Instead of backing away from their leap, Rawn dropped to one knee. It was totally unexpected and their momentum sent them past him, unable to adjust in mid-rush. Rawn’s hand whipped around in a flat circle, backwards, to thrust the knife deep into the side of the man on his right. The force of his thrust turned Rawn around and the torque brought him to his feet again.
He was moving so fast that by the time he’d pulled the knife from the first, the second man had barely brought himself to a stop after his abortive leap. As he turned to rush back at Rawn, Rawn had already taken a big stride forward and was right there. The man literally ran onto the knife in Rawn’s hands, his eyes opening wide in almost comedic shock.
Rawn pushed at the man’s shoulder and he fell like a tree. Montana could feel the vibrations from his fall through her feet.
Rawn turned to face the last of the five men, who was closest to the bar. His knife was red with blood.
So far, only five seconds had passed since Rawn had ordered his beer to go. No one except Rawn and the men with the knives had moved.
The fifth man looked uncertain. He was glancing around the bar. Looking for Rabbit? If Rabbit had hired them, then Montana didn’t blame him for his doubt. Five against one—they would have been anticipating easy money, not this rout.
The fifth man called out to one of the groups huddled in the corner, a group of three men. Montana translated it even as her stunned mind identified the Arabic. We weren’t told he was a fighter! Command me! Tell me what I must do now!
Two of the men in the corner looked at each other, clearly puzzled. The third remained quite still, quite silent. He was another swarthy man, but clean-shaven. He showed no emotion whatsoever.
Montana knew him. Oh, she had never met him before, but she knew his face. It was familiar to her and later she would track that familiarity down to its source.
Rawn beckoned the fifth man to him, but the man curled up his lip and spat on the ground instead.
So Rawn threw the bloodied knife away, spread his hands to show he was unarmed and beckoned again. The man smiled. Much better terms, apparently. He started to circle Rawn and Montana heard the faint sound of approaching sirens. The cops, as promised. They would arrest all the fighters, including Rawn, who was the victim here.
“Rawn,” she said sharply, in warning, before she even realized she was about to speak.
He glanced at her and the fifth man took the opening and leapt at him.
Rawn took a casual step to the side as the man rushed past him. It almost looked rehearsed. He spun on one heel, his arm snaking around the man’s neck, the other pushing up against his ear. He took a deep breath and flexed his arms in a sharp, hard movement. There was a muffled, moist crunch. Rawn let him go and the man slid tiredly down to the soil.
“Thanks,” Rawn told her. Montana realized that he had glanced at her for the same reason he’d asked the manager for a beer—to bring the man closer.
She looked around for their leader, the man she knew. He’d disappeared.
She hurried to Rawn, troubled. “Get the hell out of here. You’ve killed five men. They’re not Australians, but—”
“They’re from the Middle East,” he said, peeling off his tee-shirt and dabbing it at the knife wound on his forearm. “That was Arabic he spoke.”
The tee-shirt had hidden the true extent of his muscles. There was very little fat there...just dips and smooth mounds of sun-bronzed flesh. She realized abruptly that she was inhaling his scent, which was heady and male. Her heart thundering again, Montana focused on a scar on his torso, right over his heart.
Vinnie. That’s where Vinnie was shot. The snapshot memory inserted itself in her mind, unbidden. She had turned around to coax Vinnie onwards and saw it happen in slow motion. Vinnie’s chest bursting open as the bullet drilled through him from behind. The outward explosion of blood, flesh, bone and heart muscle tearing through the dirty white tee-shirt.
The surprised look on his face. The slow buckle of his knees. His hand reaching towards her. Not to pull her to him...but to weakly wave her on. Wave her away, towards safety.
She stared at Caden Rawn’s scar, the memory grabbing her by the throat the way it had done twenty years ago, when it had been fresh and new. It held her frozen while it played out in her mind. She was helpless to halt the playback, completely helpless while it was re-enacted in full color in her mind.
“Run, Montana. Run for the wall. Go!”
“You have to come with me, Vinnie!”
“Hey. Hey, come on, look at me.” His voice, warm and rumbling. “Let me see your eyes.”
She blinked, shaking off the after-effects of the insistent memory with experienced ease. Then she realized Rawn’s big, warm hand was on her shoulder. It was Caden Rawn speaking to her, his deep voice gentle and concerned. She looked up at him, aware with every fiber in her body of his hand on her shoulder, of the fingertips curling around the back of her neck.
His black eyes stared into hers. “Were you hurt when I tossed you?” he asked, his tone one of concerned curiosity.
“No. No, I’m fine.” She tried to smile, to reassure him. For an endless, throbbing moment, he studied her. She thought he was simply trying to decide for himself if she was injured or not. Then he snatched his hand from her shoulder and straightened up with almost a snap to attention. With a quick draw of breath, he went back to dabbing at the thin line of blood on his forearm, concentrating on it. Not looking at her.
The silence was thick between them.
“You killed five men,” she said. This time her voice betrayed her. It was rough and weak. “Even if you plead self-defense you’re probably looking at jail time—”
“They’re not dead.” Rawn’s voice was a low burr.
“What?”
He cleared his throat and looked at her. “I handed out a bruised larynx, a small wound to the side, a concussion and a wrenched neck. The belly wound is the worst of them, but I was hurried. I aimed for a non-vital spot, though. I didn’t kill them. Who wants the complications?”
It took her a second to absorb that. “It’s still going to be complicated. You don’t sound Australian. Are you American?”
He shook his head. “I’ll be fine. What about you?”
“I’ll be okay.” She had no intention of explaining her diplomatic status. “Get the hell out of here, Rawn.”
He studied her for a moment. “If I leave, you’ll wear all sorts of trouble for letting me go.”
“I don’t think anyone here would believe for a second I could have held you back.”
He smiled. It was an unexpectedly warm expression that made his eyes light from within. “True. But you just have to say the word and I’ll stay.”
That smile, the warmth, made something loosen in her stomach and her heart to squeeze. “You would do that?” she whispered.
“For no one but you.”
The air between them shifted and changed. She stared up into his dark eyes. “Why me?”
“You cared enough to warn me.”
The sirens were very close now, enough to grab her attention. She put her hand on his shoulder and was bombarded with impressions of warmth, velvety skin, hard muscles beneath. “Go,” she said, giving him a push that barely moved him. “Just go. I’ll be all right.”
“You’re sure?” She could see concern in his black eyes.
“I can take care of myself.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said at last. He ambled out towards the river as if he had all the time in the world. In the last of the day’s light she saw him finally break into a slow, energy-conserving jog along the dry edges of the river bed, heading upstream.
She took a look around the room. Apart from the five men lying on the ground, the bar was completely untouched and quite empty.
As the police siren wailed closer, she decided that discretion would be better, for now, and followed Caden Rawn’s example. She hurried down into the riverbed and ran along the dry edge, behind the thick
screen of bushes and trees on the banks. But she headed downstream, towards the ocean. Two miles down she would circle back into town, check out of her motel and collect her car from the car park there.
As she ran, she felt the cold chills caused by Rawn’s scar spreading through her. Twenty years had passed but suddenly she was back to those awful days just after Al Khafji. It had taken nearly a year before the moments of intense recall had backed off and become simply memories she could recollect at will. It had taken another year after that before she’d go a whole month without dreaming about it.
She had completely forgotten the nausea that came with it, the hot flush that partnered with her cold, clammy skin to make her feel weak and dizzy. Well, now she remembered, and now she must learn how to forget it again.
Then there was her inexplicable reaction to Rawn himself. Where had that come from? It had felt like a fever that left her weak and vulnerable. She had never experienced anything like it before.
She shook her head as she jogged, clearing her memory of the odd sensations. Instead she tried to focus on the priorities. She had to get back to Perth so she could report into work tomorrow morning as normal. Once she was there she could access the databases.
Like Rawn, she didn’t need complications right now. She had enough on her plate—like a major terrorist hiding out right here in sleepy, laid-back Western Australia.
Chapter Seven
Steve was pissed off, twice over. Despite finishing their shift more than three hours before, he and Chris had been dragged back on duty to look into the bar fight at the Pink Galah.
As bar fights were almost a weekly highlight at the Galah, Steve was more than a little irritated to find out that every active police officer in Margaret’s—except for Borelli—had been called in to investigate. In a fit of rebellion, he failed to change back into his uniform. It irked him that no one tried to give him shit about it, either. They were too damned busy, was the problem.
The second reason he was pissed off was because someone had tried to cut up his town. He’d found out it was a knife fight within thirty seconds of walking into the sauna bath. By the time he staggered out under the pergola, sweat streaming down his face, he had the salient details. Five men against one.
Amazingly, the one without the knife had walked away from it and disappeared.
The doctor they’d hauled out of the ER and driven down to the bar was attending the other five on-site. Four of them were sitting on the long barbecue tables, their heads down. Shame? He’d find out in a minute.
The fifth lay on the stretcher the ambulance had provided and was being carried out the door. He was conscious, although pain was etched into his face.
Chris brought Barbs and Duncan, the owner, over to him. As the senior officer there, it was up to Steve to direct the on-site investigation. Margaret River was too small to play host to permanently assigned detectives. The most senior permanent officer was Sergeant Borelli. Under the circumstances, he couldn’t get involved.
There were two other witnesses, both nervous in the presence of the police. One was one of the hippie dropouts who lived further out along the edge of the river where they scratched out a living selling excess vegetables from their acre-sized commune to local buyers and anyone who stopped at their roadside fruit stand. The only possible reason the hippie would be in the bar also explained his nervousness. He would have stopped in to hook up with someone who could slip him some mind-altering drugs. He wouldn’t blow what folding negotiables he had on booze when they distilled their own alcohol and brewed their own beer in the commune.
The other witness was a sixty-year-old biker, sweating in black leather and studs, and reeking of stale cigarette smoke and dirty hair. He looked like he weighed maybe fifty kilos, soaking wet, and most of that was in his long, luxuriant silver and white handlebar moustache.
Steve interviewed both of them quickly, to get the highlights of what they saw. He gave them each one of the station’s business cards and asked them to drop by in the next week to complete a full report.
Chris rolled his eyes. “We’ll never see either of them again.”
“Yeah, we will,” Steve assured him. “They just need time to relax and figure out they’re not in hot water themselves. Then they’ll come in when they’re comfortable and we’ll get better details from them.”
Barbs was sitting at the nearest table, chewing the stubs of her fingernails, so Steve went to her next. “Hiya, Barbs. Sounds like you’ve had a hell of a session.”
“Tell me about it,” she said, dropping her hand into her lap where it squirmed with the other one. “That freaking guy!”
“The big one?” The other two witnesses had been wordy about the size of the man who had got away. “Anyone you know?”
Surprisingly, Barbs nodded. “Uh-huh. It was that guy that was hanging around here a few years ago. Remember that one that everyone just knew beat the crap— I mean, excuse me, the one that beat up that man called Rabbit?” Her eyes widened. “Hey, he was in here tonight, too!”
“Stew Connie?” Steve said.
“Is that his name? I only know him as Rabbit.”
“Has a tattooed dragon on his neck and a nose ring.”
“At least. Yeah, that’s the one.”
“Did they talk at all?”
“Who?”
“The big guy and Rabbit?”
“Don’t know. I was kinda busy out in the office.” She looked down at her lap.
Steve stared at the top of her brassy red hair, wondering what it was she was hiding. Barbs had a lot of secrets, some he was privy to and some, it appeared, he wasn’t. None of the secrets he knew directly threatened the security of his town, so he let it go.
“Thanks, Barbs. Why don’t you go home and relax? Get an early night?” He looked at Duncan, who nodded a little. The boss would let her go.
Barbs took a deep breath and stood up. “Thanks, I’ll do that.” She gave Steve a small smile. “Thanks, Steve.”
“You’ve got a ride home?” he asked her.
“It’s not far. I’d rather walk. Take my time.” She gave Duncan a bright, professional smile. “I’ll come back in tomorrow to do the stock-take.”
“No problems,” he murmured as she hurried back to the office. Steve followed her and paused at the door as she picked up her handbag.
“You’re alright, going home?” he asked. He knew what was waiting for her there, after all.
She glanced up at him, then quickly averted her eyes. “I’ll be fine,” she said, fumbling with the straps on her bag, then threading it over her shoulder.
“If you want to wait, I could drive you home when I’m done here.”
She did look at him squarely, then. “You know that’s not a good idea. Last time...” She shrugged. “You were a big help last time, Steve, but if you take me home, it’ll just be tweaking his nose all over again and it’s not worth it.”
The dull, gnawing anger was building in him again and he kicked it back with pure willpower. “You know where to find me if you need to,” he said.
“Everyone in Marg’s does,” she said, with a soft smile. She slipped past him. “Thanks, Steve.” And she was gone.
He took a deep breath and let it out, trying to disperse the fury. He couldn’t help her—that was what built the anger each time. She wouldn’t let him help.
Another deep breath, then he pushed himself away from the doorjamb and back to where Duncan was waiting for him. “So, what did you see of this knife fight, then?”
Duncan wiped his lips with his hand. “Talking’s thirsty work. Would you like a jolt while I tell you?”
Steve tugged at his jeans. “Don’t let these fool you. I’m still on duty.”
“‘Kay. Mind if I pour myself one?”
“No problem.” He followed Duncan around to the back of the bar and watched as he expertly poured himself a schooner glass of ale from the tap. He knocked back three quarters of it, topped it up again, took another deep swall
ow, then belched and sighed. “That’s better.”
“To calm the nerves?” Steve asked.
“You might say. I ain’t ever seen anything like that fight. Well, it wasn’t even a fight, really.” He jerked his head at the four men still sitting on the tables, Chris hovering nearby. “They had the knives, but if you hadn’t seen it for yourself, you’d never believe it to look at them. He slaughtered them. It was playground stuff for him. I honestly thought he’d killed them all when he walked away. I’m shocked as anyone they got up again.”
“Barbs says she knew the guy from a few years ago. Has she got the right one, do you think?”
“I never saw the guy that beat up Connie three years ago. He’d already left town before I heard the story. But I think, yeah, this guy’s the same one. Connie was scared spitless when they was talking.”
“They spoke together?”
“Kinda. Connie was talking to some woman sitting with all the surfers. Never seen her here before, that I remember. The big fella walked right up to Connie and started talking to him anyway, even though she was still sitting there. She was right pissed off, I tell ya.”
“At Connie?”
“At the big fella.”
“What’s she look like?”
“Long black hair. Funny eyes, kinda trance-y like.”
Steve’s heart did a little stammer. He managed to keep his face straight. “Okay, so the big guy and Connie talked. Then...what?”
“I had to pull a couple of beers. I looked up when I heard the gasp.”
“Who gasped?”
Duncan shrugged. “Everyone. You know when a whole room takes a couple of steps back?”
Steve knew exactly what he meant. He nodded.
“They was standing by the table, the big fella in the middle,” Duncan continued.
“They? The five with the knives?”
“Yeah. Connie’d scarpered. Don’t know where he went to. He just dived back into his hole, I guess.”
“So you don’t know why they picked on him?”
“Maybe he picked on them and they took offense? Who knows? They were just suddenly there, around him. Then just as suddenly, they weren’t. He finished them in about two minutes flat. Even asked me to pour him a beer in the middle of it all.”
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