Dead Heat (29 page)

She watched the chief exhale fractionally. He hadn’t expected her to know the Chens, she realized, just chucked a baited line
out in the faint hope she might bite.

“Oh, a couple of miscreants,” said the chief. He scribbled something on his pad, but she wasn’t much good at reading upside
down and couldn’t see what he’d written unless she craned really obviously.

“Just to reiterate,” he said, putting down the pen and looking up, “my main priorities are to find Jon Ming, to protect him,
and to find Lee.”

No can do, she thought.

As if he had heard her thoughts, the chief suddenly leaned forward. “If I find you’ve been obstructing police business and
withholding information . . .”

His tone was deceptively soft, but she got the message.

Georgia left the police station feeling in need of another stiff drink.

N
o wonder you’re rattled. Talk about walking a bloody tightrope. I wish you’d let me in from the start.”

Georgia wished she had too. India hadn’t lunged for her phone since she’d confessed, or pulled out a microphone and shoved
it in her face. After she’d met Georgia in police reception and bundled her into her ute outside, looking over her shoulder
the entire time as though expecting the cop shop to erupt with armed police at any second, she’d simply started the car and
shot away saying, “What the hell is going on? For God’s sake spill the beans, will you? I promise I won’t tell anyone. Not
a soul, unless you want me to.” Georgia had looked at her, and India had solemnly crossed her heart with a long brown finger.
“Hope to die,” she’d added.

So Georgia told her everything. Everything she could remember, that was. The cops and their hatred of Lee; Yumuru and Suzie
and the antibiotic; Daniel, Tilly, and Dutch. Her mum. It was as if a dam had broken. God, what a relief to spill it all out.

They were halfway to Nulgarra when she stopped talking. Her mouth was dry, and India reached behind and into her rear seat
pocket, pulling out a liter bottle of Evian. “Never travel without at least ten of these suckers,” she said. “Never know when
you’re going to break down, and I don’t ever want to go thirsty.”

Georgia had a long drink, then recapped the bottle and laid it along her thighs.

“So Lee’s going to break your mum out tonight?”

“I hope so.”

India stepped on the gas when the road broadened, stretching between grasses the color of flax like a long black snake that
had been flattened by a giant boot.

“What’s this bloke’s name again? The one on the bike from Quantum Research?”

“Jon Ming. Wang Mingjun. He’s Suzie’s brother, and—”

“That rings a bell. What’s
her
name? Her Chinese name?”

“Wang Mingshu.”

A Toyota Hilux pulled out from a side road ahead and India jammed her foot on the brakes.

“Hey, India, take it easy, will you?”

“Say her name again?”

“Wang Mingshu.”

“Wang Mingshu?” India repeated. “You don’t happen to know the name of their father?”

Georgia thought a bit. “Wang . . . Pak Man, I think. But Jon said he’s known as Patrick Wang.”

“Patrick Wang.” India’s voice was faint. “Holy fuck.”

Georgia studied the side of the reporter’s face. Her cheeks seemed to have lost color.

A horn sounded and Georgia jumped. They were practically in the middle of the road. The car coming from the opposite direction
swept past, horn still blaring.

“Christ, India!”

India heaved her ute onto the dirt shoulder and switched off the engine. Her hands, Georgia saw with a little shock, were
shaking.

“Georgia. You’re saying Patrick Wang is Suzie Wilson’s father? And that Suzie Wilson and Mingshu were the same person?”

Alarmed, unsure where this was going, Georgia decided on sticking to the truth. “Yes. I am.”

India scrabbled in the well between them and shook a Marlboro from the pack, lit it from the car’s lighter. She buzzed her
window down and exhaled a stream of smoke outside. She said softly, “Jesus.”

Warm air drifted over them, blanketing the air-conditioning and making Georgia start to sweat. “India, what is it?”

The reporter looked around. She was staring at Georgia but she wasn’t connecting with her. She was staring at something beyond
her and in her own mind.

“I know Mingshu,” she said. Her tone was distant. “Well, not
know
her as such, we never met, but yes, I knew of her because of her father. I’ve been after Patrick Wang for the last eighteen
months, and got hold of letters to him from his kids. Mingshu and Mingjun.” She sent Georgia a sharp look. “Are you
sure
it’s her? Was her?”

“Of course I am!”

India dragged deeply on her Marlboro.

“I don’t get it.” India was shaking her head in bewilderment. “Why did she want to see me?
Me,
of all people.”

Confused, Georgia said, “I don’t know. Sorry.”

“Fuck it . . .” The reporter stubbed her half-smoked Marlboro out in the dashboard tray with sharp, jabbing motions until
the filter was pulped. “Could you expand a bit on Jon, what he said, then maybe I can see where Suzie fits into it all?”

Georgia told India about how Suzie captured wild crocodiles and sent the serum to Jon in China in the hope of finding an extraordinary
new antibiotic, how Jon realized the immensity of what they were creating and took all his research and fled to Australia,
and the Chens’ determination to get their hands on either one of them, Suzie or Jon, and get the research back to China and
the company Jon used to work for, their clients.

India was on her third cigarette by the time Georgia finished.

“No wonder they’re such hot property,” the reporter said. “Not just because they’re valuable scientists themselves, and the
Chinese want them back, but their father was another scientist. Patrick Wang. He’s been on the run from the Australian authorities
ever since his killing spree. Remember those people who died in the Northern Territory two years back?”

Georgia could feel the shock on her face. Over seven hundred people had died from an incurable virus, and it had been India
who had exposed the truth behind the murders.

“Their father did that?”

“Sure did. The total bastard . . .”

India was still talking and suddenly Dutch was in Georgia’s mind, telling her about his bony-assed friend whose father had
done something really bad, and Suzie had wanted to do something really good, to make amends.

“Now she’s dead,” India said, looking frustrated. “We’ll probably never find her father now. Not unless Jon gives him up.”

“Jon said he’d had to go overseas.”

“Where?”

“He didn’t say.”

India’s mobile chirped, and she stubbed out her cigarette as she answered it. “Hi. Yes, probably. Say I’ll be with you at—”
she looked at Georgia and said, “Can I drop you in town?”

Georgia nodded. She could always get a taxi to the caravan park, and besides, she needed a bandage for her finger, acetaminophen,
and maybe some antiseptic cream. It was aching more than usual. God, she hoped it hadn’t gotten infected.

India turned her wrist to look at her watch and said into her phone, “Six o’clock.” Shoving her phone between her thighs,
she turned the ignition and swung the ute back onto the road and accelerated hard, overtaking a four-wheel drive towing a
horse box.

“So,” said India, “do you have any ideas who sabotaged the plane?”

“Not really.” Georgia sighed and turned her head to look outside. Baked red dirt speckled with low dry bushes and red anthills
flashed past. You’d never think they were just forty minutes from tropical rainforests and beaches rimmed with aquamarine
sea.

Georgia thought about the saboteur and who, aside from the entire police force of Australia, wanted Lee Denham dead. Or had
they wanted to kill someone else? Not her, but what about Bri? No, that was impossible. And who in the world would want to
kill Suzie, when she was so valuable?

Her mind made a giant leap.

Suzie, wanting to see India about exploitation at the healing center. Tilly, one minute dying, the next day healed. What if
someone had wanted to kill Suzie, in order to maintain the illusion of an incredible healing gift
and
keep the money flooding in?

India had tuned the radio to Sea FM and was humming along to George Harrison’s “My Sweet Lord,” oblivious to Georgia’s silence.
She’d barreled through the little settlement of Mount Molloy, barely pausing at the forty-mile-an-hour speed limit, and was
now cruising along the smooth, sweeping asphalt road at over eighty.

“India,” Georgia ventured, “could you keep the fact about Suzie and the antibiotic quiet for a bit?”

“My lips are zipped, remember?” India flashed her a narrow look. “Why? You’ve made some connection?”

“Er . . .” Georgia wasn’t sure she wanted to voice her newfound skepticism of Yumuru. What if she’d gotten it wrong? India
could destroy him with a flick of her pen, not to mention all those patients currently in his care, and those he might cure
in the future.

“Georgia!” India erupted. “Will you just trust me, goddammit! I’m on your side! Don’t you get it? I won’t tell anything to
anyone you don’t want me to, not my partner, not the cops, not Scotto.” Her lips twitched mischievously. “He’s my editor.
He’s gorgeous, by the way. And very single.”

“Not right now, thanks,” Georgia told the reporter drily.

“Later, then,” said India. “What’s on your mind about Suzie and the antibiotic?”

Georgia dithered briefly, then caved in. India listened without interrupting. Georgia ended by saying, “I’ve a plan.”

“Spill it.”

Obediently Georgia did so.

“Excellent,” said India. “I’d say all systems go, no holds barred.” She slowed behind a road train until the road was clear
ahead, then passed. “You’re okay still staying at Newview?”

Georgia hadn’t given it much thought, but now she realized it wasn’t the best place. Jason Chen would probably be waiting
for her after the debacle in Brisbane, wanting to know where Jon was, his pruning shears at the ready.

“Probably not.”

“How about the National in town?” India suggested without missing a beat. “Their rooms aren’t great, but at least people will
be around. And we can head round the corner to Mick’s for something to eat tonight. I fancy some serious grease after today.
Something deep-fried and battered to death.”

It was just under 125 miles from Mount Molloy to Nulgarra but they made good time thanks to India’s speeding. As India pulled
up outside the National Hotel, she leaned across and hooked her arm around Georgia’s neck, gave her a hug. Pressed a kiss
against her cheek.

“Thanks for the trust in me,” she said. “You did good.”

Georgia put her hand against the reporter’s and held it briefly. “Thanks for waiting for me at the cop shop.”

“Anytime.”

After she’d climbed outside, Georgia walked around the front of the ute, keeping a hand on the hot metal of the hood like
she was soothing a restless steed in its stall. She bent to India’s window. India buzzed it down, expression expectant.

Georgia said, “I know why Suzie wanted to see you.”

India stared at her, surprise in her eyes.

“She would have made up the exploitation story to get you up here. Because her father did something terribly bad and you broke
the story, she wanted to do something incredibly good and to tell you she was trying to redress the balance.”

India’s face closed. “She doesn’t get any sympathy from me. Her sodding father played God, and people
died.
”

She gunned the ute so hard that the tires spun a handful of gravel into Georgia’s face.

F
resh bandage to hand, antiseptic tube on the sink, Georgia steeled herself as she unwrapped her old bandage. Her finger was
throbbing unmercifully and she dreaded seeing what was beneath. Yumuru had said to change the bandage daily, but when she’d
gotten to Cairns last night she had been too tired, and this morning too terrified of flying to contemplate it.

The last of the bandage stuck a little, and she gritted her teeth as she tugged until it was free. She still couldn’t look.

Bandage now off. Bandage now in trash can.

Breathe, for goodness’ sake, she told herself. Breathe into your lungs, right into your belly, and be calm. Be calm.

She looked down and saw a bulbous scab sitting on top of her stump like a leech. Bristles of stitches. No blood, no liquid
seeping, no redness, no infection.

It was fine.

The sodding thing was fine. It barely looked as if it needed antiseptic cream, but she smeared a gob over it just in case,
then quickly rebandaged it, trying to emulate Yumuru’s neat wrapping but failing dismally. It looked as though a goblin had
attempted to erect a tent over the bloody thing. Ah well, she’d do better next time, when she’d had some practice.

She was aware that she was forcing herself to be lighthearted, reasoning that if she concentrated on being normal, Lee would
rescue her mother. Ridiculous logic, she knew, but she couldn’t think what else to do, except go mad with worry. Her mother
believed in the power of positive thought. When their ancient ute had finally packed up and they’d needed a new car, for instance,
she hadn’t panicked, just added an extra affirmation to her daily ritual: “Thank you, Great Creator, for this wonderful new
car.”

Two weeks later, Dick Cooper had driven his wife’s battered old Moke into the commune and handed her the keys.

Recalling it, Georgia made her own affirmation: “Thank you, Great Creator, for my mother’s freedom.”

Going to the running bath, she turned off the taps and tested the water with her other hand. Undressing, she eased herself
into the water, up to her neck, holding her goblin tent high. The bath was huge, and since she couldn’t reach the other end
with her feet, she felt she was swimming, which was not exactly relaxing.

Finally she pulled the plug and stood, dripping, wondering what to wear, as the majority of her stuff was at the caravan;
the clothes from yesterday, which she’d worn sweating to the detention center and then to Cairns? Or the clothes from today,
reeking with the sweat of fear of being shot at, of being caught by the Chens . . . No contest. Yesterday’s clothes were today’s.
At least she had a clean pair of knickers and a toothbrush. As a child, when they’d flown to Australia, her mother had told
her their baggage might go missing and to carry fresh undies in her hand luggage just in case.