Jesus Christ!
He dived for the outdated mouse on Mulvaney’s desk and clicked on the woman’s profile, the implications of the unfolding horror assaulting his mind like death metal music.
Behind him, Kennett splashed petrol over the shabby, mismatched furniture.
Contingency plans flooded into Nate’s mind.
This was bad.
This was really bad.
‘I witnessed a murder — on Skype.’
Josephine Valenti sat hunched over the mahogany kitchen table and stared at her wide-eyed face in the blackened laptop screen. It had taken all of ten seconds for the emergency number to connect her with Mona Vale Police.
‘Okaaay,’ replied the male police officer — like she’d spent all weekend snorting crack. ‘Take a deep breath, Miss, and tell me what happened.’
Josie fought off her panic and tightened her grip on the phone. ‘A man was strangled — or had his neck broken, I’m not sure — it was quick.’
‘Your name?’
Josie spelled out her name before the policeman could ask, closing the computer lid with a snap. It made her feel better, like the action might trap the horrifying images inside and leave them there.
‘Your location please?’
‘Rainbows End.’ She couldn’t think, her overstimulated nervous system out of sync with her disbelieving mind. ‘Andrew Road, Cottage Point.’
‘Is that your place of residence?’
Not for a while now.
‘It’s my parents’ home.’ Josie steadied her trembling hand as the receiver clattered against her earring. ‘I’m looking after the place.’
‘Is the alleged victim known to you?’
Alleged?
‘Yes. Lloyd Mulvaney.’
A pause. ‘As in Lizard Mulvaney, the president of the Southern Cross?’
‘Yes.’
‘Miss Valenti, what is your relationship to Mr. Mulvaney?’
Josie moistened her dry lips with her tongue and cleared her throat. ‘I’m Allegra Greenwood’s P.A. at Grace and Poole, Lawyers. She’s acted for the Southern Cross for years.’
Prior to ringing the police, Josie had left messages for Allegra and her husband, Luke Neilson. Luke’s company, Neilson’s Security, provided investigative and consulting services to Grace and Poole’s criminal division.
‘So, why would you, her secretary, be Skyping with him at nine forty-five on a Sunday night? It seems rather unorthodox.’
‘He called me,’ Josie insisted, beginning to dislike the reproachful tone creeping into the officer’s voice. ‘He did a Skype search when he couldn’t find my number in the book. I’m the only Josephine Valenti listed in Sydney.’
‘Why did he call you?’
Josie looked down at the harem style pyjamas she wore. She’d barely hung up from speaking to her mother when the second Skype call came in. Had she turned off the computer and gone to bed, Mulvaney’s call wouldn’t have made it through.
‘Well?’ prompted the police officer.
Josie suppressed a shudder. She’d never found Mulvaney frightening on the occasions he’d come into the office, but tonight, there’d been a desperation about him. ‘He never got a chance to say.’
It was common knowledge there was a price on Mulvaney’s head, the bikie war escalating to the point where the chapter leader had been reluctant to appear in public. Seems his concerns had been warranted.
‘Do you know if Mr. Mulvaney called you from his home?’
‘No.’ Josie massaged her temple with her fingertips. ‘I wouldn’t recognise his home, and I wasn’t exactly checking out the decor.’
The officer ignored her exasperated tone. ‘I’m only trying to work out where we might start searching for the body.’
Oh God! Josie’s stomach heaved. ‘I have no idea where he was. He talked for a bit, explained how he managed to track me down, then said “I need to speak with…”’ She drew in a jagged breath. ‘Two bikies burst into the room. One broke his neck, I think.’
Josie trembled, the images of Mulvaney’s last seconds scorched into her mind. And she couldn’t be one hundred percent certain, but the second man in the room looked a lot like Ignatius Hunter.
Nate Hunter?
She hadn’t crossed paths with him since he’d left Luke Neilson’s employ over two years ago. If it was him, he’d taken a long, hard look at her as the ugly one murdered Mulvaney.
‘Are you there, Miss?’ The officer’s voice jerked her back to the present. ‘Was Lloyd Mulvaney trying to contact your employer?’
Josie glanced at her mobile phone, wishing Luke or Allegra would return her call. ‘It’s the only reason he’d have to call me.’
‘Can you identify these men?’
Josie wasn’t one to lie, in fact on occasion, she’d been criticised for being brutally honest, but she wasn’t about to start throwing Nate Hunter’s name around. Not when she couldn’t be sure it was him.
She skirted around the question. ‘I killed the connection pretty well straight away, but I’d recognise the murderer if I saw him again.’
The police officer drew in a sharp breath. ‘Did they get a look at you?’
‘I’m pretty sure one of them did.’
Her words hung between them, until finally the officer gave a frustrated sigh, as if it were somehow all her fault. ‘They would have checked your profile. We’ll need to look at your computer, Miss.’
‘Alright.’ Josie glanced at the closed laptop. What kind of footprint did the Skype program leave on the computer’s hard drive? She wasn’t enough of a tech head to know.
And now they were going to look at her computer.
Her mind whirled.
What was on there?
Her diary.
Her Facebook profile.
‘You need to come in immediately.’ The officer was hurrying things along now. ‘Do you have transport?’
‘Yes.’
Josie glanced at the oven clock in her mother’s newly remodelled, barely used, designer kitchen. Ten fifteen. Almost half an hour since Mulvaney’s call.
‘We’ll be waiting for you.’
Josie hung up the land line, forcing her wooden legs to move as she ran up the sweeping staircase to her bedroom. She tore off her pyjamas, scooped up tights and a dress from where she’d tossed them over a chair, and pulled them on. She’d been expecting the local policeman to contact homicide — but maybe that only happened after they found the body.
She looked up from lacing her Doc Martens when a tree branch tapped against the window, a southerly buster stirring the highest branches of the ghost gums. Standing up, she switched off the lamp, plunging the room into darkness. Outside, a handful of lights flickered and bobbed through the trees. Boat lights, from the yachts moored in the tranquil waters.
In the kitchen, she shoved her laptop and battery charger inside her computer bag, gaze falling on the pyramid of crystal martini glasses artfully arranged on the granite topped island bench. Earlier, she’d argued with her mother, disappointed Marilyn Valenti had ignored her wishes and organised an over-the-top twenty-first birthday party in her honour. Her mother simply couldn’t understand her preference for an intimate get together in her apartment over a pretentious shindig in this soulless mansion. Complete with martini fountain.
But to keep the peace, and for her father’s sake, Josie had capitulated. Who was she to deny Sydney’s charity queen the kudos of hosting a lavish celebration for her only child?
With the laptop tucked firmly under her arm, Josie grabbed her handbag, set the alarm and ran down the stairs to the four car garage.
None of it mattered anymore. As witness to the murder of a notorious bikie leader, she’d be lucky to reach twenty-one.
Forty-five minutes after Lizard Mulvaney tracked her down on Skype, Josie reversed through the automatic opening gates, shifted her car into gear, and headed towards the intersection at the top of the tree lined street. Once outside the national park,
she’d pull over and call Luke and Allegra again. Arrange for them to meet her at the police station.
She was approaching the intersection, when a brilliant flash of light blinded her. Tightening her grip on the wheel, Josie squinted against the glare of driving lights reflecting in her rear view mirror.
A car pulled away from the curb and fell in behind her.
Coincidence?
Or had someone been sitting in the car – watching the house?
Waiting for her?
A long, extended note, summoned her from the back seat, her mobile ringing inside her handbag.
Shit!
‘Josephine?’ Marilyn Valenti’s sharp voice came over the Bluetooth connection.
‘Not a good time, Mum. I’ll call you back.’
Josie glanced in her rear view mirror. The car was tailgating her.
She pressed her foot down on the accelerator and switched on her high beam.
‘You need to ring the caterers,’ her mother was saying. ‘Get them…’
‘I’m sorry, Mum.’ Josie’s finger hovered over the button on the Bluetooth device. ‘I can’t do this now.’
With one hand working the wheel, she killed the call, sweat breaking out on her face as she glanced at the illuminated numerals on the dashboard.
Fifty minutes gone.
Mulvaney’s Skype location had shown up as Sydney.
Could he?
Could Nate Hunter have tracked her down? He’d been to her parents’ place before, the night she’d drank too much at Luke and Allegra’s engagement party and he’d insisted on driving her home. She’d had the hots for him back then, but apart from a rugged toughness and a certain hard edge she found appealing, what did she really know about him?
Nothing.
A big fat zero.
A flash illuminated the car’s interior, and Josie glanced in her side mirror as the vehicle pulled onto the wrong side of the road and began overtaking. Easing her foot off the accelerator, she fixed her gaze to the front and prayed it would pass in a hurry.
It didn’t.
Wheel sliding through sweaty palms, Josie turned to look at the car next to her, a slow tightening in her chest making it almost impossible to breathe.
An unfamiliar high powered ute growled along matching her speed.
And then she glimpsed the driver’s profile, and her legs turned weak, like she’d just stepped off the wildest ride in the fun park.
Chapter 2
10:35 p.m. Sunday
Nate gripped the flashlight and ran towards the blue sedan. The hood was concertinaed against the trunk of a eucalypt, a cloud of steam billowing from the hissing engine. The rear end jutted from the scrub at a forty-five degree angle.
Dense bush formed a dark canopy, the single carriageway lit only by the vehicles’ headlights. As he reached the car, Nate could see Josephine Valenti’s terrified face staring at him through the driver’s window. He gestured for her to unlock the door, but she ignored him, wild curls tumbling around her face as she struggled to unclip the seatbelt.
Too bad. He didn’t have time to play nice.
Ignoring the hunted look in her eyes, Nate tightened his grip on the heavy Maglite, centred his weight and took a swing, striking the driver’s window with a powerful blow. As the auto designers intended, the safety glass cracked but didn’t shatter, clinging to its sticky plastic insert. It took two more hard strikes until there was an opening large enough for him to slip his hand inside and unlock the door.
The glass continued to make popping sounds as he dropped the torch, flung the door wide and grabbed hold of Josie’s legs as she tried scrambling across the centre console. She howled, went feral, kicking and screaming as he hauled her backwards out of the wreck.
Free of the car, he yanked her hard up against him, got an accidental handful of soft breast as her shoulders slammed into his chest.
He kicked the door closed with his booted foot, lowered his arm and clamped his hand over her mouth. ‘Shut up! I won’t hurt you.’
She bit him.
Christ Almighty!
Pain shot up Nate’s arm as sharp teeth sank into the webbing between his thumb and forefinger. He dragged his hand from her mouth, twisted her arms behind her back and frogmarched her to his car, ignoring a string of obscenities that would make a wharfie blush.
Shocked by her potty mouth, he flung open the passenger door and pushed her inside. She fell over the handbrake, went still as the breath whooshed out of her.
Nate dragged in his first breath in a while and groped in the glove compartment for the plastic zip ties. Wresting her hands behind her back, he bound her wrists before she had time to recover. Then he bundled her inside, locked her in and raced back to the blue sedan.
Pushing his luck.
Risking everything.
Ignoring his throbbing hand, he dragged his tee-shirt over his head and scanned the black ribbon of road.
No company yet.
Josie’s belongings were on the back seat, and he tucked them under one arm, retrieved the flashlight from the ground, and wiped the doorhandles free of prints with his shirt.
Get out, Nate.
Go!
GO!
Adrenaline pumped into his system, fuelling his body and heightening his senses. He ran back to the ute, loose gravel sliding beneath his boots, a symphony of cicadas ringing in his ears.
He threw himself into the driver’s seat and rummaged through Josie’s handbag for her mobile phone, switched it off and dropped it back inside. Then he pulled onto the road and gunned the big V8, checking in the rear view mirror for the telltale glow of approaching headlights. But no vehicle crested the rise behind them.
There was nothing.
Only a comforting, inky blackness.
After a while, the marching beat in Nate’s chest began to fade, and for the first time he took a proper look at the terrified young woman in the seat beside him. She’d grown up in the couple of years since the night she got hammered on alcopops and made a pass at him. He remembered bringing her here, to the exclusive enclave of Cottage Point, a waterfront hamlet half an hour’s drive through the unspoilt bushland of the Ku-Ring-Gai Chase National Park.
A serene haven, in the middle of Australia’s largest city.
‘What were you doing talking to him?’
‘Fuck you.’
She glared from behind a silky curtain of honey blonde hair, chest heaving, a smear of blood on her mouth where she’d taken a bite out of his hand.
Nate clenched his teeth and held on to his temper. ‘Was it work related?’
‘As if I’d know,’ she said in a shaky voice. ‘That brute — killed him.’
Welcome night air cooled Nate’s skin, and he glanced at her again. She was trembling from head to foot, rational, the hysteria given way to fury. She was still young though, compared to him. A typical “daddy’s little princess” from memory, who thought it might be fun to toy with the other side for a while. Mess with a hardened guy like him, twelve years older.
Seems she hadn’t changed much after all.
Socialising on Skype with a guy like Mulvaney.
If that’s what it was.
Nate’s fingers tightened on the steering wheel. As if this operation wasn’t problematic enough, now he had a goddamn complication like her to worry about.
They rounded a bend and she sprawled in the leather seat, threw out a leg to brace herself as her shoulders ended up against the door. The movement caused her dress to ride all the way up her thigh, giving him a view of one slender leg, clad in black tights and ending in a flowery patterned Doc Marten boot. Without the use of her hands, she had no way of straightening the skirt.
And if he went to do it, she’d probably head butt him.
Nate shifted in his seat, ignoring his bloodied hand and the smell of iron permeating his nostrils. ‘There’s a beach towel at your feet. Get on the floor and I’ll cover you with it.’
Defiant green eyes flashed
at him. ‘Screw you.’
God she pissed him off!
‘Good to know you took swearing as a second language. Now get on the fucking floor.’
She didn’t move.
‘Jesus Christ, Josie, I’ll knock you unconscious if I have to.’
That did it.
He watched her body go rigid, but she obeyed him, shifting awkwardly onto the floor, chin jutting at a stubborn angle. Huddled beneath the dash, she gave him an accusing look, but he wasn’t about to remove the zip ties, didn’t trust her not to bolt from the car at the first red light.
Nate stretched the taut muscles in his neck. His desperate gamble had paid off, the Valenti’s semi-isolated choice of abode the only reason he’d managed to intercept Josie in time. That, and sheer dumb luck he’d recognised the family portrait hanging on the kitchen wall behind her. He’d commented on that portrait the night he’d sat in the kitchen drinking coffee with her mother as Josie heaved in the bathroom.
Was it only two years ago? God, it felt like ten.
‘You won’t get away with this.’
Nate made a conscious effort to unclench his teeth and loosen his grip on the steering wheel. ‘I didn’t kill Mulvaney.’
‘But you’re going to kill me — aren’t you?’ Her voice sank to a whisper. ‘I heard what he said.’
‘Don’t tempt me.’ But he couldn’t help smirking at the wobbly defiance in her voice. He had to admit it, the princess had balls.
‘Why did you people kill him?’
‘You people?’ Nate raised his eyebrows. ‘Now that sounds like something an overly privileged, private school educated, North Shore brat would say.’
Her eyes turned wounded, and for the first time since he’d forced her off the road two red patches stained her cheeks, visible even in the light from the dash.
‘I didn’t mean it like that,’ she said, clearly taken aback.
He turned his attention to the road. She didn’t know it, but her cultivated accent had always gotten under his skin. He decided to change the subject.
‘Where are your parents?’
‘In Singapore. And don’t address me as if I’m a child. I’m twenty.’
Hot Lawyers: The Lee Christine Collection Page 23