by Helene Young
The pattern suggested to the Australian Crime Commission that this was in fact grudge arson, rather than insurance fraud as the first investigation assumed. An investor who’d lost their money, taking it out on the trees. The team in the AFP thought otherwise, and they’d gone to considerable trouble to unravel the web of connections. Sitting right in the middle of that web was Mr Grant McCormack and McCormack Mines lawyer, Don Adler. Another undercover AFP operative was in place in the south-west corner of Western Australia, where Greentrees had two more plantations.
Just before the turning for Happy Jack Road, a large four-wheel drive ute rocketed out of the intersection ahead of him. The car’s high beams dazzled Ryan, so he didn’t get a good look at it. All he saw was a bank of spotlights, a gun rack on the bullbar and the side of a metal trayback as it shot past.
‘Jesus Christ,’ he growled, looking in his rear-vision mirror. They’d almost mowed him down. The unease he’d felt at his unlocked car reared its head. Someone looking for him? He’d be pretty pissed off if his cover was already blown.
He drove past the Scotts’ place. Kaitlyn was still up, he noted. The outside light cast a golden glow across the driveway and he could see lights over the lawn on the escarpment side. It was oddly comforting, knowing they were facing each other across the valley.
You crazy man. She didn’t quite make beautiful with that wild mass of copper hair, but … He tried to define what it was about her that drew him in, that made her so appealing. Was it her wry humour? Her laughter, that seemed to bubble up, making it impossible not to smile in return? Or her porcelain skin and liquid brown eyes. Maybe it was the intelligence he saw in those eyes. She was smart, way smarter than him probably. What sort of woman designed her own home and worked for an organisation like Border Watch? With those smarts, the chances were she saw him as some sort of lame-brain fireman who’d run away from Sydney in the middle of a nervous breakdown. That didn’t sit comfortably.
Sure, she didn’t know the real him, but then, neither did he. Which meant he could carry on being Brad Ryan, who flirted rather obviously with good-looking women.
He whistled as he drove, tapping the wheel in time to the tune on the radio and suddenly feeling more optimistic. Not far to go and he had a cold beer waiting for him.
‘Holy hell.’ He slammed on the brakes, feeling them lock before he eased up. He was out of the door in an instant and racing up the road towards a familiar car, which was tipped precariously on the edge of the escarpment. ‘Kaitlyn!’ he yelled. ‘Kait? Are you all right?’
She appeared from the left of the car. In the glare of his headlights he could see dirt on her hands and smears on her face.
‘I hope to Christ they weren’t friends of yours, because if I catch them, I’ll get the book thrown at them.’ There was no mistaking the anger in her voice.
He added it up in a split second. ‘Big trayback ute with a gun rack and spotlights?’
‘I don’t know. They blinded me with their lights. I couldn’t see anything. You know them?’ She stomped round to stand in front of him, her hands on her hips. He stared. This woman had problems with her buttons, but now was probably not a good time to tell her she had a couple too many undone, plus dirt on her face.
‘No, I don’t know them. They almost wiped me out. What were you doing down here? Didn’t I pass your place a couple of kilometres back?’ He was trying to lighten the tone because he sensed fear as well as anger in her. God, she was sexy.
‘More fool me for being a good neighbour,’ she said, rubbing her neck and spreading more smudges. ‘I saw what looked like a torch bobbing around at Jerry’s place – sorry, your place. So I went to take a look. Figured all I had to do was drive in and drive out, and that would scare them away.’ She snorted and shifted her weight from one foot to the other. She was trying too hard to appear nonchalant.
‘A light at my place?’ Ryan didn’t like the sound of that.
‘Yes. Next thing I know a vehicle is barrelling at me. I pulled to one side to let it through. Lucky I did because they still managed to clip me, and then they kept driving.’ She shuddered and this time crossed her arms over her breasts. ‘I thought I was going over the edge.’
Her voice cracked on the last word and her legs looked like they might buckle. Ryan had a dozen questions he wanted to ask, but he did what any man would have done: reached over and put an arm around her shoulder. What surprised him was the instant reaction from his body. Without thinking, he put his other arm around her and pulled her close. She rested against him and he was lost in the soft, womanly curves of her. Her hair smelt of shampoo, her skin of a warm perfume with a hint of cinnamon. Despite the fact she was shaking, there were no tears. She was tough beneath the softness.
They stood like that for maybe a minute, until he felt her straighten. He forced himself to ease away, resisting the urge to rub his chin across her hair and feel the slippery slide of it.
‘Sorry about that,’ she muttered.
‘Don’t apologise. Since it was my place you were rescuing, the least I can do is tow you out. Then maybe you’ll let me get you a proper drink.’
She managed a shaky laugh and looked down at the ground, catching sight of her cleavage. Her fingers fumbled to fasten the errant buttons. ‘Thanks, I’d appreciate that. I’d better let Julia know I’ll be late. She’ll start to worry if I don’t reappear soon.’ All brisk and businesslike, she turned away from him, but he couldn’t help noticing that she avoided his gaze.
He would not allow himself to overstep the mark with his neighbour, especially not while he was on the job. Odd that she’d snuck under his radar and become a persistent little itch he wanted to scratch. Best to keep busy and it would disappear. And if not, well, he would disappear soon enough.
A quick inspection of her vehicle showed it was relatively stable. Its left rear wheel was hanging in space, but the chassis and driveshaft had settled onto a ridge of solid ground. While she couldn’t drive the car out, it didn’t look like it would move any further down the slope either. Through the open window he could see the park brake was on and the car was in gear. Good.
He loped back down to his car. It would take a bit of manoeuvering to get his car into position with the winch, but that would be a whole lot quicker and cheaper than waiting for a tow truck to come out from Atherton at this time of night.
He could hear her on the phone as he climbed back out of his vehicle. The headlights gave him enough light to work by.
‘No, I’m fine. I’ll report it as a hit and run and the insurance will cover it. I’ll go into the station and fill in the forms tomorrow.’ She paced up and down, her hand massaging her neck.
She wasn’t mucking around, he thought, as he ran the hook and cable off the drum. Sliding under the front of her car, he found the fixed eyelet and secured the hook to it.
As he crawled out and stood up she finished the phone conversation and came over to him. He could smell her scent across the gap. There you go again, he thought with dismay as his heart picked up a beat. She’s a mother, for Christ’s sake. Behave. He knew none of his unwise thoughts would show on his face. He spoke for distraction.
‘I’ll need to get the brake off and the car into neutral, then we’ll be good to go. Just let me take the strain before I hop in.’
She shook her head. ‘Put the tension on it and I’ll get the car set.’ There was a hint of a lopsided smile. ‘I think I’m lighter than you, or at the very least I know the car.’
He turned back to his winch with a wry chuckle. ‘I’d say you’re definitely lighter than me.’ The sound of the small motor stopped any further conversation. Her words seemed more an acknowledgement that she was statuesque than an attempt at gaining a compliment. It just piqued his interest even more. Appearance seemed to matter little to her, yet her easy grace transcended the practical clothes and the wild hair.
‘Right.’ He stopped the winch. ‘She’s safe for now.’
Kaitlyn gingerly climbed i
nto the car, put it into neutral and released the brake. Her car lights dimmed for an instant. Before he could yell a warning she was out, shutting the door softly behind her. He didn’t quite close his mouth in time.
‘It’s power steering. Without the ignition on the wheels would have been pointing the wrong way. Harder to tow that way.’ She smiled. ‘Thought you were going bite my head off.’
His mouth snapped shut. ‘Smart woman. I should have thought of that. Probably not a good time to admit I’ve never recovered a car without a driver in it before.’
‘That’s all right. Neither have I. Virgins together.’
He almost choked. Was she being deliberately provocative? She’d already headed for the passenger side of his vehicle and was in before he was.
With his hand on the key, he looked across at her in the light of the dash. ‘Ready?’
‘Yep.’ Her hands were steady in her lap. That sort of composure after what she’d just been through surprised him.
Her car made a grinding noise and resisted for a moment, but then came free with a rush. He stopped the winch as soon as it was on level ground.
‘It’s less than 500 metres to my place. Drive it there and I can check out underneath before we take you home.’
Her saw her suck in her cheeks for an instant, weighing up the options. ‘You’re probably right. I don’t need to discover the brakes or steering are damaged as I’m taking one of those bends. Sorry to put you to so much trouble.’
‘Can’t leave my neighbour stuck in the dark,’ he replied. ‘Especially when you were looking after me.’
It took another couple of minutes before they were ready to travel in a little convoy up the road. He made her go first in case something did fail on the car – although what he’d be able to do he didn’t really know. Not for the first time he lamented the fact that his upbringing had not been a practical one. His skills were stretched changing a tap washer proficiently. Political debate or sport had been more important at his father’s dinner table, and he suspected his mother had enjoyed having tradesmen in the house when his father was away. And that was a whole can of worms he was never going to examine too closely.
Old Jerry had been the only one who showed any interest in him, but the visits had stopped abruptly when Ryan was twelve. He had no idea why and, at that age, he’d known better than to ask. The summer holidays spent roaming these hills became distant memories. Six years later, he’d moved out of home and joined the Navy.
Kaitlyn drove into the yard and stopped past the front stairs. He parked in front of her so his headlights could provide some visibility.
‘I’ll get my torch and see what we can see. How did it feel?’ he asked.
She waggled her head from side to side. ‘Steering was fine and so were the brakes, but there was a bit of rumbling from the back.’
The scrape up the side of the car was obvious now. It was more than just a glancing blow. The house and yard were silent. He hesitated a fraction before he walked up the stairs. Could he be certain the intruder had left? The scurrying rush of the possum across the roof reassured him.
Kaitlyn looked up, alarmed. ‘What was that?’
‘Tame possum,’ he explained as they reached the veranda.
‘Right.’ She sounded edgy.
‘Excuse the mess,’ he said, before pushing open the door and flicking the light switch. She ran into him as he stopped dead, and his hand flashed out to grip her arm.
‘Holy hell. Stop right there.’
Chapter 23
THERE was no way anyone was this untidy, not even a guy. The place had been trashed, ransacked. Obvious why the people who’d sideswiped Kaitlyn had been in such a hurry to get away.
Ryan left her in the doorway, picking his way across to the light switch on the other wall. She could see that it was more of the same in the next room.
‘You should call the police. This isn’t kids messing about.’
‘Certainly isn’t.’ His voice was curt, taut. He was moving cautiously. As he turned to flick on another light she caught a hint of a bulge in the small of his back. He was carrying a weapon. She hadn’t noticed that on the roadside. It ramped up her concern. What was going on here? Had she misjudged him? Blinded by his good looks?
‘I can call them,’ she offered, her voice steady. ‘They know me. You’re new in town.’
He blinked at her this time, as though he’d finally registered her words. ‘I don’t think anything’s missing, so there’s no point. I’ll let the real estate agent know tomorrow. Some of this stuff is the previous owner’s.’
That made Kaitlyn annoyed as well as uneasy. Why didn’t he want the police involved? What was he hiding? ‘If it’s Jerry’s stuff, he’d expect you go to the police.’
‘Yeah, right.’ He turned around. ‘Look, I’m sorry, but I can’t do that drink right now.’ He waved a distracted hand at the mess. ‘I’ll check your car over then follow you home.’ He looked more angry than upset as he walked towards her, his movements rigid with control.
‘Sure.’ She didn’t know what else to say. While the fact he carried a gun made her alert, there was nothing in his demeanour to suggest he was dangerous to her. Of course, she’d been wrong before, she reminded herself, but in her experience with the AFP, drug dealers and crims did not rescue women with flat tyres, volunteer for rural fire brigades, or chat to seven-year-old boys who lived next door.
It took him a couple of minutes to locate a serious-sized torch in all the mess. He led the way back down the stairs. After five minutes of crawling around in the dust he decided the car was okay. Nothing was leaking.
‘I’ll still follow you home. Peace of mind.’
‘Okay …’ Now she was even more confused. Did he want to make sure she didn’t hang around? ‘You’ve got a truckload of cleaning up to do in there. I could help. I know where Jerry kept most things.’
‘I’ll be right, thanks.’
It suddenly struck her. He was being too careless with the house. ‘Jerry’s dead, isn’t he. The real estate agent must have told you something about Jerry.’
He looked cornered. She stayed silent, waiting, not letting him off the hook. Ryan caved in. ‘He passed away a few months ago, apparently. That’s all the real estate lady said. When I realised you didn’t know, I didn’t want to be the one to tell you. None of my business.’
‘Oh.’ She’d been half expecting it, but still her eyes filled with tears and she turned away, sucking in air. What a prick of a night. ‘He was a good neighbour. A good friend. I did wonder, when I couldn’t find him in any of the nursing homes close by.’ She brushed the tears from her cheeks, willing her voice to steady. ‘Sorry. Bit emotional tonight. Embarrassing, really.’ She tilted her head back. Don’t think about Jerry yet. ‘Better get going.’
He didn’t move to touch her, just opened the driver’s door. The air around him felt warm as she brushed past. She’d bet ten bucks that calm exterior was hiding a burning rage right now, but she gave him full marks for staying civilised.
As she watched him prowl back to his own vehicle, scanning the area around the house as he went, the random pieces of information she was sifting through clicked into place. What if he was some kind of undercover cop? Might even make sense if he was with the arson squad. Her fingers itched to get to her computer. She hadn’t spent ten years unravelling false identities with the Feds for nothing. Brad Ryan must have some history, and if she couldn’t find it then he didn’t exist.
She waited for him to start his vehicle before she headed down the track ahead of him. He stayed close, but not so close as to be intimidating. She flicked her headlights to high beam and added the side fog lights as well.
Her palms went slick as she drove past the spot where she’d been run off the road. Too damn close for comfort. Unlikely she’d ever drive this road again without a little tweak of alarm. Glimpses of the lights of her house started to appear through the trees. Welcoming. Safe.
She pulled
into the drive, expecting Ryan to do a U-turn and head home. Instead, he pulled in behind her and got out.
‘Sorry about that.’ With his hands thrust into his pockets he looked less sure of himself. ‘Back at the house. It was insensitive of me to tell you Jerry was dead after what’s just happened.’ He was a man with a burden, the laughter gone from his eyes.
‘It’s okay.’ Kaitlyn managed a tired dismissal, sensing he didn’t need her anger or her grief right now. Goodness knows what was really going on in his life. ‘I kind of guessed Jerry wasn’t coming back. Dan will miss him. I’ll tell him on the weekend. Maybe we can come and say goodbye to him.’ She knew she was in danger of crying. She pushed the tip of her tongue into the roof of her mouth. Sure-fire way of stopping the tears. It had worked for the last five years. ‘And thanks for all your help tonight.’
‘I think I owe you the thanks. Can we talk later in the week? Dinner?’ His words sounded gruff, almost as though he’d said something he regretted. ‘I owe you that at least. Probably an explanation as well.’
‘No explaining required. We’re neighbours; we don’t have to know your business.’
‘I’ll drop round.’
He was gone before she could reply. The warm, charming flirt from the CWA hall had morphed into a worried man with a gun. She had no idea why someone would ransack his house, or run her off the road, but she was going to find out.
Chapter 24
RYAN crouched at the spot where Kaitlyn’s car had been shunted so close to the edge. The slide marks from the car’s chassis ended millimetres from the drop. His torch illuminated the tree line some 50, 60 metres down the steep embankment. For a vivid instant he could see the car rolling, tumbling, sliding and slamming into the trees before the flames lit the sky in a blinding flash. She might have survived, but probably not.