by Andrea Drew
“Um, yes.” Ryan didn’t elaborate. The skin around his eyes had bunched up, a muscle under his cheek twitching.
“You know them how?” Constable Jones’ pencil hung poised over the notepad.
Connor broke his silence. “Can we go into more detail at the station later tonight? Ryan isn’t in any state to answer anything now. His girlfriend’s in ICU.” I heard the tremor in his voice and wondered if Jones noticed it, if it would make him suspicious.
“I understand that. But the best time to go over this is right now while it’s fresh in his mind, as I’m sure you’re aware, Detective Reardon.”
Right.
Ryan rubbed his hands down his jeans. “I met Jake and Brenton at a bar Saturday night. I’d had a few. Unwinding after the Mr. Stinky case. I didn’t realize Brenton works with Christie—she’s my girlfriend, Connor’s niece.”
I watched the caster wheels on Ryan’s chair roll an inch back and forth.
Constable Jones continued to scrutinize Ryan, who wasn’t in a hurry to answer anything.
“He broke into your home for what reason? Why would he want to break in? The doors and windows were secured?”
I exchanged glances with Connor, wondering why in the hell the cop seemed so antagonistic to Ryan. Surely the boys in blue stuck together, looked out for each other? What was going on here?
Connor acknowledged me with a barely perceptible nod.
“I don’t know,” Ryan was saying. “Guilty conscience maybe. From what I’ve been told, the guy is twisted, a bit of a sicko, a stalker type. I haven’t been with it the last few days, but I’m not surprised. All I care about right now is Christie. If anything happens and I lose her…” His voice cracked, and he wrung his hands. In that moment, I wanted to rush over and comfort him, despite his antagonistic treatment of me previously.
Connor took a step closer. His prior edginess had been replaced with an air of tranquility. He thrived on crisis; when the chips were down and it all hit the fan, my man seemed to descend into a cloud of calm.
Constable Jones raised a hand. “I understand that. We need to get to the bottom of this. Why do you say he’s a stalker type? Ryan?”
Ryan’s cheeks blazed. “I drank too much Saturday night. A case got to me; I know it shouldn’t but...Christie and I had a bit of a row and I stormed off. I had a few too many, and a couple of blokes helped me home.”
I noticed he skipped the part about waking up naked in their home, but then, it wasn’t exactly polite conversation.
Constable Jones cocked an eyebrow “The perpetrators?”
“Yeah,” Ryan mumbled.
“And they broke into your home? Why?” Officer Jones raised an eyebrow and scowled.
I hoped Ryan wouldn’t answer the question and help Jones join the dots.
“God knows why, he’s nuts. I found him and his mate Jake in my lounge room today. I screamed at them to leave, and hurt one of them, before they ran out of here.”
“I see,” said Constable Jones, his brow wrinkled. “Do you know their surnames? Or address, by any chance?”
“Er, no,” Ryan said, looking away.
The screen door banged closed and the blond haired uniform walked in.
“Neighbor got a registration plate. White Corolla?”
Constable Jones peered at Ryan.
“I think so,” he said.
The blond uniform entered to stand on the other side of Ryan. He had moved close enough that I could see his name badge: Constable Williams. “Mrs. Briggs saw them fighting before they got in the car and took off. One of them was bleeding from the face.”
“Good, we’ll track them down with the rego plate. How many times did you punch him?” Constable Jones closed the notebook and tucked his pen in the pocket of his shirt.
“I don’t remember saying I punched him.” Ryan shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “But I did injure him, yes.”
“Okay.” Constable Williams got up from the chair, which creaked as it stood. “Leave it with us. Doesn’t sound like excessive force to me, but I’ll need to take a statement from this Brenton character.”
Connor loitered at the edges of the group, edging closer to Ryan, who spoke looking at the floor. “Yeah, okay.”
“I might have to speak to your boss, if it’s warranted.”
“Yeah, I know how it goes.”
Constable Williams flicked his chin upwards, and Constable Jones’ heels clicked on the tiled hallway floor. Ryan shook his hand. Connor did the same, while I hung back, conscious of the boys’ club meeting. My name hadn’t come up once, which could only be a good thing.
With authority reflecting from their lapels, the officers walked back through the archway, shoulders rounded, more than likely knowing they’d get no more information from Ryan, and then Connor and Ryan followed. Their deep voices rumbled down the hall and the door slammed closed.
Ryan returned to the room and sighed. “Thank god that’s over. I’m going back to the hospital to see how Christie’s doing.”
“Yeah,” said Connor, checking his mobile phone. “Oh my god.” He smiled slowly and sagged back against the wall. “Christie’s regained consciousness.”
“Say that again,” Ryan, rubbed battered looking fingers through his hair.
“She’s okay. Christie’s okay. The hospital probably messaged you, too.”
“I’m going in.” Ryan shuffled his keys in his pocket.
“You heard what the doctor said. We need rest first. Let’s get some sleep, and we’ll meet there in the morning,” Connor said. Sounded like he wanted to talk to me, in private, judging by the knowing glance cast in my direction before Ryan left. Maybe he knew something I didn’t, which would make a nice change.
Tuesday 22nd January, 8.51pm
The small white car slammed into the pole with a stomach-turning crunch. Then silence, other than the hiss of a radiator. The white car’s grille had missed the girl by inches. She dragged her phone from a pocket, pressing it to her ear with a ripple of quaking fingers.
She peered into the car and began to weep. One man’s forehead was lodged in the windscreen, a star of blood radiating from the shattered glass. The other man mumbled incoherently with not a mark on him. His seatbelt, locked in place, had saved his life.
She hung up, despite the operator’s advice to her to watch and wait, and attempted to open the badly dented passenger door. She squatted by the window, attempting with hand signals and facial expressions to calm Jake. The puppy had darted up the street before stopping at the edge of the busy road. Two men and a woman emerged from the driveway of a home meters up the street. She waited for the ambulance.
Chapter Sixteen
Tuesday 22nd January, 9.02pm
The homes along Lineside Way, Brunswick were lit up like Christmas trees, the blue whirring light of the ambulance shining a beacon that drew crowds. Women in aprons crossed their arms, peering down the street, seeking titillation. Of course, the paramedics wouldn’t give anything away, but Mary Briggs at number seventeen knew what it was all about. She whispered in her closest neighbor Ray’s ear that it would have been something to do with the two hooligans she saw arguing earlier. She puffed out her chest as she explained confidently that the police had interviewed her. She couldn’t stress enough the importance of paying attention to one’s environment. Luckily, that nice police officer lived further up the street, and they’d come out to see what caused the horrible bang. Oh, how that handsome blond police officer’s ears had pricked up when she’d passed on what she saw.
They’d crashed just a few hundred meters down the road. At first, it sounded like a gunshot. She’d wandered down the road in her slippers and discovered that poor young girl, practically hysterical. Irresponsible drivers. One of them looked dirty, with dried blood caked all over his face and the start of a black eye taking shape. Before they got in the car, he wouldn’t stop screaming at his friend who sounded like he just wanted to help. The whole nasty business shocked her.
Nothing like this ever happened in Brunswick. Mainly families and busy young couples minded their own business in this neighborhood.
Mary elbowed Ray as the ambulance stretcher clicked onto the rail in the back of the emergency vehicle and the paramedic slid one man into the back of the ambulance. She knew he was conscious, she’d heard him moan. As for the other one with the mangled face, she had no idea. He hadn’t moved or made a sound.
“That’s him,” she said before her lips pressed together...
“Um…who?” Ray asked, fumbling with his watch.
“The passenger. Tried to tell that idiot he shouldn’t drive with his eye puffed up like that but he wouldn’t listen. He could have killed someone.”
Ray’s mouth formed an O. He shuffled his feet and gazed longingly through a window to the flickering TV inside. The first cricket test scores were close it might be a tie. The game would be over soon.
The second paramedic slammed the back doors closed and swung into the driver’s cabin with her partner. The siren blasted a few short pips before the vehicle started down the hill. A little boy ran down the hill, smiling in his attempts to beat it.
Ray grabbed his walking stick and hobbled in to check on the cricket scores. Mary stayed to ensure everyone knew what was going on before treading inside to catch the news.
Tuesday 22nd January, 9.04pm
Connor froze in place. Sure, he’d used his ability for the first time he could remember to block Isabella from communicating with Gypsy any further.
However, this, this was different. It could change everything.
He’d blocked an attempt, a communication Isabella initiated with Gypsy. One that contained bad news, news he could never, ever pass on to Gypsy. It showed foresight, planning, and intent. Which left him wondering about Isabella’s motives? Surely, as a child, she wasn’t capable of something like this. He struggled with the implications of it all.
“Don’t go out there just yet. Give it a minute or two.”
Gypsy swiped the hair from her eyes, and shuffled, impatient to get away.
“What? Why not?”
“Something’s happened.”
“What do you mean something’s happened? What are you talking about?”
“It’s Isabella. She just tried to get in touch with you. I intercepted the transmission, for wont of a better word.”
“You did?” If he thought Gypsy was impatient earlier, judging by the folded arms and the biting of a lip, she bordered on anxiety now. “Wow, I thought all that telepathic stuff was my domain. So you had a second crack at flexing your sentinel muscles, hey?” Her face wore that cheeky expression he knew and loved so well. “What did she say?”
It wasn’t what she said that was the problem, but what she did.
“There’s been a car accident, just a few hundred meters from here.”
“Oh my god let me see, Connor, let me out there.”
He placed one hand gently on her back, and brought her closer to him. Her warm, soft figure sent a rush of warmth through him, reinforcing the instinct to protect.
“She told me about the accident. Brenton and Jake. It’s serious.”
Gypsy stared up at him, mouth open.
“An accident? How serious? In what way?”
“Well, she knew about it. I didn’t want to pass on the bad news.”
“Bad news, hell, the fact that Brenton is out of the way is good news, isn’t it? Although his friend Jake doesn’t deserve this, he sure as hell does. Karma’s a bitch.”
Gypsy pushed the screen door open and headed toward the street. A frown dominated Ryan’s face, and his attention was riveted on ambulance officers outside a car, which had hit a power pole.
A crowd gathered on the other side of the street.
Connor touched Ryan’s shoulder. “Come away mate. Let’s go home for now. Things will be better in the morning”
Shaking himself out of his reverie, Ryan turned his head and seemed to come back to the present. “I recognize the car. That’s dickhead, isn’t it? Brenton & Co.”
Connor didn’t answer.
Gypsy elbowed him. “So what’s the go then? Are you going to give me the inside skinny then or what? You have an exclusive relationship with Isabella all of a sudden, do you?” Her smile, initially a parting of the lips, gave way to a fully-fledged toothy grin. He smiled in spite of himself.
“We’ll see.” He said, and gestured toward their cars. “Let’s get to the hospital and we’ll see.”
As they walked slowly toward the cars, he breathed a sigh of relief. He hadn’t needed to tell her that Isabella had somehow excited the puppy, enough that it suddenly bolted in front of the car. She had planned the whole thing. So much for her childlike demeanor, she had a vengeful streak a mile long. If his suspicions panned out the way he expected, they were in for more surprises yet.
The last thing they needed was another impulsive, stubborn, fiercely loyal psychic interfering in family matters.
He figured he probably didn’t have any choice in the matter, as he rarely did once Gypsy decided on a reckless course of action. He unlocked the car door, and nodded to Ryan as they got into the cars.
He’d hold onto his secret as long as he had to. The responsibilities of a sentinel were becoming clear to him, far too clear for his own liking.
Wednesday 23rd January, 9.04am
Jake raised his bandaged head a few inches from the pillow before letting it fall back. A hammer pounded in his right temple. His left leg wouldn’t move. Tearing the sheet away, he peered down at the limb. A black and grey moon boot meant he wouldn’t be going anyway in a hurry.
The crash couldn’t have happened at a worse time. Hot tears gathered in the corners of Jake’s eyes. Yes, the dog jumped in front of their car, but if he’d insisted harder, been more persistent, he could have driven them both to safety. He should never have let Brenton drive, particularly at that time and in that state of mind. They’d be in the emergency room right now, arguing in intense whispers, rather than him in a ward with a banged up head and broken leg and Brenton…wherever Brenton was. Jake didn’t even know whether he was okay.
He knew Brenton well enough to know that the entire situation had escalated out of control. Brenton would have stupidly poisoned Christie, without any concept of reality, justifying it fully to himself, telling himself he could have told the hospital about what had happened at any time. Instead, he’d slid into an obsessed spiral, desperate to love and be loved, to be with the man of his dreams. He might have paid the ultimate price.
He winced as he peered around the room. There appeared to be three other beds. The one directly across from him contained an obese, snoring old man, while the occupant of the bed directly to his right could not be seen because of the curtains pulled around it. No sound emanated from that direction though, so maybe the curtains weren’t being used for privacy reasons. The bed diagonally opposite had been stripped bare.
Jake groaned as he fished for some type of nurse notification button. After fumbling around above his head, clattering and patting various locations surrounding the bed, he eventually found a gray cylinder with a red button wedged between the mattress and the bed frame. He pressed it and a muted buzz registered in the corridor. Jake cocked an ear, hoping for approaching footsteps. He closed his eyes in an attempt to relax, but the picture remained in his mind. A tall girl appeared to the right of the windscreen, her blonde hair swaying as she scurried after the cocker spaniel pup. Her left leg was inches away from the grille. In slow motion, Brenton had swung the steering wheel to the left where it clicked as it locked.
He’d come to with his head embedded in the visor. A river of blood ran down Brenton’s forehead, which had lodged in the windscreen, glass embedded into the skin. A paramedic with watery eyes had spoken to him, but the words were indecipherable. After moving his hands and fingers, he and his partner had moved Jake delicately onto the stretcher. Then he’d let the blackness overtake him.
A rustle to t
he left caught his attention and he opened his eyes. A dark-skinned nurse with short hair fussed with the sheet.
“Can I help you?”
“My friend Brenton, where is he? The driver of the car when we crashed?”
She regarded him blankly. “He’s in another ward.” Her lips pressed together in a frown, and she recommenced the sheet rearrangements.
“Which ward? Can I see him?”
“Not now. He’s in ICU.” She wouldn’t look at him.
“Intensive care? Is he okay? What happened to him?
“He sustained a brain injury.”
“Brain injury? As in what? Will he be the same person?” He strained his neck in an unsuccessful attempt to sit up.
The nurse continued to fuss with the bed sheets, but eventually she met his gaze. It told him all he needed to know.
Jake couldn’t speak. He touched his temple and closed his eyes, wishing that he and Brenton could jump back in time. If only he’d done things differently, taken control, shaken some sense into him. The nurse’s soft footsteps echoed as she retreated. An uncontrollable whimper escaped him as he imagined Brenton in intensive care, a mass of tangled tubes, unconscious and unfeeling.
Burning tears gathered, and he wondered if Brenton would be a vegetable or if he’d recover in time. Such a damned mess. He sobbed until pain surged through his chest.
Brenton was screwed up and twisted, of that, he was certain, yet in that moment, Jake ached for his friend. Underneath the insecurities, the obsessions lurked a good man, neurotic and desperately lonely.
Jake sucked in a breath and attempted to slow down his breathing and gain control. He’d find out from the doctor later today about his friend’s condition. He hoped to hell that he’d imagined the worst conclusion; he’d love to be completely wrong. Maybe that way Brenton would recover.