by Jaye Ford
‘Don’t worry, Kell. I’ll sort it out. Just look after Tee.’
By the time the ambulance drove out, most of the crowd had dispersed and a police patrol car had arrived. Liv caught Daniel’s eye as he spoke to an officer. She didn’t smile, didn’t get one in return. The moment of connection said enough. She ran to the office, sat at reception and used Teagan’s contact book to make calls, breaking the news to Teagan’s mum Nina, telling Kelly’s mum and Jason. Then she rang Rachel. There was no answer so Liv left a clear and simple message: ‘He pushed Teagan off the car park.’
It had to be a ‘he’, didn’t it? It would take strength and probably height to overpower a struggling teenager and to do it quickly enough not to attract attention. Liv was taller and stronger than most women she knew and doubted she could do it.
The phone rang and she snatched it up, hoping to hear Rachel’s voice.
‘I’ve been trying to call you for over an hour.’ It was Thomas.
31
‘Is it Cameron? Is he okay?’
‘As far as I’m aware he’s in school. Unless you know otherwise,’ Thomas said.
Why did he have to make it so bloody hard? Today? Now? ‘What do you want?’
‘Detective Quest came to my office today. I know you’ve got a stalker, Livia. I don’t want Cameron staying with you.’
Anger beat a pulse in the side of her face. Cameron didn’t stay with her. He lived with her, she was his mother. But alarm sounded a warning. Rachel had been to see Thomas today, after the note. It could be anyone, Liv.
‘What are you doing, Thomas?’
‘I’m trying to keep my son safe.’
‘Or just trying to keep him.’
‘What the hell is that supposed to mean?’
‘Are you threatening me?’
He didn’t answer, at least not straightaway. She could hear him breathing, knew what he was doing, containing himself. It’s what he did. He was restraint; she was detonation. ‘Is that what you told the detective?’ he finally asked.
‘I answered her questions. She asked about us and I told her the truth.’
‘What truth?’
Was there more than one? ‘That you had an affair, that you left, that we fought over custody of Cameron.’
‘You were the one doing the shouting, Liv.’ There it was. Restraint used as a weapon.
She reined in the urge to shout some more. Rehashing old arguments wouldn’t get the answers she wanted. ‘Are you involved in this?’
‘What?’
‘The stalking.’
‘Dear God, Livia. How can you think I would do that?’
‘I have no idea what you’d do anymore. You or anyone else. I can’t trust anyone.’
‘Well, if you’re going to point the finger, you should start with that thug you’ve been spending your time with. He’s not an appropriate person for Cameron to be around. Cameron should be with me.’
Liv hesitated. Thomas had said ‘spending your time with’. He saw Daniel at the hospital. Was he making an assumption that she’d been with him or did he know? Had he watched them? Would Thomas do that?
‘Until the police tell me my home is unsafe for my child, Cameron comes to me, as per our agreement.’
‘I’ll be discussing that situation with my solicitor, Livia.’
She felt the charge go off and couldn’t do anything to stop it. ‘Fuck you, Thomas. You got everything you wanted. You can’t have any more.’
She slammed the phone down, forced herself to breathe. It wasn’t Thomas. She knew it now. He didn’t throw rocks and heave young girls over railings. He used solicitors and documents to hurt people. But her stalker was giving him an excuse to make a bid for full custody. ‘You prick, Thomas.’
Liv stood outside the school gate with her arms folded across her body, trying to keep her shock and anger contained while she kept her eyes on the faces in the crowd. She knew some of them, mothers of Cameron’s friends and women she’d met at P & F meetings. But she kept her distance, not wanting to be distracted by school chitchat today. There were a few men there, too. A dad in a shirt and tie, another one in oil-stained clothes, a fit-looking grandfather. It didn’t make sense that another parent would want to stalk her but she watched anyway, wary and tense.
Cameron’s class walked to the gate in two long lines, legionnaire’s caps on, backpacks like turtle shells with cartoon motifs. Liv craned her neck to see him. He was three from the end, searching the waiting parents, his face lighting up when he saw her. It made the storm of emotion inside her subside. She wanted to leap the fence and scoop him into her arms but figured he’d probably die of embarrassment in front of his classmates. She just waggled her fingers at him instead and grinned so hard she thought her face might break.
When he was through the gate, he yelled, ‘Mu-um!’ and broke ranks. As he ran towards her, she dropped to her haunches and he wrapped his arms around her neck and squeezed. She almost lost it, almost sobbed like a child. Buried her head in his sweaty, school-smelly neck and held on until he let her go.
‘Awesome bruise,’ he said.
‘A little less awesome now.’
‘Can I touch it?’ He held up an index finger like a pointer.
‘It’s been waiting for your magic fingers.’
She watched his gorgeous, freckly face as he gently poked along the ridge of discolouring. When he was finished, he rested his forehead on hers, rolled his eyes to meet hers.
‘Hey, Mum.’
‘Hey, Cameron.’
It was their thing. They’d done it since he was a toddler. A silent love-you-lots and hey-missed-you and it’ll-be-okay and I’m-here-for-you. They’d done it more since Thomas left. Man, she’d missed it last week. And she loved him for doing it while his friends were shouting goodbyes all around them.
She just loved him.
She carried his bag as he skipped ahead of her along the footpath to the car, slapped it and skipped back.
‘Hey, Mum, are we going to Lenny’s for afternoon tea?’
‘Not today.’
He ran, lifting his knees high, tipped the car and ran back again.
‘Can we have spaghetti for tea?’
‘You bet.’
He turned sideways, one leg crossing in front of the other there and back.
‘Do I have to do my homework tonight?’
‘What do you think?’
‘Just checking.’
‘Nice try.’
He ran backwards, twisting his head around to see where he was going, tipped the front passenger door. ‘Beat ya!’
‘I think someone forgot to say ready, set, go.’ She dropped his pack beside the boot, lifted the flap of her handbag, reached in for her keys and found an envelope instead. For a moment, for half a second, she thought she’d forgotten to post some mail. Then she saw her name on the front in the familiar scrawl.
She was moving before her brain completed the thought, holding Cameron to her belly, putting him between the car and her body. Over the dark blue of the roof, she scanned left then right. Both kerbs were lined with vehicles, the three-pm traffic jam moving slowly in both directions. There were adults and kids, prams and dogs, the guy who supervised the crossing in his fluoro vest, a bus driver watching students file through his doors.
‘Hey, Mum! What are you doing?’
Cameron was pressed against the passenger door, wriggling about, trying to squeeze out. She eased back a little. ‘Cameron, honey, no more running around, okay? I need you to get straight in the car.’
‘Ooh but . . .’
‘No buts, okay?’ She held onto his shoulder, retrieved her keys and hit the unlock button. ‘Hop in and lock the door.’ She waited until she heard the thunk, tossed his pack in the boot and stood b
y the driver’s door, anger and fear pounding in her chest as she checked the street again. No one was watching, no one was loitering, there were no faces at the windows of the houses in the street. How the fuck did the envelope get in her handbag?
‘Where are we going?’ Cameron asked.
Liv had passed the turn-off to their street and was watching the traffic behind. ‘Just for a drive.’
‘Can we get a milkshake?’
‘We’ll see.’
Had someone slipped the envelope in her bag while she’d been waiting at the school gate? While it’d been on her shoulder? No, it wasn’t possible. It must have been there when she left work and her bag hadn’t left her desk drawer since she’d arrived in the morning. Which meant the bastard had been in her office in broad daylight.
‘What, Mum?’
‘What what?’
‘You went . . .’ Cameron gasped.
‘Oh, did I?’
‘Hey, look, there’s the ice-cream shop.’ He leaned forward, waved his arms around and shouted, ‘Zack!’
A boy from his class was out front, his mother inside at the counter with a smaller child. A stab of envy made Liv’s face harden. She wanted to pull over and join them, buy her son an ice-cream but she couldn’t because an angry man might see her and decide she wasn’t scared enough. ‘Another day, Cameron. I promise.’
Her phone rang and she hit the receive button on her dash.
‘Liv, it’s Rachel Quest. Where are you?’ There was an urgency in her voice.
‘I’m in the car with my son so choose your words carefully.’
‘Are you okay?’
‘I don’t know what I am but I’m not hurt. Do you know the details?’
‘I’m still at the scene. I heard the address go out over the radio and drove over. Daniel said you’d gone to make phone calls but you weren’t in your office. I was about to put an all stations alert out for you.’ She laughed a little, it sounded more like relief than humour. ‘We need to talk.’
‘You need to see what else I got today.’
Rachel arrived as Cameron was scoffing down a milkshake as though he thought it’d be taken away if he didn’t drink it in one go. Liv signalled her over to the table she’d shared with Daniel two days ago, introduced her to Cameron as someone she worked with. He waved a hand without interruption to his straw action. Rachel was wearing a gun in a holster on the belt of her trousers today. Liv figured that made them safe.
Rachel ordered coffee at the counter and sat down. ‘I just spoke to the hospital. Teagan’s listed as critical.’
Liv closed her eyes. Beside her, Cameron was slurping the remains of his drink. She slid fingers through his soft curls and thought about what Teagan’s family was going through right now.
‘I’m sorry about that news, Liv.’
She shook her head. ‘You finished, sweetie?’
‘Yup.’
‘Have you got some homework you can start on?’
‘Aww, Mum. Can’t I play with Mitch?’
‘Who?’
Cameron pointed to a boy in the same grey uniform at a nearby table, swinging his legs and looking bored while his mother tapped on a laptop.
‘Okay but stay in the play area where I can see you.’ She nodded at the sectioned-off space on the opposite side of the cafe. As the other boy joined him, his mother shot a grateful smile over the top of her screen. Liv reached into her bag, took out the two notes and laid them on the table. She pushed a fingertip onto the one in the plastic sleeve, heard the edge in her voice. ‘This morning.’ She moved her finger to the one still in its unopened envelope. ‘This afternoon.’
She folded her arms on the table and looked at Rachel. ‘Someone sent me a warning, pushed my seventeen-year-old staff member off the second floor of the car park then came to my office in the middle of the afternoon, opened the bottom drawer of my desk and put a note inside my handbag. My business partner told me this afternoon it wasn’t all about me. I want to agree with her. I want to think I’m not responsible for what happened to Teagan. That someone didn’t hurt a gorgeous young girl and her family to send some kind of sick, screwed-up message to me. But if it’s not about me, what the hell is it about?’
32
Half an hour of talking gave Rachel pages of notes but no answer to Liv’s question. It seemed less of an interview this time around, as though Liv had gone from distraught victim to victim with vested interest, maybe one with some kind of clue. Rachel counted down the list of people Liv had given her of the faces she’d seen in the crowd of onlookers. She didn’t have names for all of them, some were just shorthand descriptions: redheaded man from the bank, piercings guy from the music store, bald baker, bleached-blonde girl from the evening wear boutique.
‘Twenty-two. That’s a lot of people to remember in a crisis. I’m impressed.’
‘Thanks. It’s a new skill. I can also tell you the silver BMW beside my car outside was at the school this afternoon, the quickest way to get to Cameron is around that table and the cafe has a back exit through the kitchen.’
Rachel seemed equally impressed about that.
Liv watched Cam across the room, rolling around with Mitch on a giant, red beanbag. She also knew she could pick up a chair and hurl it if she had to and there were knives in the cutlery canisters at the counter. The thought of plunging a blade into someone was unspeakable but she wouldn’t hesitate if it meant protecting her son.
‘Did you speak to Daniel at any time before Teagan’s fall?’ Rachel asked.
‘I saw him early this morning.’
‘Before you got to the office?’
Liv’s brows tightened in a quick frown. ‘No. In his office when I got in.’
‘What did you talk about?’
She hesitated. Did Rachel need to know Daniel had tucked her into a blanket on her sofa last night? ‘I just stuck my head in to say good morning. Why?’
‘I’m just asking questions.’
‘No, you’re not. You’re asking about Daniel. What are you thinking?’
Rachel didn’t answer.
‘I’ve got a right to know.’
She laid down her pen. ‘Look, an investigation is like a giant jigsaw puzzle. I’m just sorting out the pieces.’
‘And you think Daniel is one of the pieces?’
‘At the moment, everyone in your life is a piece. I’m trying to work out where they all go.’
Liv knew where Daniel fitted. He came to her aid in the car park, he installed locks in her townhouse, searched it, kept her company, made sure she was breathing. It was more than the other pieces in her life had done in the last week. ‘He worked on Teagan when she was on top of the van.’
‘Yes, I know. She was lucky he was there.’ She kept her eyes on Liv a moment as though there was more to it. ‘I’d like to look at the note from your bag.’
Liv watched Cameron and Mitch as Rachel took gloves out of her pocket and used the handle of a teaspoon to slit the envelope open. The page inside made Liv’s eyes fill with tears.
Someone had taken a photo of Teagan in her green coat as she stepped out of the security exit into the laneway. The picture was printed on plain paper and the sender had used a keyboard this time to publish the message underneath:
‘I was parked on the second floor but down the other end,’ Liv said. ‘Maybe he saw Teagan and . . . and I don’t know. Couldn’t wait until later.’
‘It doesn’t read like that. I don’t think you were the target.’
‘Mum?’ Liv turned the page over as Cameron lifted her elbow and pushed his head into the circle of her arm. ‘Are we going soon?’
She wanted to hide him from sight. ‘Thirty seconds, sweetie. Go get your jumper from the play area.’ Mitch’s mum was packing up her laptop, telling the boy to
get his backpack. When Cameron was out of earshot, she turned to Rachel. ‘What about Cameron? Is he going to be safe with me?’
‘Given that we don’t know who it is and no attempt has been made to hurt you, I think the safest place for him is with you. Do you have someone you can stay with?’
‘Do you think the townhouse isn’t safe?’
‘It seems secure. It would be for your own peace of mind.’
There was only Kelly and Jason but she wasn’t sure she’d find peace of mind there. Not with Teagan in a critical condition in hospital, not with Kelly’s decision to work for Toby Wright. ‘Can you get the patrol car to do laps past my place again tonight?’
‘It’s already organised.’
Liv ignored the turn-off to their street a second time, not ready yet for the baseball bat walk-through, unable to get Teagan out of her mind. Tee’s mum, Nina, was Kelly’s big sister. She’d bossed Kelly and Liv around when they were kids, got married when they were still in high school. Kelly had been bridesmaid and it was the first wedding Liv had been to. Teagan was Nina’s youngest – and Liv felt responsible.
She knew the Burke family well enough to know they’d turn out in force to support Teagan. Kelly would still be at the hospital. So would her mum and dad, probably her younger sister, a brother, maybe a sister-in-law or two. Liv had always been included as an honorary member and would’ve added her support in different circumstances. But she couldn’t turn up at the hospital, not the way she felt, not with bruises on her face like an accusation, not with Cameron – a hospital waiting room with bad news hovering wasn’t the place to take a child.
She wanted to know how Teagan was, though – more detail than ‘listed as critical’. And she was tired of coping alone so she drove to Kelly and Jason’s hoping he was at home with the girls.
Emma opened the door, screamed, ‘Cameron! Bess, Cameron’s here.’ There was the thumping of feet on timber then Bess skidded around a corner in socks and repeated the war cry. The three of them were already heading down the hallway when Jason appeared. He stood a moment, holding the phone at his side, watching her. His hair looked like he’d been raking his hands through it, his eyes seemed grateful to see her. ‘Kelly’s at the hospital,’ he said.