She watched as the car park slowly began to fill up, cars arriving as the time to sound the bell drew nearer. She dug out the photo of Oliver for one last look. She needed to concentrate on his face, find him in the crowd. Looking around, seeking him out, she scanned over the bike racks.
It was him. Oliver Marks.
It was all she could do not to race from the car and shake him until she heard his teeth rattle, shake the living shit out of him. But now was not the time and definitely not the place. She had to wait until they were alone. Just him and her. No witnesses.
She went back to the motel to stay with Mia, trying to feed her a toasted sandwich. When she went back half an hour before school finished, her eyes were fixed on the bike rack, making sure she didn’t miss him when he came out. Her eyes drooped occasionally, startled awake by the screech of a bird or her own nervousness. Eventually the bell rang, the chiming reaching her ears even though the window was up.
Show time.
She watched the bikes intently, the car park dotted with cars bearing a P plate on them. She didn’t stand out in the sea of shitty first-time cars so that was something. She waited for Oliver Marks to begin his ride home. As he swung his leg over the seat of his bike and hooked it into the peddle, she pushed down gently on the accelerator, a distance away so he didn’t get spooked or spot her. She didn’t want to be seen just yet. Not until she could safely do what she had to do. After following him for a few blocks, she realised he was headed out the other side of town. She couldn’t believe her luck. Soon, he would be cycling down an empty road in the middle of nowhere. She looked down at the crowbar resting on the seat beside her. She didn’t want to use it, but she was fully prepared to, to get the answers she sought. The thought made her palms sweat against the steering wheel.
The bitumen road turned into gravel and then dirt. Oliver must live a fair way out of town as they’d already been travelling for fifteen minutes, him on his bike, her in her car making sure that she pulled over to let other cars past, but not letting him get out of her sight as he turned corners. As soon as he turned off the bitumen road and onto the graded dirt and rock road, Danni inched the car forward so she sat right behind him, almost touching his back wheel, then she backed off again, dropping back a few metres behind him. Then she surged forward again, almost nudging him, then backing off. He turned, sensing her, a look of pure fear on his face. Oliver began to pedal with wild abandon, raising his ass off the seat so he could power through with his legs. She didn’t know where he thought he was going to; she’d just follow him anyway. She decided to go all in, he’d seen her face anyway. It had never occurred to her to cover herself up. Oh well, too late now.
She pushed forward one last time, the bumper kissing the back tyre of the bike, causing it to veer off the road into the dirt that was peppered with gravel, which then pitched him into the long weeds by the side of the road. Oliver somersaulted over the handlebars, landing heavily on the ground. His bag flew through the air, landing a couple of metres from where he was.
Danni stopped the car with a screech of tyres, dust kicking up around the vehicle. She opened the door, stepped out with the crow bar and put it on the bonnet before walking over to the prone boy. She hoped she hadn’t knocked him unconscious, but she was prepared for that, she had duct tape in her boot. She squatted down beside him and noticed he was breathing shakily, his breath going in and out, ragged with distress.
He watched as she stared at him, naked fear in his wide eyes. His legs were all scraped up, blood running down his knees and pooling into his grey socks. His head must have made contact with the road at some point as there was blood and dirt and bits of fine gravel stuck to his forehead. He lay panting on the ground, looking up at her. His fear was palpable and, for a brief moment, she wondered if what she was doing was right. But if she thought too hard about that, she’d lose her nerve.
‘Sit up,’ she commanded. She was done playing.
Groaning, he pulled himself up into an awkward seated position, looking at the damage to his knees.
‘Do you know who I am?’ she asked, her intense eyes glittering coldly.
‘N… n… no,’ he stuttered, looking at her fearfully.
‘I’m Mia Brooks’ mother.’
This time recognition settled in his eyes. ‘Shit,’ he said shakily. ‘What do you want?’ he asked in a squeaky voice, all manliness and bravado deserting him.
Danni had thought about this moment for weeks. ‘I want you to feel the terror you made my daughter feel. Having someone follow you, having someone scare you so badly you think you’re going to die.’ She paused to let the words sink in. ‘Do you think you’re going to die, Oliver?’
He looked completely shocked at the question, as if he couldn’t comprehend someone even asking him that. He squeezed his eyes shut tightly, then he opened them, a lone tear cutting through the grime on his face.
‘Please don’t hurt me,’ he begged. His words tugged at her, then she remembered her daughter. She hardened her heart.
‘You mean like you hurt my daughter?’ she hissed.
‘I never touched her!’
‘Maybe not, but you threatened to, didn’t you? You followed her home, took her photo when she didn’t want you to, made a nuisance of yourself. You hurt her, Oliver, you said you’d take a kiss and more from her. You made her sick. You make me sick!’
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, blubbering, covering his mouth as if to stifle the sound. If she hadn’t been so angry with him, she might have smiled at his fear.
‘I’m not going to hurt you, Oliver, not right now, anyway, but I am going to teach you a valuable lesson. One that clearly no one has taught you before. The meaning of the word no. You won’t forget this one.’ She pulled the crowbar from the bonnet of the car, where she’d placed it as she’d got out of the driver’s seat.
His eyes latched onto it and widened, rounded and full of expectation and terror.
Danni felt the rage building up inside of her again, the memories of Mia’s fear flittering through her mind. The anger grew and grew as she stared down at this boy, ready to strike him with the metal bar that she gripped tightly in her hands.
He began to cry in earnest, seeing the resolve on her face, seeing the pain that lived there now.
Do it!
It was almost more than she could handle. Her head hurt, throbbing in pain, throbbing in time with the blood rushing through her veins. Sweat popped out on her forehead, everything in an instant, but for Danni, it stretched out in front of her like a blacktop ribbon that never ended.
Without any more warning she brought the crowbar down, hard. Oliver yelled, covering his face from the blow that never came.
Danni had screamed when she had brought the crowbar down, striking the ground so hard that her face was showered with sharp slivers of rock and dirt.
‘How many girls, Oliver?’ she panted. ‘How many girls have you harassed? Be honest and I’ll go easy on you.’
‘Th… three,’ he said, stumbling over the words. ‘Please don’t hurt me.’
‘Three girls should mean three swings of this crowbar, don’t you think?’ She should break his kneecaps, make him hurt, feel pain unimaginable. Part of her wanted to do it. She began to feel herself fade in and out.
Instead of Oliver, she took her anger out on his bike, luckily for him. If she hadn’t, she would have ended up killing him. She knew this. She smashed his bike over and over, paint chips throwing up, scratching her hands with their jagged little edges. After attacking the bike, she turned her attentions to the boy who whimpered in front of her.
He flinched from her, afraid of what she might do. She knew what she wanted to do. But she needed the truth.
‘Oliver, I’m going to ask you a question and you need to tell me the truth.’
He nodded, tears gathering in the corner of his eyes. ‘What is it?’ he asked, his voice high-pitched.
‘Why the fuck did you murder my family?’ She felt the rage build
ing again. Her children…
‘What?’ he asked, appearing shocked.
‘You set the fire that killed them. You couldn’t have Mia, so you lit a fire that killed them. Don’t deny it. I know you did it.’
‘I didn’t!’ he whispered, a look of naked fear crossing his face. ‘I didn’t, I swear. It wasn’t me. I didn’t, I would never, I loved her. Maybe you should ask Mia’s boyfriend. Maybe he did it.’
Danni stopped cold. ‘You’re lying! Mia didn’t have a boyfriend.’ Memories of Mia flitted through her mind, Mia moody, Mia elated, Mia whispering behind closed doors on her phone. Maybe she did have a boyfriend that she never told her mum about. There seemed to be so many secrets that her family were keeping from her. Danni stood still. ‘How do you know?’ she demanded, her eyes darkening.
‘I’ll show you,’ Oliver said nervously, aware of the weapon still in her hand. ‘Pass me my bag and I’ll show you, but please, put down the crowbar. Please.’
Danni looked around her and saw his bag lying in the weeds. Retrieving it, she threw it towards Oliver, who winced at his precious camera being treated that way. He fumbled with the zipper, seeming to forget how to use it. Finally, he unzipped the bag and pulled out a Nikon camera with all the trimmings.
‘Before I show you, you have to promise not to hurt me. I took photos but I would never have hurt her. I loved her.’
‘So you said.’
‘Do I have your word that you won’t hurt me?’
Danni wanted to throttle him, to wrap her hands around his neck until he couldn’t breathe. She wasn’t shocked by these thoughts any more. In fact, her rage fuelled her, kept her going without unravelling as she struggled to uncover whoever set the fire that killed her family. Oliver had seemed as good a place to start as any, but what if it was this secret boyfriend? What if, like Oliver, Mia had pissed him off and he did the unthinkable?
He stared up at her expectantly, waiting for her agreement.
‘Fine,’ she said through gritted teeth. She dropped the iron bar to the dirt where it rang out with a dull clang.
Oliver began clicking through a series of photos until he found the ones he was looking for. He passed the camera over, and she shivered in revulsion when their fingers touched briefly. She looked at the photos, clicking through, seeing her beautiful daughter in a series of stills, dark hair covering her face. She had to admit, if Oliver weren’t a stalker, she’d have admired his photography skills. Mia’s long glossy hair picked up by the wind, Mia smiling, then a male came into the frame, at distance so she couldn’t see who he was. She turned to Oliver.
‘Keep scrolling,’ he said.
Mia reaching out her hand only to be in the man’s arms in the next photo. Wild abandon as she kissed him full on the lips, him bending down, her standing on her tiptoes to meet for a passionate exchange. The next photo, Oliver’s curiosity had obviously got the better of him as they were close up shots. The man’s hand on the swell of her breast. His white teeth flashing, stubble on his cheeks visible.
Betrayal shot Danni through the heart as she recognised the man’s face.
‘Is this for real?’ she asked, steel in her voice.
‘It’s real all right. They’ve been dating for a month or so, maybe longer. I only found out ’cos I followed her, them.’ He looked apologetic but didn’t say he was sorry. His previously combed hair was now mussed up, falling over one side of his face in disarray.
Danni could barely comprehend what she was seeing. Mia had a boyfriend, he was older than she was, there was photographic evidence out there, proof that she was with him. Why hadn’t she confided in her? She had never felt the distance between them more than now.
‘You see,’ Oliver said somewhat triumphantly. ‘I wasn’t the bad guy in her life, I was just a guy.’
Fire.
‘Get out of here, Oliver, before I hurt you.’ Danni’s quiet voice could barely be heard over the bush noises, birds, insects, the breeze blowing leaves across the dirt road.
Oliver stared at her, not sure what to do.
‘Fuck off, Oliver!’ she screamed, the birds taking flight at the sudden noise, startling Oliver so much that he too took flight, grabbing his bag, throwing his camera inside and picking up his ruined bike, rolling it as quickly down the road as he could before Danni changed her mind. He looked back at her as if afraid that he would see her car bearing down on him, but she wasn’t following him, she was rooted to the spot, unable to take a step. After a while, she didn’t know how long, she fell backwards onto the warm bonnet of the car. She needed answers. Oliver denied that he set the fire and strangely enough, after looking into his eyes, she believed him. She needed to take a closer look at David Simmonds, Mia’s maths teacher and apparently her lover. She needed to talk to Mia, find out what the hell was going on. Why would her daughter start a relationship with a teacher? It was so out of character, but then, lately, she hadn’t been herself.
It was all Danni could do not to speed down the road, take the corners on two wheels. As it was, she lost her concentration, not understanding how she made it back alive to the motel. These episodes of losing time were beginning to worry her, and she would have to do something about them eventually. If she was being honest, it had been going on a lot longer than a few months and she was worried she needed medical help, but Mia with her issues came first and an affair with a teacher definitely qualified as a fucking issue.
Pulling into the car park in front of the room, she sat in the idling car for a while, wondering how on earth she was going to get Mia to talk to her about Mr Simmonds and what was going on. Suddenly angry, she flung herself out of the car and pushed the key in the lock. Mia sat facing the door, as if waiting on her mother to come back.
‘What the fuck, Mia?’ Danni demanded, her brain deciding on anger rather than any other emotion. She couldn’t get her anger under control and she didn’t want to. ‘Your teacher? Your fucking teacher? How stupid are you?’ she yelled, incensed beyond all reason.
In the face of her rage, Mia stayed resolutely silent.
Danni yelled at Mia for God knows how long, walking around the room, picking things up and slamming them down again, telegraphing her anger to her daughter when she didn’t need to, her voice was getting the message across just fine. Mia’s eyes tracked her mother as she whirled around the room, then glazed over again when she started to yell at her after a moment’s pause to catch her breath.
‘I just can’t even begin to fathom why you would do such a thing. Your father and I… we…’ Danni swallowed hard. ‘Your father and I trusted you. We trusted Mr Simmonds, too. What do you have to say for yourself?’
Stony eyed and ignoring her mother, Mia stared over her shoulder. Unable to stand her daughter’s silence any longer, Danni marched over to her and grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her roughly.
‘Why did you do this?’ she screamed. ‘Why?’ She drew her arm back and slapped Mia across the face so hard that she left an angry red imprint on Mia’s cheek. Danni stood above her, panting hard.
‘Oh, baby. Oh Mia. Mummy’s sorry. I didn’t mean to do that. I didn’t mean to slap you.’ Danni was mortified by what she’d done. How could she have hit her child? What kind of rage would possess her to attack Mia?
Mia’s eyes focused on her for a second. ‘And you wonder why I found love elsewhere,’ she said quietly.
It was the first proper sentence that Mia had uttered in weeks, then she was gone again, drawn back into her own little universe, one where Danni couldn’t reach her. It had broken Danni’s heart to hear those words. Love had never been the problem.
21
It was hard for Danni to settle into her new life with the Johnsons. She didn’t trust easily and she supposed, other than Joe, she might never trust anyone again. Her first night in their home, in a foreign bed, the third in as many weeks, she thought about her family. Beth in particular. What was she doing right now? Was she plotting her revenge against Danni for breaking up th
e family? What she needed was Joe, not thoughts of Beth. She sat down, feeling the firmness of the mattress and wondering how many kids had slept here before her.
She opened up her bag and pulled out her brush. Since her hair had grown long again after Beth had cut it years ago, she had taken good care of it. Danni stood up and walked over to the dressing table, sitting down in front of the mirror, and began to brush her long glossy hair. She had counted to twenty-six, her routine was one hundred, when she heard a voice say, ‘Want me to do that for you?’
She whirled around, immediately raising the hairbrush as a weapon. It was second nature. Her vision wavered as she looked at the figure. Tall, sandy brown hair, and fourteen. Andrew.
She hadn’t even heard the door open. She was letting her guard down too much now that she thought she was safe.
‘What do you want, Andrew?’
‘Just to get to know you better, that’s all.’ It sounded creepy coming from his mouth and Danni wondered if this was the place for her after all. She was almost eighteen now, so she wouldn’t be here much longer. Surely she could tough it out, she’d been through worse. Much worse. At least she was out of the group home.
‘We can get to know each other, but we have to respect boundaries. You can’t just open my door and watch me, okay?’
‘Okay,’ he said, dropping a wink at her before he turned and left.
This could turn out to be a problem if she didn’t nip it in the bud right now. She closed her door again and did something she hadn’t done in a while; she wedged the chair under the door handle so no one could get in.
The Silent Daughter Page 14