by Lily Malone
But then again, maybe his mum would get the best of both worlds. Maybe most of her would stay in Cutters Creek but maybe a few tiny flecks would make it beyond Pickles’s dam and out to the wide world because while his mum had always been one for her family, she’d also loved adventure and faraway places.
If she’d hated her funeral, he was pretty sure Valerie Janine Honeychurch would have loved her wake.
They held it at Chalk ‘n’ Cheese café.
The first thing their mum would have done—had she been there—was head for the food table to make sure the food was up to scratch and the spread didn’t let down the Honeychurch name.
Well, Abe took care of that. The food was awesome. Brix ran his spoon through a piece of white chocolate and raspberry cheesecake and looked around for more.
He caught JT’s eye across the café. She’d been bailed up by Irene, Sally and Loraine and he was thinking he should rescue her when Jake stopped beside him.
‘How’s the old man holding up?’ his brother asked.
‘He’s doing okay.’
Taylor passed with a tray laden with finger food and Brix leaned across and took a skewer. It was loaded with two pieces of beef so tender they fell to bits in his mouth.
‘Going for savoury after sweet, are you?’ she said, taking his cheesecake plate.
‘I’ll have more cheesecake later,’ he said.
‘Food’s great, Taylor,’ Jake said.
‘’Course it is. Abe made it.’ Taylor smiled, but her face was serious. ‘You both need to talk to him about this thing with your mum. You especially, Jake.’
She moved on, swinging through the crowd as guests pecked at the tray like birds after a worm.
Jake let out a sigh. ‘Have I been a bastard?’
‘Ah, mate, I dunno. Maybe,’ Brix answered.
‘Shit. Alright then. Let me find the little twerp and apologise. Come on.’
* * *
‘Jaydah, what I want to know is why you kept the wedding such a secret? If I was thirty years younger and marrying one of those Honeychurch boys, I’d be shouting it from the rooftops. It would have been the wedding of the year.’ Irene square-danced the last part of it, swaying with her beef skewer. ‘I remember how all the girls felt about Stan back in the day.’
‘I really don’t think this is the time, ’Rene,’ Sally said, glancing about as if the walls had eyes and ears, and unlike Elvis, Valerie Honeychurch hadn’t left the building.
Irene stopped dancing.
‘Val would have been impressed with the food,’ Loraine said, nodding approvingly at her beef skewer. ‘It’s lovely. Young Abe sure inherited her skills in the kitchen.’
‘Anyway,’ Irene returned her beady glance to Jaydah. ‘We were talking about why you kept the wedding so top secret. I would have loved the chance to see you in Val’s dress.’
‘You did an amazing job on the dress, Irene. I loved wearing it.’
‘Well don’t you think the rest of us would have loved to see it?’ Irene exclaimed. ‘What about pictures? Show us some photos.’
‘Oh please do. Show us on your phone,’ Sally said. ‘It’s so amazing what you can do with phones these days.’
‘I didn’t take any pictures. The celebrant arranged a bloke to take a few but I don’t have them on this phone. They’re at home. Brix might have a few on his though.’
‘Well, where’s Brix then? He was right over there a minute ago.’ All three ladies craned their necks.
‘Well, he isn’t there now,’ Loraine pointed out.
‘I have got eyes,’ Irene said testily. ‘Where was I?’
‘Wedding photographs. Brix. The dress,’ Sally said. ‘Waltzing.’
‘Oh, the dances in the old days,’ Irene said. ‘I remember when Val first came to town. I might even remember the very first moment Stan saw her. In fact, come to think of it, I’m pretty sure it was me who invited her to the dance and that means I can take the credit for being the one who got them together. Stan was dancing with me and then his eyes lit up and when I looked around, there was Val in the doorway, wearing this gorgeous frock. She looked like Vivien Leigh but with bigger boobs … and pffft,’ she clicked her fingers, ‘that fish got pulled straight outta the sea.’
‘Well, Doug must have thanked his lucky stars,’ Jaydah said. ‘I bet he rushed in to claim your hand for the next dance and I bet he’s never let it go since.’
‘Not unless he’s eating!’ Sally said.
Irene’s gaze sought out her husband even as the women laughed. He was standing with Stan and a bunch of Chalk Hill farmers and townsfolk—cup of tea in one hand, biscuit in the other—nodding, and anyone could see the glint as Irene’s eyes filled with love for her hubby.
Behind that group, Jaydah caught a glimpse of Brix’s shirt as he followed Jake through into the café’s kitchen.
Her phone rang and she fished it out of her handbag. Her blood ran cold, then boiled as she recognised the number, dismissed the call and shoved the mobile back in her handbag.
Her father had started ringing her number in the week since Brix’s mum died. She hadn’t bothered responding. Maybe that was why he felt entitled to continue the calls.
If he rang again she’d call the police. She would not let him intimidate her. She would not give him another thought.
She shifted her weight. These shoes pinched her toes. The dress felt tight around her tummy, and she wondered how much longer she’d have to stay at the wake to be polite.
Her phone rang again.
‘Sounds like someone really wants you, love,’ Irene said.
‘Probably a telemarketer,’ Jaydah said, but she found her phone anyway and checked the caller ID. It was coming from her mum’s number. Jaydah had taken Rosalie and Jaz back to Jake and Ella’s after the funeral service because her mum wasn’t keen on coming to the wake. She wouldn’t know anyone and they’d all only worry about Jaz in the crowd.
It wouldn’t be right to say she was relaxed as she pressed to accept the call, because part of her worried something was wrong. She’d probably spend the rest of her life worrying that a call from her mother meant something was wrong.
‘Excuse me, ladies,’ Jaydah said, moving away from the older women and finding a quieter place near the café wall. She lifted the phone to her ear. ‘Hi, Mum. What’s up?’
‘And there’s a call that she answers,’ her father’s snake voice sneered, and her grip froze around the phone. ‘Now don’t you go hanging up on me again till I’m finished talkin’ to ya, Jaydah. That wouldn’t be good for anyone.’
Jaydah’s heart plunged to the bottom of her stomach and bounced before being hauled up—kicking, stinging—through her insides like a yoyo on a string.
CHAPTER
32
‘I’m sorry if I’ve been a bastard,’ Jake began, cutting to the chase when they found Abe. ‘You know me, mate. I hate surprises and this news about Mum and Dad, you and the chef, it knocked me.’
‘Don’t think it didn’t knock me too,’ Abe said, wiping his hands on a towel.
‘None of us saw that one coming,’ Brix said.
‘Thing is, Mum made her choices, she always did. It was nothing to do with you, and I shouldn’t have made you feel like it was your fault,’ Jake finished.
‘It’s okay, mate,’ Abe said. ‘I never thought of it as my fault. I have enough shit of my own to deal with without taking on everyone else’s shit.’
‘Fair enough,’ Jake said, and he held out his hand. ‘Brothers? Mates?’
‘Yeah, mate,’ Abe said.
‘Great,’ Brix said. ‘I thought I’d have to get JT to bust both your dumb heads till you shook hands and played nice.’
Abe took Jake’s hand and tugged him and the two of them clapped each other around the back.
‘So how much longer you reckon we’ve got to go out there?’ Brix said. The crowd was thinning and he wanted to find Jaydah and hold her tight, get out of here and take his family home.
‘It’s winding down. Been a good afternoon, Abe. You and Taylor have done great,’ Jake said. ‘Dad wants to come to the farmhouse tonight. He’s invited all of us. Aunt Kay too. Just the family. Can you stay, mate?’ He directed the last question to Brix.
‘You still got a room at the farmhouse for us? Even if Aunty Kay is there?’
‘We’ll make room.’
‘Aunt Kay can always stay in town with Taylor and me,’ Abe said.
Movement near the door caught Brix’s eye—it caught all the brothers’ eyes—as Jaydah charged through the door separating the café from the kitchen, eyes wild, face raw.
Beside him Jake said, ‘Whoa, where’s the fire?’
And Brix knew before JT said a word.
Keith.
She was yelling before she reached them, gripping the phone as if it was a rock she wanted to launch at her father’s head. ‘He’s got Jaz! He’s taken her, Brix!’
‘Slow down, JT. Take it easy,’ Brix said, holding her arms, rubbing up and down. ‘Tell us.’
‘I thought it was Mum on the phone. He’s at the farmhouse. Don’t you see? He must be there because he’s using Mum’s phone! He told me he’s taking Jaz for a swim. He said he’s not taking her to the town pool and he’s not paying good money to take her to Pickles’s stupid bloody ski park.’ The words raced from her mouth, shoving, heaving like horses vying for space out of the gate. ‘So the only other place Dad could take her is Cutters Creek. We have to go, Brix. I have to find her before he hurts her!’
‘Wait. Wait,’ Jake said beside them. ‘You need to call the police. I’ll get the Emergency Services guys going.’
‘Most of them are here,’ Abe said, indicating the front of the café. ‘Whole town’s here.’
‘Would Keith take Rosalie too or just Jaz?’ Brix asked.
Jaydah’s eyes swung to Jake and back to Brix, panic etched across every line of her face.
‘I’ll ring the home phone, see if I get any answer,’ Jake said, picking his phone out of his pocket and punching in his own number. It rang and rang, and he turned off the call and punched in a new number, telling them as he did so, ‘I’m calling Mount Barker police.’
‘You can’t send the SES and the police to Cutters Creek if you aren’t even sure that’s where he’s gone, can you?’ Abe said.
‘If Keith’s been to our place when Rosalie and Jaz are there, he’s already broken the restraining order. The police need to know that. They’ll take some time to get from Mount Barker anyway. Even with lights and sirens they’re a good twenty-five minutes away. At least they can be on their way here while we get it worked out.’
‘I’ll go to the farmhouse,’ Brix said to Jaydah. ‘If Jaz or Rosalie are there I’ll find them. You and Jake and the SES boys go to Cutters Creek, okay? If there isn’t anyone at the farmhouse I’ll come after you.’
‘It’s Mum’s funeral,’ Abe said. ‘We can’t just leave the old man and not say anything.’
‘I’ll find Ella. She and Taylor can handle things here. It’s winding up anyway,’ Jake said, holding the phone, waiting for the call to go through to the police station.
Jaydah’s weight shifted back and forth.
‘Go,’ Brix urged her. ‘We came in two cars so you could head home if you needed to, so go. Jake will get the SES boys moving until the cops can get here. You’re not on your own anymore, JT. We’ll all help you. Now go! Text me if you find them; the minute you find them. I’ll do the same if I find anything at the farm.’
* * *
‘Rosalie? Rosalie!’ Brix prowled through the farmhouse, scouring all the usual places. She wasn’t in the kitchen or the living area. He strode towards the bedrooms, almost tripping over the cord of the vacuum cleaner. ‘Rosalie?’
There was a crash from behind him, then a series of thumps and he turned on a dime.
‘Jesus, Rosalie?’
Jaydah’s mum was on the floor, legs scrabbling. The ankles he could now see protruding from behind the couch were wrapped in tape, kicking at the wall.
Brix dashed across the room.
Near Rosalie’s feet, the plant stand she’d kicked had toppled towards the television cabinet, smashing the timber corner and sending DVDs spiralling across the rug. Soil spilled to the carpet. Half a pack of Jaz’s playing cards was strewn all through that soil. The plant’s green spikes had been crushed by the weight of the pot, a single long stem snapped like a broken bone.
He shoved the couch out of the way and half knelt, reaching into the gap. Rosalie lay face down on the carpet, ankles taped, wrists taped behind her back. He wedged his shoulder between the furniture and the wall and pulled Jaydah’s mum up and out.
‘I’ve got you, Rosalie. It’s okay.’ Gently, he guided her onto the couch.
Her chest heaved. More tape covered her mouth, all of it wound roughly around her head; two, three times, tangled in her hair.
A job done fast and messy. Keith hadn’t been hanging around.
‘Hold on, Rosalie. I’ll be right back.’
Her moan through the gag was a silenced scream that he not leave her sitting there, not leave her alone, but he had to get scissors to deal with the tape or he’d have to pull and tear at it, and all that would do was hurt.
He returned with scissors. ‘Hold still.’
He examined the tape in her hair, deciding quickly to cut it out in a chunk. A snarl of black hair and white tape slumped to the floor.
‘I’m so sorry, Rosalie. This is gonna hurt,’ Brix said, taking hold of the end of the tape where it stuck to her cheek. She mumbled at him and it sounded like: do it do it.
Small patches of skin and hair tore away, leaving a raw red welt.
‘Keith has Jasmine! He took her!’ Rosalie said, twisting her torso so he could get at her bound wrists.
‘Tell me.’ He cut the tape.
‘Jaz was out in the chook pen collecting the eggs. I hear the dog is barking but Ella said she might bring Sam home if he was bored at the wake. So I thought it was Ella bringing Sam. I didn’t think of Keith.’ Fear shone through her tears. ‘Jaz burst through the door so hard I worried she’d break the house and I closed the vacuum so I could hear her and said “Slow down, slow down” and then she said Daddy wanted to play Snap.’ Rosalie’s voice died to a whisper. ‘And then Keith came in. He came into the house.’
Brix knelt to cut the tape from Rosalie’s ankles.
‘He knows Jaydah was at the wake. He said he drove past the cafe and saw her car. He said it didn’t surprise him she wouldn’t take Jaz or me because we were embarrassments now she’s married to such an important Honeychurch … you know how he is. He said he rang her to pass on his apologies about your mum’s passing and she wouldn’t answer the phone. He said she always was a snooty bitch … and he was, he was, I don’t know the words. Angry but not wanting to show it.’
Rosalie rubbed the blood back into her wrists and ankles and he helped her up.
‘Tell me the rest on the way, Rosalie. We’ve got to go.’
‘We are going to find them?’
‘We are. We’re going to Cutters Creek.’
CHAPTER
33
Jaydah navigated the dirt track that sliced the bush beside Cutters Creek. Heavy and slow, the creek lazed beside her like it had all the time in the world and didn’t care that she bounced and fizzed in her seatbelt and wished she could fly.
You want a fight with me, Dad. You’ve got a fight with me.
How dare he!
How dare he come after them now!
Her phone pinged with an incoming text. It was from Brix and it said: Your mum is okay and Jaydah closed her eyes for a millisecond, shoulders sagging in hot relief against the seat.
When she looked up from the phone screen, she had to hit the brake and brace against the skid.
A tree had crashed across the track—been down a couple of weeks by the look of the dried leaves and branches. Bigger vehicles had forced a path through
the bush around it, but she doubted her Subaru would get through.
She pulled her car tight into the left-hand side of the track, leaving room for the SES truck and the police, and any other vehicles that might be coming behind her. Then she killed the engine and picked up her phone.
It was okay. She wasn’t far from the picnic area and she could run and Brix would be behind her. Jake and the local emergency services crew would be behind her.
Jake had yelled at her to wait for him and she said she would so he’d let her go, but she couldn’t wait. She couldn’t.
Jaydah sprang from the driver’s seat and marched to the rear of the car, popping the trunk, grabbing out the training bag she always kept there and digging through for her kali sticks, glad now that they’d brought both cars across for Val’s funeral. Brix came first, a day or two earlier to make arrangements with his brothers and to be there for his dad.
Snatching her dress over her head, she threw it into the boot. Then she pulled on her training clothes, laced up her running shoes.
Every other thought she emptied out of her brain: the wake, the funeral, her mother, Brix.
Her job was to find Jaz. Her job was to protect her sister from the monster and make sure that snake could never strike again.
This time she’d kill him.
Jaydah patted the kali sticks twice into her palm, then she ran, keeping her steps light, conserving her energy as best she could.
Her father’s white ute was parked at the main swimming hole. In front of it, strewn on the sand near the water’s edge, Jaz’s crumpled towel.
Staying in the shadows of the bush, Jaydah fired off a text to Brix: They’re at swimming hole.
* * *
Brix’s ute rocked and swayed through the heavy sand on the road above Cutters Creek. He was heading for the granite cliffs downstream from the swimming hole, where the adrenalin junkies abseiled up and down on the dizzying drop. Beside him, Rosalie sat white-knuckled, white-lipped, as she retold her story.
‘He played three hands of Snap with Jazzy and she told him about how she could swim now and he said no way, Snazzy Jazzy, you know, in that way he does, and she said if he didn’t believe her she would show him if he took her to the beach. And then she said about the horses at the winery and that she had her new job making boxes and did he know that cardboard could cut your fingers, and he let her win all the hands of Snap and said she was still the queen of Snap and he bet no one in the world could beat her now and she said: Brix can sometimes, and he said: can he now? And I went oh no on the inside but I didn’t say it out loud.