Dance with the Devil

by Sandy Curtis

  He picked up the receiver again. Within thirty seconds, Mick's gravelly voice answered. He filled the detective in on Emma's note.

  'Don't worry,' Mick reassured him. 'We'll check on Emma as soon as we can. Right now we're going out to see Simon's father, or rather his stepfather. Form F paid off. His name's Hadley Morgan. And the driver's licence and rego checks show he owns a van.'

  They had him!

  Maybe.

  A weird mixture of elation and worry swirled through Drew. They had a suspect at last, but what if he wasn't at his home? He could have moved on, could have…

  He cut through his speculation. Emma could still be in danger.

  He raced out the door.

  A cry jerked Hadley around like a marionette on a string.

  Silence.

  Then the cry, softer, less demanding, more enquiring.

  A baby.

  He looked back to the young man, to the blood pouring onto the vinyl flooring.

  Just then the clouds parted and sunshine streamed in through the kitchen window, bathing the face of the young man in a golden glow. A glow broken by the shape of a cross. Hadley looked up at the timber cross-section forming the shadow.

  The baby cried again.

  It was a sign.

  He knew it was a sign.

  The Informer was meant to live. His life in exchange for that of his child. Hadley rolled the man face down to prevent him choking on his own blood, and stepped silently into the hall.

  He held the knife in readiness as he reached a bedroom doorway. A woman lay on a double bed, her breasts rising and falling in the steady rhythm of sleep. He slipped into the room, made his way slowly to the bassinet. The baby caught sight of him and cried out.

  The woman stirred.

  Her head turned.

  The knife came down as though it had a life of its own. The tip dripped blood onto the woman's white blouse as it halted a hair's breadth from the end of her ribcage. She sniffed and rubbed her nose in sleep-filled stupor before snuggling back into the pillows.

  The knife stayed motionless above her as her breathing deepened. Hovered, unmoving, until she settled once more into a deep sleep.

  It turned towards the watching infant.

  Tom couldn't have taken Mary into Cairns to see his parents, they were away on holidays. And the baby was only six days old, Mary wouldn't be driving into town to go shopping. Besides, J.D. had promised to get their supplies for them. So why weren't they answering their phone?

  The trip back to the valley gave Emma plenty of time to run possibilities through her mind. The moment she had seen Mary's maiden name on the police report marked Simon Hall, she knew the connection couldn't just be a coincidence.

  Mary had been one of the four people sharing a house with Simon Hall. One of the four addicts, Emma corrected herself. Mary had not been in the house when Simon was arrested, and no incriminating evidence was found in her room so she had escaped arrest.

  But she was another link in the chain. Drew, Dario, Judge Abercrombie. Was one of Simon Hall's cohorts responsible? Was there something incriminating that he thought someone may have found?

  Was Mary going to be his next victim?

  Emma had to warn her. Her foot pushed harder on the accelerator.

  Pain, throbbing and insistent, filled Tom's head. He opened his eyes. The timber floor was sticky with blood, the taste of it coppery in his mouth. He swallowed, and cried out in agony.

  The cut edges at the side of his tongue grated against his teeth and pain jolted to join the deep ache at the back of his head.

  He pushed himself up, swayed and leaned against the wall. Red mist swirled through his head. He closed his eyes, breathed slowly and took stock.

  The wound in his tongue wasn't quite halfway across, but it had bled profusely. Now his tongue was a swollen, seeping, lump of flesh in his mouth. He touched the back of his head and gingerly fingered the swelling there.

  Who had done this to him? Why? And where…

  He staggered to his feet, reeled to the bedroom and groaned with relief at the sight of Mary's sleeping figure.

  An engine roared into life. The familiar, unmistakable sound of his Jeep. He grabbed his M1 Carbine from the cupboard, an ammo magazine from a drawer and shoved it into the breech, then he ran for the front door.

  The Jeep was only twenty yards from the verandah when he shot out the back tyres. The vehicle careened wildly, tyres spitting mud, but didn't stop.

  Gritting his teeth against the agony in his head, Tom shot out the front tyre. The Jeep pulled viciously to the right, bucked like a crazy thing across the rutted dirt road, then continued its mad flight.

  Anger like he'd never known shook Tom with its force. He took a deep breath, held it and pulled the trigger in rapid succession.

  The Jeep's back window exploded in a shower of glass. The vehicle skewed sideways, twisted left, right, then ploughed across a small sapling. Steam hissed as the green wood splintered into the radiator.

  The vehicle ground to a halt.

  Tom leapt down the steps, bringing the rifle to his shoulder as he hit the grass. The pain in his head swam tears before his eyes and he blinked rapidly to clear them as the driver's door opened. His finger tightened on the trigger…

  Bile poured into his guts.

  The rifle sagged in his suddenly limp hands.

  He began to scream, but the sound was cut off by the crash of gunfire that spun him to the ground.

  Drew pushed his vehicle to the limit. A grinding knot of anxiety ate into his guts.

  He glanced at his mobile phone and cursed. He'd not long entered the valley, but already the signal had died. If Chayse and Mick had any information for him, it was too late now. He hoped like hell they'd taken enough backup with them. If Hadley Morgan was the killer, he wasn't a rational man, and that made him doubly dangerous.

  A horse and rider were cantering along the road. Drew veered over to the other side of the road and hurtled past. In the rear-view mirror he saw the rider's hat fly off and a cloud of red hair tumble down. He concentrated on the road ahead.

  Caution slowed Drew at the wooden bridge. Then he was twisting and turning on the narrow dirt road like a rally driver, his worry increasing as each minute brought him closer to Tom and Mary's property.

  The sight of Tom's wrecked Jeep with its gunshot holes and shattered glass stopped Drew's heartbeat for a second. But the lack of damage to Emma's vehicle gave him hope. He braked to a halt and vaulted from the seat.

  Blood stained the grass. Dribbled up the veranda steps.

  Drew wanted to call out Emma's name, but was loath to give up the element of surprise if the killer had her captive.

  He stepped softly into the living room and relaxed a fraction to find it unchanged, empty. Then he saw the blood that spotted the old-fashioned carpet runner. He flattened himself against the wall as he moved up the hallway.

  Everything was quiet. Too quiet. As though the house itself was holding its breath.

  Sweat trickled down his forehead, and he cursed himself for not remembering to get the rifle out of the Land Cruiser.

  A small hiccupping sound that might have been a sob caught his attention. It was hard to orientate, but he thought it had come from the bedroom.

  He eased closer. The door was slightly ajar. Slowly, very slowly, he turned to look through the small gap.

  Cold round metal pushed into his cheek.

  He froze.

  'Tell the uniform blokes to go around the back of the house, but to keep under cover in case this Morgan is the killer and he makes a run for it.' Mick told Chayse as they approached a small white painted timber house set well back in a clearing. The surrounding bush was fairly thick, and the road in merely a dirt track, probably impassable after heavy rain.

  As Chayse relayed the order to the patrol car following them, he wondered how Hadley Morgan and his wife made a living from such a small property. They obviously ran a few cattle, and ducks and chickens
wandered across the grass. A large, well-tended vegetable garden next to the house had been fenced off and he could see numerous fruit trees behind the house. Perhaps they were self-supporting, he thought.

  The patrol car turned in a wide arc and skirted the garden, stopping a reasonable distance from the back of the house. Mick drove up to the front of the house. He checked his gun, slipped it back into its holster.

  'You armed?' he asked Chayse.

  'I'm on leave, remember. You'll just have to stand in front of me if he shoots.'

  Mick chuckled. 'That's what I like about working with you, Chayse, you always see the funny side of a situation.'

  'Who said I was joking?'

  They walked up to the front door, their postures relaxed, confident, but their eyes constantly scanned for any movement that would betray danger.

  The door was open, the cool, dim hallway leading straight through to the open back door. Mick's knock echoed through the house.

  There was movement in one of the back rooms. Mick stiffened. A woman walked into the hallway, a dark silhouette slowly revealed by the sunshine. A middle-aged woman, her small frame huddled into a green checked shirt and long work pants. She looked enquiringly at Mick and Chayse.

  'Mrs Ivy Morgan?'

  'Yes.'

  'I'm Detective Mick Landers from Cairns CIB, Mrs Morgan. I'd like to ask you a few questions.'

  'You'd better come in, Detective,' she said, her pale eyes showing sad acceptance of the inevitable. She led them into a tiny sitting room, comfortably furnished with a wooden sofa plumped with tapestry cushions, a bookshelf and an old china cabinet stocked with mismatched crockery.

  'Is Mr Morgan home?'

  She shook her head. 'No. He went out late last night. He said he'd be home this morning.'

  'Do you know where he went?'

  'Lately I haven't asked. Since Simon died…' Her voice faltered.

  Mick gestured to the sofa. 'Please sit down, Mrs Morgan.' He flicked a look to Chayse which said 'look around' and Chayse moved silently away.

  Ivy Morgan sagged onto the cushions, and Mick eased his tall body down to sit at the other end of the sofa.

  'It's to do with Simon's death that we're here, Mrs Morgan. Several people connected to Simon's trial have been murdered and we're - Mrs Morgan, are you all right?'

  'Oh, dear God, no!' Ivy gasped, the colour draining from her face. Her hands shook as she pressed her fingers to her forehead. 'I thought…I thought he'd given up.' Tears trickled from between her fingers, and she began to rock gently backwards and forwards.

  'You thought who'd given up what, Mrs Morgan?' Mick pushed. He took out his handkerchief, unfolded it and handed it to the sobbing woman. The movement must have caught her attention. She stopped rocking, took the handkerchief and mopped at her eyes.

  'Hadley. My husband. He blamed them all for Simon's death. He refused to see that Simon had made his own choices - the drugs, the alcohol. Simon had put himself in prison, not those other people. But I think Hadley felt he'd failed Simon somehow, that he should have protected him better. I was a widow, and Simon was only a toddler when Hadley and I married. But Hadley looked on Simon as his own son, although he never formally adopted him.'

  Tears began to slide down her cheeks again. 'He couldn't be bothered with the paperwork, you see. Said Simon was his son and that was that. We never had children of our own, but he was a good father to Simon. But when Simon was sixteen he became unhappy living here - no television, no videos - and he and Hadley argued all the time.'

  She fell silent. Mick waited patiently, but she remained quiet. He was just about to question her again when Chayse walked in.

  'He's not here, but there's a shed behind the house that could be the one Drew described.'

  Before Mick could comment, Ivy continued. 'Sometimes I was afraid. Hadley would get in these terrible rages, and I thought he would kill Simon. So when Simon left, it was almost a relief. The five years he was in Cairns we thought he was doing well. He told me he had a job, and when I went to see him, he looked all right. A bit run-down but I thought he was working too hard - I didn't know about the drugs. Or that he'd been arrested once before.'

  'Did your husband ever visit him, Mrs Morgan?'

  'No. Not until Simon was in prison. And that was only in the week before Simon…died.'

  'Do you know anything about the murders of Dario Frenetti and Aloysius Abercrombie?'

  Ivy pushed strands of pale hair back off her face. 'No. But it could have been Hadley. I love my husband, Detective, but he's not a well man. He thinks he has to atone to God for Simon committing suicide. He's afraid Simon has condemned his immortal soul to hell. Please, Detective,' she grabbed Mick's arm, 'stop him before he takes another life.'

  Chayse walked up to the weeping woman. 'Did Hadley kidnap Drew Jarrett and bring him here, Mrs Morgan?'

  'Yes. He chained him in the shed. I begged Hadley to let him go. I begged him and begged him.'

  'But you freed Drew and took him to the doctor's property?'

  'Everybody in the Gordonvale area knows about Emma Randall. I hoped she'd help him. Is he all right?'

  Chayse smiled, filled with pity for the woman who'd saved his brother's life. 'Yes. Thanks to you. But now we need you to help us again. We need to know where Hadley has gone. Someone else could be in danger.'

  'I told you before - I have no idea where he's gone. But there is something that could help you.'

  She stood up and walked out of the room, Mick and Chayse following closely behind. In a bedroom, she opened the top drawer of an old-fashioned writing desk and took out a cheap, vinyl-covered diary.

  'Hadley thinks I don't know about this. Normally I would never read his private papers, but since he brought the lawyer here I've been worried. I looked at it this morning when he hadn't come home. There's a list of names in the front. All but one have been crossed off.'

  Chayse took the book from her and opened it. He scanned the page. The crossed-off names belonged to the rapist, Drew, Dario and Judge Abercrombie.

  The last name was Tom Johnson.

  He handed the book to Mick. 'I think Drew's driving into the Devil's hands.'

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  'Drew!'

  Emma's voice breathed his name as the rifle barrel dropped from Drew's cheek.

  He swept her into his arms, crushing her soft body against his. She hugged him tightly, her fingers digging into his back. But he didn't register any pain, his joy at seeing her unharmed was too great.

  Then he saw Tom lying on the bed, Mary sitting on a chair, clutching his hand. Blood seeped through a large bandage on Tom's thigh, but it was his mouth that caught Drew's attention.

  Tom's eyes were closed, whether in sleep or unconsciousness Drew wasn't sure, but his head tilted to one side, and his open mouth revealed his swollen tongue, crisscrossed with surgical stitches.

  'Thank God you're here.' Emma held him a moment longer, then she gestured towards the bed. 'Whoever did this to Tom - he's also taken their baby.'

  'What?'

  'Someone got into the house, knocked Tom unconscious, and started to cut out his tongue. Mary didn't hear a thing. Tom had insisted she take a sleeping tablet and catch up on some sleep because the baby had been keeping her up at night. She woke up when she heard shots being fired. She found Tom out the front - and the baby missing.'

  'Are you sure Morgan has the baby?'

  'Who?'

  'Hadley Morgan - Simon Hall's stepfather. Chayse and Mick are checking him out.' He listened to Mary's exhausted sobbing, the way her breath caught in her throat. She looked even thinner than when he had last seen her, and he wondered if she could survive the loss of her child. 'Emma, the registration check showed Morgan owns a van. But I didn't see a van parked anywhere on the way here.'

  'He could have hidden it. From what we could understand from Tom before he passed out, the man had the baby in his arms when he got out of Tom's Jeep.' She stopped, forcing the tremor from he
r voice. 'But there was blood all over the blanket wrapped around the baby.'

  A fierce rage swept through Drew. Damn Hadley Morgan! What kind of a man was he to take out his blood lust on babies?

  He moved over to the bed, touched Mary gently on the shoulder. She turned her head to look at him, and he saw the glazed dullness of shock in her eyes.

  'Mary, do you remember me? I'm Drew, Emma's friend.'

  She gazed at him as though he had spoken a foreign language, then a glimmer of comprehension registered on her face. She nodded.

  'Mary, I need your help so I can get your baby back. I need to know why you think Hadley Morgan did this to Tom and took your baby.'

  'Who's Had…Hadley…Morgan?'

  'Simon Hall's father.'

  For a second her expression didn't alter, then her face crumpled and she wailed, a piercing cry of pain. 'It's my fault. It's all my fault. Tom's going to die, and he'll kill my baby.'

  Emma gripped Mary's shoulders and shook her quickly, then put her hand on the wet cheek. 'Listen to me, Mary.'

  The authority in her voice silenced Mary.

  'Tom is not going to die. Do you understand?'

  Her slow acquiescence seemed to take all of Mary's strength. She slumped down in the chair.

  'And we're going to get your baby back. But first we have to know - why would Hadley Morgan do this?'

  'Because Tom dobbed Simon in to the cops. He got me out of the house when he knew they were doing the raid. It was part of the deal. But he didn't tell me until after we were married.'

  'Why did Tom do it?'

  'Because he loved me and Simon was my supplier.' She looked down at Tom, caressed the still hand and pressed it to her cheek. 'He knew I'd never get away from Simon. Simon would never have let me go.'

  'So Simon knew Tom informed on him?'

  'I think he guessed. He must have told his father. He was afraid of his father and he would have said anything to make himself look better in his eyes.' Her control broke, and she sobbed, 'Please save my baby.'

  Drew gestured for Emma to follow him. In the hallway, he spoke softly. 'Can Tom be safely moved?'