Dead Heat (7 page)

“Mum!”

“Darling, sorry.” She had looked genuinely regretful.

“But I love brownies!”

“They’re not brownies. They’re for adults.”

Georgia had looked at her mother, who sighed. “Sweet, it’s not the end of the world. If I promise you brownies tomorrow, will
you promise to stop scowling at me?”

Burrowing deep into the narrow single bed, she pulled the toweling robe close around her neck. She heard the distinctive sound
of an oven door banging shut and imagined a perfectly luscious banana cake emerging. It would have creamy icing, she decided,
and walnuts in its center.

Georgia slept restlessly, shivering a little against the damp bedclothes, sore and aching and aware of protecting her hand,
her bruises. Despite her best efforts, her mind filled with flashbacks of the crash; the smell of smoke, the sound of tearing
metal around them.

A crack of thunder woke her in an instant, her heart pounding until she realized where she was. It was pitch-dark outside
and rain lashed against the window. Her heart sank. The secondary storms after Cyclone Tania had set in. Great. It looked
as though she and India might not leave tomorrow after all.

She rolled onto her back and gave an involuntary groan. She hurt about a thousand times more than she had before she fell
asleep. What she needed was a handful of painkillers. Pushing the bedcovers back, she turned to the door where Suzie’s fanny
pack hung on the hook. Then she thought she saw the door handle move.

Her breathing stopped as she stared. For a second she reckoned she must have imagined it, but then it shifted again, just
half an inch or so, but it definitely moved.

Gut instinct told her it wouldn’t be Mrs. Scutchings.

G
eorgia gazed rigidly at the door handle as she considered the alternatives: screaming for hep at the top of her voice, or
lying in bed, pretending to be asleep.

Click.

Christ, the door was going to open any second.

There was no room beneath the bed to hide. No wardrobe to scurry inside, no open window to flee through. The corner cupboard
could have sheltered a family of white-tailed rats, but not much else.

She made a snap decision against playing doggo and pretending to be asleep—she’d be a sitting target—and slipped from under
the covers. She tiptoed hastily across the room to hide behind the door. Back flat against the wall, she saw the door open
a crack, then a little more. Her breathing was shallow, her heart galloping.

A dark shape stepped inside. A man. He was holding a pistol in his right hand. Holding her breath, she watched him approach
the bed. He moved cautiously, gun in readiness.

She had to get out. She had to get out
now.

Quietly as she could, she started to creep around the door, heading for the corridor, when he spun around and came for her.

She leaped backwards, opened her mouth and screamed, loud as she could,
“Help!”

The man clamped his hand over her mouth and she wriggled, jerking to break free, but he was too strong. Suddenly the light
snapped on and a voice said, “Georgia, what in the world—”

The man twisted away from Georgia and rushed for Mrs. Scutchings in the doorway, pushing her so hard that she smacked into
the opposite corridor wall.

“Stop!” Mrs. Scutchings shouted. “Just stop right there!”

But the man wasn’t stopping for anyone, least of all Mrs. Scutchings, resplendent in a cream robe of polyester that reached
to her ankles, shouting loud as a foghorn.

Without stopping to think, Georgia ran after the man, but by the time she had flung back the front-door fly screen and raced
down the concrete path to the street, all she could see was rain slanting against a single orange streetlight and palms bowed
low.

“He was Chinese. Clean-shaven. Black hair, longish.” Georgia took a gulp of her coffee and grimaced. Not only had she neglected
to add sugar, but it was almost cold. “He wore jeans and a sweatshirt. Sneakers.”

She stepped to the sink and poured her coffee down the drain before turning to face the cops. “That’s it, I’m afraid. I can’t
really help any more. I only saw him for a second.”

Glancing at her wrist, she realized for the first time that she had lost her watch. Not that she was going to have a spasm
over it; it hadn’t been a swanky Tag Heuer chronograph, just a Swatch she’d been given by her housemate last Christmas. Annie
would buy her another, she knew, and enjoy teasing her for losing the thing in such a spectacular fashion.

Looking around, she saw a plastic green-and-gold clock above the door. It was 6
AM.
Pale gray light filtered through the windows and she doubted they’d see the sun rising. Heavy, black-bottomed clouds filled
the sky.

“Tell us a bit more about our hero,” said the cop called Sergeant Riggs. He loaded the last word with sarcasm. “Where can
we find him?”

“I’ve already told you, I don’t know. The last time I saw him was at the hospital. And as I’ve said before, the intruder wasn’t
Lee Denham.”

“You didn’t see him leave the hospital?”

Sergeant Riggs’s voice was as hard and uncompromising as his appearance. Early thirties, large and raw-boned, with a roll
of fat spilling over his belt, he had buzz-cut red hair and a pair of small, watery blue eyes that never seemed to blink.

Riggs and his sidekick had turned up thirty minutes after Mrs. Scutchings had called triple zero and had been grilling her
for over an hour. Despite her exhaustion, Georgia held her chin up and tried to ignore the fact that not only did she have
the remnants of blue nail polish on her toenails, which Sergeant Riggs seemed to find fascinating, but she looked a fright.
To free her from the plane Lee had sawn her hair into varying lengths that hung limply from her scalp. To make things worse,
her clothes were still damp from being washed and her T-shirt kept sticking to her skin. Riggs was torn between staring at
her toes or her breasts.

She folded her arms across her chest. “No,” she said.

“You sure about that? The man saved your life, didn’t he? You sure you’re not feeling obligated, wanting to protect him?”

“I told you, it wasn’t Lee.”

She tried not to show her apprehension at his interest in Lee. Did it have anything to do with Lee wanting to take Suzie’s
fanny pack, his frown after he had searched it?

Wanting to change the subject, she looked pointedly at the door. “Where’s Mrs. Scutchings? The poor woman must be wondering
what on earth’s going on with you interrogating me before she’s had her cornflakes.”

“Watching breakfast TV,” said Riggs.

Small pause.

“So, Miz Parish,” said Riggs heavily. “You’re saying quite definitely that you don’t know where Lee Denham is?”

“Yes.
Yes.
I have no idea.”

“So who was the intruder.”

“It wasn’t Lee,” she repeated. “He was too short, for a start. Lee must be six foot and this bloke was smaller than me, maybe
five six or so.”

How she wished she could walk outside and jump into a taxi and drive away. Riggs seemed to think that if he asked the same
questions over and over, she’d suddenly come up with a different answer. An overweight bully, that’s all he was, and she knew
how to deal with bullies. If you couldn’t settle it with a fistfight, the only option was to ignore them and hold your head
high until they tired of you.

“I’m thinking there’s more going on here than you’re telling. You sure you’re being straight?”

Her body was pulsing with pain, but she didn’t sit down. She stood tall and kept her voice firm. “I cannot tell you something
I don’t know. Now, please, I’ve helped you all I can. May I go now?”

She made for the door, but the sidekick sprang into position right in front, forcing her to spin around. Feeling like a sheep
nipped at its heels by a keen collie, she paced back to the stove. Mrs. Scutchings’s kitchen was stale with age, with small
windows, brown linoleum worn in its center, and an ancient Kelvinator fridge the size of a sedan car. Perhaps twenty years
ago the walls and cupboards had been a cheerful green, but the color was now flat and dull as pondweed.

“Miz Parish.” Riggs’s voice was a low growl. “Maybe we can start again. Do you know—”

The door thumped open. A whippet-lean man in black boots, black jeans, and T-shirt walked in. “Sorry I’m running so late,
guys.”

She thought, I don’t believe it! It’s Daniel Carter. The boy I had a monumental crush on at school, the boy three years ahead
of me who never knew I existed. It was surreal.

Daniel’s dark blond hair was sticking up as though he’d been running his hands repeatedly through it, and although deep lines
at the corners of his mouth indicated stress, he still looked good. How bloody typical, she thought, that ten years after
I leave town he gets to see me looking a complete mess.

Daniel nodded at Riggs, who nodded back. “I’ll take it from here.”

Riggs stretched his arms to the ceiling, looking relieved. “Great. Give me a chance to grab a shower. Start the day over on
a decent note.”

“I’ll join you when I’m done.”

“Sally G’s? Or you going straight to the station?”

“Sally’s.”

The other cop piped up. “I’ll drop Riggs off, sir. Grab some breakfast at home.”

So the other cop was local, but Riggs and Daniel were from out of town. Sally G’s was one of the larger, more amenity-appointed
guesthouses in Nulgarra, well-known for putting up the odd businessman and traveling salesman. And now a couple of cops.

Riggs and his sidekick left, discussing whether Sally would be awake yet and able to rustle up some eggs. She could hear their
voices as they walked down the side of the house.

Daniel crossed the kitchen and stuck out a hand. “Sergeant Carter,” he said.

The man had a grip like a mangle, and she tried not to flinch. “Georgia Parish,” she said. “I was at school with you.”

“I know.”

“You remember me?” She doubted it.

He shook his head. “I heard all about you at the station before I came, and remembered the name.”

She raised her eyebrows and suddenly he grinned, losing ten years and looking like the boy she’d known at school, the crooked
smile, the penetrating, almost indecently blue eyes. He used to wear a black bandanna, she remembered, and practiced kung
fu. His fascination with China had briefly become her own, and she had even read Sun Tzu’s
Art of War
back to front, because he had.

“And I mean,
all.
” He was still grinning. “You were the leader of the pack that used to give the town kids such a hard time. Everyone remembers
you as a major mischief maker.”

“Nuisance, more like,” she agreed ruefully, and gestured at what had to be a forty-year-old jug in the corner. Jugs were an
Aussie type of kettle, and she’d never seen anything like them until she arrived out here. “Coffee?”

“Love one.”

The grin vanished and she saw that his brilliant eyes were very bloodshot. He looked exhausted.

“You look done in,” she told him with her customary honesty. “Sit.”

“No. Your hand. I’ll do it. You take a seat and give me directions.”

As he moved to the jug, she felt the energy rush out of her and had to grab the back of a chair to steady herself.

“You’re okay?” he said over his shoulder. It was a statement more than a question.

“Yup.” She made her voice strong but didn’t think she could pick up a teaspoon, she felt so weak. She sank hurriedly into
a chair before she fell. The chair cushion matched the linoleum covering the aluminum table. Both were covered with little
yellow teddy bears.

She watched Daniel—she couldn’t think of him as Sergeant Carter—make coffee, pour milk, add sugar, and stir, with a sense
of weird amazement. Her schoolgirl crush was making her coffee. If she was fourteen years old, she’d be pinching herself.

Sitting opposite, he pushed her coffee toward her, took a steady sip of his own, and sighed.

When he looked up, his face had smoothed into a neutral expression. His cop face, she assumed.

“So, you had an intruder last night.”

“More like early this morning.” She took a gulp of strong, dark coffee and added, “But your colleagues seemed more interested
in Lee Denham than the prowler.”

There was a short pause, and then he asked the same questions Riggs had asked, but faster and without any repetitions. Then
he topped up the jug and plugged it in again. Immediately it started to make its usual hideous crackling, popping noise as
the twin electric filaments heated up. Georgia decided to buy Mrs. Scutchings a jug from the twenty-first century before the
woman either electrocuted herself or blew up the house. She’d find something at Price’s, she was certain.

She’d just registered a smell of smoke when Daniel jumped up and said, “Jesus.” He unplugged the jug, flipped back the lid,
and peered inside. “Ah.” She watched as he pulled a Swiss Army knife attached to a piece of string from his jeans pocket,
opened a blade, and poked it inside the kettle. “That’ll do it.”

Jug now churning away, he said, “I’d like to talk to Lee.”

Georgia frowned, wondering why he was interviewing her when Riggs had already done a pretty good job. “You think he had something
to do with the intruder?”

Ignoring her question, Daniel leaned his hips against the countertop and folded his arms. “Ronnie Chen’s name was on the flight
plan. So were Lee’s and Suzie Wilson’s.” He gave her a long look. “How come yours wasn’t?”

It was the same question India had asked, but this time, restored by the coffee, she had the energy to give a longer reply.
“Probably because nobody knew I was flying until the last minute. SunAir’s a bit like a taxi, sometimes you get a ride, sometimes
you don’t. You can book, but you’re not always guaranteed to get on board. Especially if someone has an emergency, like needing
to get to a wedding because their car’s broken down, say.”

The kelvinator emitted a loud rumbling noise, making the plastic salad bowl on top rattle.