“I didn’t enjoy it.” She was looking out the window. She should at least know that. “Cait, I didn’t enjoy it.”
She ignored him. He’d have driven past the last coffee stop if he didn’t need one badly himself. When he invited her upfront she politely declined. But she did accept the flat white. He dialled Pete Murray up and drove. The plan was to skip through Eucla and hit Ceduna tonight. A long day at the wheel, longer than Cait would’ve liked, but these were his rules now. Having control should’ve made him quietly happy, especially given the circumstances. It made him edgy. There was no reason to keep checking the back seat. It’s not like she was going to dematerialise, but that’s what he kept doing. Endlessly, needlessly, even when it was clear she’d dropped off. Especially when she’d dropped off, he could watch her without getting caught out. There were dark smudges under her eyes and even though she was breathing easily in sleep she was frowning and there was tension along the line of her jaw.
She woke when he stopped at Eucla to fill up and grab food. Their conversation was politely functional: “Would you like coffee?” “I’ll get more water for the cooler bag.” “Yes, please, I’d like a coke.” “No, thanks I’ll stay where I am.”
Back on the road, the follow car became the advance car and shot past them and Sean settled in for the rest of the drive. This totally blew. He and Cait had never been purely functional, not from the beginning; they’d always had a spark of something between them, plain brown wrapper interest if nothing else. Now there was barely eye contact and not enough spark to light a paper bag. It was as though all that heat between them had burned out to ash.
A couple of hours in and the silence was gnawing a hole in his head, but what did she want from him? Apparently nothing. Nothing at all. Except the sex. She’d definitely wanted that. Even if it took a while for her to warm up to the idea, but once she’d warmed up, Jesus, Mary and Joseph, he’d never felt anything like it before. What they’d done together, how it made him feel. He needed to stop thinking about it because it was distracting the driver. So much so he nearly missed the dog.
“Hey, did you see that?” He checked the rear-view, then the driver’s side mirror. “That was a dog. I’m sure it was a dog.”
Cait unclipped her belt and was up on her knees looking out the back window. They were still roaring along at full speed, but he was sure he’d seen a dog, sitting at the side of the road. He slowed, pulled over and ueyed. A couple of clicks back there was the dog sitting at the edge of the tarmac in the dust. There wasn’t a car, a sign of life around. Just the dog. A filthy blue cattle dog. Black ears and patches over its eyes, black, grey and tan coat, all ribs and hipbones.
Sean ueyed again and pulled up next to it. He figured it would do a runner, but it watched, panting in the heat. Cait sat forward between the seats and they both watched the animal watch them.
“Would someone dump a dog out here?” she said.
“It must be lost, or hurt.” He unclipped his belt and got out. The dog whined and pawed the earth in front of him. It looked friendly enough. It looked starved. It could still do some damage if it attacked. “Stay in the car.” Waste of breath. She got out, but stood back at least.
He approached. “Hello, Blue. What’re you doing on your own out here?” More whining and a slow, cautious wag. “Are you going to lure me in then take a chunk out of me, Blue?” Like a certain female he knew, who’d come to stand beside him. He got down in a crouch, a hand held out for the dog to sniff.
It barked, once, twice and then went down on its haunches, head cocked, looking at them, tail doing that slow wag.
“Are you hurt, Blue? Shit, look at those ribs sticking out. Have we got anything it can drink from?”
He heard Cait pop the boot and rummage. She brought back the lid of the thermos and a bottle of water and handed them over. The dog started whimpering in earnest when it heard the water pour, and when Sean held out the lid, it drank with great gulps and sighs, but the lid made a poor bowl. He put it down and cupped his hands.
“Pour it in here.” Cait did, standing at his side and laughing when Blue went at the water like that was the last handful on earth.
He looked the dog over. “She’s either lost or got dumped. No collar. She’s been out here a while.”
“She?”
“Yep. We got anything she can eat?”
“Cold toast.”
“Yeah we could try that. She’s hungry enough she’ll eat anything.”
Cait brought out the toast and they watched as Blue devoured it. “We can’t leave her.”
He got off his haunches. “You want to take her with us?”
“God, yes. We can’t leave her in the middle of nowhere.”
He sighed. “I guess we could take her to Ceduna. See if anyone’s reported a missing dog.”
He was about to ask her how she felt about a dog in the car, but remembered it wasn’t her car anymore. Cait was back at the boot. She took her gym towel out and spread it on the back seat. Obviously she was fine with it. Blue watched with a lolling tongue and a cocked head. The dog hadn’t taken a step, and maybe it wouldn’t and he wasn’t going to wrestle with it.
“Who’d leave a dog like this?” she said, disgust in her voice. She patted her thigh. The dog stood. “Look at that.”
“She likes you.”
Cait was focused on Blue and the dog on her. “Come on girl, in you go.” She did. That desperately filthy bag of bones got up, trotted to the car and jumped in the back seat, settling on the towel like she knew exactly what was expected of her.
“Good girl!” Cait was elated. Her smile was huge and it felt like smack on the back of the head. The mongrel got her laughter now. He was fucking jealous of a fucking abandoned fleabag dog. But since Cait got in the front seat, maybe that wasn’t so bad.
39: Pizza
She shouldn’t have left her room. She knew it. It was stupid and thoughtless. Not to mention dangerous and absolutely inspired to make Sean lose it. So it was no surprise he had. But even knowing that, having him shout at her was a shock.
She had no idea what came over her. But it was a close relation to the same feeling that infected her standing in her designer kitchen looking into the open safe after watching Justin and Detective Martin enjoying each other in her bed.
Some switch in her brain flipped and the only course of action she was capable of taking was the very worst one available. It’d lead to her take the money and run decision, and this morning it had led to putting herself in danger and freaking Sean out for no good reason. As if she needed to feel any more ashamed, any more indebted to the people around her who were mopping up her mess.
She’d just needed to run. To go to that place in her head where all that mattered was the next breath in and the next breath out. She didn’t think she’d get through another day in the car with Sean, feeling frozen from the ice wall he’d built between them, if she couldn’t run. The cops in the other car knew what she was doing, but still it was a truly stupid thing to do and she felt scalded by the knowledge she’d caused even more trouble.
Sean had enjoyed dressing her down, despite saying he was sorry, because if he was truly sorry he’d have shown it. All he showed was how finished they were, how he regretted they’d ever started.
Which provided not one ounce of justification for why she’d given him lip then sulked. Somehow it was easier to want to fight with him than to acknowledge how she’d brought this all on herself in the first place. That was screwed up.
She’d slept in the car, but not for near as long as she let him think. Despite her sunglasses it was too hard to face his eyes in the rear-view. They kept flicking to her like he was looking for a reason to leave her at the side of the road and drive off into the sunset. Who’d blame him?
She should’ve asked one of the guys in the Land Cruiser if she could go with them instead. She’d suspected there was someone following them from the way Sean drove through Perth city. It was a relief to learn it wa
s the good guys. He could’ve at least told her they had help instead of letting her think they were two people against a gang of bikies. But he didn’t. Which demonstrated how much he preferred lording it over her. Just like Justin.
Thank God for the dog. Blue was like a portable demilitarised zone. The smelly, flea-ridden mutt thawed the frost and got them talking. Cait might have to love that skinny dog for all the problems picking her up entailed, starting with the vomiting, because she wormed between their issues and gave them neutral ground.
Ceduna came up fast because they’d speculated freely about Blue, and worried they’d let her have too much water too quickly. Sean was concerned she might have stayed with an owner who got into trouble and expired out there which brought her back to the roadside. He called ahead to Ceduna police and once they finished laughing about how they’d almost arrested him they promised to look into it. No one had been reported missing so they weren’t confident of finding out anything quickly.
So Blue was their problem. A new one. A shared one. One that didn’t have them hating on each other.
It was late when they got into town. Sean picked a different motel to the one they’d stayed in last time. While he checked them in, and spoke with the team in the Land Cruiser, which met them there, Caitlyn sat in the Statesman with Blue who tail-wagged whenever she was spoken to and hadn’t moved off the towel, except to cough up the water she’d drunk.
When Sean got back in the car he said, “They’ve given me the number for a vet who might open up for us.”
Paul the vet was a hero. He said Blue was severely malnourished, dehydrated and appeared to have a heart problem, which he couldn’t confirm till he could get test results. She was a very sick dog and lucky to be found.
“I need to keep Blue here, put her on fluids, antibiotics, find out what else is wrong with her,” he said, turning his physician’s eyes on her and Sean. He might’ve been talking about them. “Then we need to work out what to do next. It might be more humane if we put her down.”
It was silly to react so strongly to the idea of putting Blue to sleep if she was beyond recovery, but Caitlyn did. The idea of it made her feel instantly nauseous. Since Paul made it clear he couldn’t keep Blue by showing them his ute with four other dogs lolling in the back, and used the line, ‘finders keepers’, it was obvious he expected her and Sean to make the decisions needed.
A person who had their own protective custody detail wasn’t in any position to make decisions, least of all a life and death one, but for reasons she didn’t fully understand, Caitlyn wanted Blue to live—badly. Not that she’d be able to keep her. She didn’t have a home, a job, an income or any idea whether she’d end up in jail. Sean probably wasn’t the keep a dog kind of man. Given his two years undercover, did he even have a home of his own?
Sean was gruff, but he scratched Blue behind the ear while Paul set up a drip to hydrate her. He’d had to carry her into the surgery; she’d been a dead weight in his arms. “Do what you need to do to make her comfortable. We can’t stick around.”
“Come back at lunchtime and let’s see how she is.”
Sean stroked Blue between the eyes and she gave a big shuddery sigh. Caitlyn held hers. He might insist on driving on and then the decision would be made.
“All right.”
She had to cough to cover her relief at the reprieve.
At the car she hesitated. Back door, front door. Where would he want her to sit? She’d gotten in the back this morning because she wanted distance from him. What was going to aggravate him more? It was only a five minute drive to the motel. It was only a seat in a car. But without Blue to pull focus, the weight of everything unsaid and felt hung over her like a cartoon anvil ready to drop and squash her flat.
He’d started the engine before she opened the front door. He gave her a quick glance but said nothing and they were back at the Ceduna Motor Inn before either of them spoke again. Then there was a general fumbling of detail: What to do for a meal, cleaning up the car, plans for the morning. More was avoided than spoken about. They didn’t talk about Blue at all.
Sean opened the doors to two rooms next to each other and tossed his bag in one then stood in the corridor outside the rooms huddled over his phone talking to whoever he talked to when he huddled. It made her nervous to see him do it. He’d barely bothered with his phone on the way to Perth, now he was best friends with it and hugged whatever news it brought him close. She didn’t bother closing her door. He’d given her a five minute signal. She waited for him to finish his call then they walked down the road where they had a choice of fast food joints still open.
That exotic dinner of oysters and the even more lush night of discovering each other in Ceduna might well have been enjoyed by two very different people. Not two people who hardly knew how to walk side by side for a couple of hundred metres. The pavement simply wasn’t wide enough for them to keep pace and not risk brushing against each other.
It made for an awkward, faltering dance, until Sean said, “Walk in front of me, Driver,” with a flavouring of irritation that made her want to turn and go back to the room without eating just to get away from him. He gave her a couple of steps to get in front and fell in behind. So close, if she stopped suddenly she’d be wearing him.
He chose the pizza place by tapping her shoulder. A quick touch that was no less a command for its lightness and made her whole body tense when she hadn’t thought it was possible to feel any more uptight.
“I thought you didn’t like pizza.”
“I love it.” He ushered her into the restaurant. “Come eat.”
In Mildura he’d nearly ripped the car door off when she suggested pizza, now he loved it. What an idiot she was for thinking she ever understood him. It was better if she didn’t talk. It was hard to imagine that only a few days ago she’d wanted him to tear the bandaid off her post-Justin pain. Now her whole body felt like an open wound when he looked at her.
And he was looking at her. Please don’t. She closed her eyes. It was the next best thing to bolting out of the room. When she opened them he was looking at the menu.
“I’ll run with you in the morning. Then we’ll go and see about Blue.”
“I can skip the run.”
“No, you can’t.”
God, he got off on telling her what to do. Why had she never realised that? She had a red paper napkin in her hand; suddenly it was in two pieces.
He put the menu down and sighed. “The other team is busy in the morning and I need a run which means you have to come with me. I can forget about it, but I thought you might like one too.”
“Why didn’t you say that?”
“Not poetic enough for you?”
“Not truthful enough.”
The look on his face told her how presumptuous that was. He laughed. It was a constrained, brittle sound, like an old door squeaking to a close. It shut off any further conversation. Not that she needed him to tell her what a hypocrite she was. Her vital organs had rearranged themselves to make space for the lump of duplicity she’d nurtured.
Sean moved. He went to the counter and ordered two takeaway pizzas, and he stopped there chatting to the waitress till they were ready. She didn’t wait for his instruction to walk in front of him on the way back. Alone in her room, she couldn’t eat her pizza though it was exactly the one she’d have chosen if he’d have bothered to ask what she wanted. Maybe that’s why she couldn’t stomach it.
40: Blue
It was raining, a depressing drizzle that suited Sean’s mood. Cait was ready when he knocked.
“Do you still want to go?” It would be reasonable to stay inside. It would make him positively stir-crazy, but pretty much everything was having that effect on him, so what the fuck. She nodded and stepped out of her room.
“You set the pace,” he offered. She did the affirmative nod again and took off. He gave her a few seconds and followed. She ran for an hour at a steady pace that wasn’t unlike what he might’ve chosen
himself. She never once stopped or looked behind to check if he followed, though she could probably hear his footfall. He knew she was fit, but he couldn’t help be impressed by her style, by the way she worked her tidy little body. He sensed she ran for the same reasons he did. For the head rush. If he wasn’t still furious with her, he’d have admired her for that alone.
They were both soaked by the time they were back in sprinting distance to the motel; the sun was out and the air was starting to sizzle with humidity. He closed the distance between them so he could talk to her about the plan for the rest of the morning and as he did she stumbled, catching her foot on something and pitching forward. She went down on one knee in the grass with a grunt and he almost ran her over. He propped in front of her and one look at her face told him she’d been in difficulty before she tripped. She was ghostly pale, her dark brows and lashes standing out on her face like punctuation. He grabbed her arms and hauled her upright. “I’ve got you.”
She blinked and her body wavered but then she pulled out of his grip. “Don’t.”
“What’s wrong with you?”
She took two steps backwards. “Nothing. What’s wrong with you?”
That’s all it took for him to shout at her in a public place for the second time in two days. “You didn’t eat.”
She went to walk past him. “It’s none of your business.”
He spun to follow her. “You made it my business when you started lying to me.” As he turned, he noticed the follow car coming towards them, fresh from their highway patrol. Whoever was at the wheel gave him the all clear with two quick headlight flashes. He got in front of her to face her down.
She got in first. “I never lied to you. I didn’t let you in my business. There’s a difference.”
“Not from where I’m standing.” She’d lied to him every time she’d neglected to tell him something he could help with.
She stopped moving. “Where would that be?”
“On the fucking right side of the law.” He stepped into her, kissing fucking distance and fuck knows what he’d have said next if Dave hadn’t said, “Everything all right?” from the window of the Land Cruiser as it pulled alongside them.
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