by Chris Taylor
Josie raised an eyebrow in surprise. She was a kid born and raised in the country, but she’d never lived on a farm. Her father hadn’t been interested in firearms and living in the city of Grafton, there hadn’t been a need. Not like there was in the bush, where the eradication of wild pigs and kangaroos was often a necessity in order to protect precious crops.
“What did you do after you loaded the gun?”
“I took off back to the house. I had to get back there. I had to help my mom.” His voice trembled. His gaze lowered to his lap where he picked at a loose thread on his pajamas. Josie said a silent prayer that he’d hold it together enough to finish.
“It’s okay, Daniel. Take your time. The next part’s going to be rough. When you’re ready, you can tell me.” She watched while he pulled more determinably at the thread around the waistband of his pants. He bit his lip and frowned and then sucked in a deep breath. He looked up and his gaze skittered over hers and then landed on the floor. Her heart lurched at the pain on his face.
“What happened when you got back to the house, honey? You went back to your mother’s room?”
He gave her a jerky nod, his gaze still fixed on the industrial-strength linoleum that covered the interview room floor.
“Then what happened?”
Tears sprang to his eyes and he swiped at them with the back of his hand. He drew in a shuddering breath and let it out on a heavy sigh. Josie stayed quiet, giving him the time he needed. At last, he looked up at her with eyes so haunted, the picture would stay with her until the day she died.
“He was lying on top of my mom. He had his pants down. My mom wasn’t moving. All I could see were her legs, spread wide. He was grunting like a boar on the run from pig dogs. Mom was still crying, but softly, not like before. I lifted the gun and looked through the scope. There was enough light from the lamp on the nightstand for me to take a good aim. I was more scared than I’ve ever been in my life, but I had to stop him. I had to stop him hurting my mom.”
Daniel’s breath came hard and fast and he rocked to and fro on the seat. It was almost like he’d left Josie and was back there, reliving the scene frame by frame. Her heart went out to him. She couldn’t imagine the horror he felt.
“I took aim. I knew what I had to do. A moment later, I pulled the trigger.” He bent over as if in agony and held his head in his hands. A howl of pain escaped him, followed quickly by another and another. He spoke through gasping sobs.
“It all happened in slow motion. His head exploded in front of me. It spattered the walls and the pillows and the headboard. There was blood everywhere. My mom wouldn’t stop screaming…”
Josie drew in a shaky breath, feeling nearly as harried as the boy. A coldness settled deep inside her and she was frightened it would never thaw. Daniel had witnessed a horror too awful to describe and yet, he’d managed to do just that. She couldn’t imagine how he’d pick up the pieces and go on; come to terms with the reality of what had happened—to him and to his mom—and to overcome it enough to move on with his life and live as normally as possible.
How was he going to manage it? How would he ever feel normal again? She couldn’t imagine how anyone would even take the first step toward accepting the night’s events and putting them behind them. It would take years of therapy and even with that there was no guarantee. She wanted to help him, but what if she couldn’t?
She’d been a practising psychologist for nearly six years, but she’d spent all of that time in a private practice in one of the wealthier, northern suburbs of Brisbane. Her patients of the past were mostly rich and spoiled teens who were giving their parents a headache. That was far removed from what she’d just experienced in the early hours of the morning in an interview room buried in the bowels of the Watervale Police Station.
In Brisbane, after a few sessions giving a child her undivided attention and listening, really listening to their problems, she always followed it with a family session where she bluntly told the parents the truth: Their children needed less of their money and more of their time; their children needed to feel that they mattered.
Most of the time, she was able to fix things and everyone went away happy. Well, maybe not everyone. More often than not, the parents were less than thrilled with her tactics, but no one complained about the results.
After six years where nothing much changed but the names of the children who filed through her office, she’d gotten to the point where she was disillusioned with her chosen profession. She’d started out in her first year of university with stars in her eyes and the world at her feet. There was nothing she couldn’t achieve. She was young and so idealistic and determined that nothing would stand in her way. She was going to make a difference; she was going to save the world—one desperately sad and lonely child at a time.
But it hadn’t turned out that way. It hadn’t meshed with her ideals. Her initial excitement when she’d been offered the job in the exclusive private practice had waned over the years and she’d become more than a little jaded.
When her father suffered a brain hemorrhage last Christmas, she’d finally given voice to her dissatisfaction. Sitting by his hospital bed in the ICU, she’d found the courage to say it aloud, albeit to a man who was in a coma. It was then that she’d realized the truth: She hated her job.
The reality of it was nothing like what she’d imagined; nothing like the career she’d worked hard for and dreamed of. Disappointed and disillusioned, she decided to leave the city and come home. She needed time to regroup and to rethink the direction of her career. It had been a stroke of luck her mother had seen the job advertisement in the local newspaper for the position with Rural and Regional Health.
And here she was, dealing with a child who couldn’t be further from the patients she had worked with in the city. A child who needed her so desperately, she was terrified she might let him down.
What if she didn’t have the experience he needed? What if she said the wrong thing? He was broken inside. What if she couldn’t put him together again? What if he never healed?
She swallowed a moan of despair, not wanting to alarm him. This was about him: Daniel. It had nothing to do with her. She had to pull herself together and believe in her abilities. She needed to employ whatever skills she had at her disposal to make him whole. Or as whole as he could be under the circumstances. She vowed with every fiber of her being to make that happen.
* * *
Chase stared at the woman and the child through the two-way glass and steeled himself against the emotion that tightened his chest. Dread weighed down his limbs. He glanced at Riley, who looked as grim as he felt. Chase closed his eyes at the thought of what he had to do.
“We have to charge him,” Riley murmured tiredly.
Chase drew in a deep breath and released it slowly. His shoulders slumped on a sigh. “Yeah, we do. As soon as we get his confession on record.”
“We need to call him a lawyer.”
Chase grimaced. “We both know the public defender will be sleeping off another late-night bender. He won’t even hear his phone. If we wait until we get someone from Grafton, it might be too late. The boy might clam up again. I say we do it now and the let lawyers argue over the rules.”
Riley stared at him for a long moment and then gave a reluctant nod. “Yeah, I guess. Do you want to do it, or shall I?”
Chase scrunched his eyes closed and rubbed at the headache behind them. A moment later, he opened them. His gaze was steady on Riley’s, even as his gut twisted into knots. “I will.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yeah, he knows me from the farmhouse. A formal interview might be better coming from someone who’s a little familiar.”
“I don’t know if anything in this poor kid’s life is ever going to be better again, but we have no choice. He admitted to blowing that son of a bitch’s brains out. We have to let the courts take it from here.”
“It’s too bad.”
“Hey, I don’t like it any mo
re than you do, but that’s the way things are. We believe in a justice system that upholds the rules we all agree to abide by, even if you’re only twelve.”
“What are we going to do with him?”
“Charge him, fingerprint him. Do what you’d normally do.”
“What about his mother? Should we wait for her?”
Riley shrugged. “She might well be admitted to the hospital overnight. She’s probably been sedated. I say let’s get it over with. Josie can stay with him. She seems to have built a rapport with him.”
At the mention of Josie’s name, Chase’s heart stuttered. His gaze flicked back to the glass and renewed pain sheared through him. She’d left her seat and once again had her arms around the boy, comforting him with whispered reassurances that she must have known were false. Oblivious to his dark future, the boy clung to her, crying quietly, his eyes filled with equal parts hope and dread.
Chase cleared his throat of the lump that had lodged there and turned to his boss. “I’ll go and break the news.”
Riley merely nodded, his face grim.
* * *
Chase drew in a deep breath and then shouldered open the door to the interview room. Josie straightened upon his entry, but stayed close by Daniel’s side, guarding him like a mother lion. The pain in Chase’s gut twisted like a knife. He’d hate every second of what he was about to do.
He schooled his face into a carefully bland expression, refusing to let her see how much the next few minutes were going to affect him. She wouldn’t react well and there was no other way he knew how to deal with it. He had a job to do. It was as simple as that.
Doing his best to keep his voice even, he addressed the boy. “Daniel, I need you to come with me.”
“What’s happening? Has his mother arrived?”
He met Josie’s anxious gaze and swallowed another sigh. “No. I’m going to take him through his evidence again, this time for the record and then he’ll be taken to the charge room.”
A frown marred the smooth, golden skin of her forehead. “The charge room?”
“Yes. He’s going to be charged with murder.”
“You asshole.”
The word hit him like a ten-pound hammer right between the eyes. He did his best to hide his pain.
Did she think he was enjoying this? That he wanted to charge the kid? How could she think such a thing? Didn’t she know him at all? Was ten years really that long ago for her to have forgotten every little thing about him? Surely it wasn’t.
She stared at him like he was a stranger—a distasteful one at that. Shock and anger widened her eyes and flushed her cheeks with color. She shook her head in disbelief, looking like she was beyond words. A moment later, she found them.
“How could you? Haven’t you been listening? Have you heard even a single word that he said? That animal was ra—” She swallowed the word with difficulty, her gaze skating to the boy. Chase did his best to ignore her and proceeded to carry out his job.
Pulling out a pair of handcuffs, he gently restrained the boy. Ignoring his cry of anguish and the gasp of horror from Josie, he led the child out of the room.
“Handcuffs? You’re handcuffing him?”
“It’s standard procedure.”
“You have to be fucking kidding?”
“Josie, that’s enough.”
The stern command came from Riley and Chase swallowed a sigh of relief. Her anger reverberated through him, weighing him down with sadness and grief. With quiet determination, he blocked out everything but his job.
As if wading through a pond of molasses, he went through the motions required. Twenty minutes later, it was done. Daniel Logan was charged with murder and remanded into custody. He’d be brought before the judge as soon as the courthouse opened.
CHAPTER SIX
Kelly Logan stared at her reflection in the bathroom mirror and hated what she saw. It had been more than a week since the attack and yet it replayed in her head continually, as clearly as if it had happened the night before: The smell of unwashed body; the guttural grunts and groans; the weight of the man forcing her into the mattress. And then, the rancid breath; the sharp rasp of stubble; and worst of all, the feel of him violating her.
No, that wasn’t the worst of it. The worst part was when she glanced up and saw her son, his face stark with shock and horror and disbelief. That was by far the worst. That was the memory she’d never escape.
What followed was a nightmare she didn’t think she’d ever wake from: The man pounding into her; the crack of the gunshot. The noise of it smashed into her brain, even as her attacker collapsed on top of her without another sound.
Warm blood and tissue had sprayed across her face, blinding her, choking her, horrifying her. And all that time, Daniel had stared at her, his face a frozen mask of terror and incredulity. She didn’t even remember calling the police, but all of a sudden, they were there and from that moment forward, everything passed in a blur.
Paramedics examined her. In muted tones, they declared her in shock, but otherwise unharmed. Unharmed? Had someone really said that? Compared to the animal on the bed with his brains splattered across the wall, she probably was, but she was far from feeling unharmed. She couldn’t imagine ever feeling normal again.
Police officers had surrounded her, asking a barrage of questions that blurred into a kaleidoscope of murmurs and static noise. They’d spoken to her gently, with concern etched deep into their faces, but it hadn’t made any difference. Her mind had refused to settle. Her thoughts skittered and skated like hot fat melting on a griddle until all she’d wanted to do was scream.
Daniel had been taken out of the bedroom by one of the officers and for that, she’d been eternally grateful. She was in no position to help him or to give him what he needed. She’d been taken by ambulance to the hospital and the nightmare had continued. More questions; more intrusive examinations. The phrase ‘rape kit’ became part of her vocabulary.
Afterwards, the doctor urged her to take a sedative and she was more than willing to comply—anything to stop her from remembering the nightmare that had suddenly become her life.
Because of the lateness of the hour, she’d been kept in the hospital overnight. It was the next day before she’d been well enough to see Daniel. A part of her still wished she hadn’t.
She’d cried out in anguish in the visitors’ room at the police station when they’d brought him from the cells. The sight of his blank expression, his dead eyes, his refusal to say a word haunted her even now.
Where was her beautiful son? The boy who laughed and joked and teased? The boy who was always telling a story, who couldn’t be solemn if he tried? What had they done to him?
She hoped and prayed with quiet desperation that his emptiness was a temporary thing; that once he was home and in a familiar environment, he would return to something that resembled his normal self.
She never expected him to forget what happened. Heavens, she couldn’t forget it. But she hoped the resilience of his youth would help him put it behind him in the best way he could. The fact that there were bloodstains still on the carpet didn’t help, but she’d done her best to remove them—even Trevor had tried.
At the thought of her husband, she sighed anew. Fresh waves of pain and despair washed over her. She clung to the edge of the sink, increasing the pressure until her fingers hurt. She didn’t know what to do about Trevor. Every time he looked at her, he grew angry.
It wasn’t that he blamed her for what happened, but the mere sight of her looking so depressed and withdrawn reminded him of the attack and how he hadn’t been there to prevent it. The guilt of it was eating him alive. He’d told her as much amidst sobs of anguish three nights ago.
And then there was Jason. Oh, God. Her poor little boy. He walked around the house like a ghost, lost and bewildered. It was almost as if he didn’t recognize them anymore. She could hardly blame him. The family he’d known was gone; disintegrated like ashes in the wind. How could she make
this better? She didn’t know how to fix it, to make it better, to help him like he needed.
She’d always been the strong one, the one that had remained calm in the face of a crisis; the one they’d turned to; the one they expected to make things better, to put them back on track. Now, she didn’t know what to do to help any of them. She couldn’t even help herself.
She’d been on edge since her return home, feeling numb and detached and exhausted. Nothing felt real. Nothing felt safe. The feelings were foreign and frightening. She’d become a stranger watching her life through a lens that wouldn’t focus and she had no idea what to do about it.
* * *
Josie checked the time on her watch and frowned. Her two o’clock appointment was late. If there was something that irritated her to no end, it was tardiness. It wasn’t fair to her other patients who arrived on time and were then forced to wait.
During the past week and a half, she’d done her best to push thoughts of Daniel and Chase from her mind and had been wholly unsuccessful. She didn’t need a therapist to tell her the bad mood she’d been in since she’d last seen them had everything to do with both Chase and the tragic circumstances that had once again brought them together.
The phone on the desk near her elbow shrilled, breaking the silence in her office. Whilst she was contracted to the Rural Health Authority, it was her responsibility to locate suitable premises to work from. She’d been lucky to find office space in an old weatherboard home that had been converted to suites for professionals.
A doctor, a physical therapist and a chiropractor also shared the house, each with a generously proportioned room and a shared reception area. For a small additional fee, Josie had the use of the services of Moira Barnes, the clinic’s ageing but oh-so-elegant secretary.
The terms of Josie’s contract with the Health Authority meant that she was obligated to see any patient they referred to her. In return, she was entitled to keep most of the fees her patients generated, less a small percentage that was remitted back to the Health Authority. In addition, she was entitled to see other patients who came to her from other sources.