A Place to Stay

by Jennie Jones

  She acknowledged the memory, and as she breathed, it went away. Although this time it felt like the flickering mind-pain was going to linger longer than ever before.

  After that, Peter kept stalking her. He’d appear out of the blue every few months, take her money, tell her to keep her mouth closed. The first time he cornered her, she went to the police. The second time, he threatened her. He said he’d hurt the people she knew, but she went to the police anyway. A fortnight later they knocked on her door and told her a work colleague from a job she’d had the previous month had been involved in a car accident: she’d been driven off the road by a man who they thought—from the victim’s description—was Peter Fletcher. The car had rolled down a bank. The woman had a broken pelvis.

  She stopped going to the police after that. Peter still trailed her though, and she had no idea how, because she’d move every few weeks, sometimes every few days. She must have left too many clues. Whenever the police turned up at whatever boarding house she was staying at, she’d tell them she hadn’t seen him or heard from him. She couldn’t chance telling the police ever again, because she knew Peter would go through with his threats and she didn’t want the injuries of innocent people to be on her conscience.

  A year ago she had tried to get away from Peter once and for all. That was when she changed her name to Rebecca Smithfield. She’d thought it had worked. Eight months passed without seeing him. She’d almost believed in the relief.

  She didn’t want to worry any more. She wanted the chance to makes things work for herself. To feel safe to live her life—whatever that life would be. Moving on meant being free because you’d owned up to what you were running from. If she wanted to fill her life and become whole again, she’d need to become brave.

  ‘Think you’re ready for this, Rachel?’ Mary said, nodding at the group outside.

  ‘I’m not sure. I hope so.’

  ‘Good job the shire help out with the competition,’ Mary said, still studying Mrs Arnold and her followers. ‘They practically throw money at us, according to Mr Wiseman. We don’t get to see the figures, of course. But he has managed to raise additional funds this year, which is probably why he’s so keen on all those artificial plants he wants us to buy. They’re very expensive.’ She sighed. ‘There’ll no doubt be a few verbal punch-ups before it’s sorted. But you won’t be alone—I’ll make sure you’re not roped in for too much.’

  Rachel looked up as the group outside broke and made their way down the path. Donald Wiseman might be a petty pilferer, but Rachel felt like a real offender—although sense told her she wasn’t; lying about her name and her past wasn’t really a crime, was it?

  But she hadn’t told the police about the last time she’d seen Peter. And regardless of the reasons for her actions that night, by law she might now be considered a criminal. So she’d just run again and lost herself completely this time.

  * * *

  Luke closed the database down, his thoughts on Rachel—or Rebecca—whoever she was.

  He still sat at his desk, trying to sort out his feelings. His feelings, for Christ’s sake. He never lingered too long on feelings because he always had a job to do. An official, police job. Some cops brought their problems to work, but Luke had done his damnedest not to be one of them. There was enough to handle with the job itself.

  But this … commitment—he’d seriously thought he might be about to give it to Rachel—Rebecca. That’s how much he liked her.

  Rachel Meade. Rebecca Smithfield. How the hell would he ever think of her as Rebecca? He was hurt, he couldn’t deny it. And he had no reason to feel hurt apart from the fact that she hadn’t told him about—whatever was going on. It seemed it wasn’t shyness that made her blush after all, and even though he felt sure she liked him, or was starting to like him, he now understood her reticence. She put up a front to keep people off the scent of whatever it was she’d done. Or had been done to her. She blushed because she was hiding something. But what? And how much trouble had she brought with her to Mt Maria?

  There was no warrant for Rachel/Rebecca’s arrest that he knew of. There was nothing to suggest she was wanted for an offence—just questioning. But why the Crime Squad? And why had Rachel/Rebecca lost herself in the system?

  He knew in his heart—almost for a fact, except he didn’t have all the facts—that it was something serious, and he didn’t want his Rachel to be in trouble. Maybe she was being blackmailed. Or perhaps she was covering for another.

  He felt a muscle spasm in his cheek—he shouldn’t be calling her ‘his’.

  He pulled his mobile from his shirt pocket and rang a colleague and friend he’d worked with in the Drug Squad in Sydney, Jack Maxwell. Whatever the deal was it might be something operational and if there was anything hot happening, Jack would hear about it before it got anywhere close to Mt Maria.

  ‘I’m in Kalgirri,’ Detective Senior Sergeant Jack Maxwell said when he answered.

  ‘What are you doing back here? Didn’t you have some big bust going on over east?’

  ‘I’ve been sent back to your neck of the woods again. I’m shuffling paperwork.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Don’t ask,’ Jack said. ‘Long story. What can I do for you?’

  Luke gave him both names and told Jack about the Crime Squad looking for Rebecca.

  ‘Keep an ear open, would you?’ Luke asked him. ‘And this is just between you and me for the moment. I’ll pull her in, but I want to know what’s going on first.’

  ‘This is a personal one, eh?’

  Luke’s silence would give Jack the answer to that one. ‘Just find out what you can in the next hour.’ He’d have to report her presence in Mt Maria but he wasn’t going to chance never finding out what had happened or what she was involved in.

  ‘I’ll do what I can,’ Jack said. ‘But give me longer than an hour. And Luke—’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Do nothing yet.’

  ‘What are you not telling me?’

  ‘I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.’

  ‘Jack,’ he said, a warning in his voice. But Jack cut him off.

  He sat back in his chair. He was a uniformed cop now and unlikely to find out what Jack knew unless he coerced him to share confidential info. Which he had every intention of doing.

  He let his head fall back and closed his eyes. This stuff going on in his heart—maybe that was a bit like a gut instinct too. She wouldn’t be involved in crime, petty or otherwise. She didn’t have it in her. But she was in trouble and he had to find out what that trouble was.

  Mary might know something. She’d befriended Rachel— Rebecca. Christ, it was going to be difficult calling her Rebecca when he pulled her in. The shire’s human resources department must have employed her as Rebecca Smithfield and Mary might have more information—or maybe Rachel/Rebecca had let something slip.

  He looked up when Jimmy opened the door.

  ‘Solomon,’ Jimmy reminded him.

  ‘Thanks. I forgot.’

  ‘Donna spotted two horses,’ Jimmy said. ‘About ninety kilometres east. They’ve been abandoned. Ask Solomon if he wants them, would you?’

  ‘Will do.’ Solomon Jones was a horse whisperer. He was also a decorated ex-commando and a good friend. Luke listened if he had something to say.

  But first he wanted to catch Mary. He sat forwards and checked his watch. She’d be on her lunch break now and she always headed into town for a breath of fresh air.

  He rolled his chair back and grabbed his cap.

  ‘What’s up?’ Jimmy asked. ‘You’ve got a face like a—’

  ‘Not now, mate,’ Luke said, and walked past him.

  * * *

  He was forced to interact with a number of people on High Street who called out to him but he couldn’t manage a convivial smile, just a nod he tried to keep professional and not curt. Mostly, he brushed them off as politely as possible and kept walking.

  ‘Enjoying your lunch break, Mary?�
� he asked when he saw her walking towards him. He was finally able to put one of those community copper smiles on his face and hoped it reached his eyes.

  ‘No,’ she informed him. ‘I’m out on a mission. Our CEO wants the beautification committee to print the new museum brochures. I’ve had to resort to my least favourite role as volunteer and ask Mr Roper to help.’

  ‘Ouch.’ Roper was a narrow-minded pain in the arse. He hadn’t left town since he was a boy sixty years ago yet thought he knew it all. He was apt to frighten the tourists.

  ‘He’s positively gleeful,’ Mary said. ‘Gave me a mouthful for not having him on the official working-bee roster in the first place.’

  ‘He’s our resident expert on everything, eh?’

  ‘And how’s our resident eligible bachelor getting along with you know who?’ Mary asked.

  The side of Luke’s mouth curled into a grin of gentle warning but he was glad she’d given him the right opening. ‘Look, Mary. I’m in a bit of a fix.’ He paused and let Mary’s interest spark. ‘Do you think she might have a boyfriend or a husband?’ He kept his voice low so passers-by wouldn’t hear him.

  Mary preened, then looked around the street and Luke knew that while she was going to tell him eventually, he’d still better push for information carefully. ‘Because if she’s attached, or still married or something, then—obviously—I’d back off.’ Best if he didn’t let on to anyone that he might already have backed off.

  ‘Well,’ Mary said, lowering her voice to match Luke’s. ‘She hasn’t given me much insight into what her personal life was like before she arrived, and I don’t like to talk about other’s predicaments, but I have a feeling it wasn’t as nice as it could be. She’s changing her name.’

  ‘Legally changing her name?’ Luke asked. His tone might be casual enough but his blood pumped loud in his ears.

  ‘Of course, legally. She’s waiting on the certificate. And I know I shouldn’t have opened my mouth but it’s you, Luke, and you’re not going to blab.’

  ‘Of course not.’ Although he’d be pulling Rachel in for questioning in about an hour. And, God knew, that was going to be hard for both of them. ‘Does anyone else know?’ Mary was one of the good guys, but she liked to chat, and her friend Mrs Arnold liked to listen.

  Mary coloured. ‘I haven’t mentioned it to a soul.’

  ‘But?’ Luke prodded.

  ‘Amelia’s got wind of it. But that wasn’t me! Our CEO told her.’

  Wiseman? What was he blabbing for? ‘All right. Look, Mary—please advise Amelia to keep this information to herself.’

  ‘And Freda,’ Mary said, her cheeks reddening. ‘I might have told Freda. But she won’t breathe a word.’

  ‘Okay. Anything else?’ Luke asked.

  ‘That’s all we know—that Rachel isn’t her legal name yet, and that Donald Wiseman doesn’t like her. Rachel told me her family were troublemakers. That’s why she’s changing her name. But you didn’t hear any of this from me.’

  It was along the same lines as the story Rachel had given him—she’d said she had baggage. He’d presumed emotional, but maybe it was a lot more. ‘Any idea what her family do? What they’re involved in? Is it criminal or something?’

  ‘Haven’t got a clue.’ Mary leaned in. ‘Her real name is Rebecca Smithfield. I’m allowing her to use Rachel while we wait on the certificate. Perth office lost it.’

  ‘Lost it?’ That didn’t sound likely.

  ‘You’d think they’d get it right in the big city departments. They ought to come out here and see how we do it.’

  Had she lied to Mary? And if she had, had she done so easily? People had befriended her, it seemed pretty harsh to repay them in this way. Unless it was all cover for whatever she’d done wrong.

  ‘Would you try to help her?’ Mary asked. ‘I think she needs to talk to someone.’

  Luke nodded. ‘I’ll be talking to her, Mary, don’t worry about that.’

  ‘She’s such a nice lady. I’d like to see her put her troubles behind her.’

  ‘Whatever might be wrong,’ he said, ‘I’d like to see it sorted too.’ He’d like to be the one to sort it. He was going to have to back off with the personal relationship, but he’d help her through any troubles. Once he knew those troubles were above board.

  But the Crime Squad wanted to talk to her. That was a worry.

  Five

  Luke pulled up at a closed gate twenty kilometres out of town and got out of the troop wagon to open it.

  He checked his mobile. Still nothing from Jack.

  Once he was through the gate, he parked and closed it again.

  Three horses grazed on his left, and four in the paddock on his right. Fifty metres ahead of him, Solomon Jones ignored the police vehicle and continued shovelling woodchip from a wheelbarrow and throwing it inside one of the stables.

  ‘Solomon,’ Luke said in greeting. ‘I got your messages. Sorry it took so long to get out here. Got a great proposition for you though.’

  Solomon leaned his spade against the wheelbarrow. He was the same age as Luke, although his darker skin had weathered over the years and the furrows on his forehead had deepened, but that would be from his military experiences.

  ‘You’re here to sell me the horses,’ Solomon said.

  Luke laughed. ‘No cash required. You can have them.’ He’d got an update from Donna. Two ex-racehorses had been let loose almost a hundred kilometres down the Great Central Road. She’d traced the couple who’d done it and they were in the care of Kalgirri police. The horses were still roaming an area of land off the highway—Donna and Will hadn’t been able to catch them.

  ‘All right,’ Solomon said. ‘Since they found their way to me. I’ll go pick them up.’

  ‘How did you hear about them?’ Solomon didn’t have a mobile, or a television. Not even a radio—except his two-way.

  ‘Word gets around, brother. Even out here.’

  Someone from Pepper Grovers must have told him. Solomon had left his community years ago. His work with the elite 2nd Commando Regiment had taken him to East Timor, Iraq and Afghanistan—but they’d always be his people. Combat was behind him now. These days, his work was recovering lost horses.

  ‘It’ll mean nine horses in your care,’ Luke said. Solomon Jones hadn’t claimed the title horse whisperer but word had spread about his abilities and he had it whether he wanted it or not. He also preferred his solitary life out here at his stables. Maybe it was his heritage and his military service that gave him the need to live alone. ‘You thought any more about hiring help?’ Luke asked.

  For some reason the question brought a smile to Solomon’s face.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Pushy, aren’t you? Have you managed to get that five-foot-six brunette to go out with you?’

  ‘You can forget the brunette.’ He couldn’t hold back the derisive tone, although it was aimed at himself, not at Rachel Meade. Or Rebecca Smithfield. Or whoever she was. He shouldn’t have been so foolhardy as to fall for her in the first place.

  ‘Like that suddenly, is it?’

  ‘It’s not anything,’ Luke said. ‘Maybe it’s a good job it never was.’

  ‘You’re backing off?’

  ‘Might have to.’ Luke was used to maintaining personal boundaries, but this was Solomon, so he opened up. ‘There’s something going down. I don’t know what yet.’

  ‘But it involves your lady?’

  ‘She’s not my lady.’

  ‘What is it?’ Solomon asked, his tone serious.

  They didn’t go around sharing jokes over a beer, and Luke certainly wasn’t in the mood for jokes now, but there was a deep connection in their friendship. ‘I don’t know yet but it doesn’t look good.’

  ‘Bad timing for you then.’

  ‘Why?’

  Solomon took the Akubra off his head and wiped his brow with the back of his hand. ‘Tani says you’ve got someone looking for you.’ Tani Jones—Solomon’s uncle and an elder in
the Pepper Grovers community.

  ‘Me?’ Luke asked.

  ‘He doesn’t know who. He’s not here yet—or maybe he comes and goes. But he’s out there.’

  ‘How does Tani know?’

  ‘He went for a walk.’ Solomon didn’t mean a twenty-minute saunter. Tani had gone walking in the bush and might have kept walking for days. Luke had never wondered at the mysterious ways of Tani Jones’s knowledge—however it was he got it—but neither would he consider not taking any notice. Tani had an ear to the ground in ways Luke would never understand.

  ‘I followed two men a couple of nights back,’ Solomon said quietly. ‘Out at Mt Girra.’

  Mt Girra was part of the closest Aboriginal community to town—forty kilometres away—and you weren’t allowed to enter the area without a permit to do so.

  ‘Caucasian?’ Luke asked. He had to be talking about the two Luke had picked up in the early hours two days ago after someone reported them driving recklessly out of town.

  Solomon nodded. ‘Both drunk but not causing trouble. Watched them for a couple of hours, then gave them a fright and they left.’

  Luke grinned. ‘What did you do?’ Being given a fright by Solomon would be something to see.

  Solomon shrugged, not about to go into details.

  ‘Louie and I picked them up an hour later,’ Luke said. He’d been called out of his bed, but he was OIC—he was on duty even when asleep. If he could handle a problem himself, he did. This time he’d known he’d need assistance. ‘Had a bit of trouble getting them into the arrest van.’

  ‘Didn’t look like you or Louie had a problem.’

  It didn’t worry him knowing Solomon had been hiding in the shadows, watching. He’d arrested one of those men for being over the limit and the other because he’d joined his mate in refusing to accept the DUI charge. After a bit of a struggle, he and Louie got them both in the pod at the back of the arrest van and to the station around three am.