Southern Sunset: Book One of 44 South

by Nicola Claire

  “He’s shifted to the Musterer’s Hut.” Oh, dear. “Cornering Tanya’s customers as they sit down to their brunch.”

  “Bet she’s not too happy about that,” I guessed.

  “Yeah. There might have been a coffee bean or two thrown at his head.”

  I sniggered.

  “Any charges been brought against Matt yet?”

  Luke shook his head and leaned back on the couch, placing an arm behind my back, staring at the twins. “No. Which Matt says is strange.”

  “It is and it isn’t,” I told him. “Ordinarily, if they have charges to bring against an officer, they don’t muck around. But Everett likes to play a slow game, dragging it out, toying with his target.”

  “That’s fucked in the head.”

  “IPCA Senior Investigator Mark Everett is not exactly the most stable of men.”

  Luke scratched at his beard. It was definitely edging toward ‘beard’ status more and more each day.

  “Matt told me about your brother,” he finally said.

  I ducked my head down and stared at my cup.

  “Any change in his… behaviour?” he asked.

  “He still won’t talk,” I admitted, feeling a lump appear in my throat. I glanced across the lounge toward the twins. “Do they go to school?”

  “Mum home schools them. They got picked on too much at the local primary.”

  “That’s a big responsibility,” I pointed out. Luke’s mother was well into her seventies.

  “Yeah,” Luke agreed. “We’re thinking of hiring a special needs teacher for them. One with experience in this type of thing. But getting one to move to Twizel for any length of time is damn near impossible.”

  And would cost a fortune. “I guess Timaru’s not set up for that sort of thing.”

  “No,” Luke said quietly. “Matt would have to move to Christchurch.”

  “Maybe a clean start would be a good thing,” I suggested.

  “He needs to be in Mackenzie Country. It’s in his blood.”

  “Like it’s in yours?”

  He turned to look down at me, his coffee cup placed between his legs so his fingers could come up and brush my fringe back off my face. Then he wrapped his hand around the side of my neck, placing his fingers over my throat carefully, his thumb stroking my pulse point.

  “Red Tussock is my birthright,” he said. “Where my heart beats and my soul lives. My feet are rooted in its soil. My blood flows through its rivers as though they are my veins. I could never leave, Maggie.”

  I wouldn't want him to.

  “Do you understand?” he said, his voice pleading.

  I nodded my head and reached up to cup his jaw. “I understand.”

  He stared into my eyes for a long moment, and then leaned forward and rested his forehead against mine.

  “You smell of peaches,” he said softly. “Coffee cake and warm sunshine. You remind me of late summer afternoons as the sun sets behind Mount Glenmary. You’re like a sunset in my mind. Warm and inviting and so close I want to reach out and touch you. Always.” He let out a shuddering breath of air. “But like all sunsets, when I wake, you’ll be gone.

  “Don’t leave, Maggie. Stay.”

  “I’m not leaving,” I said. Not yet, anyway.

  Deep, rich chocolate brown eyes opened and stared right into me.

  “OK,” he said, and I knew he’d seen the lie on my face.

  I wanted to reassure him. Part of me couldn’t imagine walking away from this man. From Red Tussock. But this was only ever meant to be a break. A chance for Michael to miss my weekly visits. To kick start his desire to communicate.

  But since I’d been here, I’d received exactly one text message from him. And zero phone calls.

  Six years was a long time to remain mute. I looked back down at the girls and prayed their fate did not match my brother’s. Prayed the Drakes could find their special needs teacher and convince her to stay.

  Prayed for a world where trauma didn’t fuck with your head to such a degree you withdrew into yourself.

  “Have they seen a psychologist?” I asked Luke.

  “Several.”

  “What happened that day, do you think?”

  Luke looked at the girls, making sure they weren’t watching us. But how could you be certain their silence meant they weren’t aware? They didn’t interact like Michael did. Michael had even picked up sign language. He did text me, even if only once in four weeks.

  The girls barely nodded their heads.

  “I don’t know,” Luke said, whisper quiet. “I wish I did. But I can guess.”

  I flicked my gaze off the girls and looked at Luke.

  “Someone took them out of Missy’s car. Then forced them to watch as she drove over that cliff.”

  My heart clenched. Words failed me. It was so easy to think that Missy had done it. Lost in a fugue of depression, she’d had the wherewithal to get her kids out of the car first before ending her own life. I’d read the autopsy report. She’d been alive when the car had hit the bottom of the ravine. Whether she’d been conscious or not, I didn’t know. I could only hope that she hadn’t been.

  But the girls had.

  Rachel chose that moment to look up from her silent playing, big brown eyes much like her father’s and uncle’s met mine.

  They looked much older than six years.

  Chapter 46

  I’ve Seen This

  Luke

  Talking about the day Missy died had always been hard. Doing it in front of the twins was gut wrenching.

  “You don’t think Missy did it, do you?” Maggie whispered beside me. Both of us acutely aware the girls could be listening in.

  I wasn’t sure they missed much, but Maggie’s and my voices were barely audible from where we sat, and they were well across the lounge room.

  I shook my head. “Not anymore.”

  “Neither do I.” I turned my head to look at her. She was watching the girls with a determined look in her eyes. She wanted to solve this as much as Matt did. As much as we all did.

  “That’s why he hired you, you know,” I said.

  An arched brow was my only reply.

  “The sergeant’s job could have gone to a career uniform, but the moment he saw your application, he pounced. He wanted you to get to know Twizel first. Get to know the locals. Him. Before he approached you, I think. And then the whisky hit and things got complicated again.”

  “Complicated,” she said.

  “He wants the truth. He’s just afraid of it.”

  Maggie slowly nodded her head, not taking her eyes off Rachel and Dani. “Does he have any idea of who Missy’s lover was?”

  “None.”

  “Not even far fetched ones? Men she spoke to even once. Days of the week she tended to be absent from his life more than others.”

  “You’d have to ask him.”

  She huffed out an amused breath. “He’s not exactly been approachable.”

  “He’s stopped drinking.”

  “Then he’ll be erratic.”

  “Give him a chance.”

  Maggie flicked her eyes to mine and scowled. I couldn’t resist reaching up and cupping her chin, tipping her head back, staring down into her eyes.

  “You know you want to,” I said.

  “You’re a pest, Luke Drake,” she said on a soft smile. Maggie was born to be touched. Held. Contained.

  My grip firmed, my palm flattening, then sliding down her neck, fingers wrapping around both sides. Her pulse thrumming.

  I let her see my desire. Let her look in the face of the man before her. The man who wanted to do all manner of filthy things to her body.

  “Fuck that accident,” I growled.

  “I’m not broken,” she pointed out, smirking.

  I shook my head. “You’re bruised. Sore.”

  Maggie’s eyes flicked across the room to the twins, but they were fighting over a sticker or something. Her gaze came back to mine; smouldering.
<
br />   “And horny,” she offered, making me laugh.

  “Damn, woman,” I growled, shaking my head. “You make it impossible to be gentle.”

  “Now, that’s a statement Freud would have a field day with,” she quipped.

  I leaned forward, my lips coasting over her jaw, my teeth taking a nibble on her earlobe. Then I murmured against her hot skin, “I’ll give you twenty-four more hours, and then I’m tying you to my bed.”

  “Promise?” The word was breathless. Her pulse had doubled. Her skin was coated in a fine sheen of sweat.

  “First,” I whispered, “I’ll spread your legs, making sure my hands are far from your scrapes and scratches. Then I’ll bare that glorious pussy and take my visual fill of it. When you start squirming…” She’d started to squirm on the couch now. “…I’ll gently blow against it. Use my thumbs to open you for my tongue. I’ll lick you out until you shout my name. Then I’ll finger fuck you until you beg me to come. Then I’ll repeat it all again until you’re loose and sleepy and limp in my arms.”

  “Tease,” she said, unevenly.

  My hand slipped down between her breasts, over her quivering stomach, and landed on her hip, thumb stroking very close to the seam between her legs.

  “Are you wet?” She glared at me. I chuckled. “Then be a good girl and get better.”

  “Prick.”

  I smiled, pulling back and checking on the girls. Damn baby sitting duty.

  The front door opened, both ending my fantasy and making me hopeful it was Mum. I told Maggie I’d wait another twenty-four hours. That sounded like a fucking bad idea about now. I shifted on the couch, leaning forward to place both our empty cups on the coffee table, and took the opportunity to adjust my aching cock.

  Matt walked into the room in full uniform. I hadn’t seen him in uniform for months. He looked like hell, hadn’t shaved this morning, and red rimmed his eyes, but they weren’t glassy and his gait was rock steady.

  He caught sight of the twins and smiled, then immediately walked over to them, nodding a greeting to us, before he crouched down and kissed them both on the head. Rachel smiled. Dani stilled for a second and then returned to her doll. Matt stroked her head for a while longer and then stood up and turned toward us.

  “Got something you should see,” he said, eyes on Maggie.

  “Good, I was getting antsy.”

  “Antsy?” I demanded. “Is that what you call it?”

  Maggie offered me a glare, in complete police officer mode now.

  “If you start calling me Mr Drake again,” I drawled, “be prepared for the fallout.”

  “Twenty-four hours,” she said succinctly.

  “I lied.” She rolled her eyes and then arched a brow at Matt.

  “You two done?” he asked, heading toward the DVD player in the corner.

  “Yes,” Maggie said at the same time I murmured, “Never.” A twitch of her lips told me she appreciated my humour.

  Little did she know it was a vow.

  I’d never be done with Maggie, I knew that now. Her accident on Mount Cook Road had sealed it, really. Not the accident itself, but my reaction to it. I thought she’d died and I couldn’t imagine Red Tussock without her on it.

  I hadn’t lied about that. About Red Tussock being in my blood. My soul. But I wasn’t so sure my heart was completely Red Tussock’s anymore. Part of it belonged to a southern sunset that only Maggie seemed to be able to make.

  My home had changed and all it took was a bloody JAFA.

  Matt stepped back from the TV with the DVD remote in his hand. He thumbed play and Smokey’s appeared on the big screen. There was no sound, thankfully. Just the front door, the pathway, and the neon sign that read ‘Happy Hour.’

  Maggie sat forward in her seat as James Whiting staggered out, emptying his guts all over the gutter.

  “I’ve seen this,” she said. “You came out not long beforehand.” Her hand landed on my knee. I swept it up in mine, holding it tightly.

  “Yeah, I’ve skipped that bit,” Matt said. “It’s the next part that’s intriguing.”

  Within seconds, Charlie Davis walked out of the tavern. I sat forward in my seat. Our senior foreman lit a cigarette and then searched the street. Seeing what he wanted, he wandered off out of the scene.

  “Can we follow him?” I asked, as Maggie stood up from the couch and took a step toward the twins.

  My eyes tracked her line of sight. Matt’s slowly did the same.

  Dani was standing up, fists clenched at her sides, shaking.

  Pee ran down her left leg.

  Chapter 47

  And Red Tussock Utes

  Maggie

  “It’s all right, baby girl,” Matt was saying, rocking a still mute Dani in his lap. Luke was holding Rachel who stared at her sister without an ounce of expression on her face.

  My gaze came back to the TV, which had been switched off.

  Charlie Davis. It made sense. He had access to the station. Drove a Red Tussock ute. Smoked cigarettes. Found the sheep. And Missy would have known him. All that aside, though, even with the dim lighting on the street in the video and the way the shadows played over his face hiding his features, there was no denying Dani’s reaction to seeing him right now. I wondered why Alicia hadn’t shown me this. I wondered if it was all a game to the souvenir shop owner. She must have known. But instead she’d switched the view to another camera angle and shown me the ute picking up Whiting.

  I cocked my head as Matt and Luke said soothing words to the twins, my eyes staring unseeing at the blank TV screen.

  “Have you got all the discs?” I asked Matt.

  “Not now, Maggie,” he growled. I understood, really I did, but something was niggling at me.

  “It might be best to take them out of the room,” I said carefully.

  “Where do you suggest I take them?” Matt demanded, hugging Dani to his chest almost too tightly. “He’s been everywhere on the bloody station.”

  “Not in my room,” Luke offered. “I’ll grab a basin of water and a washcloth, you take the girls up there.”

  Matt stared at him for a long moment, looking a little lost. Then slowly he nodded his head. Reaching out a hand to Rachel, he gripped both daughters and left the room.

  Luke turned to look down at me.

  “Charlie’s worked for my family for twenty years. Started out as a young farm labourer. Attended our Christmas parties.” He ran a hand through his hair in utter frustration. “I’ll kill him,” he whispered. “I’ll fucking kill the bastard.”

  I took the steps necessary to reach him and gripped his hand. “First, the girls.”

  He nodded.

  “Then the lynching.” I’d meant it as a joke; a pitiful attempt to get him to loosen up. He just scowled harder and nodded his head, as if lynching was quite acceptable in these parts.

  Maybe it was. This was Twizel. When Luke went to go after his brother, I squeezed his hand, halting all motion. He tipped his head down and looked at me.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. He was hurting. They all were. This was going to hurt something fierce.

  “Maggie,” he said, pulling me close and wrapping me up in his arms. “If he was driving that ute,” he said against my hair, “that ran you off the road, there is no hope for him.”

  He was warning me. The twins made him sick to the stomach, made his heart break apart. Matt had his loyalty as a brother; no telling what that sort of bond would do.

  But my accident - my near death - was what would put the final nail in Charlie’s coffin.

  I closed my eyes and clung to him tighter. I didn’t want to let him go. I didn’t want to risk him. But Matt called out and Luke pulled away, and then he was gone.

  For some reason it left me desperate.

  I rushed to the TV and switched it back on, then replayed the DVD. The same images came up. Smokey’s. Whiting. Gutter. Charlie Davis. I paused the screen and stared at the image of the man who had loved Missy. Who had killed J
ames Whiting to frame Matt. Who had stolen 1080 and poisoned sheep. Who had spread rumours and called in the IPCA. Who had run me off the road when he thought I knew something.

  I watched the footage again and again trying to look for anything that would make the sick feeling inside my gut go away. Had he pulled Missy over on Mount Cook Road? Had he somehow knocked her unconscious in a rage? Dragged the twins out of the ute, because even psychotic killers have a line they draw in the sand? Then made them watch him push their mother off into a ravine?

  Had this man done it? With his broad shoulders and strong muscles, a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. His tattoos showing.

  I looked across the room to the dolls still lying on the floor. One of them in a pool of urine. All the sticker tattoos, every single one of them, had been taken off. Only bare plastic ‘skin’ under their fashion outfits.

  I stared back at the screen and took in Charlie’s tattoos.

  It all made sense.

  But why did I feel I was missing something?

  I kept playing the disc; it showed more people exiting the pub. Then cut away to another camera angle. This time, Whiting getting into the Red Tussock truck. I still couldn’t see the whole license plate. Nor the driver. I replayed the scene. Then replayed it again.

  Then sat back on my heels and frowned at the DVD player.

  The time stamp on the segments of video coverage were chronological. Whiting exiting Smokey’s, followed by Charlie. Then when the camera angle changed the clock started again. This time showing a time after Whiting exited Smokey’s but before Charlie did.

  James Whiting got into the Red Tussock ute before Charlie Davis left the pub.

  He didn’t do it. I felt shocked. He’d looked so good on paper. Made sense. I played the sequences again to be sure. Then picked up my cell phone and dialled Directory. A few seconds later, Alicia Parson’s crisp British accent came down the line.

  “Sergeant, what a pleasant surprise,” she said, after I’d identified myself.

  “Cut the crap, Alicia, you were expecting my call.”

  She laughed, a low, throaty chuckle. “I would have been disappointed had you not.”