by Jaye Ford
‘It’s a waste of time. The gate’s locked.’
He pulled a small torch from the back pocket of his jeans, flicked open a bright, narrow beam of light that he aimed towards the edge of the gun emplacement like a lightsabre. ‘I’d like to see for myself.’
Alarm pitched her closer to him. ‘No.’
James hesitated, eyes narrowed. She wanted to take it back, say something that would draw him away but it was too late. He shone the light along the perimeter of the sunken circle and, as it hit the opening, fear bloomed inside her.
She’d left Max in the tunnel but he was scared of the dark and as good at following instructions as Hayden. Had he found his way to the steps? Had he heard, or was he waiting, deafened by thick concrete, half-a-dozen steps from the cousin who wanted him out of the way?
She moved closer, a hand outstretched, hoping her voice was loud enough to carry to the bunker. ‘James, come on. You’re wasting time.’
He looked back at her, the lightsabre illuminating the entrance, the gun firm in his fist and pointing at her. ‘Come with me, Renée. We can check it together.’
Down there, with Max, where he could shoot them both?
45
Rennie had spent most of her life running. Every instinct was telling her to do it now. Her legs were twitching, her lungs were sucking in oxygen, her brain was calculating the shortest route to cover. She’d been trained to stay out of sight, to avoid attention, evade the confrontation. It had kept her alive. Now she needed to keep someone else alive.
‘I found Max, you bastard!’ She shouted the words, letting anger give it volume – a warning to Max, the truth to Hayden.
James’s head swung to the steps that led underground and for a moment he was stalled, staring open-mouthed at the narrow, downwards passage. Rennie didn’t know if it was realisation or indecision or a lack of any kind of training to act fast. But she seized on his hesitation, trying to redirect his attention, making each word an indictment.
‘He’s dead. You killed him. For money. You fucking bastard.’
It snapped him out of his shock and he met her glare, fury and fear barely contained behind the taut expression on his face. ‘You should’ve left, Renée. It would’ve been okay if you’d just left.’ He lifted the gun – no wavering, no apprehension. A decision made.
And as she eyed the barrel of her own weapon, realising she was too close for the recoil to keep her safe, a massive wave of stored-up, deep-seated, enraged energy crashed through her. She’d spent years keeping out of reach of her blood-lusting father and now she was free of him, she’d walked into the sights of an arrogant, egotistical, greedy beginner. He’d committed a crime and he was holding a gun as though that was all it took to be a killer. She’d seen him in action, though, knew he was slow to react, was making decisions on the run, was still stunned by what he’d done – and he’d underestimated her. Which was more than she’d ever had on her side. She knew more about decision-making and calculating risks and acting on instinct than he could ever imagine. And she was not getting shot by a fucking amateur.
She smiled as though she had something contemptuous to add, then ran. Fast, hard, in a wide angle away from him, putting distance between them, tracking sideways through his vision, making it harder for him to take aim.
The cover of bush was ten metres away across unlit, uneven dirt that was underlayed with tree roots and rocks, strewn with stones and fallen branches. Unable to see any detail in the dark, she stepped high, pumped her arms, hoping she didn’t fall before he shot her.
The blast roared in her ears, vibrated through her chest, made her legs reach further, faster. As she hit the bush, sharp foliage tearing at her face and arms, another explosion thundered around her. She heard the bawl of her voice without feeling it leave her throat, the thud of her hip as it hit the earth, the crunch of teeth as her jaw met the ground. It seemed like seconds before the pain arrived, spearing through her leg.
She didn’t stop. Gasping, panicking, no idea how far she was from the clearing, she scrabbled backwards on her butt, dragging herself through the scrub, left leg like a dead weight, memories of other gunshots filling her with terror. Her spine thumped a tree trunk. A huge, old gum that she scuttled around, pressing herself into, breath fast and erratic, body shuddering, eyes squeezed tight. She shouldn’t be here. He was too close. Close was bad. It was all bad.
Fingers shaking, she felt along the length of her jeans for the damage, unable to see in the dark. No slick wetness, no tear in the fabric. The arsehole hadn’t shot her. She’d done something, though. Reaching underneath, she felt the stinging tear in the flesh down her shin, the blood starting to ooze, the hard knot of swelling already starting to form on the bone. Christ, had she broken it?
‘Renée!’ James’s voice rose in the darkness. ‘You can’t get far in the dark.’
Squeezing her eyes on the pain, pulling air in through her nose, she moved her toes, her foot, rotated the ankle, flexed the knee. It hurt like hell and she’d probably need stitches but everything was working and that was all that counted.
‘Renée,’ James called again. ‘I don’t want to hurt you. It’s not what you think. It was an accident and I panicked.’
Yeah, but a padlock on a gate was calculated. And he’d just fired two shots at her. However it’d started in the car park, it was now premeditated and lethal. She rolled the cuff of her jeans down, listened to the sound of James’s feet thudding on the dirt in the clearing, wondering where Hayden was.
Then light filled the night, glowing upwards into the sky and shining through the bush, making sharp, black shadows of the scrub. She ducked, tipped her head around the tree trunk, searching for the source. James’s dual cab was on the path, its headlights on high beam. Instinct sounded like the barked voice of her sister, telling her she had a chance if she ran now, if she just kept crashing through the bush until she’d disappeared.
‘We had a fight, Renée. Max took the money. I was trying to stop him leaving,’ James called. He was moving around the clearing, not heading for the gun emplacement but searching the perimeter. He thought Max was dead. He hadn’t seen Hayden. He wanted her.
‘He was having an affair, Renée.’
No. She didn’t believe that.
‘We can work this out.’
Nothing ever worked out. It was always screwed up. Screwed up and brutal.
‘He didn’t love you. He was leaving you.’
Why the fuck are you still there?
Using the tree for support, she pushed herself to her feet, tested the strength of her injured leg, wincing at the sting as the wound opened.
‘Renée!’ It was a bellow this time, the reasoning replaced by frustration and impatience.
The next words she heard made her run.
*
Max gritted his teeth, straightened his legs and rose up out of the bunker into clean night air, tasting the sweetness of it, squinting in harsh light, blinded by two days of darkness. He could hear James but couldn’t see a damn thing. He was somewhere close – not close enough to spit in his face. The bastard was shouting for Rennie. He hoped to God he hadn’t shot her.
She had run, Max guessed that much. He’d got sick of waiting in the dark, had dragged himself to the turn in the stairs when she’d cried, No. He took it as a warning and ducked back around the wall. A second later, torchlight flashed across the narrow passageway and she was shouting and the stairwell was alight and James’s voice was above him, speaking then swearing then the gun shots booming inside the bunker, rolling around the concrete walls.
It knocked the air from his lungs. Not the noise but the image in his head of Rennie bleeding, shot, dead. Here to find him, killed because she had. Her gun, James’s hand, Max’s fault.
Then James was yelling her name and Max hauled himself up, holding his ribs, clinging to the walls, listening to th
e lies being bawled into the bush. Part of him wanted to shout the truth so she’d know. Part of him wanted her to believe it so she’d run for her life.
His eyes finally found James in the glare. He was standing on the other side of the clearing, head down as though listening for her. He seemed larger, aggressive, menacing in the light from the car. Maybe it was the eerie, elongated shadow that stretched from his feet. Maybe it was the gun in his hand. Max’s legs were trembling and his heart raced from just climbing a few steps but it didn’t lessen the urge to beat the crap out of him.
The snap from the bush was loud enough to carry all the way to him. James heard it too, lifted his head, turned his face. It came from the south, closer to the gun emplacement. Rennie and Hayden were both out there.
‘Renée!’ James bellowed.
Without thinking, without any idea how to play it, Max ground out the first words that came to him. ‘Don’t. Go. Near. Her.’
James stopped as though he’d hit a post. He stared across the clearing like a man watching his life pass before his eyes. ‘Max?’
‘Yeah, you fuck.’ The effort to raise his voice tore at his ribs.
‘Jesus, Max, are you okay?’
‘I’m still breathing, no thanks to you.’
‘Oh, man. I thought you were dead.’ He made it sound like relief but he stayed where he was, keeping his distance, one hand upturned in appeal, the other still gripping Rennie’s gun.
‘Bullshit. You dragged me into the tunnels and locked me in.’
‘No, I came back to get you and the locks were there. Somebody else put them on. The rangers must have done it.’
‘It’s too late, James. You took the money and you left me to die. You just shot at Rennie.’
His elongated shadow made an exaggeration of the shrug. ‘What are you going do about it, Max? You going to wrestle the gun off me? You can hardly stand. I won’t need to shoot you. I can just push you down the stairs.’
Maybe that’s what he was planning. ‘It won’t get you what you want. Rennie knows everything. She found me, she knows about the fraud, your affair with Sondra, leaving Naomi, the fight in the car park.’ She didn’t but if she was still in the bush, he wanted her to. ‘And she’s gone. She’s probably down at the street already, phoning the cops.’ Where Max hoped she was, running for her life.
James swung the gun in a stiff-armed arc, not to fire a shot but with some kind of pent-up, frustrated fury. ‘This is your fault, Max. You should’ve let it go.’ Walking now with a jolting, angry pace, the volume of his voice rose with each step. ‘I told you I’d give you half. But you had to be a righteous prick, didn’t you? Had to pretend like you’ve never done anything wrong in your whole fucking life. And you got Gran’s house. You owe me.’
Max sensed the hollow air of the bunker at his back, remembered his feet were planted on the top stair and moved two steps into the clearing, trying to hide the fact he could barely support himself.
Still metres away, James raised the gun, aimed it at Max. The sight made his brain recoil. It was James, the cousin he’d rushed to defend his entire life, ready to kill him in cold blood. Shock and fear and fatigue made his legs threaten to give out but he thought of Rennie and Hayden and managed to keep upright and focused. If James killed him now, he wouldn’t let them go home and fix dinner. There wasn’t much Max could do; he was too weak to charge him. Buying time was all he had – and thirty-five years’ experience of James trying to best him. He injected as much scepticism and scorn into his tone as he could. ‘You going to kill me?’
A sneer pulled James’s mouth into an upturned curve and his stalking became a swagger. ‘You think I won’t?’
It was just like when they were kids, except this time it was James with the strength and Max using his brains. ‘You haven’t got the guts to do it like this.’ It was a taunt, not a challenge.
And James bought it. ‘You think you’re so fucking . . .’
Max heard the same soft rustle that halted James mid-sentence. He turned and his heart stopped.
‘Leave him alone!’ Hayden cried.
His son, his lovely son.
46
Hayden was at the edge of the clearing, face crumpled, fists clenched, glancing back and forth between his father and uncle.
‘Jesus Christ, Hayden,’ James shouted before Max could find voice. ‘What the fuck are you doing here?’ As he turned, the gun shifted aim.
‘James, don’t. It’s Hayden!’ Max yelled.
The weapon swung back, his cousin wavering, rattled.
‘What the fuck is wrong with you?’ Max spat.
‘This is your fault. You did this. If you’d shut up and let me do it like I planned, your kid wouldn’t be here. I wouldn’t have had to put you in that fucking tunnel.’
Max wanted to argue the point on so many levels, he wanted to put his body between Hayden and the gun, he wanted to smack James in the teeth, but he sensed the edge of the cliff his cousin was on. A step in one direction and logic was a lost cause. He abandoned the goading and lowered his voice, hoped there was still enough of the man James used to be to coax him back. ‘Are you going to kill both of us? In cold blood? Hayden’s fourteen.’
James’s hand shook as he ran it over his hair and the film of sweat on his face shone like plastic in the light from the car. His eyes flicked tensely to Hayden and back.
Max tried again, forcing a lighter, cousin-to-cousin tone. ‘Come on, James. This is insane.’
‘Hayden,’ James called. ‘Your dad needs help. Come and give him a hand.’ The gun hadn’t moved and his hand hadn’t loosened its hold. He wasn’t being benevolent, he was drawing his targets closer.
‘Stay there,’ Max told him.
Hayden held his ground but his voice was doubtful, urgent. ‘Dad, you look pretty bad.’
‘Get over there,’ James ordered. ‘He’s bleeding. He can hardly stand. He needs you.’
‘No, Hayden. Go. Now.’ Max tried to yell it but he couldn’t push the sound from his damaged chest. It was weak and tremulous and made Hayden hesitate.
‘Get the fuck over there or I’ll shoot him,’ James yelled. ‘You’ve got three seconds. One . . .’
‘Leave now, Hayden.’
‘Two . . .’
Then Hayden was at his side, crying, holding him, trying to shield him and Max’s heart swelled with love and pride and disgust with himself. He’d fucked up again. He should have let James have the damn money; he should have given him the whole fucking business. He should have bought a goddamn going-away present for him and his girlfriend. Now his son was going to die and he would, too. And probably Rennie.
‘What now, James?’ he asked, no pretence in the loathing in his voice.
‘Shut up!’ James was breathing hard, pacing side to side. Rethinking or working himself up to it?
‘Don’t do it, James.’
The plea seemed to make up his mind. James straightened his gun arm, took a single step towards them. Another two and the barrel of the gun would be on Max’s sternum. ‘Get down the steps.’
Max pushed Hayden behind him. ‘You don’t need to do this. Take the money. I don’t care. Just walk away.’
‘It’s too late for that.’
‘We won’t say anything. I’ll make sure Rennie doesn’t.’
His explosion of laughter echoed into the bushes. ‘You think she’s going to do anything you tell her? You think she’s some goddamn angel, don’t you? She’s a criminal, Max. Did you know that? You think she loved you? You think you got it all worked out? She was using you. She changed her name so the cops wouldn’t find her. She’s been spreading her legs and keeping you happy and laughing at you the whole time. Work hard, do the right thing and be thankful you’re not in a fucking hole. You self-righteous prick. Get in the bunker. Both of you.’
‘Not Hay
den. Let him go. Leave him and Rennie out of it. Whatever shit you’ve got stored up, whatever the problem you’ve got with me, it’s between us. So let’s sort it out. You and me. Here and now. It’s not too late for that.’
‘The cops are looking for you. You’re fucking covered in blood.’
‘I’ll tell them someone mugged me and dumped me up here. That Rennie and Hayden found me.’
‘I keep telling you, Max, it’s too late.’ He spoke slowly, like he was explaining it to a five-year-old. ‘They know the money is gone and it works better for me if they think you took it. Don’t you see that? I can make it look like I topped myself. They won’t even look for me. Then Naomi gets to be the grieving widow with the baby and you’re the bastard responsible for the whole fucking mess.’
A beat passed as Max took in what he’d said. He knew James and Sondra had planned to leave the country, he’d got that much out of him when he accused him of taking the money. He was waiting on passports, expensive ones with new names. That’s why he hadn’t just left, why he’d panicked. He’d wanted everything – the money, the lover, the new life in the US. Max had tried to stop it, had tried to make James own up to his deceit but he’d just given his cousin a better way to hide it.
‘You don’t need to hurt Hayden for that. Let him go. Let Rennie go.’
James smiled like it was funny, like it was some kind of in-joke. ‘Max the hero. Always making me look like the loser in the family. Laughing at me behind my back. Jesus, you cheat on your wife and put a man in the hospital but everyone forgets about it when you come up out of that mine. The company even gives you money just for breathing. Not this time. Now you’re a sucker. The cops think you stole the money. Your friends will, too. Oh yeah, and Rennie knows all about it. She asked for a share to keep quiet. She fucked me, too, to seal the deal. All the sweeter now I can tell you, don’t you think?’
James took a moment to be a cocky bastard, letting the gun swing from his fingers as he spread his arms in some kind of see-who’s-clever-now.