by Annie Seaton
Rocky climbed carefully over the ridge and Connor followed him with Greg close behind. Rocky paused halfway down the hill and stared ahead. He stood for a few minutes without moving and Connor chafed with impatience.
‘That way.’
Connor followed the direction of Rocky’s arm but there was nothing to see apart from rolling hills, each one with a ridge that dropped off before the next hill rose. He wiped sweat from his brow. The sun had climbed higher and the heat was becoming intense.
‘We have to find her quickly. It’s getting too hot.’ Rocky’s words held an urgency that hadn’t been there before and he took off like a mountain goat, running down the rocky slope. Connor and Greg followed him as quickly as they could. At the bottom of the hill there was a small clearing with a few trees scattered along the gully. Connor looked at the next ridge; it was at least a hundred metre climb up a steep slope. He crouched down as he caught his breath.
‘Dru? Can you hear me?’ Rocky’s voice was soft as he almost crooned the words. ‘She’s here. I can feel her. She’s in a bad way.’ He moved slowly through the clearing, his gaze firmly on the ground. Connor looked at Greg and then took off after Rocky. He kept his attention on the ground as he followed the smaller man; the grass was long and there were a couple of dry creek beds running along beside the copse of trees. They reached the base of the next hill and Rocky shook his head.
‘I was wrong. She’s not here.’ He took off up the hill and Greg followed him but something held Connor back. Behind him was a large boab tree surrounded by dead branches. He walked towards it, listening intently; he could have sworn he’d heard a soft sound. He held his head still and listened, but the only sound was the gentle sigh of the wind in the trees. As he approached the fat boab, a pile of dead branches blocked his way. Behind it was a smaller tree with a gaping hole in its trunk. He crouched down and looked inside. Elation filled him as he saw Dru’s blonde hair moving in the slight breeze.
Getting her out of the small space in the trunk of the tree was tricky but Rocky climbed in and managed to move her to the opening. Connor and Greg worked together to lift her out. To Connor’s concern, Dru didn’t stir as they moved her onto the flat ground between the trees. Her eyes stayed closed and her cheeks were flushed and dry, her breathing shallow. The front of her T-shirt was stained with blood and her injured forearm was red and swollen.
Connor fought to stop his hands shaking. ‘Come on. We have to get her out of here.’
‘Patience, Connor.’ Rocky dug into his small backpack and handed a bottle of water to Connor. ‘Put some water in your hand and get as much around her mouth as you can while I make a sling.’ He took his T-shirt off and formed a sling to protect her injured arm. Meanwhile Connor dipped his finger into the water bottle and wet Dru’s lips. Fear gripped him when she didn’t move.
God, let her be okay.
‘Okay, let’s go,’ Rocky said. Connor lifted her into his arms.
As they made their way up the hill, Greg helped him support Dru and Rocky ran ahead to alert the search team and the paramedics. Each time Connor stopped to catch his breath, Greg took some of her weight. By the time they reached the road, his legs were burning and his chest was tight. Perspiration was running down into his eyes and blurring his vision.
At last the paramedics lifted her from his arms. Connor turned to follow them across to the mine rescue ambulance but Greg grabbed his arm and shoved a bottle of water into his hand. ‘Drink that. You look like you’re about to flake out.’
‘I’ll kill the bastard,’ Connor growled in a hoarse voice.
‘You can queue up behind me.’ Rocky’s eyes were dark and glittering. ‘What happened? Why was she with Liam in the first place?’
Connor shook his head. ‘Later.’
When the paramedics had finished assessing Dru, he hurried over. ‘Is she going to be okay?’ His voice broke but he didn’t care.
‘We’re taking her into Kununurra. She’s badly dehydrated and the wound on her arm needs stitching. It looks to be infected too.’ The paramedics exchanged a concerned glance.
Connor watched helplessly as they closed the back of the ambulance and walked around to the front. No matter how worried he was, he had no claim on Dru; he couldn’t ask to go in the ambulance with her.
‘I’ll drive you to town, mate. You’re too knackered to drive yourself.’ Greg gestured to his beat-up vehicle and Connor nodded.
‘Thanks.’ He ran over to his ute, picked up his bag from the back and locked the vehicle.
‘I’ll be right behind you,’ Rocky said.
Chapter 38
Kununurra Hospital
It was late afternoon before Connor was allowed into the private room where Dru was sleeping. She had regained consciousness and her wound had been flushed out and stitched. Before he and Rocky went to the waiting room outside the ward, Connor spoke to the police sergeant.
Greg had headed back home to Wyndham to finalise the evidence for Connor’s report, now that they knew Adam Hennessey and Liam Carruthers had masterminded the theft. Once Connor had explained everything to Rocky, they sat quietly together waiting for the doctor. Finally the doctor walked up the corridor and Connor stood to meet him.
‘Is Dru going to be all right?’
‘We’re rehydrating her and she’s on an IV drip for the infected wound. It’ll take twenty-four hours or so until she starts to feel a bit better, but she’ll be fine.’
‘How long until I can see her?’
The doctor stared back at him. ‘Are you a relative?’
Connor lifted his chin. ‘I’m her partner.’
Rocky looked at Connor. It was hard to read the expression on his face but after a moment he nodded and mumbled something that Connor didn’t catch.
‘You can go in now then. She’s asleep but you can sit with her.’ The doctor looked at his watch. ‘I’ll be back to check on her later tonight.’
Connor paused outside the room to scrub his hands and arms with antibacterial gel. As he rubbed his hands together, Rocky sidled over to him. ‘You tell Dru I said to get better quick. She’s a good woman.’
Connor nodded. ‘She is.’
‘And you take good care of her.’ Rocky pointed at him as he turned to leave, but he was grinning. ‘Or you’ll have me to deal with. Tell her I said you’re all right.’
As Connor was about to open the door to Dru’s room, his phone vibrated in his pocket. He paused and picked up.
It was Greg. ‘Kirkie, I’ve got good and bad news.’
As Connor listened to what Greg had discovered, he stared at the closed door in front of him. ‘Thanks, I’ll call you later tonight. Keep at it.’
‘How’s Dru?’ Greg asked.
‘She’s going to be okay.’ Connor slipped the phone into his pocket and pushed open the door. He walked across to the bed, conscious of being quiet. Dru was propped up on three pillows and her head was to one side, her eyes closed. The red flush had left her cheeks and her colour was good. Her lips were shiny where they had been smeared with a lubricating gel. One arm was in a sling, and the other had a cannula inserted in the back of her hand.
Connor pulled the chair close to the bed and sat down, not taking his eyes from her. Her chest rose and fell softly and he reached out and touched her hand lightly. She murmured softly in her sleep but he couldn’t make out her words.
He put his head in his hands. This case had almost lost him the first person he had cared about in a long time. He sat with his eyes closed, thankful that Dru was going to be okay.
Eventually Connor lifted his head and looked at Dru as he thought about his future. He took her hand. Life was about to change for him; it was time to move on to something else. The only problem was that he didn’t have anywhere to go. It had been a long time since he’d had a place he called home. Weariness pulled at every muscle in his body. He yawned and leaned his head back against the wall.
If the truth be known, he didn’t want to be anywhere else
.
*
Dru opened her eyes slowly. Her left hand was warm and she couldn’t move it. She turned her head slowly and looked down. A tanned hand held hers firmly on a white pillow on the side of the bed. She looked around; when she’d woken up earlier the doctor told her she had been brought in by the mine rescue ambulance. It had taken a few moments to remember what had happened. The last thing she recalled with any certainty was climbing into the cavity of the
boab tree.
Slowly she lifted her gaze from their joined hands to the man sitting in the chair. Connor’s head was back against the wall and his eyes were closed. ‘Connor,’ she whispered softly.
He didn’t move; he was fast asleep. Dru let her eyes linger on his face. Dark stubble dotted his strong jawline and his eyes were shadowed. His mouth was relaxed in sleep. A rush of feeling filled her chest. Her eyes ached with unshed tears and she swallowed them back.
The safety that she had sought in the remote Kimberley had proved elusive, but now that she was safe from Liam, and Zayed couldn’t reach her, her life would settle back to normal; the same daily routine with a fortnightly visit to her sterile apartment in Darwin.
But that wasn’t what she wanted anymore.
The isolation she had once craved now frightened her. The ice that encased her heart had cracked while she’d been with Connor. She wasn’t used to the long-forgotten emotions that now flooded through her; she’d managed to keep herself immune from feeling anything at all since Dad had been murdered.
But they hurt.
Hot tears ran down her cheeks, but with one arm strapped to her chest and the other hand firmly in Connor’s grip, Dru couldn’t do anything about them. She put her head back and sniffed.
‘Dru.’ Connor let go of her hand and rubbed his eyes with his fists like a small child. ‘Thank God. You’re awake. How are you feeling?’ He pulled his chair closer to the bed.
Dru scrubbed at her cheeks, embarrassed. She never cried in public; but this was the second time she’d broken down in front of Connor. The tubing attached to her wrist brushed her face and she put her hand down carefully onto the pillow. ‘Tired. But I’m okay.’
‘Is your arm hurting?’ Connor’s mouth was set in a straight line.
‘A little bit of a throb now and then but it’s not too bad.’
Connor’s eyes were bleak as he held her gaze. ‘I thought I’d go crazy when we couldn’t find you.’
‘I’m fine.’ If she said it often enough, she would believe it too. The raw emotion coursing through her was scaring her. ‘You found me, didn’t you? I opened my eyes and you were there. I knew I was going to be okay then.’
‘I wouldn’t have found you without Rocky’s help. He said to tell you to get better quick.’ Connor’s lips tilted in a small smile. ‘Don’t cry, Dru. It’s all okay. You’re going to be fine. You’ll be back at work before you know it.’
Her voice wavered with the embarrassment of not being able to stop the tears. ‘And what about you? Where will you be?’
Connor stared at her intently. ‘I’ll be trying to clean up this mess of a case.’
Dru sniffed and reached for a tissue. ‘I thought it was all sorted. We were wrong, weren’t we? It was Liam after all, not Adam?’
‘No, it was both of them. They were working together.’ Connor shook his head. ‘That’s why I was late following you. Adam must have suspected something. He did his best to hold me up. As soon as he told me Liam was his brother-in-law, I took off after you. But I wasn’t fast enough. I’m sorry I put your life in danger. I should have been with you on the road.’
‘It’s not your fault.’ Dru focused on Connor’s words and pushed away the thought of him leaving. ‘Even if you’d never come to Matsu, the diamonds would still have been in my bag. Who knows what would have happened to me if you hadn’t been here investigating? This is the second time you’ve saved my life. If you hadn’t intervened, I’d probably be in Zayed’s penthouse in Dubai, trying to figure out a way to get home.’ Her voice was muffled as she wiped away the tears. As she squeezed the now-sodden tissue in her fingers, Connor reached over and took her hand. She looked down at his fingers wrapped around her hand, while he waited for her to regain her composure.
‘Can I get you a drink?’ His quiet and steady voice calmed her.
‘Yes please.’
Connor stood and poured some water into the plastic cup on the table beside the bed. He passed it to her and Dru drank deeply.
‘Now, tell me,’ she said.
Connor sat back in the plastic chair, his body tense. Dru’s fingers itched to reach out and touch him but she resisted the temptation.
‘Liam Carruthers and Adam Hennessey are brothers-in-law, married to two sisters. Cathy Hennessey—the “Cat” from Antwerp—and Julie, Liam’s wife, set up GCH, Gold Coast Holdings, a couple of years back. Hennessey started at Matsu before that, and that must have been when they hatched the plan. Carruthers was the one getting the diamonds from the recovery room while Hennessey was interfering with the cameras. The Kununurra police have interviewed Steve Jarvis this afternoon, and he has admitted letting Liam Carruthers through a few times without following proper procedure. Hennessey caught him drinking on the job and threatened him with dismissal, so on Hennessey’s orders he turned a blind eye to Carruthers being in the recovery area when he shouldn’t have been. Jarvis said he had his suspicions, but all he was worried about was keeping his job.’
‘So where’s Adam now?’
‘I left him at the office in the airport when I took off after you and Liam.’ Connor rubbed his chin with his hand. ‘Hennessey caught the flight to Perth as soon as I left him. He was arrested when they landed.’
‘What about the sisters?’
‘They’ve done a runner, apparently. Greg took a call from John Robinson a little while ago.’ Connor’s laugh was dry. ‘They’ve alerted the Federal Police and informed Interpol.’
‘And Liam?’
‘In the lockup at Kununurra.’
‘There’s a lot of things I still don’t understand.’ Dru put her hand to her head.
‘What don’t you understand?’
‘Why did they bother with the cream? Who put it in my bag and why did they use me as the courier?’
‘John Robinson called me earlier. He’s already been to police headquarters in Perth and was allowed to talk to Adam. Apparently he’s singing like a bird and trying to blame the whole thing on Carruthers. He claims that Liam smuggled the first few diamonds out on the days when he’d ordered Steve Jarvis not to search him. But when Don Finlayson told Adam that they were overhauling the whole security procedure, they had to come up with another way of getting the diamonds out. Hence they planted it in the cream. That way, if something had gone wrong on the way out, you would have got the blame. As for who broke into your room; my money’s on Adam—he would have had keys.’
‘What about Zayed? How is he involved?’
‘You know what? I really believe he was an innocent player the whole time—or at least, he had no direct knowledge that the diamonds he’d bought were stolen.’ He smiled. ‘But even if they can’t pin anything on him, he’s still six million dollars out of pocket and I doubt if he’ll see the money for a long time.’
‘If at all. Couldn’t happen to a more deserving person.’ Dru pulled a face. She looked down as Connor picked up her hand and smoothed his thumb over her skin. ‘So . . .’ Dru spoke slowly. ‘Your job here is done? Or at Matsu, I mean.’
‘I suppose it is.’ Connor stared past her as though he found the blank wall behind her suddenly interesting.
‘So where to now?’ She kept her voice bright, even though her heart was splitting into icy shards. ‘More diamond thefts or back to chasing drug runners?’
‘I don’t know, Dru.’
The look on Connor’s face and the slump of his shoulders tore at her.
‘We made a good team, didn’t we?’
‘We did.’
A tendril of hope flared when Connor lifted her hand to his lips. He held her eyes with his. ‘I’ll be honest with you. I don’t want to leave.’
The hope burned a little brighter in her chest. ‘So stay.’
Dru pushed away the uncertainty that was telling her to just be quiet and let it go.
Let him go.
But she couldn’t. She swallowed and squeezed his hand. ‘I’ve got a perfectly good apartment that sits empty half the time. It would be good to have someone there when I’m at the mine.’
Connor stood and moved closer to her. His breath brushed against her cheek as he lowered his head to rest against hers. ‘What about when you’re home?’
‘That’s when it would be really good to have you there.’
Dru closed her eyes as Connor’s lips brushed against hers.
Chapter 39
24 December
Darwin
Dru stood back and surveyed her once bare apartment. She had surprised herself. In the corner of the living room was a huge pine tree that Connor had helped her decorate. She grinned as she reached up and adjusted the angel on the top. A small grimace ended her smile as the healing cut on her arm pulled tight. The stitches had come out but the wound was still tender. The smell of pine wafted around her. Who would ever have thought you could buy a real Christmas tree in Darwin in the heat of the tropical summer? But something she was discovering about Connor was that once he set his mind to something, it happened.
The red table napkins on the white tablecloth were in stark contrast to the all-white minimalist decor in her apartment. The low coffee table was covered with wrapping paper and sticky tape and ribbon where she was almost done with wrapping the gifts.
Last Christmas she had spent the day alone in her apartment and had a ‘Christmas call’ with Mum and Emma and Jeremy. This year was going to be very different. The doctor had given her a month off work, and she’d added a month’s annual leave to that as well—it was too hot to work on site in summer.