Scared Yet? (24 page)

He was upstairs brushing his teeth before bed when she heard the knock at the door and her mood flipped from relaxed to cautious. It was eight o'clock. Dark outside. No lights in the driveway.

‘Liv, it's Daniel. I'm doing a walk around your property. You don't need to come out.'

She hadn't expected to see him again today. Had he dropped by on his way home? Had he gone back to work after he'd helped Teagan off the van? Liv stood in the front entry waiting for his footfalls to return and kept the chain on as she opened the door.

Daniel flicked off a torch and looked back at her from under the overhead light. It wasn't what she expected. Not the face she'd seen at her door on other nights. Not the warrior at ease. His mouth was a taut line and something tense and grim had taken up residence in his eyes. She unhooked the chain.

33

‘Sorry to come by without calling. I was on my way past and . . .' His words were casual but they came out fast as his eyes moved quickly, anxiously about the room.

‘It's fine. And thanks. Did you go back to work after you spoke to the police?'

‘No, I've been at the hospital.'

Liv frowned. ‘With Teagan?'

‘Yeah. No, not with her. Just hanging around, waiting to see how it turned out.' His gaze stopped on Liv. ‘Making sure she was still breathing.'

She remembered his joke from this morning. Maybe it wasn't a joke. ‘She is, isn't she?'

‘What?'

‘Still breathing.'

‘Yeah. Her condition's been downgraded to serious but stable. It's a good start.'

She nodded, relieved. ‘You were there a long time.'

He ran a hand across his stubbled head. ‘I have trouble letting go, apparently.'

‘Are you okay?'

He turned away, making like he was stretching his neck. ‘I'm fine.'

No, he wasn't and he'd come here.

Her dad had opened the door to late-night knocks at the flat above the gym. Boys kicked out or beaten up or hungry – or all three. He'd fed them, given them a bed downstairs, let them talk if they wanted to. In the last year, Liv had learned what it was like to be strong and capable and feel suddenly desperate and alone. And how hard it was to knock on a door and ask for help. It was a long time since someone had come to her, instead of the other way around.

‘Have you eaten?' she asked.

‘I grabbed something at the hospital.'

She raised an eyebrow. ‘What? A chocolate bar from a vending machine?'

He smiled. ‘Something like that.'

‘Mum?'

Cameron was standing at the bottom of the stairs with his too-long pyjama pants bunched up at his feet. The sight of him sent a rush of heat to her face. After Thomas had left, Cameron kept asking why Michelle had come. ‘But why did she come at all?' he'd say. Liv guessed he'd been trying to work out how it had happened, not understanding that people just meet, that they weren't sent for the purpose of taking a parent away. Now, as he looked way up at the huge man by the door, she wanted to tell him it was okay, that Daniel hadn't come for her. ‘Cameron, this is Daniel. He works at my office.'

Daniel held out his hand. ‘Hi, Cameron. I hear you're a good soccer player.'

‘Yup.'

Liv watched his hand get swallowed up in Daniel's, felt something swell inside her chest. ‘You all set for bed then?'

‘Yup.'

‘Well, you better skedaddle.' She followed him up and sat on the edge of the bed. ‘I've got some work to do with Daniel tonight, okay?'

‘Okay.'

‘I love you.'

‘Love you, too.'

Daniel had pulled the curtain back a little but turned from the glass as she came down the stairs. Some of the tension in his face had eased.

‘Cameron looks like you,' he said.

‘You think? He's so fair and those curls.'

‘The rest is you, though. Right down to the wicked grin.'

‘Well, gee, I didn't know I had a wicked grin.'

His eyes dropped to her mouth. ‘Oh yeah, real wicked.'

There was a beat of silence. Liv broke it up. ‘We had spaghetti for dinner. I've got leftovers. Would you like some?'

He waved it off. ‘I don't want to put you to any trouble. What happened to the dog?'

‘What do you mean?'

‘It's not barking.'

She shifted her eyes to the door, listened to the quiet. ‘I don't know.'

‘It didn't bark when I was here last night, either. But your neighbour's lights were out, I figured they must have gone somewhere with it.' He cocked a thumb at the window. ‘Their lights are on tonight.'

The house lights, not the yard lights. Maybe Benny had been on some energetic outing and he was sleeping it off or maybe he was inside tonight. Liv opened the fridge, tried to ignore the disquiet stirring in her belly, told herself she should be pleased he'd stopped making a racket.

She put a plastic-covered bowl on the counter. ‘It's good spag bol, even if I say so myself. No trouble to reheat it.' She raised an eyebrow at Daniel. He hesitated. ‘Go on. Take a seat before you pass out from hunger.'

She poured him a glass of wine as the microwave hummed, joined him with one of her own when the smell of garlic and tomato from his steaming plate filled the kitchen. He picked up his fork, said, ‘I heard you had another note.'

‘Two more.' As he ate, she went through it for a third time that day then told him about the discussion with Rachel at the cafe, about her earlier warning that it could be anyone in her life. She skipped a report on Jason's tongue in her mouth. He didn't need to know and she didn't want to think about it. It came back to her, anyway –
months?

Daniel laid his fork across his empty bowl. ‘What are you thinking?'

‘About people in my life.'

‘Someone you suspect?'

No
was on the tip of her tongue but she remembered Jason's words again. He thought they'd been heading down a path for months.
This last week you've needed me. I knew you would eventually.
Had he been trying to engineer it? Had he . . . ? She shook her head, trying to shrug off the suspicion that was creeping under her skin. ‘I don't know. I don't . . . Did you see what happened in the car park this afternoon?'

Daniel stood quickly, plate in hand, the cutlery clattering against it as he moved around the bench. He said nothing as he rinsed it under the tap and stacked it in the dishwasher.

‘Daniel?'

He walked past her, stopped halfway across the lounge room, spoke without looking at her. ‘I came back from a job and parked on the first floor. I'd just locked the car and heard the . . . thump and the glass shattering. I thought someone had gone over the bonnet of a car. I ran to the railing, saw her, Teagan, and went for the stairs.' He passed a hand across his chin as he took the few steps to the nearest sofa and sat – elbows on knees, hands clasped. ‘I'd already got to her when Ray yelled down that an ambulance had been called.'

Liv sat on the other sofa. ‘Where was he?'

‘On the third floor, I think. I told him I had first-aid gear in my office. Someone tossed my keys up to him.' His interlaced fingers flexed and released. ‘She wasn't good. I thought it might be touch and go in the ambulance. Sorry. You don't need to hear that.'

‘She was lucky you were there.'

He shrugged. ‘Has Rachel got a patrol on rotation in your street tonight?'

‘Yes.'

He watched her for a long moment then. Not an assessment this time, at least not of her, she didn't think. The focus seemed more internal. Thinking, maybe, or making a decision.

‘I could stay with you tonight,' he said. When Liv opened her mouth and didn't answer, he shook his head. ‘Yeah, sorry, that sounded like a bad come-on. I meant I could stay on the sofa. If you're worried.'

Did she need a guard at the door? Would it make her feel safer having someone else in the house? Yes, absolutely, especially Daniel. But did she want him spending the night, even if it was only on her sofa? ‘I'm not . . .' She didn't finish, wasn't sure she knew what she wanted.

‘Look, I don't know what all this is about. All I know is there was an incident today and you're alone here with your son tonight. I'm just offering to be another able body in the house. At least until you see where it goes tomorrow.'

‘You said the townhouse was secure.'

‘It is and I'm probably being overcautious but I've sent two women off to hospital in the space of a week. I don't want to do it again anytime soon.'

He turned his face towards the windows. She couldn't see where his focus was now, but as she watched his fingers flex and release again, she thought of the way he'd taken to checking on her, of the tautness in his face when he'd arrived – and wondered what effect the events of the last
week had had on him. He'd rescued dozens of people, possibly more than that. She'd figured helping her in the car park would've been easy for him. Maybe she'd been wrong. Maybe that's why he was here.

‘Daniel . . .'

His face came around as she spoke, his voice cutting her off. ‘If not for you then for me.'

She saw something in his eyes she recognised. Fear, protection, responsibility. Then it was gone.

‘Hey, I'm a guy. You gotta let me do something useful.'

She smiled a little then. ‘Thanks. My sofas are a little short, though. Not sure you'll be comfortable.'

‘I'm open to suggestion.'

‘How about the floor?'

‘Okay, the sofa it is.'

Liv gasped awake, blinked in the darkness, tried to rub out the images from her nightmare. Except it wasn't total darkness. There was a faint glow coming from the hall. Cameron?

She threw off the blanket, grabbed the hand weight by the bed and ran to the corridor. The illumination was in the stairwell, coming from the lower level. She approached the stairs cautiously, listening as she started down, squatting near the top to get a view into the lounge room.

The kitchen light was on, bedcovers were in a heap at one end of a sofa and Daniel was standing by the back door, one hand holding the curtain, peering into the courtyard. Liv's shoulders stiffened.

She tiptoed to the bottom of the stairs. ‘Did you hear something?' she whispered.

His feet were bare, his trousers crumpled, his shirt untucked. ‘No,' he said quietly.

‘What is it?'

‘Nothing. I don't sleep well. You've got good tea.' He raised the mug in his hand.

‘Thanks.'

‘Why are you up?'

She cocked her head. ‘Bad dreams.'

‘You want tea?'

‘What time is it?'

He lifted his wrist. ‘Two-eleven.'

‘I'll pass on the tea.' She stood for a moment, unsure of the protocol for a whispered conversation in the middle of the night across a darkened room.

‘I wouldn't have picked you for hearts and flowers,' he said.

‘Huh?'

‘Your . . . duds.'

She looked down at her pyjama pants. Pink hearts, white daisies. ‘What did you expect? They're PJs. They only come with hearts and flowers.'

‘I figured a tracksuit or negligee.'

It made her pause. He'd thought about it? Talk about either end of the sleepwear scale. ‘Sorry to disappoint.'

‘Nothing disappointing that I can see.'

Another pause. And a brief flurry in her pulse. ‘I'm going back to bed.'

‘Uh-huh.'

*

Liv could hear the TV the next time she woke. It was six-thirty and Cameron wasn't in his bed. She found him sitting at the kitchen bar, eating toast and drinking Milo.

‘Daniel made me breakfast,' he called when she was still on the stairs.

‘That was nice.' Except she wished Daniel had left before Cameron got up. She'd told Cam they were working – there was no appropriate explanation for why the man at the door last night was still here.

‘Thanks for the loan of your sofa,' Daniel said as he came out of the kitchen. ‘I'll make sure that hole in my roof gets fixed today.'

She sent him a grateful smile as she pulled her dressing-gown tighter. Hole in the roof, bed on the sofa – that worked. ‘No problem.'

The blanket on the sofa was folded, his shoes were back on and he was heading for the front door but stopped when he reached her. ‘No more nightmares?'

‘Not anything worth wandering the house for. Did you get some sleep?'

‘Enough. I'll see you at work.'

Cameron gushed with enthusiasm as she cut a sandwich for his school lunch.

‘Daniel is one hundred and
ninety-four centimetres
.'

‘Is he?'

‘Yup. And he's got a scar on his head from when his car was all smashed up.' He held his hands wide then crashed them together to show her.

‘Has he?'

‘Yup. He said the firemen came and used great big, um, teeth thingies to get him out.' He held tight fists in the air, scrunched his face up as though bringing them together would take superhuman strength.

‘Oh, you mean the jaws of life.'

‘Yup. The jaws of life. Then the firemen said he could go to work with them and he got to ride in a fire engine
every day
. Can I give Benny my crusts?'

Liv flicked her eyes to the back door. ‘Why don't we do it together?'

Cameron climbed into the raised garden bed, hooked his chin over the top of the fence. ‘Benny! Here, boy!'

The screen on the house next door swung out and Trevor, her neighbour, stepped into the yard.

‘Where's Benny?' Cam called.

Liv watched Trevor stride towards them, the usual shine on his bald head dulled by the overcast sky. He didn't answer until he was looking at them over the fence. ‘He's not here, mate.' There was something about the way he said it that made Liv take hold of the back of Cameron's pyjama shirt.

‘Where is he?' Cam asked.

Trevor looked pointedly at Liv. ‘I thought your mum might know about that.'

She had no idea what he meant but it felt threatening and that was enough. ‘Go inside, honey. Time to get ready for school.'

‘But what about Benny?'

‘Let me talk to Trevor for a minute. Go get dressed. Go on.'

He groaned but got down. Liv didn't look back at Trevor until Cameron was inside. When she turned, his eyes were narrowed with anger.

‘You knew I had a dog when you bought your place, didn't you?'

‘Yes.'

‘You know dogs bark, right?'

‘Yes.' Where was this going?

‘But you just decided you didn't like it, right?'