Limbo (15 page)

For a moment he thought she might burp and smash the empty can against her forehead. Part of him actually hoped she would. He needed something like that to help erase the simmering consternation at her erotic finger-licking display.

She didn’t.

‘Chupa Chup?’ she asked, looking at him.

He shook his head. ‘I’m good thanks.’

‘Suit yourself,’ she shrugged. ‘More for me.’

Dash tried to concentrate on the road ahead as she squirmed in the seat, fluffing bags and rustling packaging. It was a relief when she was finally still.

And then she slipped the lollipop in her mouth and
he
almost groaned out loud. She sucked on it, her cheeks hollowing as she reached into the centre console for the CD selection.

‘You need some Johnny Cash,’ she said, around the Chupa Chup. ‘That’s road trip music.’

Dash gripped the steering wheel. He needed a bunch of different things right now that
did not
include Johnny Cash. First and foremost he needed her to sit the fuck still and stop sucking on that goddamn lollipop.

She made slurping noises as she milked the lollipop with her cheeks and brandished a CD. ‘Queen will do.’

Dash nodded. And prayed for sanity.

***

A large roundabout sporting a massive bull statue atop a
Welcome To Rockhampton
sign heralded their entry into the beef capital of Australia.

Joy smiled as Dash said, ‘Whoa. That is one mighty side of beef.’

In years gone by she’d busked and gigged around these parts so the bull statues weren’t new to her. It was good to see this one was currently fully
intact
though.

They passed another bull as they entered the southern outskirts and another one took pride of place on the median strip near the first motel with a vacancy sign they came to.

‘This’ll do,’ he said as he pulled into the motel and parked in front of reception.

‘Something happened to his balls,’ Dash said as he got out of the car and looked across the road at the very large beast. Two steels rods stuck out where the testicles should have hung. ‘He appears to have been neutered.’

Joy looked over too. ‘Chisel the balls off the bulls is a favourite uni student prank around here.’

‘Do they keep spare ones somewhere?’

She nodded. ‘I’m sure it keeps someone in a full-time job.’

Dash laughed. ‘That’s an interesting intro at a party. And what do you do? I make concrete bull testicles for the Rockhampton City Council.’

‘Nowhere near as interesting as make-up artist to the dead, let me tell you.’

‘I guess not.’

He held the door open for Joy and they walked into reception together. A middle-aged man with a handlebar moustache greeted them.
Very
Merv Hughes.

‘We’d like a room please,’ Dash said.

Joy frowned. ‘
A
room? Don’t you mean two?’

‘Not unless you’re paying for it.’

She folded her arms. ‘And they say chivalry is dead.’

‘I’ve been driving for six and a half hours, Joy. I’m hungry, I’m tired and tomorrow I’m going to be looking at a crime scene. If you think that brings out the sexy in me you’re wrong. And it’s not like we haven’t seen each other naked. I’m not going to leap on you in the middle of the night.’

Joy inspected his whiskery, smooshed-up face, his uneven top lip, the lines of tiredness around his eyes cranking up the sexy a notch or two.

Yeah, but what if she leaped on him?

‘Not even if I sleep buck naked?’

His jaw clenched. ‘Not even if you
begged
me.’

Joy kicked up an eyebrow. He would have been more convincing without the jaw clench. She glanced at moustache dude. ‘Got any rooms with two beds?’

Two beds was the only way this was going to work. As tempting as it was to make him beg this was not the time for her to go all
challenge accepted
on him.

Moustache dude, whose head had swung back and forth as they’d sparred, nodded. ‘Sure. They cost a little more.’

‘Excellent,’ Joy smiled. ‘We’ll take it.’

They filled out the paperwork and were handed the key to room twenty-one. ‘Where can I get a steak around here?’ Dash asked.

‘Pub a little ways down,’ the moustache said, pointing in the direction from which they had come. ‘Kitchen closes at nine though so better hurry.’

‘Thanks,’ Dash nodded. He looked at Joy. ‘You want to eat or are you full of junk?’

Joy placed her hand on her belly. ‘That was
two hours
ago. Of course I can eat.’

His gaze flashed over her body as he shook his head. ‘Where do you put it all?’

She looked down at herself.
Not her boobs, that was for sure
. ‘I was blessed with a very good metabolism,’ she said, glancing at him, ‘and a bad case of worms as my father always says. I’m pretty much
always
hungry.’

He seemed to mull that over for a second. ‘You’re not seriously going to sleep in the nude, are you?’

Joy smiled. ‘And neglect my Wonder Woman PJs?’

He stared at her for long moments and Joy could tell he was trying to decide whether to believe her or not. He shoved his hand through his hair. ‘I’m too tired for this shit,’ he muttered, heading for the door. ‘Come on. Let’s go feed your worms.’

***

An hour later Dash was sitting up in bed flicking through the television channels when Joy exited the bathroom in a billow of steam. He was very relieved to see he was not going to have a picture of Joy in Wonder Woman
anything
in his head. She was actually covered very conservatively in a plain black t-shirt and a pair of sensible, black, boy-leg undies.

Nothing about them screamed sexy. But then Joy wore not sexy very well. After her finger licking and taunts of nudity he was pretty damn sure even a One Direction onesie would have been sexy on Joy.

And there
was
a lot of leg on display. Not to mention he could already picture how those undies were going to mould that sweet ass of hers.

She stopped at the end of his bed and looked at him. ‘You’ve got to be kidding me?’

Dash frowned. ‘What?’

‘
I
have to cover up but it’s okay for you to be…naked?’

‘I’m not naked. I’ve got underwear on.’

She glared at him. ‘But you’re flaunting a helluva lot of skin.’

Dash looked down at his naked chest. At the pelt of hair that covered his pecs and the broad slice of it that arrowed down his belly. Even his chest hair had grey in it these days.

‘You want me to put a shirt on?’

‘Yes.’

He grinned. ‘All this manliness tempting you?’

‘Just evening out the playing field.’

‘You could always take your shirt off then we’ll be even.’

Her glare intensified as she slid one hand on her hip and the other down lower where the hem of her t-shirt skimmed her underwear. ‘You want me to take my shirt off?’ She dragged the hem up a little and he absently noticed her black nail polish. ‘Really?’

Dash thought about it seriously for a second or two. She didn’t look like she was wearing a bra under that shirt and the invitation to have a look was a very tempting one. Did he want to cop an eyeful of what she
wasn’t
wearing under that shirt?

Hell yeah.

His dick was voting
hell yeah
too. But he’d learned a long time ago to ignore any suggestions coming from below his belt. He was pretty sure she was testing him and he didn’t think
hell yeah
would win him any brownie points.

‘Um…no?’

She glared harder. ‘Good answer.’

He reached over and plucked the t-shirt he was going to wear tomorrow out of the overnight bag he’d tossed a few things in earlier today.

He pulled it over his head. ‘Better?’

‘Thank you.’

Then, without looking at him anymore, she strode over to her bed and pulled back the covers. A gentleman may not have looked, especially one who could accurately gauge the current mood, but no-one had ever called Dash a gentleman. So he totally checked out her ass as she climbed into bed.

And it was as sweet as he remembered.

The peep show was over when she yanked the covers up to her shoulders and rolled on her side away from him.

‘Are you really watching that TV?’

Dash picked up the remote he’d discarded when he’d put his shirt on and flicked the TV off. ‘Happy?’

‘Thank you.’

He flicked the lights off over his bed and squirmed down into a supine position as the room fell into darkness. His eyes slowly adjusted to the night and despite being tired not that long ago he was suddenly very awake. He glanced over at Joy, her lumpy silhouette diminutive in the middle of the double bed.

What bug had crawled up her ass tonight?

Maybe it had been a bad idea to bring her along on the road trip? She was clearly a seasoned professional at this type of thing but maybe she didn’t have great memories of the time she’d spent on the road with her band. She’d certainly clammed up when they’d been talking about it earlier.

Lying here in the dark his curiosity grew.

Apart from the distant sound of the occasional car outside, the hum of the aircon and their breathing, the room was silent. Joy hadn’t moved a muscle in ten minutes but she wasn’t asleep either. Her breathing was still too fast, too shallow.

His curiosity got the better of him.

‘So how does this room rate?’ he asked into the dark, his voice echoing in the quiet. ‘You must have seen your fair share of shitty hotel rooms when you were with the band?’

For long moments he thought she was going to ignore him. Feign sleep.

‘Yeah. I’ve been in worse.’

She hadn’t moved but at least she didn’t sound as pissed off now. ‘And better?’ he asked tentatively.

‘Some, yeah.’

‘How much better? The kind of places that have their own room-service menu?’

Her covers rustled and she rolled over to face him. His eyes had adjusted enough to the dark now that he could see her tuck both her hands under her cheek. ‘The kind that have their own
pillow
menus. And day spas.’

Dash whistled. ‘That must have been cool.’

‘I guess. As long as I didn’t have to deal with roaches it didn’t really matter to me. Chris loved all of it though.’

He glanced at her but her eyes were hidden in shadow. ‘Chris?’

‘Christopher Maddox. Lead singer. Hillbilly rock god. Chief asshole.’

‘You guys didn’t see eye-to-eye.’

‘Oh no, the problem was we did.’

‘Ah…I see. You guys were…together?’

‘Two years.’

‘You loved him.’

‘Oh yes. I was crazy for him.’

Her voice was soft and wistful, and Dash was left in no doubt that hillbilly rock god had been
the one
.

‘What happened?’ he asked. Even though he was pretty sure of the answer. Bands had groupies didn’t they? And some guys didn’t know how to keep it in their pants.

She didn’t answer for long moments and when she did her voice was so calm, so matter-of-fact.

‘In the end he cared more about what he could snort up his nose than he did about me, the band or the music.’

Dash stared at her in the darkness, surprised by her statement and its delivery. Drugs he
hadn’t
been expecting but it was hardly surprising either. Some of his favourite bands had done shitloads of drugs back in the sixties and seventies and half of their songs were probably the richer for it.

But this wasn’t some far-away celebrity crap that was nothing to do with him. This was Joy. Who he’d slept with. Who was Pete’s sister. Who was sharing this hotel room with him.

‘I’m sorry.’ He didn’t know what else to say.

‘Me too.’ Then the sheets rustled and she rolled over, her back to him once more. ‘Good night.’

‘Night.’

Maybe there wasn’t anything else
to
say.

The sun was up but still low on the horizon when they headed out of town the next morning. The blue sky had a soft pink blush and the bushland was blanketed with a cool layer of dew that somehow seemed to rehydrate the faded landscape, giving it a faint greenish tinge in the early-morning light.

‘So they found Hailey thirty kilometres south of Rockhampton near Bajool,’ Joy said for clarification and to fill up the space between them with noise and information rather than the thing that was now between them.

Chris fucking Maddox.

She wasn’t sure why she’d told Dash last night. Maybe it was the dark room or the hushed stillness all around them. It had felt like they were in a bubble. A cocoon.

The cocoon of silence.

Where confidences were whispered late into the night and never spoken about again. Kind of a what-happened-in-Rocky-stayed-in-Rocky thing.

Maybe it was just the feelings of melancholy that a road trip stirred up inside her. Nostalgia again.

Fucking nostalgia
.

‘Yes, that’s right,’ Dash said, bringing her back to her train of thought.

‘How do we know where
exactly
they found her body?’

‘Well, we’re probably not going to know the
exact
spot but I reckon I can get us damn close.’

‘Oh yeah, how’s that? Is your sonic screwdriver going to tell us?’

‘Hey,’ he glanced at her. ‘Don’t dis the sonic.’

Joy rolled her eyes.
Crazy fucking Whovians
. ‘Oh I wouldn’t dare.’

He grinned. ‘If you open the glove box and pull out the picture you’ll see how I know.’

Joy reached into the glove compartment and pulled out a familiar photo. Three cops stood on the side of a highway all looking down at Hailey’s body, which had been covered with a sheet. They were standing inside the perimeter of an area sectioned off by yellow police tape. It was a close up but looked like it had been taken from some distance away. Maybe some journalist had taken it?

‘Tell me what you see,’ he said.

‘I see the picture that was up on your board of death.’

He shot her a you’re-kidding-me look. ‘So you’re going with that name, huh?’

She nodded. ‘It has a certain ring to it.’

‘Oh yes,’ he muttered. ‘The ring of confidence. What do you actually see in the photo?’