‘There’s a massive pileup on the Midwestern Highway. One car’s on fire, with two people trapped in it, one a baby. I don’t know how long it will be before they can send anyone.’
And she knew that this was the reason he’d called, though he wouldn’t say it. ‘Okay. Send someone with a boat. It’s quicker, and every minute counts. Send the bush fire brigades and any available paramedics while we’re on the way.’
‘You can’t come here, Elly,’ Jonas protested, but it was weak.
‘You know as well as I do that I’m the only chance those people have. I have to make him let go of Schumacher, if nothing else. Those people need one of us.’ She disconnected and turned to Adam. ‘I have to go back. The Flying Doctors are caught up in a massive accident and fire on the Midwestern Highway.’ There was a look of blank horror on his averted face. ‘I should have left town days ago. I knew he was insane enough to do something like this.’
At last he looked at her. But his eyes were dead, his body stiff. ‘I’d better get dressed.’
She flushed and left the cabin. He’d made her feel like a dismissed hooker.
He had his jeans on when he came out of the cabin. ‘Sarge is sending his brother-in-law Henry with the car and boat—every available officer’s needed to negotiate with Spencer, though I’m the only one in the area with hostage negotiation training. Others are on their way, but it’ll be at least two hours. This time we’ll take the straight road back. It doesn’t matter who follows us.’
She nodded, refusing to allow herself the luxury of tears. Her presence had put his friends and the townspeople in danger. If those people at the hospital lost their lives, including young Simon, then Jane Larkins, a doctor dedicated to saving life, would be as guilty of the deaths as if she’d set the bomb.
‘I should never have come here.’
‘Stop saying that. This is not your fault.’ He slammed his fist against the doorframe so hard he punched a hole through the rotting wood and ripped his skin. ‘I’m no better than Spencer. I put the entire town in danger so I could be alone with you.’
Two of a kind, all right—but this time, the consequences weren’t his burden to bear. She snatched back the anguish of the guilt she’d brought on him. ‘If I hadn’t been here, you wouldn’t have had the choice to make.’
‘Elly, love, don’t do this to yourself.’ He tried to take her in his arms, but she shrank back. ‘Spencer’s the insane one. You can’t keep taking the flak for what he does.’
‘I can if it’s true. By coming here, I put the entire town in danger!’
‘I’m a cop, Elly. I knew the danger when I took you into my house … even before that, when I looked up the case. I could have told you to go, but I didn’t.’
‘No, you couldn’t. Not after you found out what happened to me. Guilt and pity clouded your judgement, and I played on that, because I wanted you.’ She looked down, but said it anyway, because she had to, just once in her life. ‘Because I wanted one happy week with you. I’ve always been in love with you, Adam.’
He reached for her. ‘Elle—’
‘He can take me,’ she whispered. ‘I swear I’ll leave this time.’
‘God damn it, no!’ He gripped her shoulders hard; his face was stern, unyielding. ‘For Pete’s sake, don’t offer that up front.’
She looked at him. The moment of love had passed, and now she felt dead inside. ‘We’d better go out. The boat will be here soon.’
‘You don’t believe me. I’m the trained negotiator, Elly! If he takes you now, he’ll—’
‘Kill me?’ she whispered.
He paled. ‘Don’t say that.’
She looked at him as if for the last time. ‘One of us has to. I’m the one who came here and damned the consequences.’
‘Please, Elly, don’t do this. This is not your fault!’
She kept her face averted.
‘Listen to me. I’ve taken part in negotiations in over twenty sieges and hostage situations. This is all wrong! You do it this way, and no one wins. He’ll keep Schumacher to strengthen his power over you—and what he does to you before he kills you won’t be pretty. These nutcases are always completely self-absorbed, eager to punish the object of their obsession for what they see as crimes against them. He’ll kill you, and it’ll be all for nothing. He’ll just move onto the next woman, and ruin her life, too.’
She looked at him, swaying a little, but her eyes remained resolute. ‘At least it won’t be you, or Zoe. That’s all I can do.’
He dragged her against him, breathing hard. ‘Listen to me. What he’s done is not your fault. You can’t give your life to him!’
She pushed him away. ‘I–I’ve got to—’ She barely made it four steps before she started retching.
She felt warm, strong hands holding her up. He waited until she’d purged, then he pulled her against him, sitting against the outer wall of the cabin, rocking her. ‘Oh, baby, what he’s done to you … what we all did. How long has it been since something happened that you didn’t take the blame for? Didn’t accept the punishment?’
She just looked at him, barely comprehending his words.
‘You’re leaving,’ he murmured. ‘You were always going to run, even after we made love.’
She turned away, her heart tearing itself into shreds. ‘I always knew we could go nowhere.’
A short silence. ‘You’re wrong. Neither of us are one-night type of people.’
‘I had to be.’ She said it hard, and said it straight. ‘If Danny gets me, he’ll rape me. I couldn’t let him be my first.’
‘So you chose me over a psychopath. How bloody flattering,’ he muttered, hard and bitter.
‘No!’ she cried. ‘I told you I love you, and I meant it! Danny, Rick, Simon, my patients and the men at medical school—all of them only saw what I look like, what I could earn, what Dr Jane Larkins could do for them. But you—you know me, you love me. You made my first time everything I could have hoped for.’ She smiled at him, knowing this would be her last chance to say it. ‘No shame, no guilt and no regrets. You’re the love of my life.’
But as ever, he’d seen beneath her words to the truth. ‘Oh, bloody hell. This was why yesterday and this morning happened. You’re still planning to do it. You’re going to give yourself to Spencer.’
When she couldn’t look at him, he snapped, ‘To hell with no regrets! We have something incredible, something I’ve never known before or will again. You brought me back to life. You made Zoe love you. You said you’d think about the Flying Doctor idea. I gave you my grandmother’s ring. You say you love me. Now, because he shows up, you’re walking out on us?’ His voice cracked. ‘Damn it to hell, no! This is all wrong! Why the hell did you come here, make me love you again? Why did you make Zoe love you? Did you ever think there was a chance for us?’
‘A chance?’ Her head shot up. ‘A chance for us? If I made you think that, it was more than you gave me!’
‘Really?’ he snapped, lifting the hand that bore his grandmother’s ring.
‘All right, I never thought there was a chance for us until then. Until we came here, whenever we talked, you thought of her. When you kissed me, you compared me to her. When you touched me, you wished she’d have responded like me.’
He whitened. ‘That’s not true!’
‘Isn’t it? Then tell me, would you have offered her the same deal you offered me this morning? Set up a base, be my lover, but I don’t know about the future? Would you have offered that to her?’
‘Damn you. I never said that. I gave you a ring. I called Minyenbarra. I even said I’d invite every bloody Jepson in the phone book to our wedding. You’re the one clinging to your belief that I don’t care, that I’ll leave again because I did when I was twenty years old. You might forgive it, but you’re never going to forget. You’ve made me like everyone else who’s hurt you. So you return to my life, make me love you again, make Zoe want a mummy—and then you leave us anyway, even after I change my ent
ire world for you. And you even convince yourself you’re bloody noble as you do it.’
She closed her eyes. Was he right?
‘You say you came to help me—but all you’ve done to me is what I did to you.’ When she shook her head, he snarled, ‘Yeah, you are. You’re walking out on a little girl who lost her mother. At least I can say I was too young to see the damage I’d done. Can you? As revenge goes, it’s pretty damn thorough, isn’t it?’
She stared at him, unable to answer. Feeling the truth of his accusation dig into her bones. ‘She’ll forget me,’ she said at last, fumbling with the words. Wanting to believe it.
‘As you forgot your father, who left you when you were even younger? As you forgot me?’
The last shred of self-righteousness inside her withered. ‘Adam—’
‘Don’t say it. What you do to me is one thing, but I won’t absolve you for what you’re doing to my daughter. You think I’m cruel for what I did to you? At least I’ve tried my damnedest to make up for it! I’m not planning to walk out on a little kid who loves and needs me. You say I’m the love of your life, that you came to help, but by leaving, you’ll make Zoe think everyone she loves disappears from her life, just like—’
‘Sharon?’ she snapped, glad of the excuse to be hard and angry.
‘I was going to say, just like you believe everyone has always done and will always do to you. You’ll damage a four-year-old to protect yourself from happiness, in case it hurts later.’
The argument died in her again.
‘Coward,’ he flung at her. ‘You’ll risk your life, but you won’t risk living. You’ll run away just like you did at ten, at fifteen. What’s your excuse this time?’
She felt her eyes glaze over as she faced the most unpalatable truth of all. ‘I suppose that I have no faith in myself. That I don’t believe I deserve happiness. That I don’t deserve you, and Zoe. All I can do is save you now, and walk away.’ When he would have spoken she lifted a hand, gave him a quick smile. ‘Please, I have a lot to face today. Can we leave it there, Claudius? I–I need to think.’
He nodded, but lifted her left hand. ‘You might want to take the ring off. Spencer won’t like it.’ He kept watching her, eyes as flat and angry as she’d felt, and she deserved his anger. ‘You can always put it on your right hand, to remind you of Grandma. She’s safe, isn’t she—because she’s dead. She can’t threaten you with a love you’re too afraid to accept.’ Throwing the words she’d used about Sharon right back at her.
She flushed as she put the ring on her other hand. She’d done it now. It was well and truly over.
When she heard the sound of a motorboat, she returned to the cabin. ‘The boat’s almost here. Could you call for an update on my patients? I need to know what I’m up against, so I can prepare. Your hospital doesn’t exactly have new millennium technology, you know. Kinda back in the eighties.’
After long moments of a silence that hurt them both, he went outside, punching numbers into the satellite phone.
She stood alone in the cabin, its rustic beauty haunting her soul. Her gaze fell to the rug. The smear of blood whispered what she’d lost—something far more than her virginity. In a sudden feverish need, she grabbed the washbowl, soap and towel. Falling to her knees, she scrubbed at the spot, feeling like Lady Macbeth with all the force of strange, comic tragedy.
A shadow fell across the floor. She knew he was watching her, but couldn’t make herself stop scrubbing. ‘It’s gone.’
‘Yes.’ She rinsed the towel, lifted the basin and walked past him. She threw the water over a patch of wild dandelions. ‘There you go, all gone. End of discussion, end of guilt. Nothing happened. Just old friends, like always.’
He watched her still, tight and brooding. ‘No. Elly—’
She bit down hard on her lip. ‘Don’t, old friend. I hate autopsies. Gruesome things that pull apart the past and don’t help the future.’
‘I was going to say that Sarge called again. Simon’s situation is critical,’ he said bluntly. ‘One of the men in the bombing died half an hour ago.’
Turning cold to the marrow, she left the cabin without a backward glance.
His footsteps crunched on fallen gum leaves as he came to stand beside her at the river, where she watched for the boat. She turned to him and saw blackness and pain surrounding him like an aura, and hated that she’d been the one to put it there. She’d never expected to mean so much to him—that her leaving would be anything but a relief.
Hands in pockets, voice rough, he said, ‘Spencer is allowing firemen and paramedics to work on the victims on the proviso that you come ASAP. The Flying Doctors have contacted Dubbo Base Hospital, but they’ve got a major multiple MVA at Hay that’s blocking the highway. The hospitals at Broken Hill and Mildura are sending doctors and nurses, but there’s only one qualified surgeon coming. The others are all tied up in the accident, stabilising patients before transfer.’
Unable to look at him, trapped by guilt every way she looked, she turned back to the river. ‘I’m not a surgeon, but surgery was my best practical stint. I did a year in the OR during my residency, and I had plenty of hands-on experience with the RFDS.’
‘Sarge had already evacuated more than half the patients in the hospital, but a few critical patients couldn’t be moved without doctors to attend them. The Specialist Response Group team is getting nowhere negotiating with Spencer. He’s holding Schumacher in front of him, with the wall at his back. And he rigged a dead man’s switch on the bomb vest.’
‘I knew they’d get nowhere,’ she said quietly. ‘The major part of his mental illness centres on distrusting everyone in the world but the one he’s fixated on.’
‘I get it. I was wrong. You told me so.’
She sighed. ‘Don’t bother. I know you want to make me look at you again, so you can begin your persuasion tactics. You’re a trained negotiator, and I’ve worked with enough resistant patients to know the tricks.’
‘All right. Then I’ll tell you the truth. You can’t help anyone by giving in to his demands. He’ll only take more hostages later, kill more people every time he suspects you of anything, and blame the deaths on your suspected infidelity. You’ll have given your life to him for nothing.’
Not for nothing. For you, and Zoe. She squinted out over the water, refusing to feel, or to answer the concern in his tone for her. ‘The boat’s coming.’
She stepped into the water, getting wet to the knees as she slung her bag into the boat. Jonas’s brother-in-law Henry reached down to her, lifting her over the side.
Alone in the bow, she faced forward. She held herself apart from the men’s terse conversation, cloaking herself in the isolation that had been her protection since childhood, and bracing herself for what must come. The daughter of endless generations of nomads in a harsh, fragile, beautiful and unforgiving land, she knew there must sometimes be a sacrifice of one to save many.
It was time.
CHAPTER
19
The ride to the hospital was tense and silent. When they got to the car, Adam told Henry to go home before slamming the portable siren on the roof and driving north like a maniac, careening around anyone in his way. Rows of parked vehicles pointed the way to the hospital: fire trucks, ambulances, the media; the cars of terrified relatives of the injured, desperately waiting for help.
At the hospital, Elly leaped from the car and found herself before an unbroken line of cops, fire fighters and paramedics. Jonas took her arm, leading her to the door.
‘What’s the latest, Jonas?’
‘We lost another one.’ His voice was terse. ‘Two are still serious, one critical. The paramedics and firemen are doing all they can. A team is on the way from the Mildura Base Hospital.’
‘Simon?’ Adam asked.
‘Stable for now, thank the lord. The nurses outdid themselves with some patches and a machine of some sort.’
Elly sighed. One piece of good news, at least. ‘Is everyth
ing ready for surgery? Is everyone prepped?’
‘A nurse told me two of the critical passengers have head wounds, the serious patient has a compound fracture of his thigh that’s still bleeding, and severe concussion. One’s stable enough to wait. They have a nurse specialling her.’
She kept heading for the doors, so fast Jonas had trouble keeping up. ‘Where is he?’
‘Outside the operating rooms.’
She nodded. ‘Are the team bringing surgical equipment? There won’t be enough sterile packs, saline solutions or blood. I’ll need—’
The doors opened for her as she started to run through.
Rick stood in the doorway of the ER wearing a flak jacket and helmet, his face set hard. His gun was cocked and ready to shoot. ‘Elly, come with me.’
‘Don’t be a fool, Mendham. Those people need her help,’ Jonas snapped. ‘Let Elly go. You can fix any problems you have with her later.’
Rick gave his boss a hard look. ‘I’m the only one with a hope of getting through to Spencer and protecting Elly at the same time.’
Adam stepped forward. ‘Rick, let Elly pass. A dozen lives depend on her now, and I have to negotiate with Spencer.’
‘Not you—me. Elly, put these on.’ Rick picked up another flak jacket and a helmet, and tossed them at her. ‘I’m not letting my sister walk into a life and death situation without me.’
Elly blinked. Something in the way he’d said it … She shook her head. She had to remain focused on the hours of surgery ahead. ‘Rick, please, you have to let me go.’
Rick tossed her an odd smile. ‘That’s what you always said when I held you too long when we were kids. “Ricky-jim, let me go! You’re squashing me!”’
A collective gasp came from all around, but Rick looked only at Elly, who was gaping at him. ‘Do you remember me now, Janie-jan?’
The long-forgotten nickname made the odd sense of almost terrifying protectiveness she’d felt from Rick from the first day click at last. Looking at his dark, handsome face, the resemblance became clear, days too late. And she remembered. Her mouth opened and closed, making helpless sounds. At last she croaked, ‘Ricky-jim? M–my brother Ricky?’
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