Inheriting Fear

by Sandy Vaile

  “Will Willy know where I’m staying?”

  “Definitely not. Although you won’t be officially protected, the folks who run the place are very discreet. And I’ll give you my mobile number, so if you ever feel threatened, you can call me.”

  That was very generous of him.

  “Shall we adjourn to the family room?” Kate stood to clear the plates.

  Natalie took up residence in front of the TV, while Mya turned off the oven and served sticky date pudding with blobs of ice-cream. Conversation died for a few minutes as everyone savoured the rich dessert.

  Once he’d finished, Luca extracted a folder from his backpack. “Kate, can we speak in private for a minute?”

  Mya narrowed her eyes as the two headed out the back door and sat at a plastic table. They huddled around papers, brows furrowed. A couple of times they glanced at her, which she took as confirmation they were talking about her. Well, he wasn’t the only one who could keep secrets.

  When they came back inside, Luca announced, “Well, it’s time to catch some shuteye. Are you ladies ready to head to the motel?”

  “Thanks for everything, Kate.” Mya had no doubt her hostess was glad to see the back of her and Natalie.

  There was an instant sinking feeling in her gut as Luca picked up their bags and headed outside. She should be glad to get out of Kate’s place, but she didn’t know how safe she’d feel without two cops coming and going. And if Rhonda had located her house, then who was to say she couldn’t find the motel?

  Chapter 31

  Mya rode shotgun in Luca’s Corolla, so Natalie got the back seat. There were things she wanted to ask him, but not with the teenager within earshot. Instead, she rested her temple on the cold window and watched the night slide past. The black background was washed with colours from the streetlights and shop windows, running into one another in the glistening puddles. The windscreen started to fog with three people in the car, so Luca turned the air-conditioner on low.

  “Sorry, the air’s too warm. It’ll only take a few minutes.”

  Mya shrugged. His distinctive woody, cinnamon fragrance circulated through the confined space and wreaked havoc with her already fragile emotions. When she was around him, she had an overwhelming urge to touch. She’d preserved the memory of his warm, silky flesh under her fingers and drew on it now. Let it affect each of her senses.

  As a distraction, she turned on the CD player and a familiar song blared from the speakers.

  “Meteora. No way.” Luca had her all-time favourite band in his CD player.

  “Only the best.”

  The Vale Apartments were at the edge of suburbia, on the corner of a rural road, with tall Alexandra palms along the driveway. Luca maneuvered through a brick arch and stopped in the visitors’ park. Mya’s gaze followed him into the glass-walled reception, where he hit the bell on the counter. A woman appeared.

  “He’s nice, huh?”

  Mya turned in her seat to look at Natalie, who absent-mindedly spun a rainbow of metal bangles around her arm. “Yeah, he’s pretty hot.”

  Natalie giggled. “You fancy him, don’t you?”

  Inside the reception area, Luca pulled a wallet from his shirt pocket and passed a plastic card to the woman behind the counter. The man sure looked fine in those tight jeans and crisp shirt.

  “What makes you say that?” Mya asked.

  “The way you look at him.”

  “Mmm.”

  “He fancies you, too.”

  Mya snorted. “Yeah, like he fancies anything in a skirt.”

  “Nah. He’s gentle with you.”

  Her mouth opened, but there was no smartarse remark on the tip of her tongue, so she shut it again. Gentle. It wasn’t a word she usually associated with men. Why would a man be gentle with a woman? She had no experience to draw on.

  Her mum had told her Cockroach had been charming when they first met. Apparently he was gentle when he courted her, but he changed. Men couldn’t be trusted.

  Luca got back into the car. “Number thirteen. Hope no one’s superstitious.”

  “I’ll pay you for the room,” Mya said, turning her attention back to the nightscape.

  “Yeah, sure. No hurry.”

  The three-bedroom apartment had a small lounge room with a plaid couch and old box TV, a four-seater pine table and pristine white kitchenette. Not bad. It might be like a holiday; she’d never had one of those. A vacation with a bunch of people she hardly knew and someone trying to kill her. Yeah, sounded like a hoot.

  Luca pushed open the first bedroom door.

  “Do you want to choose a room?” he asked.

  She shrugged. He deposited Natalie’s bag on the bed and took Mya’s to the next room.

  Back in the lounge room, Natalie had already installed herself on the couch, kicked off her shoes, and turned on the TV.

  “Okay, ladies, I’ll leave you to it. Make sure you keep your mobile phones on you at all times, in case I need to get hold of you, and lock the door behind me.”

  Mya followed him outside and shut the door so Natalie couldn’t hear them. “I have a couple of questions.”

  “Sure.” Luca leaned against the building and pulled the band from his hair, releasing long, blond waves.

  It softened his face and distracted Mya from her train of thought.

  “What do you want to talk about?”

  “How did the autopsy go today?”

  “Oh.” He stared at his hands as they twisted back and forth. “Fine. We found a couple of unusual marks, but nothing conclusive yet. I’ll let you know when I have more information.”

  He pushed the cuticles back on his left hand using his right thumbnail, but he wouldn’t look at her. All the signs of a liar.

  “Did you find out anything about Rhonda?”

  “I’ve got Kate working on it and she found records for a Rhonda Morten who lived in Murray Bridge a decade ago. There are no records of her ever having lived with your fath—”

  “Cockroach,” she corrected. “The bastard was never any kind of father.”

  “Jack,” he amended. “But the trail dead-ends a couple of years later. I’m assuming she married, but Kate hasn’t picked up the trail yet.”

  She traced a finger along the rough mortar between the bricks. “Do you have a photo of her? I can’t remember what she looks like.”

  Luca crossed his arms and fixed her with a hard glare. For several minutes he just stared, as though trying to extract information straight from her brain. “Mya, I know you want revenge, but you need to be patient. There isn’t any evidence this woman killed Rosalie, and I don’t want you going on some vigilante mission.”

  “I don’t need evidence to know it’s her.”

  Luca’s jaw clenched.

  She took a deep breath. “But I can understand it’s needed. It would help if I knew what she looked like these days, in case she follows me or something.”

  “Sure. I’ll see if Kate has a picture. I could speak to the inspector about putting a guard on this place if it’ll make you feel safer.”

  “No. It’s not a matter of feeling safe.” She lied. “When do you think I’ll be able to cremate Mum?”

  Luca’s voice was so soft it drew her attention. “The coroner’s office should release her in the next few days. They’ll let Rich Haven know as soon as they do. Do you want me to go with you to make the arrangements?”

  The crow’s feet at the edges of his eyes were gone, his eyebrows raised in question. It was nice of him to offer, but she shook her head. Goosebumps ran up her arms, so she wrapped them around herself.

  “You’re cold.” He stepped forward and rubbed his palms up and down her bare arms. “You should go inside.”

  He said it but didn’t move. His warm touch instantly simmered her blood right to her core. She studied the faint line of stubble along his cheek to the corner of his mouth, over the curve of his lip to the top of the Cupid’s bow. When she looked up, his steely gaze flicked between her
eyes and mouth in silent question.

  She lifted onto her toes and pressed her lips to his. Her eyes closed, lips parted, and her hands slid around to his firm butt. After a moment of hesitation, his hands moved to the small of her back. Looks like he remembered their lust-filled morning, too.

  Suddenly he pulled back. His hands rested lightly on her hips, but there was cold space between them. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t. You’re still grieving.”

  She pursed her lips and, with two fingers in his belt loops, dragged him closer. With her hands clasped firmly behind his neck, she kissed him again. His lips were warm and pliable against hers. She deftly pushed him against his car and put her knees on the bonnet to straddle him.

  He rested his head against her cheek, and hot breath trickled down her neck, making her shiver with delight. Soft lips trailed damp kisses behind her ear and down her neck as she untucked his shirt and stroked the silky warmth of his waist, the curves of his chest, and down his flat stomach. The muscles there twitched.

  Their lips brushed lightly, tongues skated across teeth and then twisted together. Right now she wanted him to throw her on the hood of his car and screw her until she forgot everything wrong in her life, but the kiss was becoming less urgent.

  “Mya,” he whispered into her hair, holding her tight. “You have no idea how much I want to do this, but I can’t.”

  She felt a pang of something she’d never experienced before: self-consciousness perhaps. Here she was throwing herself at this man, for the second time—something else she’d never done before—and he wanted to stop. The rejection smarted and annoyance set in.

  “Can’t” had never stopped her from doing what she wanted, so she slid a hand between them and rested it on his erection. Luca retrieved it and kissed the palm. He grinned and tucked a wisp of hair behind her ear.

  “You’re a very beautiful and sexy woman, but this isn’t the right time. It wouldn’t be professional.”

  “Bloody cops.” She grunted her disproval and slid off his lap, wrapping her arms around her body again.

  Luca sighed and pulled her into his embrace. “Mya, I want you.” He kissed her forehead. “Maybe, if you still want to once this mess is over …” He left the suggestion hanging, brushed his lips across hers once more, and got into his car.

  With her back now against the warm brick wall of the apartment, she watched him leave, and stood there for a long time after he’d gone.

  Chapter 32

  With a milky coffee pressed between his palms, Luca sat on his back doorstep. Only wispy white remnants of yesterday’s storm clouds remained in the sky. A vivid blue wren and its dull brown mate flitted in and out of a flowering grevillea, with a neighbour’s cat watching from beneath a wheelbarrow.

  The whir of a pushbike’s tires whizzed down the back alley, and its rider trailed a stick along the corrugated fence. Click clack, click clack. The cat fled across the lawn and over the fence, leaving the wrens panting silently in the bush.

  Luca closed his eyes and soaked up the sun’s warmth. How Mya was coping worried him. She was just the type to want to right perceived wrongs. Violently. And he just kept complicating things. What the hell was he thinking, kissing her last night? She’d looked so vulnerable, he’d wanted to comfort her, that’s what; and a whole lot more, but it wouldn’t be professional to take it any further while she was under his protection. It didn’t matter what he wanted, only what she needed.

  This case was really messing with his head, not to mention his vacation. As the second hand on his watch ticked nine o’clock, Luca headed inside to boot up his laptop. He dialed the mortuary and patiently negotiated his way past the receptionist. Finally a voice like stones going down a ceramic pipe came on the line.

  “Good morning, Patterson. Like I told you yesterday, I will do my best to get Rosalie Jensen’s report to you by Tuesday, and phoning me every day isn’t going to help.”

  The forensic pathologist coughed so hard, Luca had to wait until he finished to be heard.

  “I appreciate your assistance, Eggles, but I’m not phoning to hassle you. New information has come to light, and I want to request a test for succinyl—Crap, I can’t say it. The nurse called it Sux.”

  “Succinylcholine?”

  “Yes, that’s it.”

  “Well, that’s going to take more time. Plasma was sent to Central Crime Scene with the other samples, so I’ll order the test as a matter of urgency. Are you coming to look at those marks on Rosalie Jensen’s face later this morning?”

  “I’ll be there, thank you.”

  Luca opened Internet Explorer on his laptop and typed succinylcholine into the search window. The forensic results could take many days. Time enough for the killer to hide his or her tracks. If he was more familiar with the drug, he might figure out why someone chose it. Was it merely convenient, or did the murderer have another purpose that was yet to be exposed? Finding the reason would put him a step closer to solving this case, and getting retribution for Mya.

  • • •

  A deafening electronic wind chime sounded and Mya cringed into the floral couch.

  “Hang on a minute, dear. I’ll just see who that is.” Doreen Ballinger waddled out of the lounge room, dusting scone crumbs from her lips.

  Mya had spent the morning knocking on doors in Railway Terrace, asking her neighbours if they’d seen anything unusual on Saturday before the bomb went off. The cops had already done the rounds, but she had doubts that investigations in Croydon got a lot of their time.

  Doreen’s whole home seemed to have yellowed with age, from the custard-coloured wallpaper to the ochre carpet. Even the wood furniture looked tea-stained in the dim light. A low but familiar voice resounded from down the hall. She put her plate of scones on the doilied side table.

  What the hell was Luca doing here? He must’ve seen Kate’s Torana outside.

  Damn, I should’ve waited until after I’d been to Rich Haven.

  “If you don’t mind, I’ll have a quick word with her.” Luca appeared in the doorway with a crimson face and clenched fists.

  She stood and met him halfway across the room.

  “What the hell are you doing?” He growled.

  There was no call for that savage undertone. Her hands went to her hips uninvited. “Doing your job, I guess.”

  The grinding of his teeth was almost humourous.

  “Davey already interviewed everyone on this street. You are not supposed to be gallivanting around, when there’s a target on your back—”

  “I can go wherever—”

  “—and sticking your nose into the investigation isn’t going to help things move any faster.”

  “Is everything all right, dear?” Doreen materialized from behind Luca’s shoulder.

  He stepped aside and took a deep breath. Ha, couldn’t let the civilians see him losing control.

  “How about we take this outside, Mya?”

  “I haven’t finished my scone,” she said petulantly. “Besides, Doreen was just telling me a very interesting story about a car parked out front of my house the morning of the explosion.”

  Luca did a double take.

  “I think Luca has just changed his mind about having a cup of tea and a scone,” Mya told Doreen.

  The old lady busied herself serving Luca, while he rocked from foot to foot uncomfortably.

  “Why don’t you take a seat, detective?” Doreen handed him a cup and saucer. “Now where was I? Oh yes, there was a white car parked in front of Mya’s house at about 11 o’clock in the morning.”

  Predictably, Luca went into cop mode. Mya smiled. Now she had his attention.

  “Did you notice what make of car it was?” he asked.

  “Oh, I’m not very good with those kinds of things, dear, but I did notice some of the numbers on the registration plate.”

  “That’s excellent news.” He shot Mya an apologetic look but ruined it by narrowing his eyes afterward, as though he’d just remembered he was ang
ry with her.

  “Yes, that’s what young Mya said.” Doreen sat back down and arranged her pleated skirt tidily. “The hood of the car was up and it was making an awful racket for about five minutes.”

  “Sounds like a fanbelt slipping,” Mya offered.

  Luca nodded. “Could be a deliberate diversion.”

  “Do you mind me asking why you didn’t tell Constable Davey this when he knocked on your door?”

  Doreen chewed her bottom lip. “I didn’t want to make trouble for young Mya, and I really didn’t think it was related to the explosion. Will I be in trouble?”

  “No, of course not. I’m just glad you’ve come forward now. Did you see the driver at all?”

  “Oh yes, dear. It was a redheaded woman, but I thought it was odd, because she didn’t seem interested in fixing the car. At first I assumed she was waiting for a roadside service, but after a while she just shut the hood and took off.”

  “She wasn’t trying to hide at all?”

  “No, but I didn’t get a good look at her face. I didn’t want to be too nosy and go outside.”

  He took note of the partial plate number. “I’ll have someone check this out. Did you hear a window break at all? That’s how the perps gained entry to the house.”

  “I’m afraid not, dear.”

  Doreen saw Mya and Luca to the front door, forcing packages of wrapped scones into their hands. They waved goodbye and Mya made for the Torana. No such luck.

  “Wait a minute,” Luca called from the footpath.

  Just what she needed, another lecture from the sexy detective.

  “I can’t concentrate on solving these crimes if I’m worried about you running around town unprotected.”

  She ignored him and got in the car. It was nice to know that he thought about her when she wasn’t with him, but it wasn’t going to stop a lifetime of looking out for number one.