Beyond Fear (25 page)

It was Lou and she whispered in Jodie’s ear. ‘If you get a chance, run.’

Then Travis was grabbing Jodie’s arm, hauling her up and across the room. His hand was a vice on her upper arm, the muzzle of the gun a prod in the small of her back.

At the front door, he pulled her close, spoke into her ear. ‘Get rid of him. Try anything stupid and I’ll kill him and I’ll kill your friends then I’ll let my brother finish you off. Got it?’

They
were
brothers.

Footsteps crunched on the gravel.

Oh, God, Matt. Why are you here?

Travis flattened himself against the wall behind the door. ‘I’ll be watching you. Stay where I can see you or I’ll put a bullet in him. Got it?’

Jodie’s heart pounded and her lungs forgot how to breathe. She could see Matt’s face in her mind. Mussed hair, wary eyes, casual and alert. He was a nice guy, probably taking up Corrine’s offer for a drink. She didn’t want to get him killed.

A footstep sounded on the timber stair.

‘Tell him anything,’ Travis whispered, ‘and your friends are dead. And it’ll be
your
fault. Got it?’

Jodie looked at him then over her shoulder at Louise and Hannah and Corrine tied together on the floor. Lou was bent forward now, her face on the timber, Kane’s workboot on the back of her neck.

Louise and Hannah and Corrine were her best friends. And Matt Wiseman was a cop.

Travis pulled the door open a crack. ‘Get rid of him. Fast.’

Try not to look desperate, Matt told himself. If it looks like she thinks you’re a try-hard for driving all the way out here, then leave. Do your good deed and wave goodbye. It would be a lot better if she laughed and asked him inside, though.

He stepped onto the verandah, the sound of his boot on the timber reverberating through the deck. It was quiet out here. Strangely quiet for a house full of women on a weekend holiday.

The door opened before he got to it. Just a fraction then a moment later, like a second thought, it was pulled wide and Jodie stood in the doorway. Her arms were folded across her chest and the expression on her face was grim. As though he was the last person in the world she wanted to see.

Okay, not exactly the reception he’d hoped for. Do your deed and get lost. But be nice about it. She might change her mind.

‘Hey, Jodie.’ He smiled.

The one she sent back looked like an effort. ‘Hey, Matt. What are you doing here?’

He laughed to himself. You idiot. There would be no anything. He pushed his hands into his pockets, felt for the phone and took a couple of steps closer to her. As he moved into the light from the windows, he saw something on her face, a swelling, high on her cheek. He leaned in for a closer look and she backed away. It looked recent. And painful. ‘What happened to your face?’

She pulled a hand from her folded arms and waved his concern away. There was some kind of makeshift bandage around her hand and blood on her fingers. ‘It’s nothing.’

He caught her hand and pulled it closer, palm up. ‘No, it’s not. You’re hurt.’ There was a dark stain on the bandage at the base of her thumb and her hand was freezing. ‘What happened?’

She tugged her fingers back and tucked them into her other arm. Her eyes flicked to her left. Quickly, like an involuntary movement. ‘No, really, it’s nothing. Just an accident. So silly, really. I dropped a glass of water and slipped over and hit my head on the kitchen bench on the way down. It’s all right, though. Hannah’s a nurse, she fixed it up. A bit of a rough job but we didn’t have a first-aid kit. It’s fine. Really.’ She smiled thinly, avoiding his eyes.

He watched her for a second. The nervous eye flick was a tip-off but the giveaway was in the detail. It was the classic mistake people made when they were lying. They thought if they talked a lot, no one would notice the lie. For someone clearly not in the mood to chat, Jodie just did a lot of talking. Hannah probably was a nurse but Matt guessed the rest of the story was horseshit. The question was: why lie about getting hurt?

‘Why are you here, Matt?’ she asked again, looking past him as though she wished he’d hurry up and leave.

‘I found your phone in the loan car.’ He pulled it from his pocket and held it out to her. ‘I thought I’d drop it in on the way to my brother’s. In case you needed it tonight.’

She used her undamaged hand this time, went to take it then pulled back. Flicked her eyes left. ‘It’s not mine,’ she said. ‘Mine’s silver. With . . . with a flip top. That’s not mine.’

He frowned. ‘Okay,’ he said, looking to her left. The front door had drifted halfway closed and soft light from inside cast a glow on the deck. Behind her, he could see timber floors, half of a sofa and a fireplace. No girlfriends. ‘Maybe it belongs to one of your friends.’

‘No,’ she said quickly. ‘No, they’ve got their phones. Definitely not one of theirs.’ Her eyes moved left again but it was different this time – a downwards glance that only made it halfway to the door. ‘Yes,’ she said and for the first time since he’d got there she looked him straight in the eye. ‘Yes, we all sat on the deck this afternoon and phoned home.’

So the phone wasn’t theirs. He got the point. ‘Well, I guess that’s it then.’ The point was that he needed to get it through his skull that his instincts were seriously shot to hell. He thought she seemed interested this afternoon. Maybe not so overwhelmed by him in his jeans as he was in hers but enough to flash a real smile and chat for a moment somewhere out of the cold. He’d obviously been way off. ‘Have a good weekend, then. Give me a call if you have any more problems with the car. Otherwise, well, it’s been nice meeting you.’ He held out his hand. May as well be professional about it ’cause there wasn’t anything else happening.

She took it, just held it for a moment without shaking it. ‘The brakes are fine now. You did a great job on them. Thanks.’

He kept his face still while he thought about that. There’d been nothing wrong with the brakes and she knew that. He’d walked her through the repairs on her car in the shop and he’d gone over the bill with her. Brakes had never been mentioned. She was looking him in the eye again, chin tilted upwards, mouth set firm. She was making a point – he got that – but what? That he should have fixed the brakes?

He frowned a little. Okay, Matt, what next? He could stall and try to figure it out – if nothing else, it was an excuse to spend a little while longer with her before she fobbed him off for good. Or he could quit while he was ahead. Take up Tom and Monica’s invitation for dinner. Yeah, and listen to the latest on the John Kruger investigation and feel bad about it all over again. No, stalling was good. ‘Hey, no problem. You need brakes if you’re going to make a habit of running off the road.’

Something passed over her face. A private laugh? A scoff? Relief? It was too fast, too veiled, he couldn’t put a name to it. Her hand tightened briefly on his then she pulled it away, tucked it across her chest and her eyes looked down to the left again.

Matt frowned some more. She was injured and lying about it, talking about brakes and worried about something. The house? Something
in
the house? Someone . . .

‘Look, Matt.’ Her voice was suddenly loud and hostile. ‘You can’t just turn up like this. What happened last night was great, the best. But it’s over. We’re finished.’

Last night? ‘I don’t . . .’

‘No, Matt. I told you this afternoon. I’ve got a husband and three little girls waiting for me at home. Remember?’ She slapped a hand on the side of her head, as though he couldn’t be more stupid. Her big eyes were wide and pressing. ‘I’m not
with
you. You said you were
with
someone, Matt. What about who you’re
with
?’

22

Part of him instinctively bristled at her aggression while his brain worked furiously to figure out what the hell was going on.

What had he missed that was ‘the best’? And what about the ‘who you’re with’? Like he was an idiot.

Okay, wait, nothing had happened between them so this was about her, not him. He looked at her grim face, dark eyes burning into his. What, Jodie? He went over it again. She was hurt but lying about it, she thanked him for something he hadn’t done and she was picking a fight and telling him to leave. He looked back at the front door. The swelling on her face was the kind of injury you got from being shoved around. She’d said a husband was waiting for her. This afternoon she’d said she was single. Divorced. Had her ex turned up? And where were her friends? Had they left them to talk and it turned rough?

‘Jodie, if you’re . . .’

‘Matt, it’s over. Don’t you
get
it? If you had a goddamn brain, you’d figure it out.’ She dragged the last three words out as though each one was a sentence in itself. ‘You need to go.
Please.
’

Matt was paralysed with indecision. Should he do as she asked and leave, or stay and protect her from whoever she was frightened of? The decision was made by Jodie.

‘Get out of here, Matt,’ she yelled, backing away from him to the door.

‘Okay, okay,’ he said, hands up like stop signs. He took a couple of steps towards the edge of the deck then turned back to her. ‘Hey, Jodie. If you don’t want your husband to find out about us, make sure you pay for your damn brakes before you leave town tomorrow.’

‘You can count on it,’ she said and the urgency in her eyes softened a little before she turned around and went back inside.

Matt stood at the top of the stairs for a moment, listening for sounds from the house but it was silent. Too silent. As though she was standing right behind the door. He stomped down the stairs like she’d really cheesed him off, slammed his door, spun his tyres on the gravel as he drove off and tried to figure out what had just happened.

Whatever it was, she wanted him to play along. She’d told him to go, so he’d gone. He didn’t feel great about it but she hadn’t given him much choice.

She wanted it to look like an argument, that much he’d figured. Her eyes before she went back in the barn told him he’d been right about the lies. And when he’d thrown one right back at her, she’d caught it on the full, no hesitation. She wanted him to know she was lying. Okay, he did – but
why
?

He pointed his brother’s car down the hill to the road, took it slowly over the rough trail. A violent ex-husband was the obvious answer. It would also explain the wariness Jodie had about her, maybe even why she knew how to pull a punch. But why make up some bull about an affair?

Matt slowed the car further at the hump in the track. He remembered her standing there this morning, the way she’d told him she’d throw a rock at the driver’s window if he looked suspicious. It didn’t seem likely she’d take a beating from anyone. He shook his head. What was it she’d said?
Not good for you, now that you’ve wound your window down.
And he’d said,
Then what?
And she said she’d call the police.

No mobile reception out here.

There is at the bottom of the hill.

Matt sucked air in through his teeth. There was no reception at the barn. That’s why he’d driven out there this morning. But she’d just told him they’d all sat on the verandah and phoned home. It was another lie. Was she telling her ex she’d tried to call?

Okay, if her ex was still inside, she was in danger. If Matt went back, he could put her in more danger. But it didn’t have to be him. He could get someone else to go up to the barn. There were probably a couple of uniform guys still in town.

As he reached the sealed road at the bottom of the hill and turned left, he pulled his phone from his pocket. Only it wasn’t his. It was the one he’d thought was Jodie’s. Whose was it? He put it on the seat beside him, wrestled his own phone from his other pocket and hit speed dial for the pub.

‘Reg, it’s Matt.’ He slid up the cover on the other phone as he talked, pressed the ‘on’ button.

‘Yeah, mate.’

‘Are any of the uniforms still around?’

‘No, mate. Left an hour or so ago. One of the detectives was looking for you though. The short one in the fancy suit.’

Dan Carraro. Would he handle a suspected domestic thirty k’s out of town? Unlikely. He was a star detective and it was a job for a uniform. ‘Is he there?’

‘Nah. He and his offsider went for a bite at the Chinese. But he was pretty keen to talk to you. Said he needed to pick your brains about a couple of blokes.’

Matt felt anger brewing in his gut. Carraro didn’t need him to do his job. The other phone lit up and he took his eyes off the road to look at it.

‘Shit.’

‘What?’

He hung up without answering.

The phone’s screen was lit with a photo – Jodie in a three-way hug with a little boy and an older girl. The boy had both front teeth missing and the girl had the same big, dark eyes as Jodie. Her kids. Matt remembered now. She’d told him this afternoon she had two kids, a boy and a girl.
I’ve got a husband and three little girls waiting for me at home.
Jesus, she wasn’t lying to cover her tracks with someone inside. An ex-husband would know how many kids she had. She was lying for Matt.