Heart of the Outback

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Heart of the Outback Page 9

by Lynne Wilding


  He dropped to his haunches and, using a twig, moved three brass casings from their hiding place. Bringing them up close to study, his tanned forehead creased into a frown. Unusual type. He couldn’t recognise the type of rifle from which they’d been fired but the fact that there were three put, in his mind, too much strain on coincidence. His gaze scanned the bush around him. Not a lot of cover but probably enough for someone dressed in drab clothing, in the early morning light. He fished a small plastic bag out of his back trouser pocket and placed the shell casings inside. They’d have to go to the ballistics department in Brisbane. A long shot, he knew … no pun intended, but there just might be fingerprints, or parts of prints on the casings.

  He stood up again and whistled softly, a habit he had when he was thinking at top speed. The horseshoe print and the shell casings put a very different connotation on the stampede. Three rifle shots, three casings. Small bore, probably. Coincidence? No! Deliberate.

  And then, almost casually, his dark eyes came to rest on one of the eucalypts. Part of the trunk had been shattered, unnaturally so. Frowning with curiosity he strode towards it. Trees didn’t usually shatter like this, he thought. He pulled out a pocketknife and carefully scraped around the hole. The dead bark and timber came away and something small fell onto the ground. Steve picked the object up and rolled it between his fingers. A bullet.

  Suddenly he realised that he had to go carefully with this evidence. There was no point going to his superiors or to CJ Ambrose with half-baked ideas, mere theories. He needed more proof than shell casings and a spent bullet to show there’d been foul play. And if the media or CJ got wind of what he’d found before he could back it up with more evidence, there’d be a bloody circus.

  He stopped whistling and began to remember the circus that had occurred on an investigation in Sydney, and had ultimately driven him out of the city he’d been born and raised in.

  He stalked back to the four-wheel drive, turned the ignition and the air-conditioning on and stood outside until the cabin’s interior cooled down. Finally he slid behind the wheel and gunned the accelerator.

  Careful, he knew that’s what he’d have to be. Damned careful.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The waters of Sydney Harbour shimmered in the morning light as the O’Connors’ yacht, Good Times, cut white water in the light noreasterly. They had sailed from the marina at Waverton, gone under the bridge, passed Circular Quay and were gliding towards their destination for the day, Middle Harbour. Brett O’Connor, solid of build and with sandy ginger hair, steered from the stern. Aden, an experienced sailor, so Francey Spinetti had found out on instruction from Brett, attended to the main sail, tacking from starboard to port to catch the prevailing wind.

  In the yacht’s small cabin Francey and Meredith sat on vinyl cushions watching the men work. Both women knew Brett and Aden didn’t consider sailing work. To each it was invigorating exercise, fun.

  “Nice for a change, isn’t it?” Meredith murmured, suppressed laughter in her tone. “Usually I steer while you and Brett work the sails. It’s good that Aden knows about sailing, otherwise we’d be taking orders from the ‘master’ instead of being comfy and in here.” Shorter than Francey, Meredith had a freshness to her that was enhanced by styled shoulder-length light-brown hair framing an oval-shaped face. Make-up free she looked younger than her twenty-seven years and into her fifth month of pregnancy she had just begun to show. Under her windcheater she wore a multicoloured long, loose top over black pants to disguise the growing bulge. Meredith’s seeming light-heartedness hid a sharp intelligence that had seen her rise — getting a degree part-time and doing a string of courses — to the rank of sergeant in the NSW Police Service faster than most.

  With the wind tangling her hair and caressing her face, Francey gazed surreptitiously at Aden, observing how he moved lithely across the deck as if he’d spent half his life on the water. Wearing white jeans, a blue polo-necked sweater and canvas sneakers he looked so fit and tanned that she concluded he must spend a lot of leisure time out of doors. Until today she had only seen him in work clobber: suits and ties. Aden Nicholson in casual clothes, his masculine form subtlely displayed, was a visual delight.

  Studying him as he worked the pulleys and manoeuvred the ropes a frisson of excitement coiled around her stomach. It was the same feeling caused by the special way he had looked at her when he’d called for her this morning. On seeing him she had actually gone weak at the knees. But the next instant, in a contrary burst of self-anger, she brushed the confession aside. She was a grown woman for God’s sake and it wasn’t odd to respond to a very attractive male. She continued to scold herself — she should stop acting like a silly teenager.

  “Oh, I’m not sure,” Francey broke her reflective thought. “You know Brett’s trying to teach me the intricacies of sailing. I could do with the practice. Maybe I should go and help.”

  “Look at them. They don’t need your help,” Meredith retorted as she observed Aden moving to the bow to tie the spinnaker down. Her brown eyes twinkled with mischief. “So, give about your boss. Where have you been hiding him for the last three years?”

  “I haven’t been hiding him anywhere, it’s just that … Well, until now it’s been all business.” Her friend’s half smirk made her add in a rush, “Honest.”

  “I think he’s gorgeous and,” Meredith winked, “acceptable. Your dad must be over the moon.”

  Francey rolled her eyes towards a cloudless sky, relishing the warmth of the winter sun on her face. The O’Connors were well-acquainted with her father’s obsession to see his only daughter married. “He is. He met him the night of the awards. Since then Papà quizzes me all the time about him. You know how he nags when he gets his mind on something. But,” again her gaze pulled towards Aden who was now with Brett at the yacht’s stern, “it’s early days yet. Actually, this is our first official date.”

  “Indeed!” Meredith remarked. “The Good Times and the O’Connors consider themselves honoured. What’s his background?”

  Francey knew that Meredith’s curiosity was caused by the detective coming out in her. She had always been a stickybeak, seeking information about almost everyone she came in contact with. “North shore upbringing, private school tie, family well-heeled. He has a younger sister and a brother. Lives alone,” her lips twisted in a cheeky grin, “so I’m told, in a luxurious Neutral Bay penthouse. He’s been engaged once, so his secretary told me, but it didn’t work out. He started his architectural firm from scratch, straight out of uni, and has done amazingly well in ten years. Nowadays, the firm’s turnover is several million annually.”

  “So, he has good prospects?” Meredith stated the obvious as she gave Francey a searching look. “It’s about time. You deserve someone nice. That bastard Steinberg did a real job on you. Turned you into a man-hater.”

  “I don’t hate men,” Francey shot back, “I just find it hard to trust them.”

  Meredith’s words triggered things from the past and, thinking back on it, she admitted that she hadn’t had much luck with the opposite sex. First, Mark Rosso. Sexy, Italian, a handsome young man. Mark had been her first experience at falling in love, and theirs had been a brief, passionate affair during her first university year. Mark rented a pokey studio apartment off Missenden Road where they’d met for lover’s trysts. Those had been heady days. Freedom from being under the watchful eye of her father, making love with Mark, attending lectures and tutorials, plus the seemingly never-ending round of parties. Not that she’d gone to many. She’d had to work her way through university and study, plus two part-time jobs had left little time for socialising. She and Mark had parted good friends, though he’d dropped out of architecture in the third year. She’d heard that he had married his current girlfriend and they’d moved to Byron Bay where he worked for an architect, drawing up plans.

  She felt no rancour or sense of loss when she thought about Mark. With Brian Steinberg the feelings were different. Nothing in her b
ackground — growing up in a modest home with loving parents, and a noisy Italian family with cousins and aunts and uncles galore — had prepared her for Bryan. It had all started so innocently …

  “A penny for your thoughts, love?” Meredith clicked her tongue reprovingly. “You’re not thinking about him, are you?”

  Meredith’s voice jerked Francey back to the here and now. She blinked and looked around. The yacht was leaning into the wind as it rounded the port side of Middle Head National Park to head west into Middle Harbour. “Yes and no.”

  “Well, don’t. He’s not worth it.” She hastened to change the subject. “I think the guys could do with a coffee. How about it?”

  “Sure.” Francey stood, got her balance on the rolling deck then moved forward to the small galley. The burst of activity successfully pigeonholed memories of Bryan Steinberg back into her subconscious.

  As she prepared the coffees and opened a packet of biscuits she glanced out the bow and starboard portholes. Of all the harbour’s wonderful bays and hideaways they had explored in the past two years since Brett had bought Good Times, Middle Harbour remained her favourite. Parks ran along many of the foreshore areas and there was an abundance of beautiful homes which, on some blocks, came down to the water’s edge. An architect’s delight. One day she imagined herself designing a multistoreyed mansion for a millionaire along one such waterside site.

  Brett took the mug of coffee from Francey with a grateful nod of his head. “Want to steer for a while?”

  “I’d love to.”

  Lunch was a gourmet affair served by turning part of the deck into a table top. They all sat cross-legged as they ate, while the yacht, with sails furled, rocked gently in the lessening breeze. Meredith had gone to some trouble with the picnic basket: champagne and beer, pâtè and crusty bread, cold meats, two different salads, tabouli and several cheeses because her husband had a weakness for them, and for dessert, strawberries marinated in kirsch and cream.

  After they’d eaten, the motion of the yacht, plus a couple of glasses of champagne and a beer for Brett, lulled the O’Connors into a semi stupor. They lay flat out on the deck on towels, using the furled sail for shade as they napped.

  “I like your friends,” Aden said as he and Francey cleared up the remains of their repast, washing crockery and cutlery in the galley.

  “I’m glad. Meredith and I go back a long way — to first grade. She met Brett on a blind date and for them it was the proverbial love at first sight. They’ve been together for three years and I’ve never seen a happier couple.”

  “Brett’s in construction, isn’t he?”

  “Yes. Medium density. He took over his father’s company when Fred O’Connor wanted to retire. He’s almost doubled the business since then. Meredith reckons he’s a workaholic.”

  “Do you put work his way?”

  Francey glanced sideways at him. “Not especially. I let him know if I think there’s a project he might want to tender for. That’s all. I don’t play favourites in business, unlike some of our colleagues. It can lead to problems I’d rather avoid.”

  “Aahhh, you’re a wise woman, Francey Spinetti.” He was silent for a moment, then he added, “I think Tony Carlyle might have a project that suits Brett’s company’s size. I’ll talk to Tony on Monday.”

  “Brett would appreciate that. They’re trying to pay as much as they can off their home loan before the baby comes.” She smiled her thanks at him. “Every little bit helps.” All at once she became aware of how close they were in the confined space of the galley. But, strangely, she didn’t feel crowded or threatened as she might with some men. With Aden, she felt … comfortable.

  “I seem to recall you promising to tell me about that long ago relationship. The one,” he paused as his finger took hold of her chin to lift it so she had to look him squarely in the eyes, “that hurt you so much.”

  Francey inhaled deeply, relishing the salty air. She shrugged her shoulders in resignation; he had to know sometime and now was as good a time as any. “Sure, why not. But it’s not particularly original or pleasant. I fell in love with my maths lecturer at uni, in my last year of study.” The way she said it sounded casual, uncomplicated, but it hadn’t ended up that way. “Bryan was thirteen years older than me. He seemed worldly and sophisticated, gentle and caring too.” She gave a self-derisive laugh. “Corny, I know, but I thought we had the real thing. He said he lived with his mother, a sickly woman, so we never met at his place. There were other places though. Motels and sympathetic lecturers who loaned him their flat keys on special occasions. Somehow, we managed to see a lot of each other.”

  She looked away for a moment, a rush of pleasure mingling with the pain. “I was so happy. Not just because my maths improved but because of Bryan. He seemed to be everything I wanted in a man. I saw my future with him. Commitment, family, the whole bit. For six months I walked on a cloud of … of … blinkered serenity,” she admitted with disarming frankness. Bryan Steinberg had — whether intentionally or not — helped mould Francey into the person she had now become. He had brought out her sense of humour, her warmth, the directness that was her trademark, and he’d given her confidence in her potential to become a talented architect.

  “Unfortunately, my ideal of the man — I’d put him on some stupid pedestal — didn’t match the reality. As you can imagine, after a while it became impossible for some people not to know about our affair. Someone told his wife. I, of course, had no idea he was married until she introduced herself as Cathy Steinberg and confronted me on campus one day. God it was embarrassing! She wanted to know why I was trying to break her and Bryan up.” Her tone and expression hardened. “I found out that they’d been married for seven years — they lived at Gosford and Brian commuted each day to university.” Her eyebrows lifted meaningfully. “There was no sick mother either. And he had two children, the rat!”

  “But didn’t he want you rather than his wife?”

  Francey shook her head. “Not enough to end his marriage. You see, his wife’s family is well off. She’s highly strung too. I heard that she had some kind of breakdown after learning of our affair. When her parents die Bryan and his wife will be independently wealthy. Bryan, frankly, inferred that I couldn’t compete with that. As well, despite his faults, his weaknesses, I could tell that he really loved his kids.” Her long, dark lashes blinked rapidly a couple of times. “I … my conscience wouldn’t allow me to come between him and the children. His wife, foolish woman, still loved him. It was easier,” God, no, it hadn’t been easy — it had been the hardest thing she’d ever done, “to walk away.”

  “How I got through my studies and passed the finals, I don’t remember — it’s a blur. I did though, and somehow I survived.” Her parents hadn’t known what she’d gone through — only the O’Connors — she had managed to keep it secret from everyone else in the family. Just as well, she thought, her protective father may have gone after Bryan with a shotgun.

  “Poor Francey.” Aden’s voice held a wealth of compassion.

  “Not poor,” she said, and a determined sparkle came into her eyes. “I got wise and I’m getting wiser. I won’t allow myself to get hurt that way again.”

  A passing speedboat’s wake caused the yacht to rock crazily in the swell. Aden took the opportunity to lean towards her and touch her cheek with the back of his hand.

  “You won’t get hurt with me, Francey, that’s a promise.”

  The next instant his lips were pressing against hers. Warm and firm, not dominating, a gentle exploration of hitherto uncharted areas. His arms came around her to draw her close to him and through his thin shirt the heat radiated into her body. They drew back from each other, both breathless, both surprised at the pleasures awakened.

  “I’m not sure …”

  He cut her off with another quick kiss. “What? Not the boss and the employee thing?”

  “Partly.” More than that though she wasn’t a hundred per cent sure she was ready for the n
ext step. Life was simpler, more peaceful if she kept her heart intact. Besides, she had worked hard to make a niche for herself at Nicholson, Drew and Carlyle; she didn’t want to see it come to an end with an ill-timed, perhaps ill-fated relationship. Most of all, and she admitted the truth of it, she didn’t want to get hurt again.

  “We’ll take things slow,” he promised, smiling.

  There had been many women in Aden Nicholson’s life. Some light-hearted affairs, others more serious and he’d even wanted to marry one woman. With Francey he already had the feeling that this was it. He knew that because of the past hurt she’d become skittish about romantic involvements and judging by the expression in her eyes as she’d spoken about Bryan, her heart had been badly bruised.

  “We’ll be discreet. No-one in the firm needs to know we’re seeing each other socially. It’s none of their business anyway.” Out of the corner of his eye Aden saw Brett coming towards the galley. His arms dropped away from her.

  “Wind’s come up, freshening too,” Brett said as he popped his head around the cabin doorway. “Aden, we might as well make the most of it.”

  “I’d like to help with the sails,” Francey said impulsively, smiling at Aden. “Otherwise I’ll never learn how to do it properly.”

  Brett winked at Aden. “We never say no to extra crew, do we, mate?”

  “Not when she looks like Francey. I’ve crewed with some pretty ugly guys over the years. She’s a nice change.”

  Francey’s eyebrow rose in question. “I think that’s a compliment, but perhaps you should reserve your enthusiasm until you see me work the sails.”

  “Will do.”

  Aden Nicholson listened as the man on the other end of the phone line finalised their conversation. Then, replacing the receiver he stared at the blank wall in front of him. Interesting. Damned interesting. Within five minutes his private fax line spewed an official letter confirming what had been discussed. As he read the text he shook his head in wonder at the power of the media. Sue William’s article on Francey winning the national body’s architectural award had led to her being the cover story in The Australian which had created media interest and an interview on the Today Show and A Current Affair. This was the kind of free publicity some businesspeople would kill for. And yesterday the editor from the Women’s Weekly, looking for the rags to riches angle, had phoned for an interview. More projects were coming in and the new clients wanted Francey to design for them. As he’d predicted, her award was going to be a financial bonanza for the firm. His expression took on a sardonic twist. He’d probably have to keep a look out for head-hunters trying to poach her away from them too.

 

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