking in the split lip with its lip-liner crusting of black-red blood, and the dusting of blue along her jawline and under the left eye which itself puffed heavily down towards her cheek. As if that side of her face was melting. But what shocked her most of all was her pallor, the flat sheen of ivory with her eyes like bullet holes within. Maddie closed her eyes, briefly, just to acknowledge the damage. Then she pushed the mirror away, adjusting it briskly as she concentrated on the road ahead.

The long, lonely highway soon gave way to clusters of suburbia and brightly lit industrial sites as she neared Melbourne. And the rain gradually vanished, leaving heavy overcast skies that obscured the moon and left everything a gun-metal grey. Then the lights of the Westgate Bridge soared up before her, looping majestically over the bay and down towards the city. The wind was gusty at the summit, thundering against her car and sweeping her along as if it was on her side.
Go for it, Maddie, you can do it! You're almost there!
She took the Monash Freeway out of town, grimly satisfied by the lack of traffic, and turned up Fern-tree Gully Road, hurtling along the dark, damp streets.

And then she was in Mont Gully, turning off the main road and into the labyrinth of roads that made up their estate. She checked the time. Nine forty-five. This was true suburbia, with uniformly brick houses and native gardens with lots of pine chip and brightly lit carriage lanterns. She drove automatically. Left, right, around the roundabout and straight, another right and then one final left. With her heart beating so hard and so fast that it felt her ribs might crack. Straining to see if a car was parked where it really mattered. And it was. Maddie let her breath out and it felt amazing, with even her pain vanishing, just for a moment. She coasted down into the bowl of the court and then pulled up at the kerb, right by the house. In no hurry now that she was actually here, she sat still, watching carefully for a curtain to twitch back. The silhouette in the doorway, the slither of light.

The house was not well lit, with just a faint light coming from somewhere towards the back, perhaps the main bedroom. Maddie frowned, because this didn't make much sense. Neither did the fact that the outside light wasn't on and there was no activity anywhere. No packing or hurrying or rushing around. No television or music or wavering shadows within. Maddie let her eyes flick slowly from one end of the house to the other, pausing at each window. Nothing. She reached behind and snared her mobile from the top of her handbag. Bringing it over to dial a well-remembered number. Seconds later she heard it ringing, from deep within the house. On and on and on, each ring like a death knell, until it finally rang out.