Blood Secret (21 page)

30

She found Hayden in the next office still talking to the cop with the tatt, both of them on the visitor side of the desk with cans of Coke. Two heads lifted as she swung through
the door.

‘We're leaving, Hayden.'

He glanced at the cop like he was his new
best friend.

Maybe she should let him stay. He'd be out of the way and safe here, regardless of what the cops thought of her. ‘You can stay if you like but I'm leaving now.'

He slumped his shoulders as he stood, as though she'd told him to hurry up or there'd be no ice-cream. Maybe he didn't want to look under the thumb to the cool cop or maybe he was still too much of a kid to do more than protest at a parental instruction. As he followed, she wondered if she should even be giving him orders. She'd kept herself safe for years but this was Max's son; she wasn't sure she should be responsible for him, too.

In the car, she pulled quickly into the traffic, heading towards the lake instead of the highway, putting distance between her and the police before she called Jo. ‘What did that cop ask you about?'

‘Dad.' It was sarcasm, not
an answer.

She clenched her teeth, out of patience for his crap. ‘
What
did he ask?'

‘A bunch of stuff.'

She shot him an
irate glance.

‘How often I stay with him, what Dad does when I'm here, how he gets on with Mum, where I go to school. Stuff.'

Hayden went to a private school, paid for by Leanne's dentist husband. Rennie knew it made Max feel as though he couldn't provide for his son. She wondered whether Hayden knew it, too – and whether the cop would interpret that as motive for wanting money. ‘Did he ask about me?'

‘Yeah.'

‘What did you say?' She saw his shrug. ‘Hey, it's no secret what you think of me. I don't care what you said. I just want to know what they're working with.'

He crossed his arms defensively. ‘I said you had the shits all the time.'

Hardly a crime. ‘Was that it?'

‘I said you did good French toast,'
he mumbled.

She raised an eyebrow. ‘You like my French toast?'

‘It's all right.'

A small smile pulled at her lips. Let's see what Detective Duncan and Cool Cop make of that. She stopped beside the park that fronted the water in Toronto. Across the road, the cafe strip was doing a good trade in the sunshine, people sitting under awnings eating lunch, drinking coffee. ‘I've got to make a call. Stay here,' she
told Hayden.

She stood at the rear bumper, squinting in the glare and eyeing the passing traffic as she waited for Joanne to
pick up.

‘Katrina.' She must have found the quiet
spot again.

‘Yeah. I'm ringing to warn you. The cops have your name.'

‘What the fuck . . .?'

‘I'm sorry, it's my fault. I should've kept my mouth shut but I was worried about Max.'

‘What did you say?'

‘It doesn't matter now. The detective got my name from Evan, did a search on Katrina Hendelsen and it's all turned to shit. He thinks Max's done a runner with the money and I'm either involved or protecting him – because, hey, I've got a record and can't be trusted.'

‘Renée?'

Her head snapped around. Hayden was standing at the kerb, watching her across the dual cab's rear tray. Could he not do as he was told just once?

‘Can I get something to eat?' He hooked a thumb at the takeaway joint across the road.

She glanced up and down the street. ‘Yeah, okay, be quick.'

‘Can I have some money?'

He's a kid, she told herself. Kids need money. She found her bag on the back seat, pulled a couple of notes and passed them to him through the car. ‘Grab me a cappuccino, too.' She needed food but caffeine was what she wanted. As he walked across the road, she called, ‘Make sure it's got a lid.'

He rolled
his eyes.

‘Who's with you?'
Joanne asked.

‘Hayden, Max's son.'

‘Fuck.' Exasperation not criticism. ‘What are the cops saying about Anthony?'

‘The detective thinks it's bullshit. He thinks I'm trying to mislead his investigation to give Max time to sort things out. Told me I'd be done as an accessory to Max's crimes, whatever he thinks they are.'

‘You've got to leave, Kat. I've got a car, I can meet you halfway between here and there. We can go north again, way north. You can't get caught up in it.'

She already was, but maybe Jo was right. Maybe staying would make it worse for Max. As long as she was here, Detective Duncan would be searching in all the wrong places. Looking up records, mashing them together, jumping to conclusions. If she left, would he realise he was wrong or would he think she'd gone into hiding? Christ, if she left, she'd never know what happened to Max. And regardless of the outcome, she needed that or the last four years were worth nothing. ‘I can't. Not before I find Max.'

‘Fuck, Kat. If it's Anthony, he'll be back for you.'

‘I know.'

‘Kat . . .'

‘I
know
, Jo. If it's Anthony, he won't stop until I've paid for his bullet holes. But it's different this time. I've got baggage and I can't leave it behind. I need to know what's happened to Max and if Anthony wants to come and find me, then I'll take the risk.'

‘No. We don't do it that way, Katrina. You don't stand a chance if you let him close.'

‘It's not “we” anymore. I've got a different life now and different decisions to make and I want more than just survival. I'm staying.'

In the silence that followed, she imagined her sister shaking a fist, clamping down on angry words but her voice was matter-of-fact when she spoke. ‘Okay, fine. If you want to do it like this, throw away everything we've fought for on some arsehole who promised love and devotion, who might turn out to be a lying, stealing, cheating bastard, then you're no better than the rest of the goddamn family.'

Rennie held the phone to her ear long after Jo broke the connection, the breath knocked out of her. Was she as crazy as her parents? Their blood was in her veins and it carried something that made them hang onto violence and hate when they should have let go. Was that what she was doing?
Hanging on?

‘When are we leaving?'

As Rennie glanced around, she saw Hayden beside her with a cardboard tray of food but what registered were the chocolate colour of his eyes, the wavy hair and full lips – and, for a heart-stopping half a second, he was Max. Long enough to make the air in her lungs catch. Long enough to feel like a kick in the face when her brain recognised the younger version.

‘What?' There was fear in his voice.

‘Nothing. It's . . . nothing.'

‘
What?
' His face was pale and the drinks on his tray were
tipping sideways.

‘You looked like Max then. It . . . freaked me out a little. That's all.'

He watched her a moment as though he was deciding if she was telling the truth. ‘I look like Dad?'

‘Yeah. Same eyes, same mouth.'

He smiled briefly – pleasure and sadness. She understood both, wished she could tell him it would be okay. She took the coffee from the tray and he held out the hot chips. ‘You want one?'

Greasy food was the last thing the stress in her gut needed but she knew a peace offering when she saw it. ‘Thanks.' She pulled a tomato sauce-covered one, took a bite and screwed up her face. ‘Vinegar, too? Man, you really do take after your father.'

‘Only way to eat 'em.'

‘Are you kidding? They're hot chips. They're meant to be crisp, not soggy and smothered.'

‘I s'pose you like them with just salt.' He was backing around the front of the car, his you're-an-idiot tone not having quite the same impact with half a grin.

‘Like God meant them to be.'

‘Yeah, right. Like God makes hot chips.'

‘Get in the car.'

She took a gulp of coffee, the smell of steamy, oily chips and vinegar wafting around her while he buckled up. He alternated between shoving wedges of potato into his mouth and dragging his tongue around his greasy fingers. She drove, trying to ignore his feeding noises, feeling unfocused and agitated. Rennie and her sister had been bound to each other their entire lives and for all of Rennie's thirty-four years, Joanne had been angry and tough and sharp-edged, but her support had been unconditional. Their relationship was the one decent thing their family had created and Jo had just kicked it in the head and cut her adrift.

You're alone now, Rennie. No one to ride with, no one at your back, no one to haul you out.

And no idea where to look for Max. She kept her eyes on the road, going nowhere in particular, driving familiar streets while her mind tried to reel in the options she was left with. Anthony Hendelsen or lying
and stealing.

If it was her father, Max could be anywhere. Anthony could have confronted him then driven him out of Haven Bay and dumped him God knows where – alive or dead. He could have tied Max up and locked him away as bait for his daughter. Or it might have happened another way, a fight, like she'd thought earlier. Anthony could have needed to get his handiwork out of the car park fast, unloading him nearby but out of sight. Maybe Max was concussed and wandered off, managing to find his way to somewhere he recognised and got no further.

‘What are we doing here?'
Hayden asked.

Rennie eyed the front entrance to MineLease. She'd been on autopilot and arrived without thinking. Sometimes she had a late lunch with Max, driving over after her shift, eating at their favourite cafe down by the water or sitting in the park. Hayden's chips and vinegar reminded her of the taste of Max's goodbye kiss on some of
those occasions.

There was money missing from the business. James had accused Max of taking it. Rennie wasn't sure if she didn't believe him or just didn't want to – but if she was staying to find Max, she had to look everywhere. ‘It could be worth checking while we're in Toronto.'

‘He's not here. Uncle James said.'

‘No, but there might be something else worth finding.'

 

 

31

You don't need to run, Max. There's no time limit on recovery
,
the psychologist had kept telling him. He had a time limit now, though. On his life. Dehydration would kill him if nothing else got him first and if he stayed here sucking at the trickle on the wall, he'd die of thirst with water on his tongue.

His head ached but the dizziness had eased up a bit so he struggled to his feet, waited for his brain to clear and lurched forward. No hands-knees-slap now, no number to remember for the
How I Survived
book, just one foot in front of the other. Maybe if he'd finished his degree he could work out an equation around the probabilities of survival without water while finding his way out of a pitch-
black maze.

James might know. He was good at numbers. Max would ask him if he got out.
When
he got out. Inviting James to join him in the business was one of the few good decisions he'd made. There was no wanting and grabbing there. It was a chance for both of them.

When the compo money came in, he was surprised how quickly the idea for the company formed and took hold. Max wasn't an engineer but he knew mines and mine machinery and way back in his golden days, his plan had been to run his own business one day. James had never been down a mine back then but he knew about budgets and balance sheets, profit and loss. He was in a job he hated and sick of living in Sydney and Max figured the offer somehow made up for keeping Gran'
s house.

James listened to the plan in his usual pokerfaced way and took a week and a half to think about it, making phone calls, doing projections and coming back with a yes. Naomi was the unknown factor. Max knew how Leanne had felt trapped in Haven Bay and didn't want it to be like that for Naomi. He wanted it to be worthwhile for everyone. There was no need to worry, though. She'd grown up on the opposite shore where it was more populated and a little faster but it was still the lake and she loved being back and closer to
her family.

Max stopped, leaned against the wall and breathed hard. He meant to just rest for a few seconds but woozy, nauseated and with a pulse thumping in the wound on his temple, he slid to the floor. Concussion was
a bitch.

‘You bastard,' James grinned inside Max'
s head.

‘You loser,' Max said to
the darkness.

He'd missed James when he went to Sydney. They'd spent their entire lives together to that point – all except for the first two hours of Max's existence. Their mothers were sisters, pregnant together, due a week apart but Max arrived early and James a day late. The family joke was that the DNA gods got confused when both Thompson girls fronted up for delivery on the same night and got the genes mixed up. James and Max shared the same dark hair and eyes but James was tall and bulky with the body of a sportsman and zero coordination or interest. Max, on the other hand, struggled to keep weight on, scraped in at one hundred and eighty centimetres and before the cave-in, could carve up a soccer pitch and sail the wind off most boaties on the lake.

They both got the family competitiveness, though. Max loved to win in sport and James liked to prove he was smart. It pissed some people off but Max understood where it came from – James was a big, strong klutz; he had to get one
up somehow.

When they were at school, the jocks didn't appreciate it and it was usually Max who sorted it out. He'd straddled most of the school cliques: the sports guys, the cool group, the smart kids, the theatre arts and music dudes. He was too upbeat for the grunge factor but they never bothered James. Max got in a scrap once or twice in his cousin's defence but mostly all it took was a few words and an all-inclusive laugh that reassured the muscle heads they weren't the butt of
a joke.

It was years later, when Max was married and the fire was spitting and steaming inside him, that coming to James's defence turned nasty.

‘How stupid
are
you?'

James said it loud enough to be heard over the crowd lined up at the bar. Max had no idea what it was in reference to, only saw the body it was directed at: big and tough with the nose of a brawler. It didn't start there – twenty minutes later, after the bloke stewed for a while and found some friends, there was some shouting and shoving before the first punch was thrown. As usual, James did nothing to defend himself. Didn't apologise, didn't back off, didn't flinch – and was sat on his arse. Not that Max stopped to help him up. His old role of Cousin Protector was reignited by the anger in his gut and he jumped into the fray.

He wasn't friendless in there. The mates he was drinking with joined in, mostly trying to break it up. But it was Max who ended up shoving the insulted bastard hard enough to topple over a table and straight through a plate-glass window. The cops were called, the ringleader needed a hundred and twenty stitches and both he and Max were charged with assault. It was Max's first offence and he got off with a good behaviour bond. The other guy's fingerprints matched those from a long list of robberies and he got five years.

Toronto homes were probably safer with him in prison but the arsehole's family played it like it was Max's fault the guy did time, that he wasn't going to be around for his young kids and pregnant girlfriend. Leanne carried on like he'd blotted her reputation in the community. James nursed a black eye and swollen jaw and told Max he hadn't asked for a brawl on
his behalf.

‘You're the fucking loser,' Max told himself in the darkness, the adolescent, misplaced aggression still capable of filling him with shame.

And as he fingered the clotted, drying blood on his face, he asked out loud: ‘What did you do this time, Max?'

*

Hayden scuffed his shoes along the footpath all the way to the front entrance of the MineLease office. Some kind of protest, Rennie figured, and a welcome change to his swearing
and snarling.

MineLease was in a weatherboard cottage, once a modest home, now converted to the workplace of like-minded private enterprise. It was owned by a mine engineering consultancy that rented space to a company specialising in mine safety practices and Max and James's equipment leasing business. On either side of a central hallway, rooms had been adapted to accommodate small offices and storage. There was a large, shared meeting room in the rear and the backyard was used for parking. Rennie stopped inside the front door, where Amanda, the office coordinator, did administration for all of them in what had once been
a sunroom.

‘Amanda, hi.'

The sound of Rennie's voice made Amanda's head snap up and a hand fly to her throat. ‘Oh God, Rennie. James said you still can't find him. Oh.' Her eyes flicked to the teenager following Rennie in. ‘Hayden. How're you doing, mate?'

He answered with a shrug. Amanda glanced at Rennie, worry and sympathy in her face. ‘Any news?'

‘No. I thought I'd take a look in his office, see if there's . . . I don't know, something that might make sense.'

Amanda spoke as she rounded her desk. ‘James said he went through it yesterday and couldn't find anything.'

‘It's worth another try, just to tick that box. Has James left for the police station yet?' She didn't want him looking over her shoulder.

Amanda shrugged. ‘I don't know where he went. He dropped in a couple of hours ago and left again. Do you want me to call him?'

Maybe he hadn't needed to search for anything. Maybe the financial records were printed and collated and ready for the police after his argument with Max on Friday. Or maybe he was still driving around looking for Max. ‘No, I don't need to speak to him. I'll just take a look in Max's office.'

Amanda turned a smile on Hayden. ‘Hey, I just bought mud cake muffins. They're out in the kitchen. You want one?' It sounded like a ploy to keep him occupied. Rennie was grateful – she'd do better on her own – but he'd just had chips and
a milkshake.

‘Those little ones with the swirly icing?'
he asked.

‘Yep.'

‘Sure. Can I make a hot chocolate from the coffee machine?'

‘If you like. Make me a cup of tea while you're at it, huh?'

He pointed at her, squinted an eye. ‘Milk and one sugar, right?'

‘Yes, thank you.'

Rennie raised surprised eyebrows – did he plan to take a doggy bag and when had he started making drinks for anyone but himself? As he disappeared into the hallway, she said, ‘He's just eaten.'

‘He's fourteen.' Amanda had two boys in high school so Rennie guessed she knew all about teenage food intake. And she probably knew more about the three businesses here than anyone else.

‘How did Max seem last week?'

‘He seemed . . . fine.'

‘But?'

‘It's not my job to say anything.'

‘Sure, I understand, but Max is missing.'

She clasped and unclasped her hands. ‘This is an old house, the walls are thin and noise travels. I don't eavesdrop but sitting at my desk I hear stuff, you know?'

‘Of course.'

‘Well,' she hesitated a second longer. ‘There was something going on between Max and James all week. They had some kind of row early on. Monday afternoon, I think. One of them must've shut the door before it started but I could hear them. No actual words, just angry, raised voices. And they were at it for ages. Not shouting all the time but there was obviously some serious discussion. Gerard left for the day while it was still going on and made a face as he walked past reception.'

Naomi had said the argument was on Friday and James hadn't corrected her. Was there more than one? ‘Did something happen on Friday?'

‘I don't know. I had a half day and went home at lunchtime.'

‘You said “all week”. What else happened?'

‘There were a couple more closed-door conferences and they were both just really tense. James, in particular. I mean, he can be moody and a bit sharp when he decides to be but it wasn't that. It was like he was trying hard to look normal, smiling and all, and underneath he was fuming. And Max, well, he's always laid-back, as you know, and even he looked stressed.'

Flashes of memory played through Rennie's mind. The lovemaking before the party, the proposal and argument, Max's snapped words the last time he spoke to her. She thought back to earlier in the week. She'd painted in the studio every evening, trying to finish the ‘wow factor' commission. At least three nights, he was in bed and asleep by the time she got in. One night, Wednesday maybe, he had a drink with Pav. Once, possibly the early hours of Thursday, he'd flicked on all the lights in the living room and prowled the house. It's what he did when the nightmares woke him. They usually roused her, too, when he gasped awake and she'd make a sleepy trip to the bathroom. Sometimes she'd make him a cup of tea before she went back to bed; sometimes she'd fold herself around him and try to soothe his memories with the heat and rhythm of her body. But she didn't remember getting up last week, just his restless pacing. Had she been tired enough to sleep through his nightmare or had something else made him get up and walk
the floor?

‘Was there a problem on a job?' Maybe there'd been something else going on before the argument on Friday.

Amanda's shoulders did a quick up and down. ‘Nothing that's crossed my desk. But both of them were in and out of the office a lot after the argument so I suppose there could've been and they were trying to pacify a client.'

Rennie remembered James had said he'd been trying to trace the missing money back through the accounts. Maybe there'd been an argument on Monday when he'd discovered the shortfall, some kind of dispute over how they were running the business, then another one on Friday when he'd accused Max of taking it. ‘Naomi said James worked late last week.'

‘Did he? He was gone most days when I left but that doesn't mean he didn't come back. Come to think of it, I cleared away a couple of empty wineglasses on the sink before Gerard's conference on Thursday morning. They might have been his.'

Drinking as he pored over
the figures?

From the other end of the cottage, the coffee maker gurgled. If Hayden's earlier snack was anything to go by, he wouldn't take long to down a hot chocolate and a couple of muffins. ‘Right, well, thanks, Amanda.'

She headed down the hall, wondering about Amanda's version of events. What did it mean? What did any of it mean? What could she draw from a second-hand account of an argument and a work schedule in an office she knew
nothing about?