She sidestepped milling parents and school kids still in uniform who were standing and chatting. Everyone knew everyone in this small town. There were only two hot chooks left, and she nabbed one along with a tub of coleslaw and headed to the checkout. She was stuck for a couple of minutes behind an ancient, bent man shakily counting out coins for his white bread and baked beans. She jiggled her knee and pushed aside the repetitive thought of dogs die in hot cars. When it was her turn, she paid as quickly as possible, forgoing a bag or receipt.
But back at the car, a woman and man stood at the window where Hudson sat strapped into his seat. Sunny eyed them nervously and clicked the key tag to unlock the doors. They whipped their heads around to stare at her accusingly.
‘Your son is screaming in there,’ the fox-like woman said.
‘We were just about to call the police,’ added the unshaven man.
Sunny opened the driver’s door and shoved her head inside. ‘What’s wrong? What’s happened?’
Hudson was hysterical, his legs thrashing against his car seat restraints, his face purple, tears leaking from his eyes, strangled sobs and hiccups forewarning that he was on the verge of vomiting from distress. Daisy stared forlornly out the window, distancing herself from her brother’s meltdown.
‘What’s wrong?’ Sunny repeated, frightened now, while also piercingly aware of the woman and man still standing there.
‘It went off!’ Hudson screamed, and thrust the phone at her. She looked at it: set on the home screen. He’d obviously pressed something he shouldn’t, and Paw Patrol had disappeared. Not exactly a national emergency, but to him the world had ended.
She popped her head out of the car to reassure the bystanders. ‘His movie stopped,’ she said, with a slight eye roll to convey the ridiculousness, desperate to get away.
The foxy woman was not appeased. ‘Couldn’t you leave him some air?’ she growled. The man lost interest and padded away.
Sunny fought the urge to defend herself and point out that the windows were open a fraction, and instead fiddled with the phone to get Paw Patrol back on to end Hudson’s crisis.
There! She handed the phone back to him, Paw Patrol once more in action. He sniffed, but settled instantly, his eyes fixed on the screen.
‘It’s illegal to leave children in a car,’ the woman added helpfully, showing no signs of moving on.
‘Yes, thank you,’ Sunny said, not meeting her eyes but getting back into the driver’s seat as quickly as possible and turning the key in the ignition. ‘Troll,’ she added, under her breath.
A quick look over her shoulder as she reversed showed her the woman was still there, murmuring in disgust about Sunny’s appalling mothering.
Sunny drove out onto the road, feeling the knives in her back, and turned towards the caravan park, already making plans to hitch up the van and drive on into the night to get away from here.
But no sooner had she taken a deep breath to lower her blood pressure when Hudson released an ear-splitting scream from the back seat. Sunny slammed on the brakes and turned around. ‘What? What now?’ she demanded.
He thrust the phone at her. ‘It’s stopped again!’ he whined.
‘For God’s sake!’ She grabbed the phone, a car behind her beeping at her to get moving again. But she couldn’t move. She had to get the video working to end this screeching meltdown before she lost her mind.
‘Troll,’ came a small voice from the back seat—Daisy, repeating her mother’s indiscretion.
Sunny thrust the phone back at Hudson. ‘There!’ she snapped, unable to find any sort of maternal serenity.
She turned around again to drive on, but there was a man at her window. She jumped, her hand to her heart, adrenaline coursing through her blood like electricity.
Tap, tap, tap on the glass.
The man bent down to eyeball Sunny through the window. He was wearing blue.
60
Lara
Lara had asked Dave to meet her at the local library. Her heart banged the moment she saw him appear through the automatically opening doors and pause, looking around for the meeting room. She had the advantage in being able to see him first, having got there fifteen minutes early, enough time to try out every seat around the rectangular table and break into a decent sweat.
She watched him walk—that self-assured, arrogant stride. Time concertinaed in on itself and she felt the blood drain from her face. She had to forcibly stop herself from running.
He queried the librarian at the counter, who pointed towards the meeting room and he followed the outstretched arm. His gaze collided with hers.
He may as well have hit her.
The shiny new belt around his trousers made her face twitch with unwanted memories.
He came straight to the meeting room, standing tall on the other side of the table. Lara suddenly wished she was standing, preferably nearest to the open door, and berated herself for not keeping open that escape route. He ran a hand down his neatly pressed collared shirt.
‘Lara, it’s lovely to see you.’ He cast an eye over her. ‘You’re looking well.’
‘I am well.’ She stopped herself from adding thank you. We have a lot to discuss. Please, take a seat.’
His smile suggested he knew how nervous she was. ‘I might just get a coffee from the cafe. Would you like one?’
‘No.’
He tipped his head and left her to stew in her frustration at his games while she waited for him to return. Finally he sauntered back in, carrying a takeaway cup. He seated himself, leaning back in the chair, hands clasped behind his head. ‘Well, you’ve been a busy little girl in the past six years.’
‘So have you,’ she said, nodding to his wedding ring.
‘Oh, yes, Vicki. You remember her, don’t you? We married a month after you left me.’
The poor woman.
‘She helped me heal from your abandonment,’ he said seriously.
She had to stop herself from scoffing. She would not let him bait her into arguments.
‘Little did I know I was a father.’ He folded his arms at his chest.
She was tempted to deny that was true, but knew it was futile. ‘Well, I had good reason to hide them from you, didn’t I?’ she countered.
His forehead furrowed in mock confusion. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘You tried to get me to kill myself.’
‘What?’ He shook his head. ‘That’s crazy. I’ve always wanted to be a father—you knew that. You’re imagining things, Lara. You have always been shockingly unreliable, due to your illness, I’m sure, but this whole situation is a tragedy.’
‘It was certainly a tragedy for me. It’s taken me years to recover from the damage you did to me.’
‘Lara! All I ever did was look after you,’ he said, aggrieved. ‘I supported you financially, and supported your dreams to write your screenplay. I looked after you when you were sick. Not many others would have done what I did.’
His speech was intended to make her feel ashamed, to remind her she was unworthy. But she knew the truth now. ‘You’re right about that. Not many men do behave the way you do.’ She faltered. ‘At least, I’d like to believe that’s true.’
He narrowed his eyes at her and leaned forward, almost as if to sniff her. His eyes lingered on her neck, the spot where his thumb used to fit, pressing on her voice box, silencing her cries. ‘You’ve been with another man,’ he whispered.
She was unable to stop the shudder that shot up her spine. He noticed, and smirked with pleasure.
‘Dave, you will never get Daisy or Hudson. Ever. You will never know them or touch them in any way.’ She injected as much steel into each word as she could muster over the skittering of her heart.
‘I have rights, Lara. And remember, I’m not the certified crazy one here; you are.’
It was near impossible to keep herself from falling apart at that moment. On paper, what he said was true. Add to that the falsified birth certificates, whic
h would be uncovered in due course, and her stocks would fall fast. Her heart threatened to burst through her chest at the idea that what she’d done—giving false information on birth certificates to hide her children from a violent man—might actually be the thing that convinced a court to allow him access to them.
‘I’m a respected psychologist and GP. I’m married to another doctor. We are flawless.’
‘On the outside, that might appear to be true. But I know what a monster you are behind closed doors.’
He tapped the table in calculated contemplation. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m concerned by these delusions. Have you checked in with your doctor lately? You might need to change your medications, because you are clearly very muddled.’ He picked up his coffee and blew on it sharply three times.
She grimaced. ‘Look, I needed to see you today for one reason only, and that is to tell you that you have no power here anymore. I am strong now. I’ve just come back from Italy where I’ve been caring for a frail old man, his villa and animals and doing it all rather well. I’ve travelled the country. And I never once lost anything,’ she said, hoping he caught her emphasis. He lifted his chin and his lips pulled down to suppress a jeer. ‘I didn’t have a breakdown. No one had to rescue me. I didn’t get confused, forget anything, or injure myself. I barely even scratched my wrist,’ she said, looking down now and realising her skin was without a single mark. ‘I did it all. You have no power over me and no power over my children or any other member of the Foxleigh family. Got it?’
He snickered, though there was an infinitesimal moment when she wondered if she’d made him nervous. But then he flung his hand through the air and slammed it down on the table.
Lara jumped and twisted herself away from him to stare at the ground. She knew not to make eye contact.
‘You don’t get to tell me what to do,’ he said quietly. ‘No one tells me what to do.’
She continued to focus on the tiny flecks of green and brown in the carpet at her feet, frozen, silently pleading with him to leave her alone.
‘Tell Sunny to return my lawyer’s calls or it’s going to make me very angry.’ He leaned across the table, closer to her ear. ‘And I’ll see you again soon.’
Back in the car, she drove numbly, having to wrangle her mind to stay focused on the road. Dave’s violent outburst was all the more shocking because he’d lost his composure in a public place. That was a change, a progression, and she didn’t know what it meant.
Her phone rang, startling her; she pulled over beneath the jacaranda tree at the beginning of her street.
Sunny.
With shaking hands, Lara answered it. ‘I’m so glad to hear from you,’ she said. ‘Are you alright? Where are you?’
‘I’m fine. I’m sorry to call so late…’
‘Late?’
‘It’s the middle of the night, isn’t it?’
‘Huh? Oh, no, I’m back home. In our street, actually.’
‘What? Why aren’t you in Italy?’
‘Because Dave is after the kids and we didn’t know where you were!’ Lara burst into tears, all the anxiety of Sunny’s disappearance and of her meeting with Dave erupting at once.
‘How do you know about Dave?’ Sunny sounded gutted.
Lara explained that Eliza had read the lawyer’s letter to her and she’d felt she had no other choice but to come home and face her pursuer.
‘Are you crazy?’ Sunny demanded, then paused. No one was allowed to say that. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean…you know.’
‘I know. But yes, I might be crazy.’
‘Did you see him? What did he say?’
‘The usual. That I was imagining things, that I’d been a naughty girl to hide the kids from him, that he was an upstanding citizen and we’d never make anything stick. And then he slapped the table and made me cry.’ Tears leaked down her face.
‘I want to kill him. I truly do,’ Sunny hissed. ‘Mind you, I’m relieved to know he isn’t out here, stalking us through Queensland.’
‘Where are you?’ Lara asked.
‘That’s what I need to talk to you about. I’ve just stepped out of the police station in Winton.’
‘As in the middle of Queensland?’
‘Yes.’
‘What happened?’ At the mention of the police, the world outside Lara’s car had begun to dip and bend. ‘Where are the kids?’
‘Playing with Midnight and the police dog out in the yard behind the station. I’m walking up the street so they don’t hear me.’
‘What happened?’ Lara repeated, more gently this time. A sudden breeze sent a shower of delicate mauve flowers falling from the branches above her car, pattering softly on the roof and sliding down the windscreen.
Sunny took a deep breath. ‘I’m so stupid.’
She told Lara about the incident yesterday, leaving the kids in the car and Hudson’s meltdown, the policeman witnesssing the scene and following her, then running a search on Sunny’s licence number and finding she was a long way from Brisbane and asking questions. He seemed to have a hunch that something was up, and had clearly come up with an unflattering picture of this woman travelling on her own with two children, a puppy, no employment and no real plan of where she was going. Still, given it was late in the day and she did have these two young and exceedingly hungry children, the police officer had followed her back to the caravan site to let her settle the kids, asking her to come to the station in the morning. Apparently, he could either charge her or issue a warning for leaving the children unattended in the car—even though the windows were down and she was only gone a few minutes!—an offence which carried a maximum sentence in Queensland of three years’ imprisonment.
‘Sunny!’ Lara slapped her free hand to her forehead.
‘It was a few minutes. I was just so tired. But I wish I could take it back.’ She paused while Lara digested this. Then in a quiet, non-Sunny voice, she asked, ‘Did Mum tell you about all the things Dave’s been doing?’
‘Yes.’ Lara swallowed hard. ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘It’s not your fault,’ Sunny said, sounding more like herself again.
‘I can’t help feeling that everything is my fault.’
‘Stop it. None of this is your fault. It’s Dave’s fault, end of story.’
Lara considered the sweet spot on her wrist, but forced herself to look at the sky outside instead. ‘When will the policeman decide what he’s going to do with you?’
‘I don’t know. Sergeant Crook has just been to the bakery with the kids to get them vanilla slices for morning tea. I left them to it to clear my head. It’s a little weird, but I feel safe here with the kids in the care of a policeman. He’s a little bit cute, actually.’
Lara opened her mouth, barely knowing where to start. ‘Are you for real? His surname is Crook?’
That set Sunny off on a bout of barely suppressed giggling, and Lara couldn’t help but join in. It was a truly awful thing to have happened—who knew how it would affect their legal proceedings with Dave? But because it was far too awful to contemplate, they could do nothing but cry tears of laughter over the phone.
At last, wiping her face, Lara pulled herself together. ‘Oh, this is really quite dreadful,’ she said.
Her sister was instantly sober. ‘I know. I don’t know what to do.’
Lara experienced a flicker of pride that, for the first time ever, Sunny had called her for help. If only the circumstances were different, she might have enjoyed that realisation just a little more. ‘Tell me what I can do.’
Sunny thought for a moment. Lara heard a cockatoo screech in the background and could imagine its white wings bright against the same blue sky that stretched above them both. ‘Lara, could you come here, to Winton? I’m so rattled and tired and it’s hard driving on my own with the kids. I don’t think it’s safe to go back home, not after everything Dave’s done, and especially because he’ll only be angrier now he knows you’re back in town.’
‘I agree. I think Martha was right: the more distance and time we can put between us and him the better. What if he snatched one of the kids?’ A stone fell through her chest.
‘We won’t let it happen,’ Sunny said.
It was unthinkable. ‘I’ll fly up and meet you there,’ Lara said, considering a new life on the run, wondering if she would ever see Matteo again, or when they would see Eliza. ‘But will Sergeant Crook let you go?’
Her sister took in a sharp breath. ‘God, I hope so.’
‘He has to,’ Lara said firmly. ‘Everyone leaves their kids in the car to duck in to pay for petrol or buy milk.’ She’d done it herself more than once when she’d been caring for the kids, Eliza too. ‘It’s not like you left them at the casino or anything. I’ll go back to Mum’s now and look up flights and be on the first plane I can get out that way. If I can’t get a direct flight, I’ll get as close as I can and hire a car.’
‘Thank you. I’m so sorry.’
‘Hey, it’s not like you haven’t saved me a thousand times over.’
Sunny sniffed. ‘That’s true.’
‘We’re strongest together.’
‘All for one.’
‘We might be running away, but at least we’ll be running together and doing it on our own terms. Besides, it might look better to the courts if the kids at least seem as though they’re in my custody.’ She knew that would hurt Sunny, but it was true. Lara was the birth mother. ‘Call me back as soon as Sergeant Crook has made up his mind about what he’s going to do. I’ll call Martha. We need advice.’
‘Oh, hold on, I’ve got another call coming through. I better get it in case it’s Sergeant Crook wanting me to come back to the station.’ Sunny hung up.
61
Sunny
‘Hello?’
‘Sunny Foxleigh?’ A woman’s voice.
‘Yes,’ Sunny said, guarded.
‘I’m so glad…Are you alright?’
‘Who is this?’
‘Oh, sorry, I don’t have much time. My husband will be home soon and he can’t know that I’ve called you.’
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