Dead Heat (2 page)

She wiped the rearview mirror clean of condensation and tried to imagine her too-large jaw and gray eyes topped with a cap
of red or black instead of the usual muddy blonde. No chance. It would make her freckles stand out even more. Not for the
first time she glared furiously at her reflection, wishing she’d been blessed with a little sprinkle of the things across
the saddle of her nose, which might have been attractive, rather than spread all over her face.

Georgia became aware that, way in the distance, a bright blue fissure had cracked the leaden clouds. The break in the weather
had arrived as predicted, and she knew that Bri’s SunAir flight would be leaving as planned at 2
PM.
She had forty-five minutes. The sooner she got to the airfield, the better, in case others were doing the same and turning
up in the hope of a ride out of the storm-thrashed area.

With a critical eye, Georgia studied the churning torrent ahead, wishing her grandfather was with her; he would have tackled
the creek no problem.

“Georgie,” she fancied she could hear him, “you really oughta wade it before you cross. And where you going to aim?” Tom’s
voice seemed to grow louder the more she stared at the foaming water. “Does the water come above the axles? The engine fan?
The body floor?”

“Yes, yes, and yes,” she replied. The water looked dangerously deep and the current was quite fast, so she’d have to aim well
upstream to go straight across. And she would bet the bottom was sandy, giving her less grip than large, heavy stones, and
pitted with bottomless holes made by other vehicles getting stuck. She swallowed, aware her palms had dampened.

Evie had loaned her the four-wheel drive specifically for Cassowary Creek. She’d told Georgia the water level was bound to
be high, and not to worry if she flooded the car, it was used to that. She and her trusty Suzuki had crossed the creek loads
of times, even when it appeared impassable, so Georgia had better not be a wuss.

She could hear Evie’s voice start to override Tom’s caution.

“Why’d you think I bought a bloody four-wheel drive in the first place? To sit outside my van and look pretty? Stop buggering
about and go, girl!”

E
ngaging low-ratio, Georgia inched the Suzuki down the muddy slope to the creek. She held her breath as the bank steepened,
waiting for the car to slip, but she had full traction right to the bottom and her confidence soared. Evie’s little car might
not look like much, but it seemed to be up to the job.

Go, girl!

When the Suzuki hit the water it gave an initial jerk, almost in surprise, then the wheels dug in. Her hands tight on the
steering wheel, Georgia headed the car upstream, for a point just above the distinctive circular shape of a fan palm the size
of a trash can lid. She concentrated on keeping the engine speed high to avoid the back pressure of water drowning the exhaust
pipe and stalling the engine.

Despite the battering of water against the car, the shaking and juddering from the current, the Suzuki’s wheels were gripping
nicely and, amazingly, they were moving steadily forward.

“Always keep your eyes on where you want to go,” she heard Tom say. “You look at the trees, you hit the trees. You look at
the precipice on the side of the road, you fall into it.
Look at where you want to go.
”

So Georgia fixed her gaze past the clacking wipers and onto the fan palm and the muddy, stone-pecked slide on the opposite
bank and kept her foot on the accelerator, her thumbs free of the steering wheel to avoid a sudden twist breaking them. Her
shoulders were hunched forward, every inch of her body willing the Suzuki toward the opposite bank.

Now they were in the middle of the creek, at the deepest point, and she was aware that the vehicle was struggling, teetering
against the current, its tires slipping. A muddy wave broke over the hood.
The electrics.
Water gushed past. Georgia felt a sudden ghastly pause from the car.

Get a grip, dammit!
Get a grip!

The Suzuki’s hood began to swing downriver. Gritting her teeth, Georgia yanked the steering wheel from side to side, seeking
a fresh bite. Water poured through the doors.

She felt the off-side front tire suddenly dig in, then the near-side, and inch by inch, the little four-wheel drive crawled
through the swollen, battered creek. The bank was getting closer, and then the front tires were churning on the soft, muddy
bank, gripping the stones beneath and hauling the Suzuki out of the river. Georgia let the car scramble up the slope. She
purposely didn’t change gear in order to avoid breaking traction and spinning the wheels. When she reached the top and was
on hard dirt road, she pulled over.

Her hands were trembling as she released low-ratio and pushed the stick back to its normal driving position. The road ahead
was littered with potholes, dead leaves, and branches. Tangles of vines, soaked with humidity, hung motionless from the trees,
and the air smelled peculiarly bitter and pungent, like freshly dug earth.

More out of habit than in expectation of seeing anything, she checked her side mirror. To her astonishment, she saw a white
Ford sedan on the road behind her, heading straight for the creek.

You’ve got to be kidding, she thought. They’ll never make it in that.

Heedless of the rain, Georgia sprang out of the car and belted to the riverbank, waving her arms and shouting, “No! Go back!
It’s too deep!” But it was too late. The Ford was already a third of the way across.

When it reached the middle of the creek, the sedan paused, much like the Suzuki had. She could see the driver was turning
the steering wheel and searching for some grip, but the car was already beginning to float. Slowly, the vehicle’s hood swung
downriver and within five yards had jammed itself against something underwater. The engine stalled and water rushed through
the open windows.

Georgia raced to her car to look for a tow rope, but all the Suzuki had was a standard jack and spare tire. No ropes, no straps,
no winch, no high-lift jack.

She turned to see the driver, a tall guy in jeans and sweatshirt, slide quickly through the car window and drop into the creek.
The water came up to his thighs. He waded around the sedan and helped his woman passenger open her door against the current
and climb out. The woman had to cling on to her companion to avoid being swept away. When she glanced up, even though she
was yards away, Georgia could see the relief on her face. Relief she hadn’t been swept four miles downriver and into the Coral
Sea.

It didn’t take the couple long to grab their belongings from the trunk. The man had only a small bag, one of those standard
black ones that carry laptop computers, the woman a pint-size backpack and a sodden, new-looking leather fanny pack on her
hips.

Georgia slid down the bank and reached out to the woman, who put her hand in hers and let herself be hauled out of the river.
Her fingers felt fragile and tiny as mouse bones in Georgia’s clasp, her body light as a child’s. She was spattered with mud
and soaked to the waist, but she was grinning when Georgia swung her clear of the bank and onto firm ground. The man came
up behind her.

“You’re brilliant,” the woman said, wiping rain from her cheeks. She was Chinese, and her face had the delicate prettiness
of a young girl, but Georgia reckoned she was more her own age, late twenties. “Thanks so much for helping us.”

The man stepped forward. Water streamed from his thick black hair and down his face but he made no attempt to brush it away.
“We’ve a flight to catch,” he said, voice curt. No thank-you from him or attempt at small talk. “You okay to take us to SunAir?
Nulgarra’s aerodrome?”

Oh hell, she thought, I hope they’re not on Bri’s flight or there may not be room for me. Glumly, she said, “That’s where
I’m going.”

“Thank you, God,” said the woman, looking into the sky and exhaling hard. “You’re doing great so far. Keep it up.”

They introduced themselves. The man, Lee Denham, took the front seat while Suzie Wilson squeezed into the back. Lee must have
been thirty, at most. His skin was the color of cashew nuts, and close up she was sure he was mixed-race Chinese. He had a
pale scar running up through one eyebrow, another on the edge of his jaw, and she could see the puckered ridge of a larger
scar running up the side of his neck into the hair behind his ear. More scars on his knuckles. Wounds like a fighting dog
might have, she thought warily. Strong jaw, narrow nose, and a wide mouth she couldn’t imagine ever smiling. His features
resembled a rock face. His body looked like rock too, broad shoulders and a narrow waist; the build of a triathlete.

If Bridie had been there she’d have been matchmaking like mad, asking him what he did, how much he earned, if he wanted children,
but all Georgia said was, “Where are you flying to?”

“Cairns,” Lee said, and Georgia’s spirits sank. She just had to hope the third person who’d been booked to fly south with
Bri couldn’t make it.

“And from there?” she asked, wondering if they were on the same connecting flight to Sydney, but Lee just shrugged. Not much
of a talker, old Scar Face.

Suzie leaned between them, voice bright with curiosity. “Are you English?” she asked Georgia.

“I’m Australian,” she said on a sigh. “Have been for twenty years.”

“You sound English.”

“So I’m told.” Georgia turned to Lee. “What about your car?”

Another shrug. “It’s a rental.”

“Do you want to borrow my mobile? Tell them what’s happened?”

“Nope.”

“But you can’t just leave it there.”

He turned his head to give her a direct stare. He had eyes the color of fresh tar, glistening black, devoid of expression.

Georgia fired up the engine. Just my luck, she thought, to rescue the least friendly man on the planet. Looking in her rearview
mirror, she saw Suzie was going through the contents of her damp leather fanny pack.

“Everything okay?” she asked her.

“Yes,” Suzie said breathlessly, “you’ve been great and I—”

She broke off when Lee snapped at her in what sounded like Chinese. Georgia saw Suzie blink rapidly as though she might cry.

So much for a lighthearted journey filled with jokes about submersible cars, Georgia thought, and pulled out. Driving a little
way with her left foot on the brakes to dry them out, she set a brisk pace for the aerodrome. With only two miles to go it
shouldn’t take long, she thought, unless there were any trees across the road.

“You came from Nulgarra?” she asked.

Lee shrugged.

“Suzie? Do you live up here, or were you just visiting?”

In her rearview mirror she saw Suzie glance at Lee before fixing her gaze outside.

“I was here for a funeral,” Georgia offered. If that didn’t elicit a response she might as well give up. “My grandfather died
last week.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” said Lee.

She might as well have told him she’d put a blue sock in her white wash and everything had come out gray for all the sympathy
in his voice. Next time, she thought mutinously, I won’t stop to help you. I’ll leave you to bloody walk.

T
he one thing about having lived in a small town, where everybody knows everybody, is that no matter how long you’ve been away,
nobody forgets you. Change is slow, and chances are the boy you had a crush on at school is still around, maybe taking tourists
big-game fishing or reef-diving, and your best girlfriend is now his wife with three kids and a pool out the back with two
utes in the driveway.

So Georgia wasn’t surprised that Bri Hutchison was still piloting the SunAir planes, or that his wife, Becky, continued to
handle the bookings and office administration and, when the sky got busy during the tourists season, the radio. Seven hundred
feet from the airstrip, the SunAir office was surrounded by ginkgos, ferns, and club mosses. Built of unpainted timber, it
had a tin-roofed veranda, a dirt parking lot, a single open hangar, and a patch of lawn with a brick barbecue by the edge
of the forest.

After giving her a hug, Becky said, “Sorry about Tom, love. We’ll miss the old bugger.”

“Me too.”

“Anyhow, looks like we’ll get you out. Some bloke ain’t turned up, so you can have his seat. Go for it, love.”

Lugging her backpack to the Piper plane, which was parked well back from the rain-puddled runway, she stowed it inside before
taking the seat behind the pilot’s. Bri greeted her briefly with a smacking kiss on the cheek, then turned back to study the
map spread on his lap.

Like Mrs. Scutchings, Bri hadn’t changed much in the ten years she’d been away. A few more wrinkles maybe, but he was just
as short and square and solid as brick, and still missing his left upper incisor, where the boom of his yacht had hit him
all those years ago, when he’d been teaching her and Dawn to sail. Georgia had been eleven and unself-conscious enough to
ask why he didn’t get a false tooth, to which he’d replied, “You think I ought?”

She’d put her head on one side. “Not unless you mind looking like a pirate.”

“Nope.”

She had always had a soft spot for Bri. They’d first met in her second term at school, when he’d been dropping off his nephew.
She and Dawn had arrived at the school gates, miserably soaked through after a rainstorm. They had forgotten to bring an umbrella,
and their satchels and schoolbooks were sodden.

“You walk to school every day?” Bri had asked, frowning.

Dawn and Georgia nodded.

“On your own?”

The sisters nodded again.

“What about your grandfather?”

“He’s helping at the bait shop,” said Dawn. “They open at—”

“Eight,” said Bri. “Yeah. I know.”

He had chewed his lower lip, then said, “How about if I pick you up each morning? You’re at the commune, right? It’ll be no
trouble for me, so long as your mum won’t mind, and I’ll make the airfield in time for the first trips. Joey here could do
with the company.”