Dead Heat (9 page)

“I’m going to see him in a minute, after I’ve found some breakfast. I’m starving.”

Small silence, then, “Well, if you’ve an appetite . . .” She could almost see Maggie nodding in satisfaction.

Hanging up, Georgia flicked the dead leaf into the pot. She wished she
wanted
the promotion—it would make life so much easier. All her friends were firmly on their chosen career paths, knowing exactly
where they were going, but she hadn’t a clue. Having to give up her usual day-wear of jeans and sneakers for some sort of
managerial outfit didn’t help. Nor did the thought of keeping office hours and attending countless meetings in frigid, air-conditioned
offices. And there was no way she’d still be able to fit in a quick surf at the end of her working day.

Besides, what was wrong with being a book rep? The salary wasn’t great, but she had a company car, could organize her days
as she liked, and so long as the figures came in on target she had total autonomy, with nobody looking over her shoulder.
Why did everyone want to
change
things? Why didn’t she
care
about being promoted? And what about Charlie? Why didn’t she want to marry him?

“Not everyone is like your mother,” Charlie had said.

“Thank heavens for that,” she’d replied, her tone heavy with sarcasm.

“Just because Linette never got married doesn’t mean you have to follow suit.”

“I’m not!”

“I won’t abandon you, Georgia.” His expression was earnest. “I’m not one of your mother’s boyfriends who’ll vanish just when
you start to get to like them. Trust me, won’t you? I’m sticking around. For good.”

Except he hadn’t stuck around. He’d given her an ultimatum: marry me, live with me, have my children, or I walk. Children?
It was the first time he’d mentioned children. Oh God, she thought, if I marry him, of course I’d be expected to have his
babies. I’ll have to give up my company car, my lovely booksellers, my surfing, to be at home breast-feeding. I’m not even
thirty. No, I’m not ready for all that.

Before she headed into town, Georgia upended Suzie’s fanny pack on her bed, looking for an address for Suzie or her brother,
but found nothing. Riggs had told her that the police had informed Suzie’s employer of her death, but he hadn’t said who they
were, or mentioned Suzie’s family.

Suzie’s purse had to be the neatest Georgia had ever seen. No cash register receipts, no video store cards, library cards,
or dry-cleaning slips. Just a single twenty-dollar note and a handful of change.

Her passport had been issued in Wuhan, China, and showed a girl ten years younger who barley looked like Suzie and went by
the name of Wang Mingshu. She had no work permit for Australia, not even a tourist visa, and the address given was in Xian,
China. For a second Georgia considered mailing the bag there, then remembered Suzie knew Bri, and must have lived locally.
Would anyone still know her in Xian?

Opening the internal zipper, she took out a folded cotton handkerchief with a hand-stitched lily in one corner, and an electronic
key with the words “Tempo Car Park” above the magnetic strip. As she pushed the card and hanky back, she saw that the inside
lining had been restitched. Pressing her fingers against the leather, she frowned. She could feel something inside. Something
hard and flat and square. Peering harder, she realized Suzie had sewn whatever it was into the lining.

Her stomach gave a jump. It had to be what Lee had been looking for after the plane crash. Was it connected to her intruder
too? Deciding to open the lining and see what was inside, hoping it contained an address, Georgia trotted to the kitchen and,
using a fine, sharp knife, picked the threads free.

No address, just an unmarked floppy disk.

Georgia turned the disk over and over in her hands, wondering how she hadn’t felt it before, and how Lee had missed it, but
when she considered the fanny pack again, holding it against her waist with one hand and rummaging inside with the other,
the leather still felt like a block of wood even without the disk. And it wasn’t as if Lee had been rough when he’d searched
the thing. He’d picked through Suzie’s lipsticks and pens delicately, like a cat.

She decided to see if she could find out who Suzie’s employer was, and if she had no luck, she’d write a letter to Xian. She
could send Suzie’s stuff on when she’d received an affirmative response. Pushing everything back inside, she paused at the
twenty-dollar note. She hadn’t had breakfast and she was ravenous. Would Suzie mind? She’d replace it later . . . Hurriedly,
Georgia shoved the note in her jeans pocket and zipped up the fanny pack.

She was heading back to her bedroom, intending to put the bag on the bedside table, then thought better of it. Computer disk
in hand, she looked around the room. She decided to wedge it in a loose section of baseboard behind the bed. Then, carefully,
she propped Suzie’s fanny pack between the chest of drawers and the wall. Just in case.

T
he sky was overcast, the air close and humid. Sweat trickled down Georgia’s chest and back as she walked down Church Street
before turning right into Jacaranda Road and zigzagging her way toward Ocean Road and the Coral Sea. She passed the Bendigo
Bank and the little brass war memorial, in remembrance of the three men from Nulgarra who’d died in the Second World War.
Two bulky, sun-wrinkled men in boots and shorts, drinking coffee out of the back of their van, tried not to stare as she walked
by. I must get a haircut, she thought, but not at Sheryl’s Bib and Cut or I’ll come out looking like a poodle. I’ll wait till
I get to Sydney.

Crossing Ocean Road, she went into Mick’s Café and ordered a dozen deep-fried oysters. It might be only nine-fifteen, but
after her session with the cops, then Daniel, it felt like lunchtime and way past the time for eggs and bacon. Mick wasn’t
there and she chatted to the man mixing a fresh batch of batter, comparing oysters from around the world, why the ones from
Dublin were so fat and creamy while others were half the size and flat as pancakes. She was inordinately glad she didn’t have
to answer a single question about her marital status.

Ten minutes later, the bag of oysters greasy and warm in her hand, she headed for the beach, wanting to fill her soul with
space before seeing Bri. She followed the hard-packed sandy track between the town hall and adventure playground, picking
out an oyster and eating it as she walked. Through the mangroves to the right, she could just see a dark glimmer of the Parunga
River, oozing slowly to its ocean mouth, and hear the distant burble of a powerful inboard motor. One of the cop boats maybe,
going for a recon.

Salty juice trickled down her chin and she wiped it away with the back of her hand, wondering how many dozens of oysters she’d
eaten since she was a kid. Hundreds? More like thousands. She loved them, always had. She paused on the edge of the beach
and took in the brand-new sign stuck in the sand. Etched out of wood were letters painted red and white: “Warning, Estuarine
Crocodiles Inhabit This River System.”

Her spirits sank. For estuarine, read “saltie,” she thought, and automatically began scanning the area. Did this mean she
couldn’t walk on the beach? For a second she empathized with Mrs. Scutchings. If the American tourist hadn’t been attacked
last season, the sign would never have been erected. Or would it? Maybe someone had seen an old, displaced crocodile entering
the river system, and erected the sign accordingly.

“Whatever’s in that bag smells good.” The man spoke right behind her, almost in her ear, making her spin around.

“Jesus!”

Lee Denham stood there, studying her. He wore blue jeans tucked into boots and a gray sweatshirt with the sleeves cut off.
“Windsurfers Do It Standing Up” was stitched in red across the chest.

He said, “Sorry about your hair. Talk about making a mess of it.”

“Where
have
you been?” she said, adrenaline making her tone aggressive. “Everyone’s been looking for you!”

“Are you eating crab sticks?” He leaned over, trying to peer into the bag. He wore a large Band-Aid above his left eye and
his ear was bandaged. Despite his wounds he bristled with energy.

“Oysters.” She offered the bag to him.

He took two, popped one in his mouth. “Nice,” he said, muffled. “Haven’t had them done this way before.”

“Where have you been since the hospital? You just vanished.”

He ate the second oyster and ignored the question.

“It’s beautiful up here. Really beautiful. I had no idea. You see the crabs in the mud? Size of my thumbnail but fantastic
colors. Like jewels.”

He was right. Even though the sun wasn’t out, the crab shells gleamed bright as sapphires.

“Look at this.” He made to bend over to pick up a shell the color of freshwater pearls.

“Don’t!”

He looked up at her. “What?”

“It might be a coneshell.”

Lee straightened and stared at the shell. “A what?”

“It’s a poisonous creature that lives inside shells.”

“Venomous seashells?” he said. “I don’t believe it.”

“Along with box jellyfish, stingrays, blue-ringed octopi, and stonefish. They’re the worst because they’re so well camouflaged.
When you tread on one, its spines go straight through your shoe, injecting you with venom.”

“Then what?”

“You die.”

He blinked. “Jesus. I had no idea . . .”

“How beautiful it is up here,” she added with a smile.

She picked out an oyster and offered him another. Both of them turned their heads at the small movement at the edge of the
beach. Georgia spotted the whimbrel first. Small and brown and unassuming, the bird was feeding on shrimps between the mangroves.

“Is that venomous too?”

“Not that I’ve heard.”

“Glad to hear it.” In the same tone, he said, “You’ve had a busy morning. All those visitors?”

How did he know? Disconcerted, she said, “Do you mean the police?”

“Cassell and Riggs. And Sergeant Carter.” His expression was unreadable. “Quite a turn-up for the books.”

She felt a small swoop in her belly. “You’ve been
watching
me?”

He smiled briefly. “You’re my responsibility after what happened.”

Ignoring the sensation of sea lice scurrying down her spine, she said, “Am I? Well. I haven’t thanked you, have I? I mean,
thanks.”

“I’d prefer it if you didn’t tell anyone you’ve seen me,” he said. “Especially Carter.”

“Why not?”

He fixed his gaze on something past her shoulder. “I’d just rather he didn’t track me down, that’s all.”

“But he asked me to call him if I saw you. What am I supposed to tell him when . . .”

The look he gave her made her fall silent.

“You owe me.”

“Yes, and don’t think I’m not grateful, but as far as I’m concerned, when the police ask . . .” She trailed off when she realized
she was getting to the point of telling him she was a law-abiding citizen and would do anything the police told her to. Which
was absolutely right, wasn’t it? But she didn’t feel right saying it to this granitelike man, especially since he’d saved
her life. She could almost feel Daniel’s card burning a hole in her pocket.

“You know our aircraft was sabotaged?”

It took her a second to take in what he’d said; he sounded like he was discussing the weather.

“What?”

“When I went to try to put out the engine fire I saw the fuel pipe had been loosened, where it fits onto the electrical fuel
pump. It had to have been deliberate, because it’s normally wire-locked. That’s why we ran out of fuel. And the whole time
we flew, fuel leaked into the engine bay, and with that engine so hot . . . It’s a miracle the plane didn’t explode before
we landed.”

There was a silence, then Lee took a long breath. “You know anyone who wants you dead?”

She was speechless with disbelief.

“Obviously not,” said Lee drily. “Wonder who they wanted to kill? Me, perhaps. Suzie. Bri.”

Unable to make sense of it, she said, “Are you
sure
?”

“Oh yes. I’m sure, all right.”

“Have you reported it?”

He looked amused. “I like that. Me going into the local cop shop to report my plane was sabotaged. Yeah. Right.”

“But if it was, surely shouldn’t you—”

“No.
You
should. They won’t listen to me.”

“I didn’t see anything, let alone the . . . wire thingy.”

“Wire-lock.”

“I don’t see how I can report something I know nothing about.”

“You’ve no interest in who nearly wiped you out?”

“Of course I have! It’s just that . . . well, it’ll be difficult.”

“Just call the insurance company. And the AAI. The Air Accident Investigators. They’ll find their evidence.”

“I still think you should report it. And how can I not tell Daniel I’ve seen you after you’ve told me—”

“So, it’s Daniel, is it?” He raised an eyebrow mockingly.

“We were at school together.”

“Ah.”

Absently she offered him another oyster. When he’d finished it he said, “Tell Carter I told you about the sabotage at the
crash site. But that you’d forgotten, with the shock and all of the incident.”

She looked away from him at the whimbrel. It had inched its way out of the mangroves and was now pecking for crabs in the
mud.

“Did you find out where Suzie’s brother lives?” he asked.

“No. Apparently the police have notified her employer, but I don’t know who it is. Do you?”

Again, he ignored her question. “You’re saying you don’t know how to find her brother?”

“Well, no. But if her employer can’t help, I’m going to send a letter to the address in her passport.”

“Xian.”

“Yes.” She took a breath and added, “The police asked me loads of questions about you. About why my name wasn’t on the flight
plan, but someone else called Ronnie Chen was. Did you know he’s dead? His body was found washed up on Kee Beach.” She couldn’t
bring herself to mention that the man had been murdered.

“I heard.” He turned to stare at the steely flat sea.