Darcy nodded, smiling in relief. ‘Okay.’
Alannah settled the sling around Darcy’s neck and shoulder, making sure she was comfortable, before turning to pack away her things.
Darcy watched her. Dominic had introduced the physio, and Darcy had liked her easy smile immediately. Not so much the fingers of misery, but Alannah definitely seemed to know what she was doing. She pursed her lips at the clinic name emblazoned across the right breast of Alannah’s turquoise polo shirt. In Good Hands. They should probably change it to Instruments of Torture, or Feral Fingertips.
‘So, what’s it like?’ Alannah asked as she zipped up her bag and faced Darcy. She jerked her chin to the door. ‘You know, living with Mr St James.’ Her eyes were bright with curiosity.
Darcy lifted her good shoulder in a casual shrug. ‘He’s nice. He’s arranged for you to come out, after all.’
The young woman shivered. ‘He makes me so nervous,’ Alannah admitted in a whisper, then smiled.
Darcy smiled back. She could relate to that.
‘Well, I’m off. I’ll see you tomorrow.’ Alannah scooped up her bag. ‘I’ll leave the table here, we’ve got more back at the practice. It’ll save me lugging this one everywhere.’
‘We? How many of you are there?’
‘Well, there’s my partner and I, and we have two masseuses, and two receptionists working on a rotating roster.’
‘Sounds busy.’
‘It is. My partner and I are thinking of bringing in another physio.’
Darcy’s eyebrow rose. There was something in her tone whenever she mentioned her partner… ‘Is this partner professional or personal?’ she asked, then immediately bit her lip. It was a personal question, and she had only just met Alannah.
The young physiotherapist smiled. ‘Well,’ she said slowly, ‘we’re business partners, but I’m working on the rest.’ She grinned, and Darcy couldn’t help responding in kind.
‘I see. Does he know?’
‘He should. It’s just taking him forever to get to the next stage.’ Alannah waved her fingers at her. ‘He has the best hands. He can give a really great massage,’ she said, giggling, and Darcy laughed.
‘Okay.’
‘Must be all the lotions we use.’ Alannah shrugged. ‘I can’t help it. I’m a sucker for smooth, sexy hands.’
Darcy held up her hand. ‘Too much information.’
Alannah waggled her eyebrows. ‘Oh, but I haven’t told you what he can do with the TheraBands,’ she said as she hoisted her bag over her shoulder.
Darcy chuckled. ‘Okay, now way too much information.’
Darcy shifted off the table and followed Alannah out, chatting casually. Their conversation was relaxed, and Darcy found herself reluctantly waving as the woman drove off. Alannah had talked throughout the whole session, and Darcy had warmed to her, despite the Evil Touch of Torture. Darcy realised she hadn’t really talked closely to anyone for quite some time. There had been no gal pal chats, no chilling out over a bottle of wine or a pizza as she’d used to. She hadn’t realised how much she’d missed just talking to her girlfriends. Her brow furrowed. Most of those girlfriends wouldn’t give her the time of day, now.
She drifted back into the quiet house. Dominic had excused himself after breakfast to go talk to Patrick, the property manager, about a mare in his breeding program. Roland had taken the kids for a tractor ride around the vineyard, so that left just Darcy and Gertrude in the house.
Darcy found the older woman humming in the kitchen, wearing an apron and a fine dusting of flour.
‘Good morning, Darcy, how did you and the physio go?’ Gertrude’s blue gaze fell on the covered icepack protruding from the collar of Darcy’s shirt.
‘Well, thanks,’ Darcy replied as she climbed up on one of the stools. ‘What are you doing?’
‘I’m just making some bread,’ she said, pressing her wrist into the dough on the floured bench top.
Darcy smiled. ‘My grandmother used to make her own bread, too. I loved the smell of it baking. She used to make this tea bread, with apple and cinnamon.’ Darcy sighed. ‘It smelled like heaven.’
Gertrude winked. ‘There’s nothing like the smell of fresh bread to entice a man into the kitchen,’ she said, and Darcy laughed.
‘Or kids,’ Darcy added. ‘She lived with us for several years. I spent most Saturdays in the kitchen with her.’
‘Oh? What about your mother? Did she join these baking sessions, too?’
‘No. She died when I was nine.’
‘Oh, I’m so sorry, Darcy.’ Gertrude reached out and covered Darcy’s hand with her own, surprising Darcy with a memory of her own grandmother doing something similar one Saturday, when Darcy told her about a boy who’d made fun of her at school. Darcy turned her hand and gently squeezed the older woman’s. Gertrude’s skin looked thin and lined but her grip was surprisingly strong.
‘It’s okay. It happened so long ago.’
Gertrude patted her hand, then went back to her dough, rolling it into a ball before putting it into a ceramic dish and covering it with cling wrap. ‘So, tell me – what other wonderful things did you bake with your grandmother, aside from bread?’
She and Gertrude swapped baking stories, and she shared her grandmother’s favourite shortcrust pastry recipe, which Gertrude insisted on trying out right away, with Darcy’s supervision. They were giggling over the rolling pin when Roland entered with Julia and Jonah, followed by Dominic, and suddenly everyone was making shortcrust pastry.
Once four pie dishes were lined with mostly intact pastry shells, Dominic insisted on giving Darcy a tour of the vines, and the children were equally insistent on accompanying them. Gertrude lifted a picnic basket off the end of the bench.
‘Here you go. That way you don’t need to hurry back for lunch.’
A crystal clear blue gaze peered through the binoculars. There he was, sitting on the grass as though he didn’t have a care in the world, an open picnic basket beside him. What would it take to make him crack, to turn to another for comfort? To need another? He was still a handsome man. Tall, virile. No wonder women flocked to him.
The binoculars shifted to the right. And there was the bitch.
The woman had one arm draped around the girl and laughed as the boy twirled around and around until he finally dropped to the ground, dizzy. The blue gaze slid to the sling. So the bitch was using the sympathy factor, huh? Targeting that well-known protective streak in the man.
Fingers turned the central focus knob. There. St James’s gaze was caught by the woman’s laughter. Yeah, he was interested, all right. Even from this distance, his attraction to the injured woman was obvious. Well, there’d be no happy ending for those two. The two adults exchanged words, and this time both of them laughed, as though sharing some secret joke.
That had to end. This shared intimacy would only complicate things. If they could be separated, it would be easier to get to the woman. Maybe. The Jillaree property had an impressive security system. It had been hard enough to get this close to the fence without being seen. The electric fence would still need to be scaled, and it packed quite the punch. But no system was perfect. There had to be a loophole, somewhere.
Lips pursed as St James ran over and scooped up the boy. He was so easily distracted by the children, so intently focused. They fell, he ran. Always attentive, always putting the kids first. Resentment flared. Happy families, huh? There was no such thing as a happy family. Kids always created problems. Stress. Most divorces could be blamed on kids, right? Rage started to boil in the gut, like a slowly simmering pot, threatening to spill over. Fingers clenched around the barrels of the binoculars, so tight the knuckles whitened.
The bitch had caused so many problems. Every breath she took was offensive, damn it. Well, it wouldn’t be like that for long.
Soon enough, the bitch would breathe no more.
CHAPTER
9
The days fell into a pattern. Darcy would have a
cup of tea with the birds, and occasionally Dominic would join her after a workout.
Alannah would visit each morning and Darcy came to realise that the woman was an interesting contradiction. She was sweet, and funny, and warm – and her touch could make a hardened soldier cry. Darcy wasn’t a hardened soldier.
After her sessions of torture, Darcy would have a calming cup of tea with Gertrude and Roland, followed by some gentle play with the kids. It was hard for them, though. They were still dealing with the trauma of the accident, and there were the occasional tears and tantrums, and many cuddles needed. They still asked for their mother, wanting to know when she’d come back – and were growing increasingly frustrated at the lack of answers. Darcy and Gertrude did their best to distract them with art and play, trying to get those smiles back on their faces. Mornings were always the hardest time of the day for them, when they had the most energy – and curiosity.
Lunch, and then it was nap time for Jonah and Julia, and Darcy would either go for a walk, read a book in the sun, or spend some time with Gertrude, while Dominic disappeared inside his den until the kids woke up. Then it was usually a blur until after dinner, when she and Dominic would sit together comfortably in the family living room, she with a book, and he with some report or journal, or his laptop.
It was almost idyllic, and Darcy quickly lost track of the days.
Three weeks after arriving at Jillaree, she was playing hide and seek with the kids.
She quickly glanced around her bedroom, listening intently, her lips lifting in a smile. The twins were getting better at the game. Sometimes they still called out to her, or even told her where they were going to hide, but generally they were getting better at it. She waited for the telltale giggle, but for once she heard only silence.
She glanced behind the curtains, under the bed, in all the usual places, before leaving her room to walk back down the hall. She hesitated outside Dominic’s room. The first time they’d played, the twins had hid in their father’s room, and Darcy had been mortified when she’d found herself peeking under his bed. They’d soon established some boundaries for the game, and she hadn’t had to invade her host’s private domain since. She continued on to the children’s bedrooms and quietly stalked into Jonah’s room. Muffled whispers made her grin. Aha. She checked under the bed, behind the curtains – even in the toy chest. No Jonah. No Julia, either.
She frowned when she heard the whispers again. Where were they?
She tiptoed down the hall to Julia’s room, grimacing at the ultra-sweet confectionary décor. Swathes of white, pale pink and crimson material provided plenty of hiding places, but it didn’t take long to search them, and come up empty-handed.
She sat back on her heels and listened. The noises were indistinct, but audible. She tried not to smile. The twins were arguing, wherever they were, she could tell. Julia’s pitch was climbing higher, while Jonah was beginning to growl.
The noises were coming from the wardrobe. She frowned as she crept towards the double doors. She’d already checked there. How had she not seen them?
She turned the ornate handles and slowly opened the doors. A voluminous array of dresses, skirts, tops and – oh, a Wonder Woman costume! Darcy fingered the star-spotted blue skirt. There were plenty of princess frocks, but this costume looked like the most worn, and pride for the girl who liked to dress up like a superhero warmed her.
And yet, still no kids.
She dropped to her knees, checking under the hanging garments. Definitely no legs peeking from underneath.
‘Where are you?’ she exclaimed softly.
The indistinct bickering halted, shortly followed by a giggle.
‘I know you’re in here somewhere,’ Darcy called out, her lips parting in a smile.
She waited. Whispers, another giggle, and then a little light on a small keypad that she’d barely noticed on the back wall of the wardrobe turned green. Darcy frowned. She’d thought it was an air-conditioning control panel. Part of the wardrobe’s rear wall shifted.
Darcy started, then winced as a dull throb travelled down her arm. She rubbed her shoulder as the panel moved again, a darker space opening up.
She gaped. ‘Ohmigosh.’
Jonah’s grinning face appeared out of the darkness, his sister bouncing up and down behind him, giggling. ‘Hi, Darcy.’
Darcy’s breath exhaled in a little laugh. ‘Wow, what have you got here?’
‘It’s our secret hideaway,’ trilled Julia. She leaned over her brother’s shoulder. ‘Come in!’
Darcy hunched over and crawled into the dark hole, and sweat broke out on her forehead as she tried to protect her arm. She finally managed to turn around in the small space, her jaw dropping when she discovered it wasn’t so small.
‘This is so cool,’ she breathed. Two sleeping bags lay on the floor, along with a camping lantern, and an open chest containing bottles of water and what looked like muesli bars. The door seemed to be made of steel, with a second keypad on the wall beside it. The walls looked like normal walls, but she’d seen how thick the doorjamb was – they were reinforced with something.
Jonah nodded, his smile reaching his eyes in a way she hadn’t seen since she’d pulled him out of the river.
‘It’s our hideout,’ he told her as he swung the door shut on its silent hinges. The cavity was plunged into darkness. She heard fumbling, then blinked when Jonah finally managed to turn the camping light on, casting a muted golden glow up the walls. She gauged the space. There was enough room for her to lie down, and she reckoned she could almost stand up straight. Dominic might have to hunch over, though.
‘We’re safe here,’ Jonah said quietly. Darcy looked down at his sombre expression, absorbing the import behind the words. Here, there were no car accidents and near drownings. Ah, crap.
She blinked as she turned her gaze back to the little room. Another door was directly opposite the entry from Julia’s closet.
‘That goes into my wardrobe,’ Jonah explained.
‘Ah.’
‘We’re only supposed to use it in an emergency, but Dad says it’s okay for us to practise sometimes.’
Darcy’s eyebrows rose. ‘An emergency? What kind of emergency?’
‘If bad strangers come,’ Julia informed her solemnly.
Darcy frowned. ‘Bad strangers? What do you mean?’
Jonah shrugged. ‘If we feel scared, or if anyone gives us the code word, we hide.’
‘And we have to be very, very quiet,’ Julia said. ‘And then Dad or Gertrude has to play hide and seek and find us.’ She smiled brightly. ‘Daddy says it might take some time, because we know how to hide so good.’
Darcy nodded, disguising her alarm. Dominic St James had built a panic room for his children. Sure, they thought it was a game, but she could clearly see the real purpose for this hidden cavity. What kind of trouble did this man expect to visit his home?
‘What is the code word?’ she whispered.
Julia scrunched up her nose in a cute show of distaste. ‘Cabbage.’
‘Cabbage?’
‘Cabbage.’ Jonah nodded. ‘We don’t like cabbage, so none of us are going to use it by accident. If we hear it, we hide.’
Darcy nodded. ‘I understand. If I hear cabbage, I want to hide, too.’ She looked around, and noticed a yellow button near the supplies. ‘What’s that?’
‘Oh, that’s Uncle Alex’s button,’ Julia told her. ‘Dad says we press that, and Uncle Alex and his friends come, but we’re not allowed to do it if we’re playing a game.’
Jonah shook his head. ‘No. We got in trouble last time.’
Darcy bit the inside of her cheek. She could only imagine who Uncle Alex’s ‘friends’ were, and what they’d think if they were called to play hide and seek.
‘Well, this is great,’ she said brightly. ‘But I heard that Gertrude was making some gingerbread men and…’ Her voice trailed off as Julia squealed and Jonah jumped up to tap at the keyboard. The light flashed gree
n, the door slid open, and the kids ran out of the closet. She smiled as she leaned over to extinguish the camp light, sitting quietly for a moment, muted light coming in through the secret doorway into Julia’s closet.
The contrast between the brightly coloured girls clothes and the darkness of the panic room didn’t escape her. Dominic apparently took the safety of his family very, very seriously. She tried not to wonder what he would do if he uncovered the lies his guest had told him.
Alex tapped on the door lightly and stuck his head into the office. His sister looked up from the salad sandwich she was eating at her desk.
‘Oh, hey, Alex,’ she mumbled around a mouthful and beckoned him in.
‘What do you have for me?’
Delaney Knight rolled her eyes as she set aside her sandwich, picking at a shred of lettuce that had fallen onto her mouse pad. ‘And good morning to you, sunshine. Oh, I’m fine, thanks very much for asking.’
He smiled as he walked around her desk. ‘Sorry, Laney. How are you?’
‘Just hunky-dory, thank you. We’ve got a finding on the van explosion.’
‘I know you guys are busy, thanks for doing this.’
She winced. ‘Yes, well, it took a little manoeuvring to be able to get in on this investigation. You owe me.’
‘Don’t you still owe me? I seem to recall a certain guy who—’
‘Oh, shush. Fine, we’re even.’ Laney turned back to her computer and opened up a software program he was unfamiliar with. Her desk was set up with a fancy keyboard with a rollerball, along with the customary mouse. ‘It took some time putting all the pieces back together, and we still nearly missed it.’
‘Missed what?’
‘The Kombi van had a gas tank, which fuelled the fridge and the stove. Basically, there was a leak in the tank, and the action of the door opening provided the spark. Kaboom,’ Laney said, using her hands to mimic an explosion.
Runaway Lies Page 9