Terror Stash

by Tracy Cooper-Posey

  * * * * *

  Forty minutes later, he was bumping down the dirt track that led to Steve’s shitty little house out in the sticks. The man had wasted hours doing the place up and with nothing much to show for it. He’d been doing it himself, one project at a time. He’d save up, buy the materials, spend a weekend or two or three knocking himself out on the repairs, then start the whole bloody process over again.

  The next owner would probably bulldoze the whole joint. Consider it a capital gain.

  Borelli got out of the car and looked around, making it look casual. Only Goonewardene’s vintage Falcon sat next to the house. Borelli moved ten yards down the side of the house until he could see behind it. No other cars there, either.

  He walked around to the front verandah and paused with his foot on the bottom step. Chris Goonewardene sat bolt upright in the garden bench Scarborough had sawn the legs off and hung from the roof with chains.

  The man Rawn sat next to him. In contrast, he was relaxed, his ankles crossed and the heels of his boots rocking against the floor, making the bench swing a few inches forward and back. His jeans were incredibly ripped and dirty, while the black Billabong shirt was crisp and clean.

  “G’day,” Rawn said. It was a passable version of the contraction that no one other than native Australians seemed to be able to say properly.

  Borelli felt his caution pop into high gear. “This is...interesting.”

  “He forced me to make the call,” Chris said. “Sorry.”

  “Forced? With what? Bad manners?”

  Chris hadn’t moved an inch. “He has a knife digging into my spine.”

  “True,” Rawn agreed. “Just to the left of the seventh vertebrae. Exactly between the ribs where it’ll slide right in with least resistance. Four inches in, I hit his heart.” He considered that for a moment. “The back of this seat is the perfect height. I wouldn’t have to push very hard at all from this angle.”

  Borelli shrugged. “This is supposed to make me behave? I think you’ve got the wrong grip on my priorities.”

  “The knife is to make Chris, here, behave and to get him to call you and get you here.”

  “And now that I’m here?”

  Rawn’s face was devoid of emotion. The black eyes seemed to bore into him. “Been throwing any bodies over cliffs lately, Borelli?”

  Borelli laughed a little, covering his shock. How the hell had the body been found so fast? How had they connected it with him? He leaned down low to look beneath the seat. “Where’s the microphone?”

  “I’m not taping this,” Rawn assured him. “This is personal. You’re here to answer for the murder of Steve Scarborough.”

  “Lovers, were you?” Borelli asked.

  “Friends, Borelli. Something you wouldn’t understand.”

  “I’d say the same thing about you. Your reputation in this town is less than sterling.”

  Rawn nodded, completely unmoved. “A week ago, you would have been right.”

  “How moving.” Borelli stepped the rest of the way out of the sun, onto the verandah proper. It put his head higher than Rawn’s and he was on his feet while Rawn was sprawled on his ass. But Borelli didn’t let that relax him. He’d heard too much gossip about Rawn’s legendary physical abilities.

  “Your cruiser is the only one in Margaret River with two aerials,” Rawn continued. “The surfing population here have a chronic disrespect for the law and they’re used to noticing each cop’s habits and routines. You made a huge mistake heading for the cliffs when you did. Do you have any idea how many surfers are in Marg’s right now? Do you know how many of them surf at sunset, when the sea breeze picks up the waves?”

  Borelli kept his mouth shut. His cruiser had been seen on the cliff tops, but that didn’t mean anything at all. Chris, the big idiot, was sweating. The drops were rolling down his face and darkening his shirt.

  But Rawn wasn’t finished yet. “It was the surfers who fished Steve out of the sea the next morning. They’ve spent years watching the rips and tides here. They could pinpoint to within a few feet where he would have come from and that was right below where your cruiser had been parked about the time he would have had to fall into the sea.”

  Borelli shrugged. Despite Rawn’s denial, the idea of a hidden tape kept him cautious about confirming or denying anything. “Where’s the woman, by the way?” he said, instead.

  “Right behind you,” came her voice.

  Borelli spun, startled. She had crept over that old wooden floor without a single squeak to give her way. Such stealth! She stood about two meters away, her hands at her sides, wearing jeans as filthy as Rawn’s and a plain white tee-shirt that was too large for her. No weapon. Her green eyes were steady. Unflinching. “You not only killed Steve, but you’ve been hiding Ria Jones’ operations from the public. Protecting her. You helped her build her private army of scum. You and Constable Goonewardene, there.”

  “You’ll notice that he’s not exactly throwing himself on his sword in remorse, right?”

  “That’s because Caden’s knife is in his back,” she said, serene and controlled.

  “About three-eighths of an inch in, I’d say,” Rawn agreed amiably.

  Chris swallowed, but said nothing.

  “Actually, you interrupted Caden.” She stayed where she was, forcing Borelli to back up until he could see both of them with a small swing of his head. But despite the maneuvering, he still felt prickly discomfort at having to divide his attention that way. He wondered if she had chosen her position for that reason. But she was just a consular clerk....

  “What he had been about to tell you was that we got hold of a copy of the coroner’s report on Steve’s death this morning. A friend of mine at the consulate emailed it to me.” She reached slowly into her back pocket and pulled out a folded sheet of A4. “Now, you want to talk about interesting?” She waved it. “The coroner was puzzled about the wound on the back of Steve’s head. No normal rocks could have done it. In his report he describes it as...” She unfolded the sheet of paper and read from it. “A regular, elongated depression that would be created by the forceful impact of a blunt object shaped like a pipe, or cosh.”

  He glanced at Chris, wishing he’d enquired more closely about what he’d done with the cosh he’d used.

  “Ah, there we go,” Rawn said instantly. “Chris here was the one with the cosh, then.”

  “We wondered which of you had done what, you see,” the woman said, making Borelli swivel his head back to her.

  “Why on earth would you care?” Borelli asked.

  Her eyes narrowed a little. “You have to ask?”

  “You stupid fuck!” Chris cried. “They’re trying to figure out who did what so they can fit the punishment to the crime!”

  Borelli’s heart lurched. He swiveled back to Chris, in time to see him stagger from the bench, his face grey and wet with sweat. Chris pointed at him with a shaking finger. “I’m not going to carry this for you. No fucking way.” He looked at the woman. “He gave the order. He’s the one that worked with the Jones woman. He’s the one that decided how we’d do it.”

  “What order is it that he gave you?” Rawn said, rising from the bench. He had a hunting knife in his left hand, the hand that had been behind Chris.

  Chris spun to face him.

  “Just shut up, Chris!” Borelli said quickly.

  “The order to kill Steve!” Chris screamed and burst into noisy tears.

  Borelli, bemused, saw that a trickle of blood had run down the back of Chris’s shirt and soaked into the cotton.

  Rawn looked at the woman.

  “Did you get that?” the woman asked, staring into the middle of nowhere.

  Borelli turned again, feeling a dull fury pound at him. “What did you say?”

  She reached behind her to dig into the back of her jeans. She withdrew one of the small, powerful radios that Borelli had been trying to purchase for his own men for a year or so—except that the inspector had kept ho
lding out on him. The radios were good for anything up to five miles.

  She held it up for him to see. “No microphones, no tape recorder. But at the other end of this radio are your inspector and a couple of court-appointed lawyers. I don’t know for sure, but I suspect there’s a recording device attached to their radio.”

  “Montana,” Rawn growled. It was a warning.

  Borelli swiveled again. Rawn had Chris in an arm lock, his knife at the man’s throat.

  “You might as well come down now, inspector,” Montana said. She was speaking into the radio.

  “On our way,” came a tiny voice.

  Borelli shook his head. “Fuck this,” he declared and took off running, heading for the verandah steps.

  “Shit!” Montana cried and dropped the radio.

  “Stop him!” Rawn told her.

  Borelli grinned. How was a little bit of fluff like her going to stop him? Right now, a brick wall would have trouble holding him back. He had no intention of being stopped, slowed or otherwise detained. No way.

  That was when she landed on his back with enough force to send him staggering down the steps and on to the grass before landing on one knee, her weight bearing him down. She must have taken a running leap from the verandah.

  He pushed off with the foot on the ground, intending to get to his feet and ram her back against the verandah posts, but as soon as he started to move, her legs wrapped around his waist, squeezing hard. Her forearm snaked around his throat, at the same time her other hand rammed against the back of his head, pushing it forward.

  The pain in his throat was severe and panic inducing. He stopped dead, unable to plan beyond the immediate need to keep breathing.

  Scragged. She’s scragging me.

  They used this move themselves on the odd belligerent drunk, or high-testosterone idiot trying to prove something by taking them on. No wonder it worked so well. He reached for her forearm, eyes streaming with the pain, but she pushed against his head, stepping up the pressure and he let his arms drop.

  He tried running backwards, to ram her into the rails as he’d first intended. As soon as he started to move, though, her legs unwound from his waist. For a silvered moment she was hanging from him purely by the arm hooked around his throat, then she planted a knee in the small of his back. He had no idea why until he was brought to a halt, a good two paces from where the verandah wall should be. The pressure on his back and his neck doubled.

  What the hell? He couldn’t turn his head to look at what she was doing and he couldn’t make contact with the wall.

  Suddenly, he was shoved forward. Hard. He realized that she had used her other foot as a stopper, taking the impact against the verandah with it. She had used it to push back off the wall. He staggered again. This time when he thrust his foot out to save himself, he didn’t have the strength left to keep his balance. He sprawled across the lawn and gave a wheezy groan as both her knees rammed into the small of his back. The pressure on his throat didn’t let up for a second. It was all he could think about.

  “On your knees,” Rawn said from close by.

  Borelli felt the impact of Chris lowering himself to the grass next to him.

  “Stomach,” Rawn said.

  A muffled groan. Then silence.

  Borelli felt a big hand reach under his chin, sliding between her forearm. The finger and thumb pressed under his ears and just as he realized what Rawn was about to do, the rush of blackness hit him.

  * * * * *

  Montana rolled off Borelli’s limp back. “Carotid?” she asked Caden as he picked up the knife. He had a knee in Chris’s back and his arm still locked high up his spine.

  “It’ll give us a minute or so. I’d feel happier if you sit on his back anyway. He’s a slippery bastard.”

  As she parked herself on Borelli’s broad back, Caden grinned at her. “That was great. I enjoyed watching that.”

  She laughed a little. “Well, it worked just like you said it would.”

  “I’ll have to teach you more.”

  “I’d like that.”

  They sat for a moment in silence.

  “It’s odd,” Montana said.

  “What is?”

  “Out of everything that I’ve done this last week, right now is the only time I’ve felt good about it. I wasn’t scared out of my wits and I wasn’t questioning my sanity.”

  “That’s because you weren’t doing it for you.”

  She nodded. “Yeah. That’s it.” After a minute she added, “I was totally pissed at them.”

  He nodded. “The bad guys can do that to you.”

  After a moment of introspective silence, they heard cars approaching, their suspensions and exhaust systems rattling over every pothole on the track.

  “Steve would have liked what you did, too,” Caden said.

  Montana cocked her brow. “What, is that a guy thing?”

  * * * * *

  Steve licked his dry lips and tried an effortful smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes, which were still cloudy with pain and the powerful drugs circling his system via the intravenous feed in his arm. “It’s not a guy thing,” he told her, his voice still scratchy from all the seawater he had breathed, and the rough but effective CPR Bruce had applied after pulling him out of the water and onto his board, a few minutes after Steve had fallen from the cliff.

  “If it’s not a guy thing, what is it?” Montana asked, honestly puzzled.

  “It’s more basic than that,” Caden commented. He sat in the single available visitors’ chair, a hard molded plastic seat with metal legs that discouraged long visits. He looked completely relaxed and at ease but Montana could see a hidden tension in him, under the surface calm. “It’s primitive.”

  “Primitive?” she repeated.

  Steve nodded, his head moving only a fraction of an inch. “It’s a vengeance thing,” he said hoarsely, then winced.

  Montana stared at him. “That’s not very policeman-like.”

  “You were pissed at Borelli, too,” Caden pointed out.

  She pressed her lips together, then relented. “I suppose I was. But I was angry about what he did to Steve. You two, both of you, actually got pleasure out of what I did to him because it was pay back.”

  “Damn right,” Caden growled.

  She shook her head. “I don’t get why you think it is the same. Is that because I’m a woman?”

  “It’s because you’re a nice person,” Steve told her. “You haven’t rubbed shoulders with enough screwed up bastards in your lifetime to truly understand how they work and the very thin difference between doing what needs to be done and vengeance.” He shifted on the bed, trying to get more comfortable and hissed sharply as pain speared him.

  Montana straightened. “We should leave you to sleep,” she told him. “Three days lying on a camp bed in Bruce’s beach shack hasn’t done you any favors.”

  “The docs say I’ll be just fine once my vision comes back together,” Steve grumbled. “You don’t have to go. I’ve slept nearly a week already.”

  Montana gently squeezed his shoulder. “And you should sleep some more,” she told him. “You’re already looking tired.”

  “Only if you promise you’ll visit again so I don’t go crazy with boredom when I am awake.”

  Caden snorted. “Your plain clothes detail outside the door is stupefied by the number of beach bums and long hairs trooping in to see you at all hours of the day. You’re not hurting for company.”

  Steve rolled his eyes. “They last about thirty seconds,” he said, his lips turning up in a small smile, “and they edge toward the door the whole time, trying to watch the security guys and worrying about if they’re going to get patted down before they leave.“ He gave a small laugh that cut off quickly as he winced and held still, his eyes shut.

  Montana leaned down and kissed his cheek. “Get well, Steve,” she murmured. “You’re a nice person, too.”

  He cleared his throat. “You keep hanging around wit
h the big guy, there, you’re going to get an education a nice girl like you may not want. You know that, right?”

  Montana glanced at Caden. He had his arms crossed and his legs spread. Defense mode. He had heard what Steve said, for Steve had made no attempt to drop his volume. Despite Caden’s defensive posture, he had a neutral, even amused expression on his face. His gaze caught Montana’s and he really did smile. His shoulders lifted a fraction of an inch. It was a shrug.

  “You don’t know Caden like I do,” Montana assured Steve. “He’s completely harmless if you keep him fed.”

  Steve shifted impatiently on the mattress. “I know him. I know enough. He might be on his best behavior when you’re near, but people have a habit of turning up dead around him.”

  Montana recoiled both physically and mentally, cold shock slithering through her. “Steve…” she began, but halted, unable to think of anything else to say. All the mellow pleasure of the day had disappeared. “I thought you… Never mind.”

  Steve’s fingers gripped her wrist. “I’m not saying he’s going to butcher you while you’re sleeping. If I thought that, I’d have his ass thrown behind bars quicker than a snake’s blink.”

  Montana detached her wrist from his weak grip. “Good,” she said, her tone cool.

  Steve took a breath and let it out. “You hang with him, Montana, you’re going to see things you never knew existed in the world. You’ll figure out the difference between true good and evil better than I could ever lay it out for you, and you’ll wish you had got to stay a nice lady, instead.”

  “Thanks for the character reference, Scarborough,” Caden growled.

  Steve swore under his breath. “You’re one in a million, Rawn. The sort of character and strength you’ve got only comes along once every couple of generations. But you walk down some of the darkest tunnels the world has invented. She has to know that.”

  “She already knew that,” Montana said, and wrapped her arms around her middle, as the high level of air conditioning in the hospital finally registered on her bare arms. She shuddered.

  Caden dropped sunglasses over his remarkable eyes. “But now she’s thinking it through all over again, isn’t she?” he asked her, his voice soft. Soft and deadly.