by Jaye Ford
‘I feel bad too but I can’t come over. Not right now. We can talk another time.’
There was a long silence on the other end of the phone. ‘Okay,’ Kelly said finally. There was disappointment in her voice and a little reproach.
It wasn’t what Liv wanted to hear but she couldn’t pretend everything was all right. It wasn’t. It was bad. Potentially very bad and Liv wasn’t ready for the response that explanation would cause.
She hung up, cursed Jason again as she dug out their archive disks. As much as Kelly didn’t like the idea, Liv hoped it was someone they’d worked with. She didn’t want it to be someone she’d trusted. She was into the third disk with nothing useful to show when her phone buzzed with an incoming text.
Sorry it ended like that. It’s not what I wanted. Am up the valley 2day. Back late. Can I c u then?
Daniel. Could she trust him? He’d done nothing threatening – and he’d had plenty of opportunity. She’d been naked in his house last night and he’d been nothing but . . . She remembered the look in his eyes this morning, the desperation in the way he’d gripped her shoulders. It was obvious he had issues. The kind that would make him hurt people?
She typed post-traumatic stress disorder into Google. He had symptoms that fitted – difficulty sleeping, nightmares, hypervigilance. Would running in the dark to burn off a dream be considered overusing exercise? Liv herself had more indicators – abuse of alcohol, anger. And everything she read told her PTSD didn’t lead to stalking. Domestic violence, assault charges related to fights, drink-driving, yes. Not premeditated brutality and threatening notes.
And she didn’t want it to be Daniel. He was the only person she had left to count on.
She eyed the untouched phone on the desk. ‘Back late’ was a long way off.
When her mobile rang at four, the number on the screen made her heart leap to her mouth.
‘Livia, it’s Wendy from the hospice.’
The nurse Liv liked, the one who called her father a hard-arse. She’d never phoned before. Liv closed her eyes, a hand on her throat. Not now. Please.
‘Sorry to call like this and it’s probably nothing but I just wanted to let you know your dad’s been asking for you this afternoon.’
Thank God. Liv took a moment to breathe. ‘Did he say why?’
‘No and he’s not one to ask for anything, which is what made me call.’
‘How is he?’
‘The pain’s been bad today, not that he’d say much. He had extra meds late this morning so he’s a little confused but he’s mentioned you three or four times. I thought I might see you before I left but I’m just finishing up now.’
‘Okay, thanks.’
Liv shut down the computer, turned on the answering machine and left the office. Maybe it was the drugs, maybe he was dreaming – it had happened before. But he wanted to see her and whoever was out there hurting her friends and threatening Cameron had kept her away from him for too long.
No one followed her to the hospice – at least not that she could tell. The closest parking space was three lanes from the entrance. She checked the lot then jogged the distance, the strap of her bag wrapped around her fist.
‘Hey, Dad.’ She kissed his forehead, pulled up a chair and held his hand.
He registered her touch but it took a moment for him to respond. ‘Hi, luv.’ He was croaky and his eyelids opened and closed in drug-induced slow motion.
‘Heard you were asking for me. Thought it was a good excuse for an early mark.’ She smiled and hoped he didn’t see through it. ‘How’s the pain now?’
He rolled his head on the pillow to face her. ‘Are you in trouble, luv?’
She watched him a second, trying to work it out. He was fuzzy but definitely awake. Maybe he was still worried about the assault. ‘No, I’m fine now. See, the swelling is almost gone.’ She ran two fingers over the most tender part on her cheek.
‘There was a man.’ It sounded like the start of a sentence but his eyes closed and he didn’t continue.
‘Yes, in the car park at work last week. The police arrested someone.’
‘Here.’
‘No, not here. They picked him up in another car park near Jamestown.’
‘He’s trouble.’
‘You’re telling me.’
He gripped her hand suddenly. Not like he used to but there was still iron in his fingers and a sharp edge to his tongue. ‘You’re not listening.’
‘Sorry, Dad. I don’t understand.’
‘There was a man.’ He paused. This time, she waited. ‘He had a . . . a . . . what-do-you-call.’ Pause. ‘I told him to get out.’
From what she’d heard, he’d ordered various hospital staff to get out in the past. He hated the doctor, claimed the cleaners were useless and thought at least half the nurses were patronising fools. ‘Okay.’ She didn’t know what else to tell him.
‘Be careful, luv.’
The way he said it, the warning in his tone, made her shoulders tighten. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Do you want to tell me?’
His words were an echo from the past. It was what he used to say to her when she was a kid. He always knew when something was wrong, used to wait until she least expected it – in the middle of washing dishes or doing homework or going for their morning run – and he’d say, ‘Do you want to tell me?’
Maybe he’d just sensed her mood, and like she did when she was a kid, she wanted to talk to him. ‘I can’t tell you, Dad.’
‘Are you in trouble?’
‘Not with the police.’
‘There are other kinds of trouble.’
‘I don’t know.’ She looked across the small room. ‘I think so.’
She listened to the in-out hiss of his breath for a long moment before he said, ‘You know what to do.’
She turned her face. He was clearly exhausted, his chest working hard to draw in air but his eyes were on her. ‘No, I don’t. What should I do?’
‘You look after yourself. You hear me? You’re the future. You and Cameron. You have to fight for that.’ He’d pushed the words out with more force than she’d seen him muster in weeks then his lids dropped and his mouth went slack as though his battery had run out.
Fury waved its fists in her head at the person who’d exhausted and worried him and cut short her time. Then, as a terrible, yawning loss built inside her, she laid her cheek on the blanket and listened to him breathe. She heard the fast pace of a nurse in the hallway, the soft shuffle of a patient, a laugh from further down the ward. She felt safe here. Sheltered. Loved. She wished she could stay. Wished her father wasn’t leaving.
After a while, her eyes wandered to his bedside table, the small space his life had shrunk to. There were cards, a tin of barley sugars, a small radio, his glasses. She sat up.
There was an envelope under his glasses. Plain white, business-sized. There was nothing written on the front.
She turned it over, slipped a finger under the seal, pulled the page from inside.
And her blood ran cold.
39
‘Where will you stay tonight, Liv?’ Rachel asked. She’d told Liv they needed to talk, suggested they go to her car for privacy but as Liv eyed the huge pools of lamplight on the damp, almost empty hospice car park, her impatience grew.
‘I don’t know. I haven’t thought about it.’ She couldn’t think about anything but the words on the note she’d found in her father’s room:
Rachel had arrived ten minutes after Liv sent a text and walked through the place looking tough and alert. The only time her attitude had faltered was when she’d stopped suddenly in the doorway of Liv’s dad’s room, something vulnerable and uncop-like sliding briefly through her eyes. Liv remembered Rachel’s father had passed away from cancer only months a
go and recognised it as a moment of realisation and memory and pain. Afterwards, Rachel had talked to staff, arranged for the bedside cabinet to be removed for fingerprinting, organised hospital security to send some guards over and a police patrol car to do laps around the grounds during the night. But Liv wanted more than that from her tonight.
‘Are you going back to the townhouse?’ Rachel pressed. She had the driver’s seat racked back so she could face Liv as they talked, the gun at her waist protruding from her jacket.
‘I don’t know. Why? Has something happened there?’
‘Is there a chance you’ll stay with your friend again?’
There was impatience in her voice now. ‘I don’t know. Is that what we need to talk about?’
‘What’s your friend’s name, Liv?’
She opened her mouth but uncertainty and apprehension stopped her.
‘Is it Daniel Beck?’
Liv’s breathing grew shallow.
‘Did you stay at Daniel’s house last night?’
‘Yes. Why?’
Rachel stuffed her hands into the pockets of her jacket. ‘My advice to you is go home tonight, lock up like you have been and let the patrol car keep an eye on you.’
‘What are you saying?’
‘I’m saying you should be careful who you trust for the moment.’
‘Are you telling me I can’t trust Daniel?’
Rachel’s eyes flicked briefly to the windscreen and back. ‘I’m advising you to stay in your own home.’
Liv’s voice was suddenly loud in the quiet car. ‘What the hell does that mean? Is it about Daniel or about staying at home? Is something going to happen tonight? Because if it isn’t, this . . . this thing won’t be over tomorrow and there are people I love that can get hurt if I trust the wrong person.’
Rachel said nothing.
‘Come on, Rachel. It’s my son and my father. How would you feel if someone was threatening your little boy or if someone had gone to your dad’s room while he was sick and in pain? My father’s a good man. He doesn’t deserve to be scared to death.’
‘Shit.’ Rachel swung around in her seat suddenly, gripped the steering wheel like she was about to wrestle it through a tight bend. Across the darkness of the car, her face remained calm but her lips were a taut line and her breathing was forced. ‘Okay.’ It sounded more like a conclusion to some internal debate than an answer to Liv’s plea. Then she turned, spoke firmly and clearly. ‘As a police officer, I can’t provide a victim with information gathered in the course of an investigation.’
Liv looked away, pissed off. Rachel wasn’t going to tell her anything.
‘So I’m not a cop right now, okay?’
Her head snapped back.
‘We’re just friends,’ Rachel said. ‘Having a chat, right? We are, aren’t we? I call you Liv, don’t I?’
Liv wasn’t sure who she was trying to convince. ‘Yes, we’re friends.’
‘Okay.’ Rachel faced the windscreen, took a breath. ‘The way I see it the letters don’t threaten you directly. They tell you to be scared. I think it’s advice. I think the sender is worried about your safety and wants to protect you. I think he’s trying to prove to you that you’re in danger, even if he has to create the danger himself.’ She looked at Liv for confirmation.
‘All right. It makes sense in a distorted kind of way.’
‘Daniel Beck left the fire service with stress-related issues, one of which resulted in attention from police. There was another incident involving the cops a year ago. I’m not convinced he’s over the problems he had when he left Rescue.’
He wasn’t. He dreamt about dead people. Woke up in a lather of sweat most nights. But so what? Nightmares didn’t prove he was a crazy man. ‘What’s your point? Stress doesn’t make you hurt people. Not when you’ve spent your life saving them.’
‘He also has a history of trying to protect women he cares about.’
‘What kind of history?’
‘The incidents involving the cops.’
Something about the way Rachel said it made Liv pause. Not the words but the upward tilt to her chin. She did that when she spoke to Daniel, part of the power play between them. Was that what this was about? Was their antagonism colouring Rachel’s judgement? Because so far, her two-and-two wasn’t adding up to anything that Liv knew about Daniel. ‘Or do you mean the incident between you and Daniel?’
Rachel’s eyelids narrowed briefly. ‘It wasn’t between Daniel and me.’
‘He said you didn’t agree with something he did and it got personal.’
‘Yeah, it did. He didn’t like me telling him to back off.’
‘So it was about you.’
‘No. It was about him. He thought he was protecting someone. He didn’t take my advice and he took it too far.’
‘And that pissed you off.’
Rachel watched her for a second. Liv thought she was containing her irritation but when she spoke, there was only empathy in her voice. ‘No, Liv. He ended up with an apprehended violence order against him.’
Sweat tingled on Liv’s scalp. He’d been violent? ‘What for?’
‘It was his second AVO. Unrelated situations. Both times, men alleged Daniel was harassing them over incidents involving women he cared for.’
Liv shifted her gaze from Rachel to the dark car park beyond the windows, tried to swallow down the lump of fear that had risen to her throat. Two incidents, two women. He’d clashed with the construction company owner outside the inquest after a solicitor had blamed Daniel for causing Leanne Petronio’s death. Courageous beyond belief, he’d called her. His sister had accused him of not being able to let go. He got the message, Daniel had said about her ex-husband. ‘Was it Leanne Petronio and Carmel, his sister?’
Rachel blinked rapidly a couple of times. ‘I can’t tell you names.’
But she hadn’t said no. ‘Did he send notes?’
‘No.’
‘Did he hurt them?’
‘He threatened to. They believed him.’
‘That’s not the same.’
‘I’ve had it around the wrong way,’ Rachel said. ‘I thought the stalker was your husband, maybe, or someone at the suite of offices. I figured Daniel saw what was going on and was trying to step in, like he had before. But I think he’s twisted it around. I think he needs to be saving someone to feel okay. And when he found you in the car park, it wasn’t enough. I think he wants to keep saving you.’
No, it didn’t make sense. ‘But I’m not the one getting hurt. It was Sheridan and Teagan.’
‘You’re being stalked. You’ve been frightened and exposed. He’s helped you. Fixed your locks, checked your property, bought you breakfast. It’s another version of saving you.’
Liv licked her lips. ‘Yes, but . . .’
‘He’s had access and the timing works. For the break-in at your office, for Sheridan’s accident, for Teagan. He was even there for that. I’m guessing he threw her over the side then ran down to help her. Two rescues for the price of one.’
‘No. You didn’t see him. He was torn apart by that.’
‘I asked him for a sample of his handwriting today and he refused.’
Dread snaked its way along Liv’s spine.
‘I can’t prove it yet but there’s a very strong possibility, more than that, that Daniel is your stalker.’
A laugh pushed its way into her throat. It was absurd. Ridiculous. It wasn’t Daniel. Oh, fuck. She squeezed her eyes shut. He came to the hospital after the assault, he installed the locks himself, he sat with her in the cafe watching her car, escorted her to the police station, turned up every night to check her yard. He’d bought takeaway and made sure she was breathing. For a week, he’d dreamt she was dead. Something else forced its way up fr
om inside. Disgust and shame, burning hot and acidic in her throat. She put her hands to her face. ‘Oh, fuck.’ Last night. All night.
‘Liv?’
She felt Rachel’s hand on her shoulder but shoved it away, heaved the door open, stumbled onto the dark tarmac. Her hand found the smooth metal of a lamppost. She leaned over and emptied the bile from her stomach.
As she retched, she heard the car door open, footsteps scrunch on the roadway, saw Rachel’s shoes beside her. When she was done, the detective handed her a wad of tissues, then followed as Liv walked back to the car and pressed her hot palms to the cool bonnet.
‘Are you okay?’ Rachel asked.
‘I slept with him.’
She didn’t answer. What the hell could she say?
Anger and self-loathing sliced through her like a cold blade. ‘I had sex with him. I let him touch me. I introduced him to my son. Christ, I let him sleep in my home when my son was there. What kind of mother does that?’
‘You didn’t know.’
Fury poured through her gritted teeth. ‘It’s not an excuse. I should’ve known. I should’ve seen it. I looked in his goddamn eyes enough. What is wrong with me? I’ve fucked everything up. My marriage. My business. My friends. I don’t deserve to have Cameron. I can’t keep him safe.’
Rachel grabbed her arm as she swung it in frustration and held her in place. ‘Listen to me, Liv. This is not your fault. You did nothing wrong.’
‘But it’s still all wrong.’
‘Yeah, it’s totally fucked up but it’s not your fault. And I didn’t tell you so you could beat yourself up.’ She gave Liv a brief shake, a pay-attention. ‘I’ve seen you, you’re a fighter. Don’t let him make you feel weak. Knowledge is strength. Use it to protect yourself and your family. And let me do my job.’
Liv closed her eyes, clenched her fists, forced air in and out of her lungs. Yeah, Rachel was right. Heading off on some self-destructive guilt spree wasn’t going to fix it. Wasn’t going to keep her on her feet. Wasn’t going to get Cameron back or keep the maniac away from her father. She opened her eyes. ‘So what are you going to do about him?’