‘He comes with us. I have a duty of care towards him also,’ Bane stated flatly. The detective raised his eyebrows, but didn’t argue.
The long afternoon was spent intermittently trying to appease Noah’s frantic texts and poring over what little evidence they had. He studied every minor detail in the file that could give a hint about who had taken such malevolent action against Tessa. Nothing useful was revealed. The one officer he had managed to drag any useful information from had assured him that Alex Beckinsale could not possibly be involved. He had been living in a lightly supervised facility for the last three years and had been checked on that very morning. They were making enquiries about his friends and family, in case any of them held a grudge about what had happened to him, but he was estranged from his mother and very few of his old acquaintances ever even visited. In fact the mentally fragile man seemed to have more new friends in his current accommodation than he ever had before his mysterious injury.
Who else could have found out about Eden? Sergeant Loxwood had never instigated an official investigation and he just couldn’t think of who else might have had any clue regarding what had happened that day.
At around four-thirty when Detective Franklin finally popped back in to say there had been no new developments, it was Dallmin who lost patience first. ‘Enough reading and staring. We need Lainie.’ He stood, and signed something that Bane didn’t understand but didn’t really need to.
‘I won’t risk her,’ Bane replied. ‘She’s still in danger. We can find Tessa ourselves.’
‘Every minute Tessa is gone is an outrage that I will not tolerate. Call Lainie on your little phone machine. She can tell you where they are without getting close to danger.’
All signs of the gentle elf-like creature had left his face. Righteous anger had replaced the sanguine dance in his deep brown eyes. All three police officers stared at them, perplexed.
Bane was at a loss. How was he going to explain Dallmin’s choice of phrasing to the police? It was almost a pity that he couldn’t imply that Dallmin was high on something. That might have been easier. Yet even as he struggled to come up with what to say, Bane’s stomach gave a sickening churn. Lainie pulled at him ferociously. What was he supposed to do now? How long would he have before he was incapacitated? It was supposed to be over by now. He hadn’t planned on being away from her for long—just long enough to prevent her from doing something stupid, again. She was getting farther from him, and she was still in excruciating danger. What did that mean?
He took out Lily’s phone and keyed in the number on the business card the sergeant had given him the night before. It went straight to message bank.
Bane smiled as genuinely as he could at the detective, but his mouth felt dry. ‘Can someone please contact Sergeant Loxwood? I need to talk to Lainie. Dallmin believes Lainie and Tess have some sort of ‘psychic connection’ or something. He thinks she can find her.’ He poured as much disdain into the phrase as he could, hoping they would agree to indulge the strange young man.
The detective brushed his thumb over the police emblem on the folder and took a shallow breath before replying. ‘I updated the sergeant when the SOG team gave their report. He suggested it would be best if you not be allowed to speak to Lainie just yet. He has a few questions for her. He will call you when he’s finished.’
Not allowed? Swallowing hard, he could feel his hackles rising even further. It was not a good idea for anyone to try to keep a Guardian from his charge, especially when she was in danger. It was his own fault this time, so he shouldn’t follow his instincts and hurt anyone. Deep breaths. Keeping his hands clasped together on the table in front of him, he tried again.
‘It’s been hours. What sort of questioning is he putting her through?’
The detective said nothing.
Bane bit down on his lip, using the pain to focus and supress his temper. ‘Perhaps you could speak to her, then? Perhaps she has an idea about where they could be? We’re at a bit of a loss here.’
The man narrowed his eyes in a way that made Bane realise his attempt at a pleasant tone probably wasn’t coming across that well. After a moment, the policeman rose and left the room. It was a tense wait.
When he returned he licked his lips and then shut the door very slowly, not meeting Bane’s eyes when he spoke. ‘They are unavailable at this time. I’ve left a message for Sergeant Loxwood to call me back as soon as possible.’
It was too much. Knocking the chair over, he stood and gestured to Dallmin. Come, he signed to him. It hadn’t been a difficult signal to learn. Striding towards the door, he ignored the startled looks on the faces of the trained professionals he had been relying on.
‘I’m sorry, officers, but it seems I’m not likely to be of any use to you after all. We’ll leave you to do your jobs and stay out of the way. Please call me immediately if there’s anything else I can do to assist.’
Chapter 33
Long shadows crept through the kitchen window and across the faded carpet, and Tessa could no longer hear the kids playing outside. Perhaps they’d gone in to have dinner. She hadn’t noticed them leave because her whole world was now centred around feeling for those brief, feather-light nudges. Each one was a precious gift, a reassurance that he was still hers. Still hers to protect. How had she ever thought the baby’s hiccups were annoying? Now they felt like pulse readings on a hospital monitor. Smile at one. Wait for the next. Try to ignore the interruptions.
The man ran his fingers through his spikey hair and paced around the small shabby room again. Between the kitchen bench, small dining table and TV, there was barely room for him to squeeze past the chair she was taped to. He kept doing it anyway.
‘All this stress can’t be good for the baby,’ he said, gesturing towards the rifle leaning against the TV. ‘Just tell me what I want to know and I’ll let you go.’
She tried to tune him out. It was better than giving in to her fear again. Fear made her want to cry, and crying made it impossible to breathe properly. So instead she worked at convincing herself that he was being boring. After all, he was using the same tactic Alex Beckinsale had tried three years ago. Couldn’t these bastards ever think of any other way to get information? And with her mouth covered with duct tape, how was she supposed to answer him anyway?
She wondered how long he would risk keeping the tape on for this time. It had not gone well for either of them the day before when the nausea had set in. She had very nearly suffocated until he’d noticed her turning blue and pulled the car over in a spray of gravel to tear her mouth free. The car would certainly never be the same again, that was for sure—although he’d just laughed and said it was hardly the first time it had happened. Later, when the sickness eased, she’d felt a surge of triumph, thinking that it meant that Noah had somehow found her. Then she’d realised it had cut off way too suddenly. In fact, she’d felt like someone had thrown a bucket of iced water over her. She couldn’t feel him anymore. Anywhere. She’d screamed then, as blind panic overwhelmed her. She couldn’t ever remember feeling so alone. Her abductor hadn’t known what to make of it. Perhaps he’d thought she was going into labour because he stopped the car again and made her drink some water, as if that would have helped with labour pains. At least he had un-taped her hands long enough for her to clean up a bit. She still stank. She hated him for that.
The man circled back towards her again. ‘You know it’s pointless waiting for them to save you. Do you even realise how close they came to us this morning before they ran away? Why didn’t Bane come and get me? And where is Noah? Why didn’t he answer his phone? Rule one when someone you love gets abducted: answer the bloody phone!’
God bless Bane. Now that she’d been given a chance to think things through, Tess realised that he must have sent Noah to Eden. Hopefully he’d had enough sense to send Lainie away too, although she knew how painful that would be for him. Those two had been throu
gh enough already. The venom in her stare caught her captor’s attention.
‘I know Noah has the magic,’ he said. ‘Or have I had it all wrong? Is it really just Lainie who gets to be healed?’
As he leant over her chair, his familiar face came far too close to hers, and something behind his eyes reached inside her skull, searching … for what? Tessa’s fear clicked off like a switch had been flipped. Cold anger replaced it. She looked away, lifting her chin.
‘There is one test we haven’t tried yet,’ the man said, his voice strangely flat. ‘Up until now, I had no real intention of hurting you, but maybe that’s what’s been missing. Genuine intention.’
Light from the back window reflected from the large kitchen knife he picked up from the bench.
‘Maybe Noah or Bane will miraculously arrive, just in time to save you,’ he said, pushing her sleeve up past her elbow.
She strained against her bonds, rattling the chair and getting nowhere. This couldn’t be happening. Not again. The trauma from when Alex Beckinsale had threatened her with his knife still had her waking in a sweat far too often. How many times in the deep night had Noah assured her that he would never let anything like that happen again? And yet Noah was not a Guardian.
Pain seared through her forearm as the tip of the knife pushed through her skin, and her reflexes refused to accept that she was tied too tightly to jerk away. She tried to cry out but the tape muffled her voice as she screamed his name, begging for him to stop. He didn’t. Blood welled as he drew the blade down along the muscle belly. The same place Bane had his scar. Guardian blood spilled in futile defence. Bane’s blood had not saved Lainie, and hers was doing nothing for Noah. But Noah wasn’t her only charge.
Red drops slid along her skin and fell down the side of the chair. Blood that was shared with her unborn Cherub son. If only she could borrow his God-given authority the same way he was borrowing her physical resources.
She stopped squirming, and watched the madman’s eyes and thought about everything she would do to him if only she had access to that power. Her sudden stillness caught his gaze, and he paused, blood dripping down the handle of the knife.
I will fight you, break you, cut you, destroy you. Her eyes conveyed all her righteous anger at the threat to her son. I will drown you.
The man flinched, and then laughed, stepping back and putting the knife back on the bench. He went to the front window and peeked out through the closed curtain, as if he really expected to see Noah striding up to the front door.
After a few moments he grunted. ‘I don’t know anymore. I just have this … I have this feeling … part of me is convinced that Noah’s involved, but then where is he? This wasn’t supposed to take so long. And I never expected him to call it in, I was sure Bane would stop him from involving the police. If he hadn’t done that, I wouldn’t have had to take you all the way to Melbourne to keep ahead of them. Noah messed up. This is his fault.’
No power for her to use, and it was obvious why. She only wanted it so she could kill him. Probably not the holiest of motives, really. She closed her eyes and tried to force herself to relax, for the baby’s sake. All she wanted was to feel him move again.
‘Still not willing to talk then, Tess? Even now? Perhaps you really don’t know anything after all. Imagine having a husband who keeps such glorious secrets from you? Never mind, I’ll find out from Lainie instead.’
He strode out of the room, slamming the door behind him.
Chapter 34
Lainie was slightly more to the north now than the west, which meant they were most likely still following the Calder Highway. Bane’s nausea was abating along with the daylight, so he knew they were catching up. It was only a matter of time. He wished Tim could have flown down, but that wouldn’t have helped. The bag he needed him to bring was not one they would let you take onto a plane. Besides, he’d told Tim to drive his car down to Nalong, not Melbourne, and if the sergeant really was taking Lainie home then that would be where he was needed most. Everything centred around Eden. It always had and it always would.
Noah’s phone had stayed stubbornly silent all afternoon, but now Bane thought he knew why. Who would have access to hack Facebook profiles of people in jail? And if Lainie had been the original target, how many people even knew she was back? They’d only been into town a couple of times. Only once in public … and the very next day, Sergeant Loxwood had called in to try to talk to her.
Bane’s hands trembled on the wheel as he tried to come to terms with his colossal failure. Why had he ever let Lainie out of his sight? He hadn’t trusted his own ability to keep her safe and now he had made things a whole lot worse. There was a very real possibility that she could be killed before he could even get to her, and he hadn’t even had an opportunity to beg her forgiveness for the last time yet. He was a fool to have thought they could have a future. She was far better off staying in Eden. Away from madmen with handguns and hunting rifles and duct tape. And away from madmen with knives.
Rain fell again as they neared Bendigo, the windscreen wipers thumping as they frantically tried to outpace it. So much driving. So pointless. Even Dallmin seemed to be heartily sick of being in the car. He had long since run out of buttons and flaps to fiddle with and now he was squinting at the bar code on the tissue box, trying to decipher it in the fading light.
The petrol gauge was dropping rapidly, but Bane didn’t dare stop. Lainie was pulling him towards the outskirts of town. He could feel her tugging at him like an addiction and he was helpless to resist. She was in so much danger that it took all his self-control just to concentrate on the road. Twenty-four hours since she had come under threat, and he had fought to remain calm the entire time. It felt like his bones were on fire, and he longed to reach her to put the flames out. How much longer could he stand it before he passed out from the strain? His body had gone well past its limits but the compulsion wouldn’t let it stop fighting. It was much worse than separation illness.
As he pulled into the car park of an old motel, he noticed a police car parked at the far end of the long double-storey brick building. Lainie was here. So close now. Bottom floor, third room from the right. The big question was whether Tess was here too and if so, how was he going to get them both away safely?
Chapter 35
‘For God’s sake, Lainie! I have been more than patient with you. Answer me!’ the policeman bellowed. I cowered against the wall. I had no more chance of saying what he wanted to hear than I had of laying an egg. Why couldn’t I just melt away with the rain outside, flow down the street and underground, away from this dreadful place? There was nothing I could say that would appease this man’s relentless questions.
Frustration clouded the sergeant’s eyes as he towered over me. ‘You tell me bits and pieces about places you’ve supposedly been on your travels that couldn’t possibly exist in Australia, and yet I know for a fact that you don’t have a passport. Why are you lying to me?’
Lying? I desperately wanted to lie, but every time I did he caught me out. Years ago I would have managed it smoothly. Apparently now, I no longer had the knack. Deceit was obviously a habit you had to keep practising or it grew weak and useless like muscles on a couch potato. I wondered if he was going to hit me. His patience was wearing very thin and there was absolutely nothing I could do about it. Getting hurt would be agony for Bane. I had to think of something.
‘Please can we keep driving? It’s not that late, we could make it to Nalong tonight. Maybe I could show you something that could answer your questions.’ I had no idea if that was true, but I needed him to take me home.
Chapter 36
The car stopped like a hiccup in the third last parking bay of the Gold Diggers Motor Inn. Bane turned to the unfortunate visitor from Eden beside him and took a deep breath. There was a quote from the Bible he couldn’t get out of his head. ‘It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around
his neck and he were cast into the sea, than that he should cause one of these little ones to sin.’ It was a quote from Jesus that was repeated in Matthew, Mark and Luke’s gospels. Undeniably important then. He felt sick to his stomach about what he was about to do. There would be no coming back from this, not for either of them.
‘I don’t suppose you would wait here and let me deal with this?’ He counted very deliberately to three, in case a thread of hope remained, but Dallmin stared back at him coldly, so he reached into the back seat to retrieve Lainie’s old pocket knife that he’d stashed in his bag. He flicked it open and offered it, handle first.
‘If someone tries to hurt you, you hurt them first. Do you understand?’ He watched Dallmin closely, trying to assess his reaction.
Serious brown eyes studied the blade as the gentle man tested its edge with his thumb. ‘It’s a good tool,’ he said. ‘I have hurt myself many times with such tools over the years. It was always funny before. I laughed at myself for being so careless.’ He lifted his chin. ‘I will not be careless with this, Bane. I understand what you are asking.’
Grief for the man threatened to weaken his resolve. Lainie had once insisted that there was always a choice, but she was wrong. Even she had come to realise that, when it was too late. This time he was bound to his course of action, and for better or worse, he would see it through.
Chapter 37
Huddled on the inoffensive beige carpet in the corner of the motel’s compact family suite, I tried to distract myself from my despair by running through as many names of people I went to school with as I could remember. Tessa Bright, Kate Simpson, Emma McKenzie, Kiara … something. Tania Cox, Emily Chau, who else? They felt like someone else’s memories, from another life. Maybe the boys would be easier. Noah, Bane … come on, Lainie, think. Jarrod Pike, we always called him Jarrah Spike. Bailey Carson, Jake Evans … Bane killed Jake’s dog. The remembered sound of its canine yelp and the hideous crunch as it hit the bumper bar filled my mind, just as the faded green door of the motel suite burst open in a shower of cheap plywood framework.
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