Limbo (30 page)

At two-thirty Dash reached over and pulled out the earbud nearest him. ‘He’s on the move.’

Joy sat up from her slouch, turning her music off. She put her hand out for the binoculars and he handed them to her. Sure enough, there was Gerry Cardwell sinking his skinny ass into his car.

‘Wonder where he’s off to?’ she mused.

‘Don’t know but if you need to go to the loo now you’re shit out of luck.’

Joy rolled her head to look at his profile. ‘I can wait.’

They followed Gerry at a discrete distance further into suburbia. Half an hour later he pulled up outside a high school and parked. ‘Oh I hope this is not what I think it is,’ Joy said, thinking back to their paedophile conversation.

‘He’s got a teenage son so maybe not,’ Dash said, but he radiated tense all over the interior of the car.

When a long, lanky, mini-Gerry in a school uniform climbed into the car fifteen minutes later, they both relaxed. Another ten-minute drive and Gerry turned into a street where the houses said a lot about the people living in them. Small and boxy, with rusted gutters, broken fence palings, unkempt yards and clapboard exteriors that hadn’t seen paint in quite some time.

Broken houses for broken people. The residents here were obviously doing it tough.

They sailed past in the Volvo as mini-Gerry was opening a garage door at number thirty-four — no automatic luxury in this street. Joy twisted her head and watched Gerry drive into the garage.

‘What do we do now?’

‘I’ll turn around at the end and park back a bit again.’

‘More surveillance?’

‘Yep.’

‘But why?’ Joy asked. ‘We wanted to know where he lived, we found that out. He drove into the garage so it must be his place right?’

‘I’d say so. If he was just dropping off the kid to someone else or visiting he would have parked either on the street or in the driveway. But I’d like to watch the house for a bit longer. See if there’s a woman or something. Why, need to use the loo?’

Joy shot him an irritated look as he reached the end of the street and executed a u-turn. ‘I’m fine.’

‘You sure?’ he grinned. ‘I have a good empty coffee cup going unused.’

‘I’m positive,’ she said as he pulled the Volvo into a position on the opposite side of the road three houses down. She’d squat beside the car before she peed in a cup in front of him.

‘Put your window up,’ he said as he rolled his up, then took off his sunglasses.

‘Why?’

He looked across at her and the effect of his unhindered gaze after imagining it all day was something else. It was intense and brooding, tipping the strange arrangement of his facial features into the handsome sphere. The imperfection of his top lip, the faint white scar that marred its full thick line, only added to the handsome.

‘We’re not out on the main drag now near bigger roads and shops, we’re in suburbia, and residents can get suspicious about people just sitting in parked cars in their streets. The windows are tinted so unless someone is curious enough to take a second look or is approaching us from the front they won’t know we’re in here.’

Joy figured that made sense but she still fumbled with the old-fashioned handle and it had everything to do with those eyes finally being on her. Or at least her being able to confirm they were.

Joy dragged her eyes off his face and looked around. It all seemed pretty quiet to her. ‘You think we’ll attract suspicion?’

‘I think we will in this street,’ he said.

‘And what do we do if someone does approach from the front? If they’re walking their dog or something?’

‘I don’t think this is the kind of street that people choose to walk their dogs in, do you?’

She looked around again. No. It looked like a street you avoided unless you lived on it. Maybe even when you
did
live on it.

‘But, never fear, should there be any errant dog walkers we’ll just —’ he flashed his phone, ‘— pretend we’re lost and looking at Google.’

For a wild moment she hoped he’d say they’d make out like teenagers. But his idea was much more sound. Less risk of forgetting why they were here in the first place. ‘Ah,’ she smiled. ‘All hail the great God Google.’

He returned his gaze to number thirty-four and she settled in too waiting for whatever it was they were waiting for. But it was much too quiet here. At least there was noise and rush and hurry at the other locations.

She turned her head to the side and inspected Dash’s profile. It was hard to believe she’d spent all day with him, most of it trapped in a very confined space, and neither of them had mentioned last night and things hadn’t been as weird as she thought they were going to be.

But something had been bugging her all day and it seemed like the right time to ask it. ‘Why was it the least you could do?’

Dash glanced at her and it tingled right down her spine. ‘Huh?’

‘You told Eve this morning that giving her a leg up was the least you could do. Why? Did you owe her something?’

‘No. I didn’t
owe
her. But she was my C.I. for a couple of years. Occasionally passed me some useful information she’d learned on the streets.’

Joy thought back through all the cop shows she’d seen over the years.
C.I.?
Passed information on?

Confidential informant?

She stared at him. ‘Get out of town! Eve was your snitch?’

He laughed then and it filled the car with a shitload of manly juju. ‘You really need to stop watching
Law and Order
.’

‘What kind of information?’ Joy pressed. ‘Anything big and juicy?’

‘No. Usually just a piece of that puzzle I was talking about. But if it was a piece I didn’t have, then it made my job a helluva lot easier. And if it wasn’t a piece I could use then it usually came in handy somewhere further down the track.’

‘So she didn’t take down a drug or prostitution ring then?’

‘Sorry to disappoint you, no.’

‘Hmm. I’m still impressed though,’ Joy said. ‘Eve is one big surprise package, isn’t she? You don’t really expect for a brothel madam to be a feminist do you? Or I don’t anyway…employing women on their terms, not at the convenience of their customers. You’re a uni student looking to pay your way through college — welcome. Just weaned your baby — sure, come on down. I mean, talk about an equal opportunity employer. I think —’

Dash swivelled his head suddenly and pinned her with a hot gaze. ‘What did you just say?’

Joy blinked. ‘That…Eve is an equal opportunity employer?’

‘No, before that about the baby.’

Joy wasn’t sure where this was going. ‘Eve said this morning that her newbie had just finished breastfeeding her baby, didn’t she?’

He nodded at her. ‘Yes.
Yes!’

He raised his hands and for an insane moment Joy thought Dash was going to grab her face and do the whole making out like teenagers thing without a dog-walker in sight. Something dark and dirty certainly ran through his gaze but it was gone as quickly as it had appeared and he dropped his hands.

‘Yes?’ she prompted.

‘I think I know the answer to the why-six-months question that keeps bugging me.’

‘Okay?’

‘Hailey was breastfeeding Isabella when she disappeared, right?’

Joy nodded. ‘She wanted to do it exclusively for six months, you said?’

‘Right. So what if that’s why they kept her?’

‘Kept Hailey?’

‘Yes. So she could keep breastfeeding Isabella?’

‘But…why? They wouldn’t need her to feed Isabella. Not with formula so readily available.’

‘But what if Hailey convinced them that she needed to keep doing it for a year? For the reflux?’ He frowned momentarily. ‘I’m sure I remember something vaguely about studies on the benefits of breast milk for reflux babies. What if she bargained with them to prolong her life, to see if she could escape…or hoping they’d be caught in the meantime and she and Isabella would be free?’

Joy tried to wrap her head around that one. But then the whole robbers-turned-kidnappers scenario seemed ridiculous. ‘Maybe. So you think what…her milk dried up or something six months down the track and they…’

He nodded. ‘Didn’t need her anymore.’ He glanced over at the house. ‘Although her milk mightn’t have dried up. Maybe they just decided twelve months was long enough, or the reflux was better or maybe Isabella started to wean herself?’

‘That happens?’

He looked back at her. ‘Sometimes. Katie weaned herself at nine months.’

A squishy feeling wormed low in Joy’s belly thinking about Dash as a father, looking after a baby. Getting up all warm and sleepy and rumpled in the middle of the night to a tiny human being who depended on him.

‘Oh right, didn’t know that,’ she said while her brain melted down. Jesus fucking Christ — could she
be
any freaking sappier? ‘What did the autopsy report your source handed you say?’ she asked, desperately trying to get her shit together. ‘Did it mention anything about Hailey having milk? I don’t know,’ she shrugged. ‘Do they even look for that sort of thing?’

‘Yes actually, there was something mentioned about some hormone level.’ He rubbed his jaw and the rasp of his whiskers sent another sensation worming through her belly that was about as far from
squishy
as possible. ‘I didn’t really pay any attention, more interested in the basics like the nature of the wound and time of death. I’ll check it out when I get home later.’

A set of lights in the rear-view mirror flashed across his face and Dash switched his attention back to the house they were supposed to be keeping an eye on as the car approached from the rear. Joy didn’t know what kind of car it was, some kind of bubble thing with a ding in the rear fender, but as it swung into the driveway of number thirty-four, Dash recorded the number plate in his phone.

The light was just starting to fade and in half an hour the rapidly cooling evening would have fully closed in, in that sudden, decisive way of winter nights, but Joy could still see the car pulling up in front of the garage and a woman with a lined face getting out. She was dressed in a uniform that looked like some kind of fast-food chain — McDonald’s or Hungry Jacks. Joy couldn’t quite make it out from her angle but her tummy rumbled in recognition.

The woman headed for the stairs that lead up to the front porch, inserted a key into the front door and entered the house

Dash muttered, ‘Bingo.’

‘Mrs Cardwell?’ Joy asked.

‘I don’t know but she’s got a key so I’d say she lives there.’

Joy agreed. So there was Gerry and presumably his high-school-aged son and a woman, also presumably his partner, living at number thirty four. She glanced at Dash. ‘What now?’

‘I think we’ll call it a night. I’ll go home and check the plates against the ones recorded at the Night Owl that night, check the autopsy report. Then tomorrow I’ll come back, wait til everyone’s gone and search through the house.’

‘How are you going to get in?’

He shot her a look that told her he had his ways. And she wasn’t about to disagree. The man
had
ways. ‘That won’t be a problem.’

Joy liked the sound of searching through a house for potential clues — very Elliot and Olivia from
Law and Order SVU
. Without the raging sexual tension. Although…

‘Can I come?’ she asked, jumping in quickly to derail
that
thought.

‘Aren’t you working?’

‘Nope, not til Friday.’

‘Sure,’ he shrugged. ‘If you want. You can stay in the car and play look out for me. That would be handy, actually.’

Joy bit back her disappointment. She really wanted to see how Dash broke into a house and what he looked for once he was there but it made sense for her to play look out.

It was on the tip of her tongue to say
it’s a date
. And before last night she just would have blurted it out without thinking. But since nipple-gate…probably best to leave it well alone.

‘Cool,’ she said as Dash pulled his seatbelt on and she followed suit. ‘Do you think we could stop at the nearest servo on the way back?’

‘Seriously?’ he asked incredulously. ‘You can’t wait to eat til you get home?’

‘I’m busting for a wee,
actually
.’

His warm chuckle filled the car — apparently it was funny. ‘Your wish is my command.’

Joy almost peed her pants. Sexiest. Thing. Ever.

***

It took Dash a couple of hours before he could ring Joy about the case after he’d dropped her home. A client had been waiting on his doorstep when he’d arrived back and he had to break the news to her that her husband was indeed cheating on her as she’d suspected. He showed her the pictures he’d taken and she’d cried. A lot. It hadn’t been pretty.

Taking photos of unfaithful people he could do, consoling their emotional partners not so much.

He hadn’t been that good at it while he was on the force either. Doing a death knock, delivering the words, had been relatively easy compared to handling the immediate emotional fall-out. And he’d sure as shit sucked at handling tears in his marriage — something that had driven Liz even wilder.

The fact was, he’d always felt so bloody helpless in the face of tears. His instinct was to rush in and try and fix it but he’d learned to his own peril that wasn’t often what crying women wanted. God help him if or when Katie figured out the power of tears to emasculate a man.

It was fair to say he was probably never going to understand women. And maybe he should just give the hell up trying.

If only they didn’t smell so damn good.

It was an hour and a half before he was able to get to the Richardson case, which was frustrating for him, but he couldn’t neglect his paying work for pro bono stuff. Even if it was for Joy . Who smelled
really
good.

It was especially frustrating when the number plates turned up nothing and Dash got the sense that maybe this whole thing was a wild fucking goose chase.

Ghosts
for Christ’s sake!

But it felt less like that after he looked at the autopsy report and actually read it thoroughly. It seemed liked Hailey’s prolactin levels were raised. Dash googled it. Prolactin was the milk production hormone in mammals. And Hailey’s levels were ‘as one would expect to see in a lactating woman,’ according to the coroner’s report.