The more people who arrived for the cook-off, the easier it would be. He’d seen Ashleigh, or Eliza, as she was known now, earlier this morning, running like a startled rabbit from one building to another. As he’d been standing in the shadows, he’d been able to wait until he saw a tall, broad-shouldered man follow her out of the clubrooms.
Dominic was sure this other man wanted her to stop so he could plead his case, whatever the fuck that might be. The anger in his gut sat there day after day, eating away at him. Sometimes he was so livid, he would get spots in front of his eyes and couldn’t see properly.
Still, he knew that patience was the key. Dominic realised he had to keep a level head, even though what he really wanted to do right now was grab hold of that man walking across the street and bash him within an inch of his life.
His thoughts flicked briefly to Simon. He wondered if his body had been found yet. He was pretty sure it wouldn’t have been. There were so many gorges and gullies. And he had chosen one that was well off the road.
He did feel a very small amount of regret at killing him. Realistically, though, he very much felt that Simon had brought his death on himself. After all, he couldn’t be trusted anymore.
And he hadn’t made him suffer—if knowing you were going to die wasn’t suffering, that is. He’d marched him, at gunpoint, to a deep ravine in the heart of the Flinders, and quickly shot him in the head. Simon would have died instantly. Not like some of the people Dominic had killed.
Getting to his final resting place had taken a while and Simon hadn’t said anything the whole time. Dominic assumed he knew there wasn’t any point in trying to talk him out of it, but Simon’s lack of fight disgusted him. He had turned out to be weak and inadequate.
Dominic focused again on the tall man, who had stopped to talk to an exhibitor setting up a brewery stall.
He wondered who he was and what role he played in Ashleigh’s life. Was he her new lover? Dominic couldn’t stand that thought.
After committing the face to memory, he dragged himself back to the caravan. If he stayed where he was, he might not be responsible for his actions.
Chapter 38
Heidi and Tilly piled into the car, and Chris waved goodbye to a couple of blokes who were still in the street.
‘Okay, girls?’ he asked as they drove out of town, back to the park.
‘I’m okay,’ Heidi answered, with a secret smile at Tilly.
‘Me too,’ Tilly answered.
‘Are you getting excited about the cook-off? Only two days to go!’
‘It’s always fun seeing my friends,’ Heidi answered. ‘Sometimes I wish I lived closer to them, Dad, but then I think if I saw them every day, I might get bored playing with them.’
‘You’ll never tire of good friends,’ Chris answered.
Heidi watched her dad, who had his eyes on the road. She couldn’t quite make sense of all the thoughts in her head. She’d been sure Uncle Jacob and Eliza would be boyfriend and girlfriend really soon.
Then she’d seen how her dad had looked at Eliza today and she got a funny feeling in her stomach. Maybe he liked Eliza too.
If he liked Eliza and she was going to be her dad’s girlfriend, what would happen to her and Tilly? Heidi crinkled her brow as she looked out the window.
The sun was going down and there were dark clouds to the north. She wished she was outside, at the park. She’d be able to work out if there was going to be a thunderstorm by the atmosphere and by which direction the wind was coming from—if there was any wind.
She loved thunderstorms, and the way the lightning forked across the sky and lit up the land. Sometimes there wasn’t any rain, but when there was, the drops were large and fat.
Her favourite thing to do when it rained was to run outside and open her mouth. Sometimes the drops fell in and hit her tongue; other times they hit the back of her throat and made her cough. The smell of moisture on dry earth was her favourite smell in the whole world.
‘Heidi?’
She blinked and looked at her dad in the rear-vision mirror. ‘Uh-huh?’
‘Did you hear what I said?’
Heidi shook her head. ‘No.’
‘I asked what you wanted for tea.’
Heidi glanced over at Tilly, whose eyes were heavy and hooded. She’d be asleep in a few moments.
‘Whatever’s easiest for you, Dad.’ She wanted to ask him about Eliza.
‘We can have Dad’s chicken surprise, or chops and salad.’
‘Chops’ll be easier. I can make the salad and you can cook.’
‘That sounds like a plan,’ Chris said, nodding. ‘Much easier than having to cut all the chook up.’
Heidi turned and stared out of the window again. A few seconds later, she looked back at the rear-vision mirror to see that her dad was still watching her.
‘Dad, if you got a girlfriend, what would happen to Tilly and me?’ she asked quickly before she could chicken out.
There was a long silence, and Heidi wondered if he had heard her above the road and engine noise.
‘Why do you ask that?’ he finally answered.
Heidi thought his voice sounded all funny. She shrugged. ‘Just wondered.’ Pretending not to care, she closed her eyes and feigned sleep.
That night, Tilly crept into Heidi’s room and shook her awake.
‘I’m hot,’ she whined.
‘Put the air conditioner on,’ Heidi mumbled as she fumbled for the light switch next to her bed.
‘It’s not working.’
‘Go and tell Dad. I’m sleeping.’
‘He’s sleeping too.’
Heidi sighed. She knew that Tilly had actually had a nightmare and wanted company. She sat up.
It was hot. Almost stifling. It would be cooler outside.
‘Come on,’ she whispered. ‘Let’s go out. There might be some wind that can cool us off. I wish Dad would put a pool in.’
They crept down the passageway, careful not to wake Chris. They knew he worked hard and often fell into bed exhausted. He needed to sleep well, so he could run the park and look after them. It made Heidi angry whenever she thought of the way their mother had left.
She had never even said goodbye to them.
Heidi had watched her dad be so sad that he would cry at night when he didn’t think they saw him. But she had. She’d sat at his closed door and listened to him sob. She’d seen him sneak a few drinks in the middle of the day, when she knew he shouldn’t. Recently, though, she’d seen him start to act more like her old dad again, the way he was before her mum left.
Tilly flipped on the outside light and Heidi turned it straight off.
‘Don’t,’ said Tilly with a frown.
‘You can’t put that on. All the mozzies and midges’ll come to it and just be annoying. It’s better when there’s no light anyway. I can see the stars.’
She led the way out to the backyard to the trampoline and got onto it. Tilly did the same and Heidi felt the mat sag under their weight.
She stared at the stars and felt the stirring of a breeze brush her skin. A big cloud moved slowly across the sky, blocking out the moon.
‘It’s too hot,’ Heidi complained as Tilly snuggled closer but the older girl put her arm around her anyway.
‘Why do people take animals from the park?’ Tilly asked.
‘To make money. Isn’t that what Dad said?’
‘Yeah, but I still don’t get it. Why would they hurt them by taking them out of their natural environment? They’ll just die. I bet the people who are doing it don’t know how to look after them properly.’
‘They must be able to, ’cause I don’t reckon they’d get paid if they handed over dead animals.’
‘I s’pose,’ Tilly agreed.
They lay there for a little while longer and Heidi felt Tilly start to relax. She’d go to sleep out here if she wasn’t careful.
‘Tilly,’ she said in a low voice. ‘Tilly!’
‘Hmm?’
&n
bsp; ‘Let’s go for a walk. It will be cooler again out on the flood plains ’cause the breeze’ll be able to get at us.’
They got off the trampoline and walked silently out through the camping area and onto the flood plains. The moon was visible again and lit the way for them to walk without tripping or falling. Heidi knew she didn’t need to but pointed out the Southern Cross and told Tilly that was how the explorers used to navigate their way around the bush.
‘I know,’ her sister answered in a huffy tone. ‘I’m not stupid.’
As they got further away from the camping grounds, Heidi lifted her head and gazed at the sky. The little bit of breeze there had been at the house was stronger out here. She was pleased they’d come outside. As much as she loved her home, there was nothing worse than the heat arriving quickly and without warning, as it had done in the last couple of weeks. She liked it when it got hot gradually.
The wind played with her hair as a wallaby stood up and looked at them curiously. The moon was reflected in its eyes and it had its paws to its mouth, holding some grass.
They both stood very still, then Tilly whispered, ‘That’s a yellow-footed rock wallaby.’
‘I know! How cool is that?’
They kept watching the wallaby until it finished eating and moved slowly away.
Heidi caught hold of Tilly’s arm. ‘Guess what we should do?’
‘What?’
‘Let’s go up to where the emu eggs were taken and see if we can see anything. We might see someone walking about at night, or anything.’
Tilly’s eyes grew wide. ‘But Eliza and Uncle Jacob said not to.’
‘How are they going to know? They’re not here.’
Tilly hesitated for only a few more moments before saying, ‘Come on.’
They ran hunched over towards the creek and started to climb up the rocks.
The moon slid behind another cloud and Heidi looked up. She’d felt the wind change a few moments ago and, in the distance, there had been the rumble of thunder.
‘One elephant, two elephants . . .’ They counted the seconds in between the rumbles and worked out the storm was probably about twenty kilometres away.
‘Might not even get here,’ Heidi said with a shrug. ‘Let’s walk up to the top of the bluff and watch the lightning.’
With the nimbleness of mountain goats, the girls continued towards the bluff, climbing over rocks and pushing their way through the bushes until they came to a sheltered spot with a cave at the top of the hill.
Heidi liked to pretend that no one except her, her dad and Tilly knew there were Aboriginal paintings inside it. They didn’t come here that often, but it was always lovely and cool, deep within the side of the hill, and had an amazing view over the flood plains. They settled into the cave.
Heidi searched the sky and saw the clouds really beginning to build. When the clouds blew across the moon and blocked it out, they would be left without light and that would make it much harder for them to get home.
For the first time, she felt some apprehension run through her. It was forgotten, though, the minute the sky split with a huge electrical crack and, a few moments later, there was a thunderclap. Heidi felt the force of the thunder through her body and she smiled.
The power of nature was awesome, as was the speed of the storm. The clouds moved quickly to black out the sky, and the rumble of thunder was constant, like a surround sound system repeating the same music. It echoed around them, from every direction.
They watched, their faces alight with pleasure, as the lightning spread across the sky like white veins, showing the deep indigo purple of the clouds.
Inky blackness overtook them whenever the lightning wasn’t flashing. Heidi could smell the moisture of the storm on the wind, and almost as soon as her senses knew it was going to rain, it did.
The sort of drops that she had been thinking about in the car on the way home started to fall. Fat and heavy, they splattered hard against the ground. They were warm at first but, as the rain got heavier, they became cold and Heidi nudged Tilly back further into the cave. The loudest clap of thunder of the night so far shot through the air and she reached over to take her sister’s hand.
There was no way they could get back to the house now. Fear started to churn inside Heidi, but she knew she couldn’t let Tilly realise it. Her sister had relied on Heidi so much, ever since their mother had left, that sometimes she felt like she was her mum.
‘It’s loud,’ Tilly said, still looking in wonder at the storm.
There was another crack of lightning and both girls watched as it struck the dry creek bed just in front of them.
Heidi was now overcome with terror. She knew what could happen. There could be a fire, even with the rain. They could get flooded in.
She couldn’t take Tilly out in the weather to try to run home now. They could be hit by lightning or caught in a flash flood.
There was really nothing they could do but sit and wait it out, and hope they would be able to get back home when the rain stopped.
‘Let’s go further back into the cave,’ Heidi instructed Tilly in a calm voice. ‘We’re going to get wet with the way the wind is blowing the rain in, and we shouldn’t get cold.’
Ducking their heads, they wiggled back in a little further. Then Heidi’s feet touched something.
She froze.
Heidi prodded it with her feet, trying to work out what it was. As she pushed the object across the floor of the cave, it made a high-pitched squeaking noise.
Chapter 39
Chris woke to the sound of thunder. Like a snake, anxiety was winding through his stomach. It had been there for weeks—ever since Dave had come to see him about the poaching.
He felt like something bad was going to happen.
Getting up, he padded over to the window, to see what the sky looked like. As he had imagined they would be, deep indigo thunderclouds were rolling in from the north, their colours lit up by the lightning.
It was the lightning that might be a problem in these storms, if there wasn’t any rain. Strikes that hit the ground would light the dry grass. Fires like that could burn for weeks because it was so difficult to get access to the range country to fight them.
Chris thought about how much the station owners hated dry storms. There had been instances of stock and property being lost despite all the volunteer firefighters’ best efforts. The heat in the northern part of South Australia was intense during summer and that, coupled with dry bushland, paved the way for brutal fires that destroyed everything in their path. Even hearing the first plop of rain didn’t make him relax. A good five or ten millimetres would need to fall to make sure nothing went up in flames.
Over the next few minutes, the drumming on the roof got louder and heavier. Lightning lit up the sky every few seconds and the thunder didn’t stop. Continuous growling, like an angry dog’s, filled the sky.
Chris didn’t move away from the window. He loved thunderstorms. He always had, even though he was well aware how vulnerable humans were against the power of Mother Nature. So often they came off second best.
A particularly loud clap of thunder sounded, right over the house, and the windows rattled. Chris glanced behind him, expecting to see one, if not both, of the girls coming to watch the storm with him.
He loved it when they did that. They would all sit on the verandah together, snuggled up on the swinging chair, not saying anything, just watching. If things went the way he thought they might, he knew that watching storms with his girls would be one of the things he’d miss the most.
They must be tired not to wake up with all this noise, he thought. He wandered down the hallway and stopped to listen at each of their doors.
No noise.
Chris opened Tilly’s door a crack and peered in. Even before he quite processed what he was seeing, panic surged through him.
He threw the door open and switched on the light.
The bed was empty.
He ran down to
Heidi’s room and hurled himself inside, turning on the light as he went.
A guttural moan came from deep within him as the rain increased in intensity.
He ran outside onto the lawn, screaming his daughters’ names. Within seconds he was drenched, but he hardly noticed.
Frantically, Chris got into his ute and sped away. He swung the vehicle from side to side, trying to get the lights to sweep across the landscape.
The rain was so thick that he couldn’t see much more than a couple of metres in front of him. He jumped out of the ute and ran to the closest caravan, pounding on the door.
‘Have you seen my girls?’ he cried when a sleepy-looking man appeared at the door.
‘What? No.’
The man had hardly finished speaking when Chris ran to the next caravan, repeating his question.
Within minutes, most of the caravaners were outside, some with torches and headlights, others shrugging into rain jackets, all ready to help him search for his daughters.
‘Have you called the police?’ someone shouted to Chris as he ran in the direction of the creek.
He yelled that he hadn’t, but had no idea if anyone had heard him. The thunder and lightning hadn’t abated one bit, and as he reached the edge of the creek, he saw a trickle of water just starting to run.
‘Shit!’ he swore. If there was enough rain to make the creeks run, who knew what would happen? They could be washed away. They could drown—anything!
Part of him realised Heidi and Tilly would have known to take shelter somewhere, but then, they could only do that if there was some decent cover. If they were out on the flood plains, there would be nowhere. They could get struck by lightning.
He was so stupid! Even though they had promised him they wouldn’t go and look for the poachers, he should have known they would. What on earth had he been thinking?
He tried to wipe away the water that was streaming down his face. It was running into his eyes and stinging them, and he couldn’t see properly.
‘Heidi!’ he screamed. ‘Tilly!’ But his words were drowned out by the sound of rain drumming into the soil. He fell to his knees, sobbing.
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