Cold Deception

by D. B. Tait

  The sapling pulled out of the crevasse some more.

  He reached out his arm. “Let go and grab my wrist. I’ll hold you.”

  “I can’t!” she said.

  “Yes you can.”

  She stared up into his gray eyes and said goodbye to what could have been.

  Then let go.

  Chapter 31

  Later, the ambulance guy told her the worst injury she got was when she hit her head on the lookout seat after Dylan hauled her to safety. Just for a moment she had known she was falling into the valley, but then her arm was caught by a grip of steel and she was flying through the air onto his body as he was dragged away from the edge by his colleagues. Her head smacked against the seat and she saw stars.

  She lay on the ground, trying to get the world into some kind of order. It was cold, so cold. Ice was on her face. Snow. A face, Dylan’s face, hovered over her. Snowflakes glittered in his dark hair. She smiled and reached up to touch him. Then he swirled out of focus. She blinked and another face, Eleanor, hovered above her. Someone was crying. Blossom. That slammed her back into reality. She struggled to sit up, ignoring the starburst of pain in her head.

  “Blossom? Where is she?”

  “She’s okay,” Dylan said. “Just a bad cut and shock. Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, yeah, I think so. My head hurts.” She looked around. “Where’s Ma? And Douglas? What happened? I heard a shot. Did you shoot him?” She started to stand then stopped when the pain became too much.

  Dylan sat on the ground next to her and put his arms around her. “Stop for a minute. The ambos are taking Douglas to the hospital and Blossom is being checked out. Then they need to look at you. The sound of your head hitting the seat was pretty sickening.”

  “So you did shoot him?”

  Dylan held her tightly and brushed his lips against her forehead. “Not exactly.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Later,” he said as the ambos came to check her out.

  They poked and prodded, which only made her head and her bruised ribs even worse. She’d forgotten all about her injuries in the panic of Douglas’s craziness but now pain made her breathe in shallow gasps.

  “I think we need to get you up the hospital,” said one of the ambos. “You’ve really been in the wars and I don’t like the look of that bump on your head.”

  Julia nodded, with no strength to even complain. What little energy she did have was spent in trying to see Eleanor, Dee and Blossom through the crowd crammed on the narrow ledge.

  Finally, when they bundled her on the trolley and started the slow climb up the track, she saw Eleanor standing with Dylan and a couple of other cops. Dee was next to her holding a weeping Blossom. All of them, even Dylan, looked shattered. Eleanor rushed over to her.

  “We’ll see you up at the hospital. We’ll be right behind you.”

  “Okay. What’s wrong? I’m okay. What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing,” she said, staring back at Dylan. Then she turned back to Julia and smiled tightly. “Well, maybe something. We need to get you to hospital first.”

  Hours later, after they determined she had a mild concussion and had broken an already bruised rib when she slammed in to the cliff face, she found out what happened. Eleanor sat on her bed and held her hand, while Dee and Blossom hovered next to her.

  “I shot him.”

  “You what?”

  “I shot him. When he bent down to tip you over the edge, I shot him. That’s why he didn’t manage to tip you with much force.”

  “That was you on the rock face?”

  Eleanor nodded. “We were following the police. As soon as he turned down Cliff Drive and stopped at Cahill’s Lookout, I knew what he’d do. So I climbed down through the bush to Boar’s Head.

  “Ma, what the hell were you thinking?” Tears prickled at the back of Julia’s eyes. “They’ll charge you with murder.”

  Eleanor shook her head. “I’m a good shot. He’s not dead. Didn’t anyone tell you? I shot him in the back of his knee. He’s here in another ward under guard. Dylan will arrest and charge me some time later today. He told me not to skip town,” she said with a laugh.

  “Don’t joke, this is serious.”

  Eleanor squeezed her hands. “I know it’s serious, darling, but I had to do something. He ruined your life and badly hurt Blossom. I trusted him and so did she. You acted to protect her all those years ago when I couldn’t. It was time for me to step up for both of you.”

  “But you could go to jail,” Julia said through gulping tears.

  Eleanor shrugged. “Maybe. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. Campbell will do his best for me I’m sure.”

  Dee sat on the other side of the bed and held Julia’s hand, while Blossom perched herself on the bed in front of her mother and reached out to join her hands with her mother and sister. Julia couldn’t stop crying.

  “Shh.” Dee made soothing noises and stroked her head. “They can’t give you anything to make you sleep because of the concussion, but you should try and rest. You should be able to go home tomorrow.”

  “Where’s Dylan? And Nessa? Is she okay?”

  “Yes, yes. Everyone’s fine. Dylan said Douglas is telling them everything, so he’s busy with all of that. He’ll be in to see you later.”

  “What about O’Reardon?”

  The three women exchanged glances and Dee sighed. “He’s disappeared. They went down to his cottage in the Megalong Valley and he’d gone. Randle was there. Dead. Looks like O’Reardon shot his trusted lieutenant and took off.”

  “You mean he’s still out there? He could still hurt us.”

  Eleanor shook her head. “Dylan doesn’t think so. He believes it’s more likely he’ll cut his losses, go to ground and pick up the pieces elsewhere. Too dangerous for him here. And from a conversation I heard between Dylan and Palmer, it sounds as though the authorities were too late to stop him from fleeing the country. Sounds like he had a well worked out escape plan just in case everything went pear-shaped for him. He’s probably in Thailand or some other east Asian country. No doubt with quite a lot of money.”

  So he was gone. For the first time since she ran into Randle outside the German cake shop, she let herself truly relax. But she didn’t want to stay in hospital. Throwing back the bed covers she swung her legs down, ignoring the swimming sensation in her head.

  “What are you doing?” Blossom asked.

  “Going home. I don’t want to stay here.”

  “But you’ve been hurt. They need to make sure you’re okay,” Dee said.

  “I’m fine. A broken rib and a bit of concussion doesn’t require a hospital stay.”

  Amid Blossom and Dee’s protests, Julia stood on wobbly legs while Eleanor was silent, watching her daughter with a small smile on her face.

  “What?” Julia said. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

  “No reason,” she said. “Come on, let’s get you home then. We can look after you.”

  The happiness in her mother’s voice threatened to unleash another torrent of tears. “I know you can,” Julia said. “I’m counting on it.”

  Chapter 32

  Julia sat on the garden wall and stared out at Mount Solitary. The snow of a few days ago had disappeared leaving a washed bush that sparkled in the winter sunlight. Her ribs still ached, but her head was clear. Over the last couple of days a procession of visitors, including Larissa and Sally, sat with her over inevitable cups of tea and revealed the full story of Douglas’s twisted, secret life.

  “I went to see him because I was depressed,” Larissa told her. “Some days I could hardly get out of bed. My husband had left me and I had money problems. Douglas made me feel like I was desirable again. When he told me he’d fallen in love with me I was ecstatic. Going to bed with him was inevitable. But after a few months he told me I was too needy and he was referring me to another psychiatrist. I was devastated. I realized I’d been conned by a master con man.�
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  Julia held her hand as the whole story came out.

  “For a long time I didn’t do anything. I was too ashamed. But finally I contacted the Health Complaints Commission and made a formal complaint. They told me I was one of a long list of clients he’d slept with. They suspected one killed herself not long after Douglas terminated their affair. They even implied he might have helped one along. All of the other complainants either withdrew their complaints or were not ‘reliable’ witnesses.”

  Her mouth twisted in a grimace. “When I heard that, I was determined to go through with my complaint. That was about a month or so before you got out of jail.”

  “So I guess his world was fracturing when Blossom started to remember part of what happened to her,” Julia said.

  Larissa sighed. “His first response was to get her out of the way. Apparently that’s what he thought he was doing when he killed your sister’s boyfriend. He thought Rez was Blossom.” She shook her head. “Such a narcissistic, selfish bastard. Well, he’s going to get what he deserves and I’m going to get on with my life. Which involves building up my business through the employment of talented designers like you.” She got up to leave. “I showed your work to some of the homeware shops in Leura. They started drooling. So hurry up and get better. We have some work in front of us.”

  Julia smiled. Larissa was a survivor. She would throw off what had happened to her and expect Julia to do the same. Not a bad idea.

  Later, a devastated Sally came to see her.

  “He propositioned me the night of Dee’s party. Told me he’d always loved me and wanted me to move with him down to the south coast. I was furious with him. I felt betrayed. But when I went home, I remembered what you said the first time you met him. You thought there was something between us. And I had to admit our whole relationship had this undercurrent of flirtation. He helped me get over what had happened with Father Pat, but now I don’t know what’s real anymore.”

  Julia held her as she wept, furious that another long road of healing was the future path for her friend. “What’s real is your life here in the mountains with your friends who love you. Don’t forget that.”

  Sally nodded and let Eleanor and Dee fuss over her. They loaded her up with soup and bread and told her she had to come for dinner every week. She hugged them and left, still looking bereft.

  Not so Nessa, who was blooming with good health and happiness. She didn’t care that O’Reardon had disappeared, she was just happy he was gone and she was free of him.

  “He can’t hurt me or any of the other girls again.”

  Julia hoped she was right. But in the back of her mind she wondered. She would have preferred to know he was in jail or dead. Like Randle.

  Dee found out Nessa had a love of growing things so conscripted her to help out in the garden center. She was staying with them until she worked out what to do next. Amazingly, David Warren didn’t mind.

  “Given recent events, I think we can dispense with the rules,” he told her.

  So there they were. Five women in Chez Taylor recovering from a ten-year-old crime. Dee kept suggesting she talk to Campbell Walton about getting her name cleared and couldn’t understand why Julia wasn’t interested.

  “Couldn’t be bothered. I’ve got other things on my mind,” she said, hoping Dee would drop it.

  Dylan hadn’t visited her.

  She couldn’t really blame him. She’d heard that when the truth about their affair came out, he’d been told to take some time off and think about his future.

  Sighing, she shifted on the garden wall and watched a black cockatoo wheel down and down into the valley.

  “It’s a beautiful day,” a deep voice said behind her. He sat on the wall and swung his legs around to sit next to her. “The sun’s warm when it’s out.”

  He was in jeans and a thick sweater and looked like he hadn’t shaved in a few days. It suited him. Made him look sexy and dangerous.

  “I heard you’re on leave,” she said carefully.

  “Not for long, unfortunately. Going back to work in a couple of days.”

  “Is everything okay?”

  He glanced at her and smiled. “Yeah, all calmed down. Since it turns out you’ve been wrongly convicted of murder, my superiors are not particularly concerned about what’s between us.”

  “Oh. Well then. That’s good.” Manic butterflies started to flutter in her stomach. “Can I ask you some questions about Douglas?”

  “Sure.”

  “Why did he kill the homeless guy, John? Did he think it would look like I did it?”

  Dylan shrugged. “That was an afterthought. He hadn’t really worked it out. He killed him because John saw him murder Rez. Then he tried to blackmail Douglas. So there Douglas was, right back where he was before he murdered the priest. I guess he thought it worked then, so it would work now. He left the earring hoping you might be implicated. He was getting desperate.”

  “It worked, didn’t it?” She stared down into the valley. “He broke into our house. I’m sure of it. One night I think I almost caught him. That’s when he took the knife.”

  “Probably. He also helped O’Reardon get his medical retirement. And apparently he prescribed a range of drugs when O’Reardon wanted them. The DVD ensured he would do whatever O’Reardon wanted.”

  “I see.” She turned to him again. “What about that prison officer, Ingram? Did he arrange for Jax to go two out with me?”

  Dylan nodded. “One of our local coppers, Norm Grady, was O’Reardon’s eyes and ears. He told O’Reardon you’d been arrested and transferred to Silverwater, so he thought it a good opportunity to deal with you. I guess he thought events were getting out of his control and it was time to silence you.”

  They were silent as the breeze ruffled the leaves. A crimson parrot flashed past.

  “Dee tells me you’re not interested in getting your conviction quashed.”

  She shook her head. “No. No point.”

  He turned to her. “Why not?”

  She tipped her head up to the sky and closed her eyes, reveling in the warmth of the sun. If they had any future together she had to tell him.

  She opened her eyes and faced him. “Because I’m guilty. I did kill Father Pat.”

  He frowned. “Run that past me again. I saw the DVD. You weren’t even there.”

  “The DVD cut out just before Douglas left. So it doesn’t show what happened afterwards.”

  Dylan kept his gray gaze on hers. She saw the moment he realized.

  “He was still alive. Is that what you’re telling me?”

  She nodded. “I scooped up Blossom and started to run. Then I stopped when I heard him groan. He asked for my help and I stood there and watched him die.”

  Dylan sighed. “He would’ve died anyway Julia. Even if you had got some help.”

  “But I didn’t try. You were right. I acted like I was judge, jury, and executioner.”

  “Boy, am I ever sorry I said that. Come on Julia, stop it. You didn’t kill him. Douglas did. You tried to protect your sister. Not getting help for someone who intended to assault your sister and who was going to die within seconds does not make you guilty of murder. I makes you guilty of being human.”

  He put an arm around her and pulled her against him. “Let it go.”

  She rested her head on his shoulder and burrowed against his warmth. The manic butterflies were still working out in her stomach.

  “You said your superiors don’t care about what’s between us.”

  He put another arm around her.

  “What is between us?” she asked in a small voice.

  He pulled her closer and kissed her forehead.

  “Dunno. But I’d like to spend a long time finding out. How does that sound?”

  She lifted her head to see his face. He was smiling, which made her heart turn over.

  “Sounds good. Sounds great.”

  She lifted her face to the sun and watched the parrot flash past again
.

  Freedom was finally here.

  Acknowledgments

  This book took a long time to write. I abandoned it, came back to it and abandoned it again. I wouldn’t have finished it without the help and support of the A Team, Elizabeth Lhuede, Cathleen Ross and Kandy Shepherd. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. Our rural retreat is very precious to me.

  My Friday afternoon chats with Anne Gracie also helped me focus on what was important and what wasn’t. Along with other, some times more important discussions about house renovations and books.

  I’ve also been greatly blessed by the friendship and support of numerous Romance Writers of Australia buddies. Shannon Curtis, Paula Roe, Maggie Nash, Jenny Brassel, Donna Gallagher and Coleen Kwan (or the Writers’ Coven) among many others have all be encouraging and supportive at various times in my writing career.

  Many thanks to Judy Burgess and Radhakrishnan Nair for specific advice on sentencing and other legal matters (as well as fascinating conversation). Valda Rusis and Catriona McComish were always interested in my work and clarified some issues around parole details as well as reminding me of some prison details I’d forgotten about. All errors and omissions are mine.

  Thank you Anna Campbell for your hospitality, blurb advice and lots of writerly conversation (do we ever shut up?).

  Thanks also to my work colleagues for their enthusiastic support of my writing life and to Evelyn Henry, Kerry Williams, Jill Day, Sarah Dillane and Susan Grant for their friendship over many years.

  Finally, many thanks to the team at Momentum, Haylee Nash, Tara Goedjen, Narelle Battersby and Patrick Lenton. You are all a dream with work with.

  A note to the reader. My mythical hotel in Cold Deception is a poorly disguised version of the grand Carrington Hotel in Katoomba. The current owners of the Carrington, Mark Jarvis and Michael Brischetto, are nothing like my villain. They did indeed turn a moldering old heap into something wonderful for which the upper mountains community is extremely grateful.