Scared Yet?

by Jaye Ford

  ‘Your decision,’ he said.

  He didn’t deserve to go over with her but she couldn’t tell him to let her go. She bent a knee and stretched it up.

  Her hand slipped on the rail. Daniel’s fingers dug into her flesh. He repositioned himself, hung further out. It felt like falling, like he was losing her. She screamed, dropped her knee. The sound echoed through the car park and out over the lane.

  ‘Jeez, Liv. I didn’t think you’d give up so easily.’

  ‘I’m not giving up.’

  ‘Then get your arse up here!’

  She hurled her knee upwards this time, found the edge of the concrete, dug in. It put pressure on Daniel’s arm and he screwed up his face with pain.

  ‘Now the other one,’ he called.

  Then she was on her knees, crawling vertically up the barrier. She found the rail with her other hand, held on with a double grip. When she was almost there, Daniel let her go, grabbed the back of her jeans and hauled her over the top.

  She fell onto the concrete at his feet.

  It was a rough landing. The ground was cold and hard and unmoving under her. It felt great. She eyed the shadowy columns and murky light. Best thing she’d ever seen. Daniel slumped beside her, didn’t move. She listened to the sound of his breath – heavy, forceful. How much longer would he have held on?

  ‘Ray’s dead,’ she said.

  ‘Are you hurt?’

  ‘No. Are you okay?’

  ‘No.’

  He was a mess. Blood on his face. Thick and slippery on his arm. In the dim light, she could see the head of a nail sticking from his shoulder. One knee was bent, the other out straight, limp. She had no idea how he got to her. But he’d been through hell to do it.

  ‘I wasn’t giving up,’ she said.

  ‘Never thought you were.’

  48

  ‘Have you decided yet?’ Liv asked.

  Cameron’s face was pressed to the glass counter in the ice-cream shop. He was shuffling sideways along its length, eyeing the colours, ‘umming’ a lot. ‘What are you getting?’ he asked. ‘Grandpa always had chocolate.’

  She felt the sadness well inside her again and took a moment to find the sweetness in the memory before she answered. ‘He did, didn’t he? You want chocolate, too?’

  ‘Mmm, do firemen eat ice-cream?’

  She smiled. He referenced everything to firemen these days. Liv had wondered about Daniel and his nightmares – whether he still had them, whether she was still in them. She’d thought about asking, just calling him up and saying, ‘How are you sleeping?’ But she hadn’t.

  ‘Can we ask Daniel?’ Cameron asked.

  Could she? She hadn’t spoken to him since the funeral four weeks ago – a fortnight after he’d dragged her over the railing. It felt like a lifetime.

  Two days after Ray fell from the car park, her father’s condition went rapidly downhill. Sore and still bruised, Liv had sat at his bedside, willing his pain to be over, wishing he could stay. She didn’t tell him about that night but he sensed something had happened and held her hand, found enough gravel in his voice to talk.

  ‘I can go now, luv. You found your fight again. I can see it in your eyes. You’ll be right.’

  She didn’t know what he saw – all she’d felt was heart-rending grief.

  The next afternoon, as she took a break outside in the frigid breeze of the autumn cold that had finally arrived, she found Daniel waiting for her on the bench seat beyond the doors, crutches on the ground, arm in a sling, hospital tag on his wrist. And she told him she couldn’t be with him.

  ‘You can’t make something good in the middle of something bad,’ she said. ‘It gets tainted by everything else. Everything that happened between us is already poisoned by Ray. By Sheridan and Teagan. By Thomas and all the bitter and angry shit he left behind.’ And her shame that she’d believed Daniel could do vile, violent things. ‘I’ll make a mess of it. I don’t want that and you don’t deserve it.’

  Her dad held on for two more days and each afternoon, Daniel had waited for her on the bench. They didn’t talk, not really, just sat in the cold together. Liv was with her father at the end – and for a long while afterwards, remembering the good times, trying to forget his pain. Daniel came to the funeral, paid his respects with the hundreds of others who remembered her father from the old days. There hadn’t been time to tell Daniel how much she’d appreciated that. Not just that. All of it.

  ‘Mum?’

  Liv glanced down at Cameron.

  ‘Can you ask him what his favourite is?’ he asked.

  It wasn’t the middle anymore, Liv told herself. It was somewhere near the end.

  Nothing bad had happened in weeks. She hadn’t ranted in anger, she’d spoken to Thomas on the phone without shouting and she’d slept without waking in fear. It felt as though the storm of emotion that had raged inside her for a year had finally quietened. Or maybe she knew now she could survive anything that was thrown at her, that she wouldn’t be crushed by the weight of her own life and it just didn’t scare her anymore. Maybe that’s what her father had seen in her eyes. Whatever it was, Cameron’s smile and the warmth in today’s clear, crisp weather felt like the sunlight at the end of her tunnel.

  And it was just a phone call, Liv. About ice-cream.

  He answered on the second ring. ‘Hey, Slugger. How you doing?’

  After four weeks she’d expected . . . something else. ‘I’m good. Thanks. You still on crutches?’

  ‘Yes, but sling-free.’

  She closed her eyes, felt the guilt again. ‘I’ve got two questions.’

  ‘Shoot.’

  ‘Cameron wants to know if firemen eat ice-cream.’

  ‘Tell him it’s recommended after a fire.’

  ‘What’s your favourite flavour?’

  ‘Vanilla.’

  She paused. ‘Can I buy you a vanilla ice-cream sometime?’

  ‘That’s three questions.’

  ‘Does that mean you don’t want me to?’

  There was silence for a second. ‘No. It’d be great. Anytime in particular?’

  ‘Where are you now?’

  ‘In the park. At the rotunda.’

  She looked out the window, across the road at the white dome of the old, ornate rotunda. There were kids on bikes, runners, walkers, families playing football. ‘What are you doing in the park?’

  ‘Sitting in the sun.’

  ‘Hold on.’ She put a finger over the microphone, said to Cameron, ‘Feel like going to the park?’

  ‘Ye-ah,’ he said it like she was nuts if she thought there was any other answer.

  She spoke into the phone. ‘See you in ten.’

  Cameron decided on bubblegum in a waffle cone and Liv bought two small tubs with spoons – not so messy if they melted while she searched for Daniel. As they crossed the road, memories started flooding back and she wondered if seeing him wasn’t such a great idea. She’d been moving forward, she didn’t want to look back. Not at Ray.

  So she thought instead about how she’d sat with Daniel that night, side by side against the barrier, shocked, in pain, breathing hard.

  ‘The police are coming,’ he said.

  ‘When the hell did you get time to call the police?’

  ‘I didn’t.’

  After Ray locked him in, Daniel had smashed the door to his office, found a blade among the tools in his storeroom and sliced through the tape on his wrists. He’d used a fire extinguisher to demolish the lock bar on the security exit then dragged himself up the pedestrian ramp. A shopkeeper going back to her car tried to make him stop while she phoned for an ambulance. He told her to call the cops and kept going. He was between the second and third floors when he heard Liv scream as she went over the
rail. He’d thought he was too late. He thought he’d find her body on the road below.

  Liv glanced at the tubs in her hand as she stepped off the pedestrian crossing. Christ, he deserved more than ice-cream.

  She looked towards the rotunda. There were groups of people over there. A children’s party in the gazebo, little girls in pretty dresses and funny hats. On the grass in front, there were teenagers with picnic rugs and another, larger group with kids and adults and a trestle table covered in food. No hero on crutches.

  ‘Where’s Daniel?’ Cameron asked.

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe he’s over the other side. Let’s walk around and see.’

  They held hands and, as they took the path that wound around the grassed picnic area, Liv thought about another conversation – in Daniel’s hospital room.

  It was the morning after. He’d had surgery on his shoulder and was booked for more to repair the bone and ligament damage her heel had done to his knee. He told her to quit apologising, so she did. It didn’t stop her feeling bad. She had questions but he didn’t give her a chance to ask. Just offered it all up as though he needed to tell it as much as she needed to know.

  ‘The AVOs aren’t what you think.’ It was what he’d said in the car park but she let him explain it this time.

  ‘The first one was a misunderstanding.’ It was after the inquest into the building collapse. The solicitors for the construction company had accused him of incorrectly moving Leanne Petronio onto a stretcher. ‘It was bullshit. Everyone knew it and it didn’t go anywhere but it pissed me off. I tried to contact the head guy but he wouldn’t take my calls. So I went to his office. He called security and I got . . . loud. They threw me out and his lawyers took out an AVO. I never threatened him. He was just a scared little man who knew he’d done the wrong thing.’

  Liv heard her name being called and turned to see a tall, smiling woman walking towards her across the grass.

  ‘It’s Carmel,’ the woman said. ‘We met at the hospital. Oh, and at the soccer once.’

  ‘Yes, I remember,’ Liv told her.

  ‘Daniel didn’t say you were coming.’

  ‘No, I just spoke to him.’

  ‘We’re over there.’ Carmel pointed towards the trestle table of food, spoke to Cameron. ‘You’re just in time. They’re getting a game of soccer together.’ She looked back at Liv. ‘I’m off to pick up Mum and Dad. See you later.’

  Liv watched her go, thinking of Daniel’s second AVO.

  ‘There was no misunderstanding there,’ he’d told her. ‘Carmel wouldn’t press charges against her ex but I got a couple of cops to talk to him. Then he hit her again, so I did some talking of my own. Told the bastard if he went near her, I’d show him what it felt like.’ He shrugged. ‘He thought the AVO would get me sacked but I’d already left. And it wouldn’t have mattered, anyway. I was doing it for Carmel.’

  Liv looked to where Carmel had pointed, wondered about the group around the table. Adults and kids, enough food to feed everyone in the park. It must be a party. And it would be awkward. The woman who’d smashed Daniel’s knee, who hadn’t spoken to him in a month, was turning up with ice-cream. Maybe she could hand it over and tell him she’d call later.

  Then she saw him lift a hand in a brief wave and move away from the others. He swung crutches and legs to the trestle table, doing better without the sling, the hollows around his eyes gone. He looked . . . well. Tall and broad and strong and rugged. Yeah, okay, he looked more than well. He leaned his weight against the table, his crutches propped beside him, kept his eyes on her as she walked over.

  ‘Is it a party?’ she asked, keeping Cameron’s hand in hers.

  ‘My nephew’s tenth birthday.’

  ‘You should’ve said. We could’ve met up another time.’

  ‘It’s just family and a few cousins. And no one else brought ice-cream.’

  She lifted the two small tubs. ‘I don’t think there’ll be enough to go around.’

  ‘I had bubblegum,’ Cameron said, the green and blue remains of it smeared around his mouth.

  Daniel grinned. ‘Looks like you enjoyed it, buddy. You up for soccer?’

  Cameron lifted his face to Liv, eyebrows raised.

  She shook her head. ‘I don’t want to intrude.’

  ‘They were looking for another player two minutes ago.’ Daniel hooked a thumb towards the group kicking a ball, the game not yet started.

  Cameron’s brows went a little higher.

  It looked like mums and dads, young kids and a few older teenagers, more than a couple of them with the Beck tall-and-dark brand. ‘Okay. Just for a while.’

  Daniel put fingers to his lips, gave a high-pitched whistle. An older boy turned around. ‘Hey, Ben. You got another one.’

  As Daniel made the introductions, a man from the group walked over, took a wineglass from the table as he passed, held it out to Liv. Up close, he looked like Daniel might in a couple of years. Same size, more lines around the eyes, longer hair with a sprinkling of grey at the temples. ‘What are you drinking? Red or white?’

  Liv put up a hand. ‘Oh, thanks, but I’m not staying.’

  ‘You sure? I mean, if it’s the food you’re worried about, I think we can spare some,’ he laughed. ‘It’s Liv, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m Jared. You’re the one who knocked my brother on his arse, right?’

  She glanced away. ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Okay.’ Daniel clamped a hand on Jared’s shoulder. ‘You need to go kick a football.’

  There was a brief, deadpan look between them then, as Jared turned to go, he shot Liv a grin. ‘No one’s done that since he was twelve.’

  Liv smiled a little and watched as Cameron found a place on the make-do pitch. Beside her, Daniel lowered himself to the bench seat, his bad leg out straight as though it was pointing at the game. ‘How’s Teagan?’

  ‘I spoke to her last week,’ Liv said. ‘She doesn’t remember much. Just that she went to look for a car in the parking lot then she was in the ambulance with Kelly. She’s got some permanent vision loss in one eye and the plastic surgery on her cheek is still healing but she’s talking about re-enrolling in school, finishing Year 12 and going on to uni. She wants to do Psychology.’

  ‘Psychology?’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘That’s one way to figure it out. How about Sheridan?’

  She’d had bleeding inside her skull but no brain damage, broken bones and massive areas of bruising. Liv had visited her in breaks from her father’s bedside, told her about Ray and Daniel and Teagan and how her accident fitted into it. And she’d organised a hairdresser to even up her blonde locks. ‘She’s had plastic surgery on her face and is doing loads of physio on her arm and leg. She’s always been tough. She’ll get through. She’s talking about writing a book on it all.’

  Daniel leaned against the table behind him and folded his arms across his chest. ‘How do you feel about that?’

  ‘I feel guilty that other people suffered more than me. A few torn shoulder muscles hardly rate, really. So I think anything they have to do to get past it is okay with me.’

  He said nothing to that.

  She sat beside him on the bench. ‘Have you spoken to Rachel lately?’

  ‘Not since your father’s funeral. You?’

  The detective had rung weekly with updates on the investigation and they’d had coffee a few days ago. ‘She’s still piecing it together but it’s clear Ray was screwed up for a long time.’

  Rachel had arrived in the car park that night with her gun drawn and aimed at Daniel. It hadn’t taken much explaining. The nail in his shoulder and Ray’s body on the road below helped get the message across.

  Neither Liv nor Daniel mentioned Rachel’s assumptions in their st
atements to police. Liv didn’t blame her for the outcome. It was her choice to go to the car park and look for Daniel. It’d started a bloody, desperate, lethal situation but it had finished the game. She’d almost died and Daniel had horrible injuries but no one else would be hurt. Not her friends, not Cameron, not her father. Or the next person Ray decided to ‘protect’. And there would have been others. Rachel had already found three he was responsible for.

  Five years ago, the charred remains of a twenty-six-year-old woman had been discovered in a burnt-out flat in country Victoria. The apartment block was managed by a Ray Hawthorne – aka, their Ray Hepple. Seven years before that, an elderly couple were found beaten to death at a retirement village. He’d called himself Ray Heggarty then, working as the live-in groundsman. Presumably, all three had been defiant. He’d left both jobs shortly after the murders – with glowing references.

  ‘Ray was eighteen when his father died and he got guardianship of his three younger sisters,’ Liv told Daniel. ‘One of them committed suicide at seventeen. The other two attempted to bring assault and false imprisonment charges against him years afterwards but it didn’t reach court. Apparently, the father lost the plot after the mother was murdered and kept them all locked inside a family compound. He sexually assaulted the girls and told Ray he was responsible for their safety. The sisters were in their twenties before they escaped.’

  ‘Jesus.’

  ‘It looks like Ray just moved on to other groups after that. Rachel’s currently looking at two murders in South Australia from fifteen years ago.’

  ‘You stopped him, Liv.’

  ‘Yeah.’ She curled fingers around the edge of the bench, watching Cameron run back and forth, grateful she had the chance to see him at all. The police never found the kid who delivered the envelope to him in the cafe – or the person who must have left the note in Liv’s handbag the day Teagan fell. Liv hoped it was two separate people after a quick buck, not an apprentice waiting to fill Ray’s shoes.

  Liv was glad too for things she never thought she would be. That Cam had had a chance to say goodbye to his grandfather, that Michelle had brought him to her in the hospital.