Hijacked Honeymoon

by Marion Lennox

  ‘Oh.’

  This was inane. Abbey crossed to the sink and peeled off her gloves. Then Ryan was behind her, untying the tapes of her theatre garb, and Abbey started feeling really strange.

  Really strange.

  ‘You… you can let Steve go back to his research now,’ she managed, and it was a real effort to keep her voice light. ‘I… You can see my leg’s almost back to normal. The lass who’s helping to babysit can keep caring for Jack, and I can take over work again.’

  ‘Not yet you can’t.’

  ‘Ryan, I must.’

  ‘Monday,’ he said. ‘You can start again next Monday, but you’ll take the rest of the week off, Abbey, and that’s an order.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Ryan…’

  ‘Don’t baulk me here, Abbey,’ Ryan said heavily, and his hands suddenly fell to her waist. And gripped hard. ‘I want to do this. In three weeks I’m having to walk away from here, and I want to do it with a clear conscience. Allow me to give you a decent break. Then maybe-’

  He broke off. His hands fell away and he stepped back as Eileen re-entered the room. Eileen looked curiously from Ryan to Abbey. And she smiled.

  ‘Am I interrupting something?’ she said brightly. ‘Would you like me to leave clearing this mess until later? And pull the curtains closed?’

  Abbey gasped and moved away from Ryan. She hauled her theatre gear from her shoulders and shoved it in the laundry basket with unnecessary force.

  ‘No. No!’ The feel of Ryan’s hands on her waist was still with her. ‘We were just discussing Dr Henry’s wedding,’ she managed. She took a deep breath. ‘If you’ll excuse me, R-Dr Henry, I’ll go out to Janet. I want to be with her when she wakes.’ She took another deep breath. ‘And… I accept your offer to work until next Monday, though, if you change your mind…’ She faltered, knowing that Eileen’s interest was growing by the minute. Probably because of the mounting colour of Abbey’s cheeks.

  She made a swift, desperate decision.

  ‘If you’re free… maybe before Sam comes back… how about on Thursday? Maybe you and Felicity could come to dinner out at the farm. Jack and I would enjoy having you.’

  There. She’d got it out. She had to start treating this man as part of a couple, she thought bleakly, and the best way to do it was to put a face to this mysterious Felicity. The sooner the better.

  ‘You mean it?’ Ryan asked, and Abbey nodded.

  ‘Thursday. Seven o’clock?’ She cast a rather frantic look at Eileen. ‘Can you come too?’

  ‘I’m on duty,’ Eileen said sadly, but there was a hint of a twinkle behind her eyes. ‘Otherwise I wouldn’t miss it for quids. I’m just not sure where Felicity stands in all this. I’m just not sure where anyone does. But I’d really like to know.’

  ‘Why am I doing this?’

  Abbey stared down at her tousle-headed toddler and demanded an answer. ‘Jack, why am I going to all this trouble? It’s like those people who go swimming in the Antarctic in midwinter. I’d have to be a little bit crazy.’

  Jack was armed with a spoon and was in the process of cleaning the chocolate mousse bowl. There was chocolate mousse from one end of his small person to the other and he had far more important matters weighing on his mind than his mother’s social life. Like how he could get the last scraps of chocolate right at the bottom of the bowl…

  He gave up and did it the easy way. Abandoning the spoon, he stuck his head right down the bottom of the bowl and licked.

  And Abbey chuckled.

  ‘Yeah, well, the ostrich approach may have its advantages, but they’re coming even if I stick my head in a mixing bowl too.’ She sighed and looked around her. At least the food would be great. If there was one thing Abbey could do well it was cook. If only the house didn’t look so… so… well, so darned poor.

  It normally didn’t matter. It was just that tonight… tonight what she really didn’t want to happen was for Felicity and Ryan to feel sorry for her.

  ‘Which they shouldn’t,’ she said. She picked up Jack, bowl and all, and gave his chocolate-clad person a fierce hug. It was a bit tricky as he still had the bowl over his head, but Jack enjoyed the sensation and gave a chuckle from the bottom of the bowl. ‘I have you, Jack Wittner. And I have Janet. Your grandma is improving every day, little Jack, and we’ll have her playing hopscotch in no time.’

  Felicity and Ryan arrived right on seven and by the time they arrived Abbey had the place looking as good as it ever could. She’d placed a white cloth (not too worn) over the scrubbed kitchen table and a bunch of crimson bougainvillea sprayed from a glass jar in the centre. With luck the flowers were so lovely that her visitors would miss the absence of a cut crystal vase. The meal was all ready. The smell from the chicken concasse was wonderful and Abbey was almost satisfied.

  She gave herself one last critical look in the mirror before she went to answer the door. Maybe her soft white frock was a little worn but it was still pretty, with a low scooped neckline, no sleeves and a skirt that flared out into soft folds almost to her ankles. Abbey’s close-cropped curls were brushed until they shone and she’d even scrounged a little make-up from a store she hadn’t used since John died.

  ‘Your mummy looks pretty,’ she told Jack in a voice that sounded defiant. Jack was dressed in his newest pyjamas and was clearly not impressed. He had a new game. The chocolate bowl was now clean, but Jack had it permanently over his head. He staggered about like a flannelette and plastic robot, bumping into everything in sight and chuckling with glee. Now he hauled his bowl off his head, checked out the new version of his mother-and stuck his bowl back.

  Abbey stuck her tongue out at her now blind son.

  ‘As a first comment, I’d have to say your appraisal stinks,’ she told her son, but she smiled and went to answer the door, feeling good.

  That lasted a whole ten seconds. Abbey swung open the door and her feeling of satisfaction in her person, her little house and the evening in general faded to nothing.

  Felicity was just gorgeous.

  Of course she was. She was Ryan’s intended wife, after all, and Abbey might have known Ryan could never marry anyone second rate.

  Felicity was tall-almost as tall as Ryan-and willowslim, with legs that seemed to go on for ever. Her dress must have cost a bomb and it was straight out of the New York collections. Elegant and understated, it was high at the neck and minimal everywhere else, sleekly black and hugging Felicity’s body as if it had been sewn on her. Felicity’s long blonde hair hung down freely, beautifully cut and silken smooth. Luminous blue eyes gazed at Abbey with lazy interest, and her perfectly painted mouth curved into a smile of greeting.

  It was all Abbey could do not to slam the door shut again.

  But Ryan was beside Felicity, looking so handsome he almost took Abbey’s breath away. His dark suit looked as expensive as Felicity’s gown, but the smile behind his eyes was infinitely warmer than Felicity’s. He smiled straight down at her and Abbey felt her heart turn to butter.

  ‘Boo,’ said Jack. He appeared from behind his mother’s skirts, lifted his bowl-and then saw the newcomers. Stunned by the power of his boo, he scuttled off toward the kitchen, his bowl back in place. He made it as far as the first wall, thumped against it hard, toppled over and started to wail.

  After that, the evening went straight downhill.

  The meal itself was fine.

  Abbey’s cooking couldn’t be faulted. With Jack tucked safely in bed-still clutching his bowl ready for robotics in the morning-Abbey served and tried to take part in a conversation in which she felt increasingly uneasy. Felicity ate as if she hardly noticed what she was eating, making no comment on the trouble Abbey had gone to. She chatted brightly, with an air Abbey knew from long ago. Ryan’s mother had it down to an art form.

  It was the air of a social superior putting the lower orders at their ease.

  ‘This house is charming, Abbey,’ Felicity said pleasantly. ‘I
t’s just so quaint. Almost an artwork in itself. If I could lift it up and take it back to New York it’d sell for a fortune.’

  ‘With or without the rising damp?’ Abbey managed a smile and then tried to at least make the conversation medical. When in doubt, work. ‘Ryan tells me you’re an oncologist. While you’re here I wonder if I could have a talk to you about one or two cancer patients and their treatment. I’d very much appreciate it.’

  She would, too. It was hard sometimes to be an isolated family doctor, suspecting that the treatment she was giving was less than optimal but not sure. With simply no time to attend conferences and keep up to date, Abbey called for specialist advice often, but sometimes her patients refused to go to Cairns to see someone better qualified. If she had someone on the spot… a well-trained oncologist… she’d love to know what the latest treatments were.

  But Felicity was holding her hands up in horror.

  ‘I’m in research,’ she said firmly. ‘I don’t see actual patients any more. Ryan and I are heading for what we think of as ideal medical practices. Ones where we don’t handle grubby patients at all.’

  ‘Oh. Of course.’ Abbey cleared the dinner plates and counted to ten. Then she tried again. ‘Actually, I’d only like to talk to you about treatments. I am a bit out of touch here, and it’d be lovely if you could give me an hour or so of your time-just to answer a few questions that have been troubling me.’

  ‘That’s what journals are for,’ Felicity said lightly. ‘I think you’ve taken up enough of my honeymoon, don’t you, dear?’

  It was the ‘dear’ that got her.

  Abbey turned to find Ryan glowering, and she couldn’t figure out whether he was glowering at her for asking the question or glowering at Felicity for rebuffing her so well.

  It didn’t matter. Ryan Henry was engaged to the cow and he was responsible. Abbey glowered right back at him. She glowered at the pair of them. She glowered at the kitchen in general.

  ‘There’s chocolate mousse,’ she said tightly, and dumped it on the table with a slap that would, if she’d been waitressing at the Ritz, have got her the sack before she could have blinked. Which was just what she wanted. She wanted to be dismissed. She felt young and country-bumpkin frumpish and she even wanted Ryan to go home. Just get them both out of here.

  She ate one spoonful of chocolate mousse-funny that Jack liked it because as far as Abbey could tell it tasted like mud-and then the phone rang.

  Thank heaven for phones. Only this time the thought was inappropriate.

  Abbey lifted the receiver and it was Marg Miller.

  ‘Abbey… Abbey…’

  Chocolate mousse, Felicity-even Ryan-forgotten, Marg Miller suddenly had Abbey’s full attention. There was no mistaking the terror flooding down the line.

  ‘Marg, what is it? No! Marg, you need to stop crying. Take your time. Three deep breaths and then say what’s wrong.’

  Abbey waited while the ragged breathing steadied. When Marg spoke again, at least Abbey could understand her.

  ‘Abbey, it’s Ian. He came home last night. From Sydney. Abbey, he looks just awful…’

  ‘He’s ill?’

  ‘Yes, but… Not ill… I mean… Abbey, he’s gone…’

  ‘Is he dead?’

  The shock tactic worked. Marg gave a terrified gasp and then steadied. When she spoke again her voice was almost calm.

  ‘Abbey, I just don’t know.’

  ‘Is he there with you?’ Abbey had visions of a heart attack now. Ian dead on Marg’s kitchen floor. She cast an urgent glance at Ryan, who was rising to his feet. She had Ryan’s total attention, as Marg Miller had hers.

  ‘No. He’s not. Abbey, that’s just it. I don’t know…’

  ‘Marg, what is it that you’re afraid of?’ Abbey demanded harshly, making her voice as authoritative as she could. ‘Quickly. Just say. I can’t help unless you do.’

  Silence.

  And then Marg’s voice, breaking with sobs again.

  ‘Abbey, he came home just miserable. He’d hardly speak to me. Just went to bed and stayed there. Today he went out for a walk. He walked for ages and when he came home he seemed… well, odd. But he wouldn’t say what was wrong. Then tonight… I had to go out to a CWA dinner and Ian said just go. He said I mustn’t stay home because of him.

  ‘So I went but when I got there I started thinking-you know when you think there’s something really, awfully wrong but you don’t know what? And I came home. But he’s not here. Abbey, there’s a note on my bed, saying goodbye. And he’s sorry. And… and his car’s gone and… Abbey, I know this is stupid but so is the hose I keep by the kitchen door. Abbey, he wouldn’t… You don’t think…? He wouldn’t-’

  ‘What’s he driving?’ Abbey snapped.

  ‘A red Corolla.’

  ‘Licence number?’

  ‘Abbey, I don’t know.’ Marg’s voice broke into a wail and Abbey clipped it off fast.

  ‘OK, Marg. Ring your sister. Tell her to come over and be with you.’ Marg’s sister lived on the adjoining property, Abbey thought thankfully, and Annette was a sensible woman who could be relied on in an emergency. ‘I’ll contact the police to get things mobilised, and I’ll be right there.’

  ‘You don’t think… Abbey, if I’m being stupid…’

  ‘Marg, do you believe Ian intends suicide?’

  There was a sharp, horrible pause.

  ‘Yes, I do,’ Marg said bleakly. ‘I don’t know why but, God help us, Abbey, yes, I do: Please, Abbey, hurry.’

  ‘I’m coming.’

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  RYAN came with her.

  It took three minutes before they were in Abbey’s car, heading for the Miller property, and by then Abbey felt like all the wind had been pushed right out of her. If there was one thing Ryan Henry could do, it was mobilise help in an emergency.

  He organised Jack while Abbey contacted the police. By the time Abbey was off the phone she knew there was no way Felicity would look after Jack. Abbey would never have thought of asking it of her but Ryan knew no qualms. He asked but he got nowhere. Felicity took herself off in Ryan’s car, clearly appalled that Ryan felt the need to get involved. Abbey heard her talking angrily while she was waiting for the police sergeant to answer his mobile phone.

  ‘For heaven’s sake, Ryan, this is none of your business. These people have nothing to do with you.’

  Ryan didn’t respond to Felicity’s anger at all. ‘I’ll see you later, Felicity,’ Ryan said flatly. ‘I’ll go over the road and find the girl who looks after Jack…’

  Their voices faded out of range and Abbey blocked Felicity’s anger out of her mind. She simply didn’t have time to think about it.

  She rang the ambulance as well as the police, asking the officers to take the vehicle out to the Millers’.

  ‘I hope I’m overreacting here,’ she said to herself. ‘I hope Marg’s overreacting.’

  But Marg Miller was a sensible, unemotional woman who’d buried a husband and raised a family of six on her own, and Abbey had never known her to panic before.

  With a sinking heart, Abbey slipped off her dress, hauled on jeans and a sweatshirt and emerged to find Marcia had already arrived from over the road. Ryan was a mover and shaker if anyone was. The next thing Abbey knew they were turning out of the driveway, with Ryan at the wheel of her car.

  ‘Tell me where to go, Abbey,’ Ryan said curtly.

  ‘Just straight north.’ She paused. ‘You know the Miller farm?’

  ‘I think so. Off Palm Road.’

  ‘That’s the one.’ Abbey frowned. ‘It’s not much use us going there, though. Ryan, where would you go if you took off in your car from the Millers’ with a piece of rubber hose, and suicide in mind? You’d need a spot where no one would find you until morning.’

  ‘Mmm.’

  There was silence while the little car cut through the night. Outside was still and warm and starlit. It was a lovely night. Hardly a night for ending your life.<
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  ‘Ryan… when I asked for your help with Mrs Miller and told you I thought there was something wrong with Ian… did you contact him?’ Abbey said diffidently into the darkness. She tried as hard as she could to make her voice non-judgemental but it still came out badly. And Ryan heard it

  ‘No.’

  ‘Oh.’

  Silence.

  ‘Hell,’ Ryan said at last. ‘I didn’t see the need. It was none of my business. I rang his mother like you asked.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And she said she was worried about Ian’s health. So I told her to have him make an appointment with you or Steve or me next time he was home. Or see his own doctor in Sydney.’

  ‘Just like he would if he had a sore throat,’ Abbey said softly.

  ‘How the hell was I to know he was suicidal?’

  ‘You weren’t to know that,’ Abbey agreed. ‘I should have rung myself.’

  ‘Abbey, Ian’s health is none of our business.’

  ‘No. Like Felicity said…’

  ‘Abbey…’

  ‘Just shut up, Ryan,’ Abbey said, in a voice that dragged. ‘You’ve changed from the Ryan I knew and loved. I don’t think I know you any more, but I guess it doesn’t matter. It’s not us that’s important here. Just… just think about where Ian would go.’

  ‘Thomlinsons’.’

  Ryan’s voice three minutes later, cutting across the silence, made Abbey jump. Her mind had been racing in a million directions, and she didn’t like where she ended up each time. How long had Ian been away? Marg hadn’t known. How long had he had to carry out what he intended?

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Thomlinsons’,’ Ryan said heavily. ‘You must know the place, Abbey. The cove where we swam out to rescue old man Thomlimson’s crayfish?’

  Abbey frowned. And considered.

  The Thomlinsons ran a derelict property just north of the Millers’. The ground on the Thomlinsons’ place was rough and hilly, giving way to mountains behind. From the foot of the mountains the land turned into uncultivated wilderness.