Runaway Lies

by Shannon Curtis

  ‘Isn’t that your old work? Sheesh. That sounds pretty bad. Did you know the executive assistant that got hurt?’

  Tony’s gaze slowly drifted from the TV to Adrian and then back again, and Adrian’s eyebrows rose when Tony didn’t bother to answer. Okay, so the jerk was in one of those moods again.

  The screen flicked to a grainy image of the imposter courier who’d delivered the bomb, a football cap pulled low over his face, as the reporter urged anyone who could identify the man to ring Crimestoppers.

  ‘He’s an ugly mother, that’s for sure.’ Adrian rose from the chair and sauntered into the kitchen, going directly to the fridge. He frowned as he gazed at the contents. He straightened and looked over his shoulder. ‘Hey, Tony, did you drink all my beer?’

  His roommate continued to ignore him. Prick.

  ‘I think we’re going to have to revisit this living arrangement we have going on.’ Like, get the hell out of my apartment, you beer-swilling freeloader.

  Tony sat in silence, and Adrian sighed. He knew from experience it didn’t pay to hold a conversation with Tony when he was in one of his dark moods. Tomorrow would be soon enough to tell him to shove off out of the apartment. He closed the door and wandered down the hall to the bathroom.

  His nose wrinkled as he entered the small space. The room stank of something harsh and astringent. Adrian used the toilet then washed his hands. He was turning away from the vanity when something in the bin under the sink caught his eye.

  He bent over and pulled the bin out, frowning. Reaching in, he grasped the object and pulled it out, his eyes narrowing as he tried to figure out what it was that he was holding. It looked like some sort of football mascot, a furry beaver wearing a Manly Sea Eagles cap.

  His eyes rounded when he finally figured he was holding a cap and wig.

  He glanced at the door. ‘Well, I’ll be…’ He reached into his pocket for his phone.

  Darcy jogged down the road. Ultimo at this time of night was swarming with people heading home from work, or down to Wentworth Park to walk the dog, run, or just play a game of touch footy before dark. She started to walk across the green, feeling very exposed in the open space, then hurried towards the brick arches over which the light rail ran.

  The kids. What the hell had happened? Dom took the security of his kids very seriously – Darcy had first-hand experience with that. And why would he want her? He’d been crystal clear when he’d asked her to leave – and who could blame him? She didn’t believe he could forgive her – she’d lied to him, manipulated him and put his kids in danger. Why would he want her back now? He would have been glad to see the back of her. With everything he had going on – with the threats she knew he was receiving, the letter bomb to his corporate headquarters, and now his children being kidnapped by some letter-writing psycho – she would be the last person he’d want to talk to.

  She swapped her duffel bag to the other shoulder. He wouldn’t want to reach out to her, would only do so if he needed to reach out to her. She shook her head. He should be focused on getting the kids back, not— She stopped.

  He needed her to get the kids back.

  She raised her hand to her mouth in shock, standing still in the middle of Wentworth Park. That was why he wanted her to contact him. To get his kids back.

  Tears pricked her eyelids. Oh God. The kidnapping was all about her, not Dom’s wealth, or the threats he’d received. It was because of her.

  She started walking again. She couldn’t go back. They’d tried to kill her – had almost succeeded. She pressed her hand to the scar beneath her clothes. She still had nightmares about the hot slice of the knife, the man’s cold gaze as he tried to end her life, the absolute horror when she realised she’d ended his. She twisted the fabric of her shirt.

  If she went back, then she would die. Fact.

  She’d managed to escape the clutches of two hitmen, she didn’t want to risk that the third time would be the charm. The terror of that night, the silence of the house as she hid and one by one those officers were murdered… Bile rose in her throat. No, she couldn’t do it.

  Memories of Julia sneaking into the bed beside her, and of Jonah’s intricate defence plans made her steps slow. She halted. This was Jonah and Julia. They were innocents in all of this, and would pay the greatest price. Could she live with that on her conscience?

  Of course not.

  She turned and started walking back to the street. They needed to be free, they deserved a trouble-free life, after everything they’d already endured in their young years. Those children – those precious children. She loved them so much. The timid smiles from Julia, the frowns of concentration from Jonah… They were so different, yet so alike in wanting the security of routine, the reassurance of having loved ones around them, protecting them. She could definitely relate to that – perhaps that was why they’d gotten along so well.

  But others were depending on her, too. She halted, and the duffel bag slid to the grass at her feet. Her father, for one. He’d lost everything, because of her. He’d lost his life savings, because she’d recommended he invest with her boss’s new, successful development. He’d trusted her, and she’d lost his pension, as had thousands of others. If she didn’t live long enough to testify, Mark would get away with it, and all of those people, including her father, would never get justice.

  She grabbed her bag and turned to start walking to the light rail tracks, chewing the inside of her cheek as anger rose within her – anger at herself, for being so stupidly naive and trusting the wrong person; anger at Mark Shein for being the snivelling, sneaky, double-crossing, selfish bastard that he was; and anger at the whole world for finding herself in such a nightmare situation. She wished, just for a fleeting moment, that this wasn’t her life, that she could wake up tomorrow and it would be someone else’s drama. Yes, it was selfish, but she was so tired, and so scared, so alone.

  Dom was alone.

  She threw the bag to the ground and kicked it, a growl of frustration escaping her lips. Dom’s children weren’t at home, all shiny-faced and yawning as they got ready for bed, snuggling up for a bedtime story, their little bodies warm and fragrant with the clean apple scent of innocence and sunshine. No, his children were in the hands of a violent hitman, and he was hoping and praying that the woman he’d opened his home, his arms and his bed to but who had ultimately betrayed him would have the decency to reach out to help him. What he must be going through – the agony of waiting, of worrying, the dark memories of his family’s murders this must be stirring up. It must be hell. She wanted to reach out and hold him, reassure him that the children he loved, that she loved, would return. Just the thought of the anguish and distress Dom would be experiencing – it must be near crippling.

  She hugged herself. She wished she could pretend she hadn’t seen the news and just move on, dodging the police until it was time to testify. She couldn’t trust the cops – had nearly died because Mark Shein had been able to bribe a leak in the department. She knew it could and would happen again. If she went back, the odds of her surviving long enough to testify were very low. They’d put her back in protective custody, which she’d learned was as good as spray-painting a target on her back and screaming, ‘Here I am.’

  But thoughts of Dom, of the time they’d spent together in his home, swirled around her mind. He’d been kind, protective, supportive, passionate and she loved him for it.

  She rubbed her forehead. She had to face it – she’d fallen in love with Dominic St James and his children.

  God, how selfish could she be? After everything the family had done for her, she was running – again. Mark was winning, and this time he was using precious Julia and Jonah to do it. Prison was too good for the jerk.

  She couldn’t run any longer. She was exhausted – and where could she go? She had nowhere and no one to turn to. All her past actions, all her naivety, her ignorance, her gullibility and her culpability, had finally caught up with her.

  She had
to help Dom get his kids back.

  CHAPTER

  29

  Tony Blewitt roused himself from his bed and staggered into the bathroom. He desperately needed to pee. He didn’t bother turning on the light, using the flashing blue and red lights through the window to guide him to the toilet. He frowned as he emptied his bladder. It almost looked like a disco. He peered out the window again, and finally realised what was going on.

  Three police cars had pulled up downstairs. He backed away from the toilet, clumsily tucking himself back into his boxers, grimacing at the wet drops trailing down his leg.

  Shit, the police were here – for him. He stumbled back down the dark hallway to his bedroom, heart racing. It was happening. Now. He had to get out.

  He stuck his head out his bedroom window. He’d planned for this – just in case. His bedroom faced a landscaped area two floors down. He clambered out onto the thin ledge that ran beneath his window and shuffled barefoot along its length, gritting his teeth as he stepped into piles of pigeon droppings. A drainpipe ran down the side of the building, and he grasped it with his fingers, hissing as he scraped the back of his knuckles against the brick of the building.

  He’d seen those shows where guys did this funky kind of martial arts that involved jumping from roofs and walls. He was sure he could do it. Those guys made it look easy.

  Bending his knees, he started to scrabble down the side of the building, the sounds of the police entering the building clearly audible. He had to hurry.

  Damn, it was harder than he thought. In all his plans, he’d never envisaged himself doing it wearing only a pair of cotton boxers. The soles of his feet scraped down the brick, and he could feel the skin on the backs of his fingers peeling off as he wedged them in the skinny space between the drainpipe and the wall.

  He’d just passed another ledge when his feet lost their purchase, and he slid down the wall, his knees bumping and grating against the rough surface. He cried out with pain when his fingers caught, the only thing that prevented him from plummeting to the ground. There were shouts from his apartment as the police pounded on the front door, and Adrian called out in reply.

  Tears formed in his eyes at the burning sensation, and his feet fumbled, scraping further on the bricks as he tried to sort himself out. He pulled one hand out, moaning at the pain and blowing on his tortured fingers, before quickly shoving it back in that too-small space to relieve the pressure on his other hand.

  Sweat poured down the sides of his face and down the middle of his back as he held himself there for a few seconds, but the pain was too great for his mangled hands, and he let go.

  He hit the earth solidly on his back, and for a moment he lay there, winded, the stars swirling above as he tried to get his breath back.

  He groaned as he rolled to his feet, the smell of fresh manure clinging to his sweaty back.

  Oh, God, he hurt. But he had to keep moving.

  Gasping for breath, he stumbled across the garden, dragging his sore and cut feet through the garden bed to the boundary brick wall.

  He still knew where his mother kept her spare keys – she’d probably forgotten, but he hadn’t. He weaved down the driveway of the block of flats next door. He just had to get there before the cops found him.

  Dom looked up from the sofa. His home was filled with police officers setting up cameras, phone taps and any other kind of surveillance they thought could lead them to his children. Hell.

  This was it, his innocent Jonah and Julia in the hands of a violent hitman – as well as Gertrude, the woman who’d virtually raised him, and helped him raise his children. Roland came in with a platter of sandwiches, but Dom declined. He couldn’t stomach anything at the moment, it felt like his gut was filled with bubbling acid. Roland turned to the officers and offered the food. The old man was tired and drawn, dark shadows under his eyes, but he hadn’t stopped, hadn’t slowed down. It was as though doing something distracted him from the worry for his wife and the children.

  Dom placed his forehead in his hands. The waiting was killing him. Visions of what could be happening to his kids and Gertrude filtered through his mind, and images of another time, of another gruesome scene, just with his kids’ faces overlaid on his sister’s body, nearly sent him into a babbling hysteria. He clung to his control desperately. Whenever he felt his grip loosen, he’d think of Darcy.

  Hell.

  Alex had told him what had happened to Darcy. No wonder she’d hidden. The scene at the safe house sounded so grisly. He realised that the comfort she’d offered when he’d told her about his own nightmares came from a similar history. She’d seemed to understand him so well because she did – she’d seen similar troubles with her own eyes. And he’d cast her out of his home.

  He still struggled with her lying to him. Not so much the lying, perhaps, as the exposure to threat. That he found difficult to get his head around. Now, though, he regretted his hasty rejection – not only because of the situation he now found himself in, but because he hadn’t even given her an opportunity to explain. He swung like a pendulum between terror for his children, and anguish for the woman he’d discarded.

  He looked up when Alex walked into the room, his friend’s serious expression ringing alarm bells. Alex looked at him carefully before stepping aside to reveal the tall, slender woman behind him.

  Dom blinked. She’d changed. Her hair was no longer cut in a soft fall of brown locks. Now it was cropped short in a style he could only describe as grungy chic, and dyed a harsh black, which brought out the grey in her eyes. A faint memory stirred, of that first meeting in the hospital, when she’d looked at him through those same grey eyes. When he’d next seen her, he’d convinced himself he’d been mistaken. Now it seemed he’d only been fooled.

  Her skin was pale, such a contrast to the black shock of hair. She had something that curled seductively up her neck beneath the spiked collar she wore, and caressed the side of her face. A tattoo? While the collar and tattoo were good distractions, they didn’t quite hide the green and yellow bruises around her neck.

  She wore a black T-shirt with some sort of skeleton and rose graphic and the name of a heavy metal rock band, black jeans and black boots that he immediately knew were too big for her, yet she walked as though comfortable in the fake skin she wore, almost like she’d donned a jacket of kick-arse between the last time he’d seen her and now.

  Her appearance was shocking. The woman who stood before him seemed a hardened, gritty facsimile of the woman he’d welcomed into his home, the soft, sweet, funny woman who’d shared gentle smiles with his children, had played with them – and who had driven him mad with lust in his bedroom. Beneath the dark layers, though, her lips were still the soft curves he remembered. Her eyes were rimmed with dark circles, equal parts mascara, eyeliner, worry and exhaustion.

  Had he known her at all? Which was the real Darcy: the one he’d discovered at Jirralee or the tough-looking chick who now stood in front of him? Or someone entirely different from the characters she’d shown him?

  ‘What do you need me to do?’ she asked him quietly, lifting her chin.

  And there she was, his Darcy; the quiet, brave woman who put others’ needs before her own.

  All of a sudden, he was reluctant to involve her, to put her through even more risk. If it wasn’t for his children’s sake, he’d think of another way, but both he and Alex and Alex’s brother, Bern, had brainstormed until they realised they knew next to nothing about the people behind this bold, aggressive move, and that perhaps the best course of action would be to give them what they wanted: Darcy.

  Well, to at least make them think they were getting Darcy.

  ‘I’m sorry to have to involve you,’ he told her gruffly, sincerely, and she nodded, biting her lip.

  ‘I’m sorry you were involved,’ was her quiet response. ‘So deeply sorry.’

  He nodded, accepting her apology. She was here, and she wanted to help. That alone was a miracle, after the way he’d treated
her. He looked at Alex, and then at Detective Fuller, who was approaching their group. ‘Have you told her what the plan is?’

  Alex shook his head. ‘Not yet, she’s just walked in the door.’

  They sat down, and Dom listened as both Alex and the detective outlined the proposed plan of action.

  The kidnapper had called nearly an hour after the driver was found in another car’s boot – thank God the man was recuperating. The demands were simple: no uniforms, and Darcy in exchange for the kids.

  The handover was to take place at Luna Park the following day at 11 a.m., in front of the giant Ferris wheel. There would be a significant police presence, all undercover as either park and ride attendants or as guests wandering the park. Detective Fuller pulled out a map of the park, and outlined where the undercover police officers would be, where the surveillance cameras were, where the potential escape routes were and how they were being covered. With access by train, car, bus and ferry, there were plenty of methods the kidnappers could use to bring in the children and Gertrude – and to leave with Darcy.

  Bern came over to join them, asking questions now and then regarding placement and visibility, crowd control, et cetera. The park management were also involved, and were briefing all of their staff on Julia, Jonah, Gertrude and Darcy.

  From what Dom could see, they’d thought of pretty much everything, but the one factor going against them would be the crowds. The kidnapper had chosen a Saturday and the grounds were bound to be filled with families, couples and teens enjoying the thrills the place could offer.

  ‘You will, of course, be wearing a vest,’ Detective Fuller told Darcy, and Dom noticed the hands she clutched in her lap spasm. Her gaze flickered to his, and he saw the worry, the fear. She knew, as did he, that all these safety precautions were no defence against a well-targeted sharpshooter’s bullet. She would be standing out in the open, alone and vulnerable.

  This was about getting his kids back safe and sound, but Dom felt like he was teetering over a chasm filled with sharp spikes. His kids or Darcy; losing either was untenable, no matter what she’d done to him.