Beyond Fear

by Jaye Ford

  A flash of victory shot up Jodie’s spine. She’d got to him. She watched him smugly as he stalked back and forth across the kitchen. It was a dangerous game but she was enjoying inflicting some misery on him. He deserved worse, a lot worse, but aggravation was the best she could do from where she stood.

  ‘Is it more impressive than that body down there? The one you made me dig up. Tina.’

  He slammed his hands down on the marble bench, leaned against it like he wanted to push it through the floor. His back was to her but in the light from the truck, she could see his T-shirt straining as he breathed hard.

  He was angry. She was impatient. This night had gone on long enough. Jodie looked down at her feet, saw the remains of the bourbon bottle had fallen clear of her trunk. She pushed off her dirty socks. ‘Is it more impressive than killing that man yesterday? John Kruger. It’d want to be if you’re risking getting caught by the battalion of cops out looking for you.’

  His body stiffened. Jodie watched, waited, as he took another breath. He shoved himself away from the bench, lashed out at a cupboard with his boot, stalked through the kitchen to the hole in the floor. ‘Kane!’ he bellowed. ‘Get your arse moving!’

  Jodie heard a muffled shout from under the barn. She looked at Travis leaning tense and taut over the hole and suddenly saw it. How it worked between Travis and Kane. Why Travis hadn’t killed her when he could in the hallway, why he was shouting at Kane right now instead of beating her up, why the gun was still in his waistband when he could turn around and shoot her.

  ‘It’s Kane, isn’t it? Kane’s the killer. And you keep him on a leash like a rabid dog.’ Travis threw a look at her over his shoulder, one that said he’d unleash him on her if she didn’t shut up. Nothing new there. ‘So what happened yesterday, Travis? Did you let your psycho brother loose on that man? Did Kane beat him to death or cut him in pieces for you?’

  Travis came at her then. Closed the distance between them in three long strides. He raised a fist and she braced for its impact. But it didn’t come. He pointed his index finger at her face like the pistol he’d held there before. ‘John Kruger had nothing to do with me. Kane did that. And he shot Matt Wiseman. Not me. You remember that, tough bitch. I haven’t killed anyone.’

  He was near enough for his bourbon breath to wash over her face, for her to see the black streaks in his dark irises, the red veins in the off-white globes of his eyeballs. She wanted to spit in them but was too dry in the mouth to pull it off. ‘Yeah, you’re a real pacifist, Travis. You haven’t done a thing. Just promised me and my friends to your psycho brother. Well, guess what? That makes you as psycho as him.’

  He grabbed the back of her head in one meaty palm, crushed her cheek into the trunk. ‘I’m not a psycho. I didn’t put those girls down there.’

  Her nostrils filled with the stench of his sweat. Her quickening pulse thumped against the old tree. Girls? There was more than one? ‘You put something down there.’

  He mashed her head harder against the rough trunk. ‘Insurance. That’s what I put down there. For when Kane fucked up so bad I’d have to leave for good. I never killed anyone.’

  Anger burned in Jodie’s veins. He knew about the girls, knew his brother had killed them. Travis was as guilty as it got. ‘You shot Louise.’

  ‘That was your fault. Yours and Wiseman’s. I wasn’t going to shoot her. I was trying to scare her.’

  No. She was not taking the blame for him. She was done with carrying the guilt for other people’s violence. ‘You held a loaded gun to Lou’s head. You pulled the trigger. It’s your fault. You shot her.’

  Travis grabbed the trunk with one hand, shoved the flat of his other hand into the centre of her back, pushed her hard up against the post. ‘Listen, tough bitch.’ His voice was a growl, his breath hot and sour on her cheek. ‘The cops have got nothing on me and I plan to keep it that way. So me and my brother, we’re going to get my stuff and piss off out of here, go where no one will find us. And if you keep your goddamn mouth shut like I told you, quit your screaming for ten fucking minutes, it might not be the last ten minutes of your life. Got it?’

  Jodie didn’t move. Not kill them? Is that what he meant?

  His hand moved up to the back of her head again, forced her face around to him. ‘So keep your fucking mouth shut.’

  Something fragile and cautious stirred deep in Jodie’s belly.

  Hope.

  And it scared the hell out of her.

  Travis was offering to give her life back. Hers and Lou’s and Hannah’s. All she had to do was be quiet. Hold her anger inside. Keep her hate to herself.

  She wanted to believe him with every cell in her body. But that would mean trusting him. The man who shot Lou. Who thought it didn’t count because she wasn’t dead. Who sanctioned his brother’s murders. Who used Jodie and her friends as bait.

  If he was lying, if she let her hate get watered down by hope and it turned out to be some kind of sadistic joke, it would break her. If she was compliant, made it easier for them and they killed her anyway, it would be the death she’d always feared – powerless and screaming.

  She kept her voice low, spat the words in his face. ‘You’re full of shit.’

  His eyes narrowed briefly, a quick contraction of the lids. ‘Listen, for fuck’s sake. It’s the screaming that gets him going. I’ve been telling you all fucking night to shut up.’

  ‘And you’ve been telling your brother he can do us all fucking night.’

  He changed his grip on her head, closed his fist around a handful of hair, pulled it tight. ‘I’ve kept him off you and your friends this far but once he’s done down there, I won’t be able to hold him back if you don’t keep your mouth shut. He loves the fighters. Even better when they scream. He keeps it going for as long as they make a noise.’

  He stopped talking, screwed his lips together. The muscles in his jaw tightened, his Adam’s apple jerked up and down. Jodie squeezed her eyes shut, waited for the globule of saliva he was working up. When it didn’t come, she opened her eyes again. What she saw on his face took her breath away.

  Revulsion.

  Travis was revolted by his brother.

  Hope stirred in her belly again. Maybe Travis was telling the truth. Maybe they had a chance after all.

  He let go of her head, flicked a glance over his shoulder to the hole. ‘I don’t give a shit about you and your friends. He can slice you up or not, I don’t care. I just want to get the hell away from here without my name on one of his bodies. I’m not getting done for this. I’m not.’

  He thrust away from her, walked a tight circle, pushed both hands into the front of his blood-matted hair. ‘Christ! This was meant to be easy. Get in, get my stuff, piss off. Disappear.’ He looked at her. ‘I had to bring him.’ He said it defensively, like he needed to explain. ‘Kane’s a fuckwit. He went to the pub after he killed John Kruger, for Christ’s sake. The cops would’ve picked him up before I had a chance to get my stuff. Then they would’ve come for me. They always do. Like we’re a fucking double act.’ He pointed at her again. ‘Well, we’re not. Killing those people is his sick fucking hobby, not mine. I just do my job – clean up after my useless little brother and keep him out of a goddamn prison cell.’ He let his arms drop, swung his whole body around to the hole, stood for a second, hands on his hips. Then, like he’d felt a breath of fresh air, he lifted his head, straightened his shoulders and turned towards the front window of the barn, the headlights from the truck outside illuminating narrowed eyes, a hard mouth. ‘Fuck Kane. Fuck him.’

  A bead of sweat broke out above Jodie’s lip. Travis looked over at her, his eyes moving from her bare feet, to her tied hands, to her face that ached from being jammed against the post. Was it indecision or a long last look before he left her to die? She couldn’t tell, figured she didn’t have time to work it out.

  ‘If you leave Kane here, he’ll kill us. You know he will. And the cops will come after you. They’ll know you were here
. Your DNA is all over the barn – and me. You may as well sign your name on my forehead.’

  He hesitated, mouth open, eyes unsure.

  Jodie took a chance. Quietly, she said, ‘I’ll keep my mouth shut about you if you take Kane with you. We all will. We’ll tell the cops it was Kane. Not you. We’ll say Kane was here first. That you came and got him. You stopped him hurting us, made him leave us alone.’

  There was movement under the barn. A thud. A scrape.

  ‘Take him with you, Travis. Leave him somewhere for the cops to find. They won’t go after you if we say it wasn’t you. Just don’t leave him here.’

  Loose earth scattered beneath them. Kane grunted. He was close. He was almost done.

  Travis stepped over to the hole in the floor and looked down.

  Jodie felt panic rise in her chest. She wanted to survive. Wanted Lou and Hannah to live. Tears welled in her eyes. ‘Please, Travis.’

  Kane was right under them now. She could hear him. Almost feel him under her feet.

  Travis ran his hands through his hair again, kept his eyes on the front window as he did so.

  Jodie’s legs trembled. He wasn’t looking at her anymore. She was out of his plans now. He was going to save himself. He was going to leave his brother behind. ‘Then cut the tape on my hands, Travis. At least give me a chance against him.’

  He turned his eyes on her then. It wasn’t a yes. But it wasn’t no, either.

  ‘Come on, Travis. He won’t have to know. Just cut it enough so I can tear the rest. You’ve got to get your stuff out to the truck. Make Kane help you with it. I can get out through the back of the barn. Get my friends out. We can hide in the bush. He’ll never find us in the dark. You can leave him here for the cops. I’ll tell them you saved us. They won’t even look for you.’

  Travis jammed his hands onto his hips and let fly with a guttural, near-whispered torrent of abuse. His whole body jolted and strained as each word was driven out of him. It wasn’t directed at Jodie. Or at the hole in the floor. Just spat into the room like the afterburner of a jet.

  He turned, stomped to her, bent quickly, straightened again. A snicker of sound made Jodie look down. There was a blade in his hand, must have been pulled from a holster on his ankle. Short, narrow like a talon, a bone handle tucked neatly into his fist. Her stomach tried to force its way into her throat.

  He held it up to her face. ‘I’ll handle my brother. You keep the cops away. You don’t, I’ll come back for you. And I’ll have no problem using this on you.’

  She looked at the short metal blade and had a sudden urge to laugh. To gag on the ludicrousness of the moment. Her salvation rested on a knife edge. Who came up with that cruel joke? ‘I’ll make you sound like a bloody hero, Travis.’

  She twisted her head around the trunk, watched him lower the blade and felt a macabre charge at the cold touch of it on her wrist.

  ‘What the fuck are you doing?’ Kane’s voice was a growl.

  Travis turned his head, lifted the knife, left the tape uncut.

  37

  Not now, Kane. Not yet. Jodie’s breath jammed in her chest. She looked past Travis, saw Kane’s head and shoulders in the room. The rest of him was still under the barn.

  ‘You thought you’d start without me. Is that it?’ Kane put his palms flat on the floorboards, lifted himself up and out of the hole, stood to his full height. ‘Or did you think you were going to do her yourself?’

  He was sweating and dirty, stripped down to the blue wife-beater, a dark stain on his trousers from the wound in his thigh, his face and arms shiny in the light from the car outside. The sight of him made Jodie’s limbs go loose. He’d made girls scream. Murdered them. Buried them under the barn. She breathed hard, pushed air in and out of her lungs. Cut the tape, Travis.

  Travis turned to her, looked down at her hands, up at her face.

  She pleaded with her eyes, stretched her wrists towards him. Now, Travis.

  He lifted the knife, made a show of folding it closed, pushed it into his back pocket. ‘Nah, bro. Just getting her started for you. She’s going to fucking scream her lungs out.’

  Matt skirted around the edge of the bush towards the rear of the barn. The same path he’d taken hours earlier when he hadn’t trusted his instincts, when he’d felt like a stalker for checking up on Jodie. His instincts had been right on the nose. Now he hoped to hell they stayed there.

  He paused opposite the glass doors, the ones he’d smashed with the wrought-iron table. The car lights shone right through the lounge room, casting a glow on the deck and beyond into the garden. Matt watched elongated shadows move about inside, hoping for some sign it was only Kane and Travis in there but the eerie shapes were too distorted to identify. He bent low and limped across the grass clearing, stopping in the garden below the kitchen. He listened, heard footsteps, an aggravated male voice. No clear words but it was Kane. Then Travis. They were both on the other side of the big room.

  Matt flexed his injured arm. The bandage was tight enough to cut the circulation in his hand but at least the blood had stopped running. Now it just hurt like hell.

  Not as much as losing another hostage.

  Not as much as losing Jodie. Not now that he knew who she was, what her courage had done for him.

  He lifted himself onto the verandah, scooted to the wall and peered around the edge of the glass door. The sight of Jodie tethered to a post turned his stomach sour. He snapped his head away, closed his eyes. How the hell did she get there?

  You should have taken out Kane on the verandah, his guilt yelled. You should have taken him out seven years ago. But Jodie’s words rang louder.

  Do it better this time, Matt.

  She’d wanted him to do it better for her friends. Now her life depended on it.

  So do it better, Matt.

  Get the hostage out. Stop the bad guys.

  Do your job.

  He took a deep breath. And another. Then rolled his face back around the edge of the glass.

  Okay, what do you see?

  Ahead of him was the separate kitchen bench. To the right, debris was scattered across the floor – glass from the shattered door, broken crockery, the wrought-iron table he’d used to smash his way in, a dining chair upturned. Further into the room, two of the big lounges were pushed haphazardly together, forming a barrier across the centre of the room. Beyond them was Jodie. The post she was tied to was so wide, she looked like she was hugging it. Her body was pressed up against it, rigid and tense, her head turned to one side with her cheek laid against the timber. Somewhere out of sight, between the kitchen bench and the front door was the hole in the floor.

  There was no easy way in but where he was squatted at the back door was probably the worst entry point – a minefield between him and his target, and no clear view of the room. And he still had no weapon.

  Matt took a long look at the half of Jodie’s face he could see, felt a flare of admiration. Lit up by the spotlights outside, she was deathly pale, there was a trail of blood under her nose, and she looked as mad as hell.

  One of the Andersons let out a roar. There was a thump and Matt felt the verandah shudder under him.

  Kane appeared from behind the kitchen bench, rising up as though he’d been squatting on the floor. He was dirty, sweating and moving with the exaggerated motions of someone who was mightily pissed off. Matt looked at Jodie. She was pulling away from the post, one shoulder wedged back as though she was trying to get as much distance between her and Kane as she could. But her face was angled down to the hole in the floor.

  Matt dropped to his knee, found a clear line of vision between the bench and the lounges, to where the floorboards had been ripped up. Kane was bent over, using both hands to take hold of something in the mouth of the hole. He heaved and a large metal chest rose up and out onto the floor.

  It had to be the box Matt had dug up under the barn. Same colour, same rectangular shape. About a metre long, half a metre high. In the light, it loo
ked military green. Kane used his foot to push it along the floor. Whatever was in there, whatever it was they’d come back for, was heavy.

  Kane stood up, smiled like a snake at Jodie. Matt saw her body stiffen. She shifted her weight on her feet like she was preparing for a fight.

  ‘You ready for me, tough bitch?’ Kane said.

  Jodie lifted her chin, said nothing.

  Kane laughed, a high-pitched crazy sound.

  Matt took one last look at Jodie. Her lips were pressed together, her body was taut, her tethered hands were in fists, arms locked around the timber. Hold on, Jodie. Don’t let go yet. Then he slid quickly, quietly across the verandah, dropped into the garden and took off as fast as his injuries would let him.

  Jodie watched the feral smile on Kane’s face as he moved towards her. Fear tightened around her chest. She wanted the hate back, wanted to feel it boil and hiss inside her. But hope had taken the heat out of it.

  She swung wild eyes to the hole. Where was Travis? He was going to handle his brother. He’d slid a thumb and index finger across his lips before he’d dropped into the hole behind Kane. Zip your mouth. And she had. She’d kept silent. She’d held onto the trunk, listened to her own ragged breathing as Kane and Travis hauled up the metal chest. She’d done what he’d told her, let hope grow like a tumour in her gut. So where the hell was he?

  Kane circled the post, stopped behind her, did nothing for about thirty long seconds. Jodie’s heart boomed. Then he grabbed a fist of hair, yanked her head so far back her mouth gaped open. He pushed his face into her field of vision, grinned as he walked two fingers across her throat.

  ‘You’re gonna be good.’ His foul breath filled her mouth, her nose. ‘Hey, bro, you gotta watch this time.’

  ‘You’re not finished yet,’ Travis barked.

  Jodie saw Travis on the edge of the hole. Relief and hope welled in her throat, came out like a gasp.

  ‘Bullshit,’ Kane said. ‘I got your fucking chest out. Now I get the tough bitch.’