by TJ Hamilton
Ben looked sceptical, but followed Leila into the kitchen and dining area. They unpacked their food and Ben grabbed a couple of forks from the cutlery drawer.
‘Now are you going to tell me what the hell is going on?’ He talked low, taking a seat next to Leila at the table.
Leila, still watching the door to the kitchen, spoke equally as quietly. ‘There’s something going on out at Jacinta Buchanan’s property, at the old mine sites.’
‘Okay? I think they’re already onto it because our taskings have all been out to Far Trail Road.’
‘So have you been out there?’
‘Not yet. I keep getting tied up with other jobs. But what’s this all about?’
Leila paused. Should she confess everything she knew, including Brayden’s involvement?
‘I saw a car up that way today when I went for a run, and then I just saw the same car again in town. The guy talked to me. I think he’s an associate of Jayden Terrance.’ She omitted the information about seeing Brayden.
‘Oh,’ Ben said. ‘Are you going to tell Mac about this? Or at least write an intel report on what you’ve seen?’
Leila shook her head. ‘I want to double check everything before I go putting my foot in it with the wrong information.’
Ben frowned again, clearly unconvinced.
‘Don’t look at me like that. I’m not going to do anything stupid. You just know what Coops will be like if he gets wind of any of this.’
This time Ben couldn’t argue with her. They both knew all too well what Sergeant Cooper was like when he was on the warpath about something; his blinkers came on and he was hyper-focused, sometimes to the detriment of himself and the case.
Ben ate down to the few last mouthfuls of his vindaloo when a call came over the radio broadcasting throughout the station speakers—there was a domestic assault occurring. Scoffing down the last of the meal, Ben wiped his brow, damp from the heat of the dish. Tracey came past the doorway.
‘Come on Fields, that’s the same place we were at earlier for the noise complaint with that party,’ she said as she rushed past the door.
Ben rolled his eyes at Leila. ‘As if I didn’t know that already,’ he muttered.
Leila waited to hear the sound of their car pull out of the carpark before she made her way out of the kitchen to see who else was around for the night. Thankfully, the sergeant on duty wasn’t Cooper but Sergeant Bob Baxter.
‘Hey Sarge,’ she said as she walked into the sergeant’s office.
Sergeant Baxter smiled, his big bristly moustache spreading across his top lip like a sandy-coloured broom-head. ‘Hi Leila. How’s that hand of yours? I heard you have at least a couple of weeks off?’
She smiled back. ‘It’s good, thanks. That’s kind of why I came in. I’ve got a couple of resubmits sitting on my work-off, so I thought I’d get them cleared before they became overdue and I end up having to fill out a report on why I didn’t finish them in time.’
Sergeant Baxter pinched his mouth in a smile and nodded to agree. ‘Not a bad idea, Leila. If you get those cases back through to me, I’ll look over them tonight before Coops comes back on shift in the morning.’ Sergeant Baxter gave Leila a wink and she smiled back; Sergeant Cooper was strict with quality control of all cases, but Sergeant Baxter was less so. He came from the ‘just get the work done efficiently’ side of the rules.
‘Thanks Sarge, I appreciate it.’
Leila headed back towards the muster room, passing the locked door to the detectives’ office. She had to conjure up a plan to try and somehow get access to the room, to find out how much the detectives already knew. Opening up a screen on the nearest computer, Leila sat down and typed in her username and password. She went straight in to look up the registration plates of the Audi.
‘Alpha, Romeo, November. Six, four, eight.’
The registration came up as a hire-car company in Sydney. Leila took down the details of the hire company, writing them straight into her phone’s note section. She knew it wasn’t going to be easy to find out who this guy was. If he was a serious criminal, on Jayden’s level, he wouldn’t be driving around in a car that was linked to him. Because her searches in the system were audited, she added the registration details into a noise complaint at the motel, and included an incident number from the last day she worked, to prevent her being detected. With every keystroke recorded in the policing system, Leila risked getting caught. Leila kept herself logged into the computer, but locked the home screen and made her way to the kitchen to a vending machine that generally had a mind of its own. Wedging two one-dollar coins into the opening, Leila got them stuck at just the right moment. Out of the corner of her eye she clocked a person coming, and jumped.
‘Shit, Sarge, you startled me.’
His smile widened underneath his moustache and his heavy-set physique rumbled with a chuckle. He held out the empty cup in his hand, pointing it towards the sink.
‘Just making the last coffee. The doctor said I need to cut back on my six coffees a night. I’d like to see how he goes on night shift after twenty-four years.’
Leila banged on the vending machine for effect. ‘Hey, has anyone used this tonight? There are some coins stuck in here. I just wanted to get a can of coke and a chocolate bar to keep me going for the next hour.’
Sergeant Baxter shook his head. ‘That bloody machine is useless. The bloke was only out here fixing it, two nights ago.’
A twinge of guilt niggled her for being the cause of the machine’s failure this time.
‘Do the Ds still have their social club fundraising chocolates and drinks in their office?’ She kept her breathing careful and natural.
‘Yeah, they sure do, love. Go grab the keys from my desk. Here, can you grab me one of those honey nougat bars?’ He handed her a two-dollar coin.
She smiled. ‘Sure thing.’
There was only a small window of time to get into the room and gather all the information she could. Opening the top drawer, Leila grabbed the bulky keys among the loose paper and visitor passes, and headed back along the corridor to the detectives’ office. Sergeant Baxter passed as she unlocked the office, humming a tune that Leila didn’t recognise. The detectives’ room was dark so Leila flicked on a light and shut the door behind her. Pulling her phone out of her pocket quickly, she flicked the camera open and raced to the whiteboard where details of the detectives’ latest investigation hung. She started snapping away at the timeline of events and correlating photographs. So far, they believed the activities around town were drug related, and that more than one operation had come into conflict in Echo Springs. No medals for intelligence there; most of the trouble in town was due to drugs. One photo stopped her. It was a picture of her and Brayden boxing together at the PCYC, followed by a series of photos of Brayden hanging around town, mainly talking on his phone. Leila kept snapping the pictures and file photographs across the board, until another photo made her pause. It was a custody photo of Audi guy. Brett Pearce, read the name underneath. His photo was among a group of other possible players involved in the drug distribution around town. Two of them were the bikies Detective Senior Constable Hartley Cooper had caught a few weeks back; although in prison now, they had clammed up about their boss. Leila’s eyes darted desperately around the whiteboard, her phone lowered as she searched for the one face she prayed not to find.
But there, sitting alongside his own mother, was Hayden.
She froze. Squinting her eyes shut, she took in a breath and couldn’t bring herself to read the writing underneath. She turned to walk to the small fridge in the far corner and grabbed a can of coke. Dumping the coins into the honesty tin, she also took two chocolate bars and made her way out of the office. She paused at the door and flicked the door’s lock to unlock it and flicked the light off.
It all made sense in the timeline. Why had Hayden come home now? It was well known in the station that Jayden Terrance was likely a high-level supplier of meth, so when he was put away, it
only made sense that his younger brother would take over.
Threatening tears pushed against the back of Leila’s eyes as she walked back down the corridor to the sergeant’s office.
Sergeant Baxter looked up at Leila as she entered, keys and chocolates in her hand. ‘What’s the matter, Leila? You look like you’ve just seen a ghost or something.’
She blinked hard and laughed off the suggestion. ‘You don’t seriously believe all those rumours about the figure that wanders around the cells in the custody area do you?’
‘Rumours? Not rumours, I saw it for myself one night in custody,’ he replied.
Leila shivered. ‘Until I see it for myself, I don’t believe it, but I think someone just ran over my grave.’
Sergeant Baxter’s left brow raised. He smirked. ‘Yep. That’s him alright. That’s what the ghost does. He does shit like that all the time.’
Leila shook her head while putting the keys and chocolate bar on the desk. ‘Well I’ll get this work done and I’m out of here.’
Thank goodness.
‘Sing out if you need anything,’ he said, unwrapping the chocolate bar.
Leila slowly walked the corridor, the lump in her throat hardening. But Leila had become a master of hiding pain since losing her daughter; deflecting the subject to numb the rawness. Pausing at the door to the detectives’ office, she wondered if she should just look one more time. There might be more to it? She hadn’t snapped a photo of Hayden and his mum. Wait. She stared ahead. Why was Aunt Sue there too?
Looking around her, Leila quickly opened the door and closed it behind her. Flicking the light on, she saw her can of coke on the desk near the whiteboard. Careless, careless, careless. She inhaled and held it as she made her way over to the board. The moment of truth about her love, laid bare on the investigation board.
A photo of Hayden from his father’s funeral sat beside one of him visiting his brother in prison. Next to those two photographs was one of Sue, taken by the local newspaper when she was named employee of the year at the supermarket. Underneath each photograph, their personal details were written out in in black marker. Below that read: NIL INVOLVEMENT. The pounding in Leila’s chest released like a strained coiled spring. Tears of relief slipped down her cheeks; she wiped them away with the back of her hand. She took as many photos as she could of the board and grabbed her can and chocolate bar, locking the door behind her before anyone could see her.
Chapter Twenty-One
Hayden flicked through the Echo Daily newspaper as he ate his toast smothered with strawberry jam, just like his father used to, paying close attention to the classifieds and hoping for a bargain item. The usual furniture, televisions and lawn mowers were listed along with a few boats, cars and motorbikes. Hayden continued scrolling through the list before hitting the real estate section. His brow pinched inward at how long some of the houses had been on the market for, including Leila’s rental.
‘Morning, love.’ Sue patted him lovingly on the shoulder as she passed to switch the kettle on.
Dressed in a lightweight robe, singlet and track pants, Sue stretched side to side as she prepared her morning cup of coffee.
‘I didn’t hear Brayden leave this morning,’ she said mid-yawn. ‘I’ve been having such a great night’s sleep since you’ve been back, love. But you’ve always have had that effect on me.’ She kissed the top of Hayden’s head and got the milk out of the fridge. He stretched back to give his slight mum a single-armed embrace in return.
‘That kid almost didn’t go to boxing this morning,’ Hayden said, still frustrated. ‘I had to kick his ass out of bed. He looked rough when he woke up, like he had no sleep or something. Do you ever look through his phone? You do have a right to, you know. He’s only fourteen and in more trouble than most kids his age, so he just has to deal with not being trusted.’
Sue continued making her cup of coffee. Shaking her head, she replied, ‘Love, there’s no use fighting with that boy. You know what he’s like, and my life just becomes more stress than it’s worth. Thank goodness for Leila doing what she’s doing with him. I couldn’t cope with him getting locked up and sent away.’
‘Well then, I will be getting him to hand over his phone as soon as I see him next. If he’s looking like he hasn’t slept all night when he’s on curfew, then I can only imagine the shit he’s looking up.’
Sue blew out a long breath. ‘I hate to bloody think. It was bad enough finding porn DVDs with you and your brother, let alone this internet stuff now.’
Hayden laughed. ‘All of those were Jayden’s, by the way. I just watched them. I’m not that much of an ass man.’
Sue shook her head and screwed her face in horror, taking a seat at the kitchen table next to Hayden. ‘Yeah, I still don’t know if you needed to watch Anal Bandits One, Two and Three to understand the Volume Four that I found in the DVD player every time I tried to put a movie on.’
After Hayden recovered from his mother’s blatant honesty, he changed the subject. ‘I see they still have the old Town Hall up for sale.’
‘Yeah, that silly Mayor Zangari wants way too much for it. That’s why they can’t sell it,’ she replied. ‘Someone told me that the council were asking almost half a million for it. You can’t expect those sort of dollars in a town like this.’
Hayden nodded, taking in all the details. Sipping her coffee, she watched him for a moment.
‘Why are you so interested anyway?’
His dark eyes lifted from the page. ‘I wouldn’t mind having a chat to the Mayor about what the Town Hall could do for the kids in our town.’
Sue smiled widely. ‘How about you sell your pitch to me first then?’
‘You know the cooking classes I was running in the city at the community centre?’
Sue nodded.
‘Well I’ve seen the success they had in town, and I reckon all the kids out here deserve the same opportunities. That PCYC is useless. There’s no programs for the kids to stay out of trouble. Obviously, cooking is just the start. There’s a lot the kids could be offered. The government has plenty of funding for programs that I would apply for. I’ve done a bit of research and a proper youth centre is something our town desperately needs.’
As Sue drank her coffee, he caught her adoring stare and smiled sheepishly. She put her hand on his strong arm and rubbed her thumb along the ridge of the muscle on his forearm.
‘Love, that is one of the best things I’ve ever heard. If you can talk that Mayor down to two hundred K, I’ll invest Dad’s money for your project. You have a beautiful heart, Hayden. I’d love to see you do good things for this town.’
Hayden stared at her, speechless. A flood of emotions from the time after his dad died washed over him. He could take the drug money Jayden had been putting in and invest it back into the community. Hayden felt less and less intimidated by Jayden as he continued making his plans. Maybe he was being reckless, but this was a risk he was prepared to take. He told himself he was ready to take Jayden on, head first.
‘I wouldn’t need all of it, Mum. I’d just need enough to get a deposit for a mortgage and business start-up loan from the bank.’
Sue shook her head. ‘Bullshit. You know what banks are like to a family with a name like ours. No, son. This is something your father would want to see you succeed in. You’re having as much as you need.’
‘I’d repay you though,’ he said, mainly convincing himself.
Sue nodded in response. ‘I know you would, my love.’
Hayden finished the last bit of his toast and got up, putting his plate in the sink.
‘How’s Leila’s hand anyway? Brayden’s just not the same without her dragging him to boxing in the mornings.’
Hayden’s smile spread across his face before Sue had finished the question.
‘We talked about Kaylee the other night.’
Sue’s eyes widened. ‘Really? Leila actually talked about her? Well I never.’
Hayden chuckled. ‘Yeah, I
know. I mean, I knew she took it hard with the way she just took off, but I never really thought about how she felt towards her own body. She really hated herself. I wish I went after her harder when she needed me.’
‘Love, there was nothing anyone could’ve done for her. You know Leila better than anyone. She was never going to let you get close. I’m just glad she’s talking to you about it now.’
Tears formed at the bottom of Sue’s eyes. She wiped the pooled tears with the back of her index finger. Hayden reached around his mum and pulled her into his body.
‘Mum, you don’t need to cry anymore. Leila and I are in a really good place now. What we had never left—either of us.’
Sue choked back a sob from his words.
‘Ah Jesus, Mum. You’re a bloody mess,’ he laughed.
‘I’ve hoped this day would come. Wait till I tell Cath.’ Sue squeezed her son tight. ‘Now go get this project of yours started so that you two can turn this town around together.’
Chapter Twenty-Two
The sun had risen well into the sky by the time Leila woke up. She could sleep anywhere at any time, which always helped with working shift work. Mac and Hartley called her part feline.
She reached across to check her phone. No messages. A lump niggled in her throat. Hayden hadn’t responded to her message last night. She shook the thought; he was not involved in anything his older brother was doing to this town. She didn’t need to worry about jeopardising her position within her command. They did have a shot together after all—Hayden was not one of the bad guys. She always knew it, but the confirmation made it all taste so much sweeter. Maybe that was why she could sleep ten hours straight.
She was glad Hayden hadn’t pushed the issue about coming around the night before. But there was something unsatisfying that he hadn’t pushed for it either. Having sex with Hayden was the final piece of the healing puzzle … and she still didn’t know whether she was ready for that yet. She didn’t trust how she would react to being intimate … and vulnerable. Even though he was the one person she trusted with all her heart, there was still something about her body that she needed to protect herself from. What if her body deceived her again? She couldn’t risk it. Not yet.