Dead Heat
Authors: Caroline Carver
Grand Central Publishing Edition
Copyright © 2003 by Caroline Carver
All rights reserved.
This Grand Central Publishing edition is published by arrangement with Orion, an imprint of the Orion Publishing Group Ltd., Orion House,
5 Upper Saint Martin’s Lane, London, England WC2H 9EA.
Grand Central Publishing
Hachette Book Group
237 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Visit our website at
www.HachetteBookGroup.com
.
First eBook Edition: June 2009
Originally published in hardcover by Mysterious Press
ISBN: 978-0-446-56224-9
Also by Caroline Carver
BLOOD JUNCTION
In memory of my father
Contents
M
y agent is Elizabeth Wright at Darley Andersons; my editor is Jane Wood. Huge thanks to them both; they worked way beyond
the call of duty.
Also thanks to my New York agent, Liza Dawson, and my editor at Time Warner, Sara Ann Freed. This Brit author couldn’t ask
for a better team across the pond.
Special thanks are due to a number of people who helped me as technical advisers: Francis Holborne, Ferretti guru; Micky,
Ferretti captain; Colin Heathcote, A21 chum at CabAir; Derek Edwards, also at CabAir; Gary Goodban, rainforest expert; Moley
Mitchell and Paul Greensmith, life raft survival pros; Rachel and Simon Walker, medical aces; Dr. Michael Seed, whiz on weapons
and all things scientific; Beatrice Law for her expertise on Chinese references. Any errors of fact will be mine.
Grateful thanks to those who acted as critical readers: Tania Harper; George Loizou; Rachel Leyshon; Emma Stamper; Sophie
Hutton-Squire; and my anonymous proofreader.
To my mother, as always, for her love, encouragement, and support.
To my friends who inspire, comfort and console, and help answer some strange questions: Meg Gardiner, Sarah Cunich, Bob Child,
Tessa Bamford, Ian O’Hearsey, Steve and Amanda Morris, Ali Price, Dominic Cole.
Lastly, mention must be made to my best buddy and co-driver, Caroline Readings, who told me to stop thinking about car rallies
and get on with the book.
T
he cassowary had died instantly. A single whack from the hood of the Suzuki broke its neck. One moment the largest and
most spectacular animal of the rainforest was crossing the road, the next it was a corpse, a seven-foot hump of sodden black
feathers with blood seeping from one open brown eye.
Georgia Parish couldn’t believe she had just killed one of the rarest birds in the Wet Tropics. Sure, she’d been driving fast,
trying to make it to the aerodrome on time, but in the torrential downpour she hadn’t expected to meet any wildlife. She’d
assumed all possums, bandicoots, rat-kangaroos, and the like would be tucked up immobile in their dens and nests, sheltering
from the secondary storms of Cyclone Tania.
Not this guy, though. Wiping her face of rain, she glanced behind her at the outskirts of the town, the handful of ramshackle
weatherboard cottages slumped beneath palm and fig trees, but nobody was about. She wasn’t sure whether to be glad of this
or not. On the one hand she wanted to apologize; on the other she knew that any resident of Nulgarra would be tempted to knock
her flat, especially since she’d just driven past a huge yellow-and-black sign cautioning motorists that cassowaries sometimes
cross roads.
Her stomach hollow with guilt, Georgia surveyed the dent above the bull bar, where the bird’s head had thumped the hood. I’m
sorry, she told the dead cassowary, but I’m very glad of the bull bar or you’d have come straight through the windshield and
probably killed me. Not that I’m happy you’re dead, but better just one of us than two, don’t you think?
She turned her mind to Evie, who had loaned her the Suzuki. Even if Georgia paid for the damage, it would be Evie who would
have the hassle of taking it to a body shop, maybe even getting the thing resprayed. Talk about a favor backfiring in her
friend’s face.
She said a brief prayer for the dead bird. The heavy smell of the rainforest, a place of wet moss and mud and mangroves, coated
the back of her tongue. When the sun came out, she knew the temperature would soar, as though the atmosphere had been ignited
by a giant gas burner. The air was like a simmering stew and she was glad of the cloud cover.
Back inside her small four-wheel drive, Georgia eased around the carcass. No way was she strong enough to haul the corpse
clear of the road. The young male had to weigh at least as much as she did, around 130 pounds, if not more. She set a more
sedate pace down the dirt road, her wipers thumping, her senses alert for another encounter with a forest creature.
Two deaths in one day. Not that her grandfather had died today, but he’d been cremated four hours ago. A shiver of foreboding
made the hairs stand up on her forearms and she was suddenly glad her mother, Linette, wasn’t with her. She would have been
clutching the crystal around her neck and pronouncing all sorts of grim portents and fateful connections between the two dead
males while Georgia rolled her eyes and tried to change the subject.
Skirting a broken palm on her side of the road, she pondered on her mother’s almost unnatural composure at the funeral, until
she remembered the huge joint she had rolled in the car on the way to the crematorium.
“Sweet, you’ve had your brandy,” she had said serenely in answer to Georgia’s raised eyebrows, “and since you know I don’t
drink . . .”
Georgia wondered how many mourners had caught the scent of marijuana on their clothes and decided she didn’t care. Everyone
knew that they’d once lived at the Free Spirit Commune just outside of Nulgarra, and had probably been surprised, maybe even
a little disappointed, that the chocolate sponge at the wake was not some colossal hash cookie.
Holding the steering wheel tight as the little four-wheel drive dipped and shuddered over water-filled potholes, she squinted
through the rain for the first sign she might be nearing the creek. Just about everyone had told her she’d never make it through,
and despite the fact that her mate Bri hadn’t been able to guarantee her a seat on his plane to Cairns, she had to try. No
way did she want to stay with Mrs. Scutchings another night. Thanks to her mother, she’d been bunked up with her old headmistress
over the last few days and, boy, had her patience been tested to the limit. The old bag was about as liberal as a barracuda
and went as far as believing that the American tourist killed by a crocodile last season had done it on purpose, to keep potential
tourists in Sydney.
“You lot down south,” Mrs. Scutchings had said over a breakfast of rubbery fried eggs, “twist all the facts to make Far Northern
Queensland look remote as heck and twice as dangerous.”
Georgia had remained silent and forced down her solid egg. So far as she was concerned, the newspaper reports were right on
the nail. The nearest major city up here wasn’t Queensland’s capital, Brisbane, 1,200 miles south, but Port Moresby in Papua
New Guinea, 450 miles across the water. Driving to Sydney would be the equivalent of driving from New York to Miami. London
to Gibraltar. Remote was exactly the right word. And not only were there estuarine “saltie” crocodiles to contend with, but
there were sharks, stinging trees, and poisonous spiders. There was even a deadly jellyfish that, with a single sting, could
kill an adult within five minutes.
Some days she could hardly believe that her mother had dragged her and her sister, Dawn, out here from Somerset just to be
near their grandfather. Yet Georgia could also see she hadn’t had much choice. When their father died, killed in a hiking
accident in Wales, it fell to their mother to run the New Age shop in Glastonbury. Within weeks they were overdue on their
rent and being threatened with eviction, and then the bailiffs began to appear. Hightailing it to the other side of the world
must have held enormous appeal.
She could feel the shock of arriving in Nulgarra, aged eight, as if it were yesterday, straight from a frostbitten winter
into the sticky heat, where clouds of mosquitoes seemed bent on draining the last drop of blood from her. She recalled those
first bewildering twenty-four hours, trying not to cry, missing the snug comfort of their little flat above the shop, the
smell of burning incense, the sounds of wind chimes tinkling above the Glastonbury traffic.
She wondered if Glastonbury had changed much since she’d left, because Nulgarra hadn’t. The town looked exactly the same as
it had ten years ago, along with its residents. God, even Bridie hadn’t changed. Her old schoolmate had bounced up to her
outside the chapel. “George! I can’t believe you haven’t cut your hair! Heavens, don’t you find it awfully hot? It’s so long!
And you’re still wearing trousers! You always were such a tomboy. You haven’t changed a bit!”
Maybe, if she hadn’t felt so tired, she could have embraced Bridie and told her she hadn’t changed a bit either. As it was,
Bridie had managed to make Georgia feel bad-tempered and disagreeable, as always. She possessed that endless cheerfulness
Georgia found exhausting, the kind of girl mothers asked to help bake birthday cakes or decorate the tree at Christmas, because
she was so pretty and enthusiastic. Georgia didn’t get approached to do any of that stuff. She was the kind of girl who got
asked to nail the chicken shed back together, or change the oil in the ute.
“Are you married yet?” Bridie asked. “Anyone special in your life? Go on, spill the beans, I won’t tell a soul!”
She had made a noncommital gesture and Bridie looked at her pityingly, then added in a more sympathetic tone, “Mr. Right will
be along soon, don’t you worry. And get some rest, will you, George? You look like you need it.”
Which wasn’t surprising, since she was tired to the bone—tired from organizing the funeral, tired of the fact her sister wasn’t
there to help, and most of all tired of being asked if she was married yet. It had been a struggle to find her usual good
humor each time she was asked where her other half was. Why in the world did everyone assume she didn’t have a life unless
she had a man?
Briefly wiping her face—the four-wheel drive Suzuki soft-top leaked like a sieve—Georgia swung the car around the next corner
and caught a flash of white through the torrents of rain. Immediately, she slowed. “Cassowary Creek,” the sign said, and after
an initial jerk of regret at the bird she had killed, Georgia halted the car and gazed glumly at the boiling, soil-capped
torrent.
Hell, she thought. It wasn’t a creek, it was a goddamn
river.
How on earth was she going to get out of here? The inland road south, to Cairns, was closed, and the coast route hopeless
since the ferry across the Daintree River was shut. The road north led nowhere but to tiny Cooktown, with nothing but storm-tossed
ocean to the east and impassable jungle to the west. If she didn’t fly, she was well and truly trapped.
Please, God, she prayed, let me get through, let there be a spare seat on Bri’s plane. Please get me back to normality. I
can’t stay with Mrs. Scutchings another night, and if I stay with someone else I know she’ll be hurt, and even if she is mad
as a cut snake, I wouldn’t want that. She’s been kind.
A log the width of the Suzuki churned past, creaming the water a muddy brown, and she watched it slam briefly into the opposite
bank before the tide snatched it free and hurled it downriver. Should she risk crossing? Or should she return to Nulgarra
and spend the next few days sitting in the pub drinking beer and watching geckos climb the walls?
Wearily she replaited her hair, retying it with the black felt scrunchy she’d worn at the funeral. Bridie was right. It was
too long, too shaggy. She wondered if cutting it would thin it down or thicken it to a mop. She’d always had long hair. Maybe
it was time to chop off her bell-rope, as her boss called it, and risk going short, even change the color.