Dead Heat (16 page)

Georgia was staring at the green-blue water, wishing she could take a swim and ease her throbbing, aching muscles before sprawling
under a palm tree and sleeping the rest of the day away, but she had more important things to do. Like see if Suzie’s house
had been burgled, and if so, whether there was a connection to the pharmacy break-in, not to mention the intruder and the
thugs who had mutilated her.

She heard a car pull up outside. Which reminded her.

“Evie, I forget, is there a bus I can take into town?”

Dumping the sheets on the double bed at the far end of the van, Evie said, “Stop being so bloody English. Just come straight
out and ask. Yes, you can use my Suzuki. Keys are hanging up in the office.”

“Are you sure?”

Evie gave her a reproving look and Georgia hastily said, “Thanks heaps,” and made a hasty exit.

India was at the back of her ute, heaving a case of beer, and when she saw Georgia, she dropped the beer and raced across.

“Jesus, Georgia. I heard you were kidnapped. Are you okay?”

“They picked up the wrong person,” Georgia said.

“Thank God for that.” Scraping hair from her face, India added, “Who were they after?”

Georgia shrugged.

The reporter frowned. “What happened to your finger? I thought it was only your palm that had to be stitched.”

“Er . . . well, the guys who snatched me were in such a hurry they slammed it in their car door.”

“Jesus,” the reporter said again. “They were Chinese, weren’t they? The guys who grabbed you?”

“Um . . .” Georgia looked away. “I suppose they could have been.”

“I’m wondering if they weren’t something to do with Ronnie Chen,” India mused. “The RBG. The Red Bamboo Gang. Did you hear
Ronnie’s name? Or hear of anyone called Chen Xiaoqiang, Gap-tooth Chen?”

Despite the simmering heat Georgia’s skin went cold. The Suit had a space between his nicotine-stained front teeth. Was he
Gap-tooth Chen? Licking her lips, she said, “Who?” as blankly as she could.

“Gap-tooth Chen runs the RBG. Ronnie was his elder son. Jason Chen’s his younger. I’ve heard Jason always wears a leather
jacket, even in this heat.”

When Georgia didn’t say anything, India sighed. “Bugger it. I’m having no luck discovering who murdered Ronnie. Not from lack
of trying, though.”

Trying to push the image of the Chens aside—the father smoking his cigarettes, the son in his leather jacket—Georgia ventured,
“You came up here to find out who killed Ronnie Chen?”

“No, that happened after I’d arrived. I came up to see Suzie Wilson.”

Startled, Georgia said, “Suzie?”

“Yeah. She rang me with a story she thought I might be interested in. About how healing centers could be exploited. We were
going to meet on Saturday, for lunch, but . . . well, you know what happened.”

“Suzie thought the Lotus Healing Center was exploiting people?”

“She didn’t say exactly, but I’ve checked it out and can’t see anything but a lot of happy patients.” India indicated the
case on the back of her ute. “You fancy a cold beer?”

Pulling her damp T-shirt from her chest, Georgia said, “Maybe later. I need to go to the bank and see if I can get some money.”

India brightened. “How about if I come with you? Vouch for you to save some time? Banks are notoriously difficult when you’ve
no ID.” When Georgia hesitated, she added, “You need a ride?”

“I’ve Evie’s car, and it’s very kind of you but—”

“Let’s meet at the Bendigo in half an hour, okay?” India didn’t wait for her to respond and hopped into her car.

After filling the Suzuki’s tank, Georgia found India at the bank, already in full flow on her behalf.

“I’ve known her yonks,” the reporter was saying to a pretty girl with a stud in her nose. “I’ll be her guarantor, no worries.
She’ll need at least a thousand bucks cash, and a credit card. Like in ten minutes.”

The counter was awash with India’s ID, driver’s license, bank cards, passport, press card. A quick meet with the Bendigo’s
manager, who made a single call to Georgia’s bank in Sydney, and she was issued eight hundred dollars along with a Visa card.

“Thanks,” Georgia said to India on the street. It would have taken hours longer without her.

“Anything else I can help with?”

“No, but thanks. I’m just going shopping. Clothes and stuff.”

“See you later for that bottle of wine?”

“Sure.”

Georgia held her Visa card in her good hand as she left India and walked down the street, amazed at the sensation of comfort
a small plastic square could give her, that she could walk into any rental car office or airport and go pretty much wherever
she wanted. Not that she intended to head anywhere without her mother, but it was the principle of freedom that caught at
her at that moment.

Ducking into Price’s, she grabbed a shopping cart. Feeling a strange sense of cheerful normality as she trundled along the
air- conditioned aisles, she instantly felt guilty. She was shopping, while her mother was in the clutches of the Chen family,
the RBG . . .

She could see her mother tied to the chair on the floor, elbows angled awkwardly, head rolled to one side, her bare feet and
beautiful pedicure.

Hurriedly she pushed the image out of her mind and concentrated on buying basic items, from a pack of cheap cotton undies
to raisin toast and shampoo and deodorant, double-strength acetaminophen for when Yumuru’s supply of co-dydramol ran out,
then a pair of half-decent shorts, a couple of T-shirts the color of daffodils, canvas shoes, a small denim handbag, and a
plastic, ten-dollar watch with a bunch of fruit on its face.

With the shopping in the back of the Suzuki, Georgia drove south, all the windows open and fanning scalding air inside. She
was drenched with sweat and her T-shirt was stuck against her spine, her jeans glued to the backs of her thighs. Since the
car was a stickshift, she had to use the fleshy base of her left palm to change gears, but she could barely feel the stitched
wound through Yumuru’s painkillers, just the continual throb of her finger.

Nick Clarke, the postmaster-cum-travel agent, had told her how to find the address on Suzie’s contract. Since he’d been known
to do mail deliveries himself some days, Nick knew where everybody in the area lived, even the ferals, who had opted out to
hide in the rainforest and only came into town to collect their security benefit.

“At the end of Ocean Road,” Nick had said, “don’t turn into town but head straight ahead. It’s a bit rough, but you’re a local,
you should be okay.”

Passing the harbor and its Shipshape Chandlery, Georgia did as Nick said and took the bumpy, mud-slicked track that ran parallel
to the river. She just had time to jab the brakes before the car’s hood rose over the first hump and slid down the other side
with a splash that threw muddy water over the windshield.

Flicking on the wipers, she doused the windshield with washer fluid, wondering why the council hadn’t graded the track. From
memory there were at least five houses down here, and it must have been impassable a few days back, even with a four-wheel
drive. She guessed the residents probably liked it, or were resigned to being flooded for one or two months every year.

Suzie’s single-story house was right at the end of the track, and although it had taken Georgia only ten minutes to get here
from the center of Nulgarra, it felt remote, as though she’d traveled much farther. Flanked by the Parunga River on one side,
rainforest on the other, it had mosquito netting on every window and a big tub of cheerful daisies beside the front steps.

You couldn’t see any neighbors—unless you drove back along the track six hundred yards and peered through the foliage away
from the river. Georgia reckoned people in this neighborhood weren’t particularly neighborly, but she could be wrong.

As she shut the car door she took in the sound of cawing behind the house, toward the forest. Crows, she thought. Lots of
them. Something had probably drowned in there during the storms, like a big lizard, or someone’s cat.

The contract in Georgia’s back pack stated that Suzie rented her house for a hundred dollars a week, which seemed reasonable
considering it needed a new roof, a coat of paint, and new shutters on the windows. Trotting up the steps and across the veranda
to the front door, she halted at a doormat that said, “Beyond Therapy,” and felt an urge to knock even though she knew no
one was home. She peered through the window to her left.

“Jesus,” she murmured.

The room was a mess. Each drawer had been upended. Potted plants and CDs, books and cushions were intermingled in careless
heaps. She bet the Chens had been here. Glancing around to check that she was still alone, she pulled her T-shirt out of her
jeans and covered her hand with it before trying the front door. Her heartbeat picked up when it opened.

Cautiously, she stepped over the debris. There was an overpowering stench of decay, which she soon discovered came from the
kitchen, where the doors of both fridge and freezer had been left wide open, their contents dumped on the linoleum. An army
of cockroaches bolted for cover at her arrival, but the carpet of ants continued their feeding, seemingly oblivious.

As Georgia stared at the ants, a sudden realization hit her. It had only been two days since the air crash. Just two days.
It felt as though she’d experienced two years of hideous pain and fear.

She moved around the house without touching anything. Lots of posters on the walls. Vistas of Katherine Gorge, the Great Wall
of China, views of rainforests and Australian beaches.

Two bedrooms, only one used.

One bathroom and one living room. A dining room, which was used as a study. There was a space on the dining table where a
computer would have sat. The filing cabinet was empty and the files strewn all over the floor. Carefully, she shifted a few
about with her elbow.

Electricity. Health. Receipts. House Management.

No computer disks. She wondered if the Chens had trashed the house before or after they’d snatched her, and decided probably
before. That’s why they were so angry. They hadn’t found what they wanted.

Where is the rest?

The rest of what?

T-shirt back over her hand, she opened a fat beige file filled with an assortment of handwritten papers. They were all in
Chinese. Great. Some were pieces of paper torn from what looked like school notebooks and A4 pads, while others were on stiff
quality paper and typed. As she rose, something caught her eye. Something urgent. She looked around but couldn’t see anything.
Just the mess of a house that had been well and truly ransacked.

Georgia crouched back down. Trained herself to recall exactly where she had been. She relaxed and went back to the files.
Shifted a few about. Rose a little.

Blink, blink.

A tiny red light was flashing at the corner of her eye.

She looked up at the Panasonic fax-phone machine.

Georgia leaped to her feet.

New Message. Blink, blink.

T-shirt over the button, she pressed it.

“Yo, Suzie. Me here. Where the sod are you? It’s bloody Saturday night and I can’t believe you’ve stood me up. Hope you’ve
a good excuse because even old Nail-tooth’s pining. Bloody call me, you rotten cow. I’ve been missing your skinny, bony ass.”

Click.

Silence.

Georgia looked at the little red light, still flashing. Should she leave the message for others to listen to? Before she could
change her mind, she pressed erase. A single beep, then the center panel flashed “ICM Erase OK?” She hit a big green button
and was told “Erase Completed.”

She quickly pressed speakerphone, followed by the star button, the number ten, then the pound key.

A woman’s monotone filled the silence. “Your last unanswered call was . . .”

Georgia scrabbled inside her pocket for Jason Chen’s card and, lunging for a pen on the floor, scribbled the number on the
back. Her writing was uneven and shaky from the adrenaline ticking through her. Getting to her feet, she pocketed both the
pen and the card.

Everything was still and silent. No sound of wind in the trees, or an outboard motor, a neighbor’s car. Just the distant sound
of the crows.

Okay, she thought, trying to ignore the sweat trickling down her flanks and drenching her waistband. What else?

“What else” led her to the small handful of mail by the front door. A couple of bills. A letter addressed to a Marc Wheeler,
which invited the man to upgrade his platinum American Express card for a black one. Perhaps Marc Wheeler used to live here.
An old tenant maybe?

Georgia spent the next fifteen minutes wandering around the house, trying to get a sense of Suzie and her life. There were
no postcards or photographs or diaries. It was as though Suzie had lived in a timeless vacuum. No past, no present, no future.
Aside from the one phone message, she’d have thought the woman lived like a nun on a religious retreat. There was no evidence
that she had contact with anybody.

Eventually Georgia stepped outside and walked down the side of the house and into the backyard. The cawing and flapping increased.
To the left, the trees were studded with crows and magpies, and she could see maybe half a dozen or so black kites wheeling
low in the sky.

Something had definitely died out there. And not something small either, or it wouldn’t have attracted so many scavengers.
It couldn’t be a cow or sheep, because there wasn’t any livestock around. A tree kangaroo?

Cautiously, Georgia approached the fence surrounding the yard and peered into the forest. Nothing. She looked up and a crow
flapped heavily into the air, its belly so full it could barely clear the ground.

It must be a roo, she thought, but as she turned to head back to her car, a faint breeze sprang up and trailed across her
face.

Christ almighty! She spun around, a hand across her nose and mouth, but the forest was the same. Dark and impenetrable. She
took a tiny experimental breath and retched. Holding her breath, Georgia jogged to the front of the house, glancing over her
shoulder as she went.