by N. R. Walker
There was no path, and he was fast running out of daylight, but he climbed over a moss-covered log and began his way into the forest. There were gullies and ferns, thick underbrush, boulders and so many trees sometimes there was no ground to stand on. Overgrown roots threaded the ground, moss blanketed everything, and every surface was damp. August slid and fell, scrambled, scraped, and climbed.
He had no idea where he was going, but that damn kookaburra was in front of him the whole way. It leapt from branch to branch, as if—ridiculously and unbelievably—it was showing him the way, taking him closer to the sound of men’s voices.
Then, through the foliage and the undergrowth, through tree trunks and his own thumping heart, he saw something move. The flicker of something foreign that didn’t belong. August crouched down, then slowly peeked around the closest tree. Up ahead and slightly to the left, he saw it again.
A blue jacket.
A man, wearing a blue jacket. He waved his arms around, yelling something August could barely make out. “What the hell . . . never part of the plan . . .” It was Hirsch yelling. He could see him now.
Then Kenny grabbed Hirsch’s shirt, fisting it and yelling something back in his face. August didn’t hear what exactly, because now he could see Jacob, lying on his side on the ground. He could only see the back of his head, but he wasn’t moving.
August’s mouth went dry and his heart stopped beating.
Not Jacob.
Not him too.
August had to get to him. Had to take the chance. He had no clue if Hirsch or Kenny were armed, but he could only assume they were. Getting himself shot or caught wouldn’t help Jake. He needed to move fast, but carefully and quietly.
He slipped to the next tree, then the next.
“Pick up the goddamn box cutter and do it your-fucking-self!” Kenny hissed.
Oh, Christ. They were going to do it right now. But . . . that meant Jake was still alive . . .
“I will not do that,” Hirsch answered.
Kenny growled, frustrated. “Spare me the sanctimonious bullshit, Donovan. You’re not innocent in this.”
August slid behind another tree. His lungs squeezed and his heart was in his throat.
“Every single thing I’ve done has been for you,” Hirsch replied. “Because you asked me to. I’ve done every single thing you ever asked. And you know why, but you never cared. You don’t have it in you to care.”
“Because you needed guidance, Donovan,” Kenny said. “You needed someone to follow and look up to, someone to make decisions for you. Just like all these men did. We helped them be rid of their guilt and so their fathers didn’t have to live with the shame and hate. We helped them make that decision, Donovan. You and me. I helped you, guided you.”
Fucking hell. Kenny was talking crazy.
“But unlike the men you cleanse of their guilt and sin,” Hirsch said, “I have the choice to say no. I might have done everything you ever asked me, Allan, but I will not do this. Not to him. I know him, I work with him, I know his family. Don’t ask me to do this just one time, because I won’t.”
August dashed behind a closer tree and froze. Shit. Did Hirsch see him?
“What are you looking at?” Kenny asked.
Fuck, fuck. August, ever so slowly, unholstered his gun and flipped the safety off. He thought his heart might stop.
“I thought I saw something,” Hirsch replied.
But then the kookaburra swooped at the men. “Ugh, fucking birds!” Kenny yelled. “Noisy fuckers.”
“Just do what you need to do with Jacob,” Hirsch said. “But I can’t be here to watch. I just . . . can’t.”
Kenny mumbled something August couldn’t hear, but then he turned to where Jacob was still lying, unmoving. He grabbed Jacob’s jacket and pulled him back to a sitting position, lifted his right arm and pushed his jacket sleeve up his arm.
Fuck.
August stepped out into full view, his pistol raised. The ground between them was uneven and filled with logs, twigs, moss-covered undergrowth, trees, and ferns. If August had to rush to Jacob it wouldn’t be easy. But he had to intervene right this second. Kenny was holding a box cutter and he was barely a few seconds away from slicing Jacob’s arm open.
“Stop!” August yelled.
Kenny and Hirsch both jumped, startled. Hirsch took a step backwards, horror etched on his face. But Kenny stood up slowly and smiled. “Detective Shaw,” he sneered. “I’m so glad you’re here. I have some water for you.”
August stepped over the closest log, never taking his eyes or his aim off Kenny. “Put the blade down, Kenny. It’s over.”
“It’s not over yet,” he replied, still smiling. “But now you’re here, the end can finally begin.”
August took another step forward, his gun still raised and aimed directly at Kenny. “Step away from Jacob.”
“You should be honoured there’s another one. After all, it’s your fault they had to die.”
My fault?
August took one more step closer and planted his feet. “How the fuck is any of this my fault?”
“You posed with your boyfriend for the gala magazine,” Kenny replied simply. “I was only practising before that, but you gave me focus.”
“You’re fucked in the head, Kenny. You manipulated Hirsch all these years—”
“Shut up! It’s your fault, Shaw,” Kenny yelled, going from calm and creepy to enraged on the flip of a coin. “You should have stopped me. If you’d been any good at your job, you would have stopped me after the first one. But you were too invested, and I was too smart. You had no idea who it was. All these years. Even when I took Christopher. That was supposed to be the pinnacle. The coup de grâce, Detective Shaw. I left you all the clues, you just didn’t know where to look.”
“The cross and the note,” August said. “I’d wondered what Robert Frost could mean? ‘Nature’s first green is gold, her hardest hue to hold.’ How poetic, to cite that ‘nothing gold can stay.’ You cut these lives short, and what? You’re fulfilling the poem?”
“It wasn’t just the poem,” he said. “Not in the beginning.”
“It was your brother’s favourite poem. But he got it from a book, didn’t he? The Outsiders.”
His eyes went wide and a dozen emotions flickered over his face before he smiled. “So you finally figured it out.”
“Your brother committed suicide when he was eighteen. You found him with a silver cross and a note. I’m sorry I can’t be what you want. ‘Nothing gold can stay.’” August took another step closer. “Was he gay? Did the guilt and self-loathing kill him? Did your daddy tell him he was a sinner and needed to be saved?”
His face went blank. “You shut up.”
“Let me guess,” August furthered. “You found him. Do you still see him in your mind, or is that why you recreate it with innocent men?”
Kenny began to shake. “You shut up!”
“I know what it’s like to find someone you love like that. Because of you, I know exactly what it’s like to find someone like that.”
“You were supposed to stop me! It’s your fault Christopher died. You were supposed to come home. You let him die!” Kenny screamed, his neck corded, and spittle shot out of his mouth.
August refused to let the anger consume him. “When did it start for you? You were fifteen or sixteen when you found him . . . but when did the anger start? I had a little chat with your mum. She called me to tell me it was you.”
He blanched. “She did not,” he whispered.
“Had a lovely cup of tea. In the china teacups with the blue birds? In her living room with her floral lounges.” The colour drained from Kenny’s face. “Nice photos on the mantel, by the way. I wouldn’t have put you and Hirsch together back then, but I have the photo of you two with Terry Gao in front of your brand new ute. The same ute you picked up Perry Ahern in. And all this time, you thought no one would care about those missing gay men. Well guess what, arsehole? I care. And so
does your mother.”
His eyes hardened. “You can’t prove anything.”
“Yes we can. We have evidence. What tests couldn’t determine twenty years ago, they can now. Did you know they can get a positive trace for P7849 from an old blood sample these days? If the sample fits on half a pin head, they can match it now. You’re going down for all of them.”
He shook his head. “No.”
“And Nina told me everything. She spilled like a bag of wheat.”
Kenny’s face went red.
August kept pushing and he took slow and small steps forward, inching closer and closer. “Wanna know what your mum asked me? She wanted to know if I could possibly know what it’s like to have a child that was evil. She said there was something wrong with you from an early age. She said you were cold and that you didn’t feel anything. We’d call that a sociopath. She called it evil. Semantics.”
His nostrils flared. He didn’t like that. He didn’t like that at all. Kenny’s expression changed and he went really still, his face went blank. “Christopher begged me. He begged me not to do it. Said you’d be home soon, but you weren’t, were you? He bled out in the bathtub. I’m glad it was you who found him.”
“You can’t make me angry enough to shoot you or to beat your fucking skull in. Even as much as I want to. That’d be too good for you. You will go to prison. And they’re gonna love you in prison. You can spend the rest of your miserable fucking life being beaten, threatened, pissed on, I don’t give a fuck. You will pay for what you did, every minute of the rest of your life.”
Hirsch, a horrified mess, his face pallid and shaking his head, began to edge backwards. Kenny held the box cutter like a weapon. “You’re out here all alone, Shaw. Whatcha gonna do?”
“No he’s not,” a woman’s voice said, and Deans came through the trees on the other side, her gun raised. “He’s not alone.”
Then behind her, Agent Eather, his gun raised, followed, and more uniformed officers came up from the south. All guns pointed at Kenny. “You’re surrounded,” Eather said. “It’s over.”
Kenny froze, and in that moment of shock, they swarmed Hirsch and Kenny, disarming Kenny, and pushing them both to the ground. August ran to Jacob.
He was slumped over on his side, his eyes half closed. He had blood on his face from a gash at his left temple and a swollen left eye. “Jacob,” August said, putting his fingers to his neck. He could feel a pulse. “He’s still alive! We need an ambulance!” he yelled. “Jake, Jake, can you hear me?” August tried to rouse him gently. That didn’t work, so he shook his shoulder a little. “Jacob!”
Jake’s eyelids fluttered a little and August almost collapsed with relief. He pulled him up into a sitting position, leaning against the tree, and Jake’s eyes swam before finally focusing on August, and he smiled.
August cupped his face and barked out a half-laugh, half-sob. “You fucking scared me,” August said, patting his chest and arms and his face again. “You’re okay, Jake. You’re gonna be okay. It’s over.”
Jake slow blinked, still wasted, drugged to the eyeballs. He didn’t even try to speak.
August turned to yell for the ambulance again when Bartlett knelt down on the other side of Jake. “Ambulance is on the way,” Bartlett said. He looked over the gash at Jacob’s temple. “Could be fractured. There’s dirt and leaf matter near the wound. Looks like he was kicked.” Then he opened Jake’s eyelid and stared at his pupils. “Jesus Christ.”
“They drugged him,” August explained. “It’s how they made their victims compliant. Help me get him up. The ambos won’t be able to bring a gurney in here.” Then August put his hand to Jacob’s cheek. “Jake, we’re gonna stand you up, okay?”
Jake didn’t respond, he didn’t speak and didn’t blink, but then he did the craziest thing. He stood up like they weren’t even right there fussing over him, startling both August and Bartlett. But then Jake swayed and August caught him. “I’ve got you, I’ve got you,” he said, and Bartlett grabbed his other side. “We’re gonna walk out to the clearing, okay?”
Jacob lifted his leg as though to walk, and August was horrified. He was literally trying to obey every command. Bartlett looked equally shocked. “What the hell?”
“That’s P7849,” August explained as they began the slow walk out to the clearing. “It makes the victim a robot.”
Bartlett blinked, alarmed. “The pharmacological torture drug? Fucking hell.”
“You wanted the missing piece. Well, that’s it.”
“Will he be okay?” Bartlett asked.
“I don’t know,” August answered honestly. “Every other person who’s had it was killed.”
“Fuck.”
They had to step over a fallen log. “Jake, step up,” August urged quietly. Jake did exactly as ordered, and then they stepped down on the other side. And August hated—hated—that he could command him like that. Bartlett clearly didn’t like it either. His frown was carved into his face.
August’s realisation of Bartlett’s presence finally kicked in. “Bartlett, what are you doing here?”
“I came with Constable Deans,” he replied. “I knew something was wrong. Nina was behaving so strangely, and then your request to re-examine the old cases came through. I got the requests for retesting, but when I questioned her, she said Kenny had cancelled the request and that it wouldn’t prove anything. The way she said it was just off. So I put the order for retesting through and got two positive matches back from two testings. I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you, Shaw—”
“Shit. Nina!” August looked around for the closest uniform. “Doctor Nina Schneider is in a Jeep about four hundred metres up the fire trail,” August said, pointing in that direction. “She’s in on the whole thing with Kenny and Hirsch. I don’t think she’s armed, but she was very upset.”
Three cops ran back out toward the clearing, and August shot Bartlett a look. “She was a mess. She drove us in the back way so Hirsch and Kenny wouldn’t see us, I’m guessing. She drove so fast, and she was yelling and sobbing. She was bawling, then just slumped over the steering wheel, staring and crying. Almost catatonic by the time I left.”
Bartlett shook his head sadly. “Well, she made her bed. If she’s had any part of this, she can pay the consequences. You have to know, Shaw. I trusted her, and I trusted her reports. I shouldn’t have, and I’m sorry.”
When they got to the clearing, the last of the daylight was barely clinging on, as though the sun had waited for Jake to get out before calling it a day. Jake was more of a dead weight between them, his feet dragged a little, his head slumped forward, and there was no way he could even stand unassisted. They each held him up and Deans ran over to them. “Oh, thank God!”
August could see now, there were a dozen cop cars and blue and red flashing lights. Kenny and Hirsch were lying face down on the cold ground, metres apart, their hands cuffed behind their backs.
Deans put her hand to Jake’s face, but her eyes met August’s. “Is he okay?”
“He’s alive. Thanks to you,” August said.
She got a little teary. “And thanks to you.”
Agent Eather came over then and looked into Jake’s eyes. He mumbled something and shook his head. Then he turned to the other suit August had seen at the airport. “Get me an ETA on that ambulance.”
August just wanted to pick Jake up and carry him, hold him, do something.
Then Eather looked to August. “We lost you before we’d left the airport car park. I called Deans. She pulled the whole thing together and we met up in Tallowwood.”
August felt like crying, but he swallowed it back. He gave Deans a nod. “Thank you.”
“Eather!” the other suit guy called out. They turned to find him pointing as an ambulance appeared, blue and red lights flashing.
The ambulance drove through the swarm of police cars and they soon had Jacob on the gurney and loaded him into the back of the van. “I’m going with him,” August said, climbing in.
They closed the doors, and as they made the slow trip through all the police and cop cars, August could see Agent Eather talking to Deans, then she was giving orders, pointing at some poor uniform, but August couldn’t bring himself to care.
The whole mess could be someone else’s problem right now. All he was worried about, the only thing in the whole world that mattered, was Jacob.
August took his hand. “I’ve got you, Jake.”
Jake turned his head a little, and when he saw it was August, he smiled.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Jake became aware of sounds first. There was beeping, consistent and reassuring, and soft voices. Some familiar, some not. Then he became aware of the pain and the nausea. He opened his eyes to a blinding-white and too-bright light, and it pierced his brain. He rolled onto his side so he could vomit. “It’s okay, I’ve got it,” a familiar voice said, warm and lovely.
People were fussing and he knew he was in hospital. Someone’s hand was on his shoulder while he was sick again, they were holding the bed pan until he could vomit no more, then they dabbed his face with a damp cloth and cleaned him up.
He slumped back onto the bed, more tired than he could ever remember being, and sleep was quick to claim him.
The next time he woke up, there was less light and less noise, less pain, and he didn’t need to vomit. He could at least put some kind of thoughts in order, so he established that he was feeling better. His mum was there talking quietly to his dad. Jake tried to speak, but his mouth felt like he’d eaten dirt. “Hey,” he croaked.
“Jake!” his mum whispered, rushing to his side. She snatched up his hand with tears in her eyes. “Oh, my sweet boy. You’re okay, you’re in the hospital. Do you feel okay? Maybe we should get the doctor.” She patted his dad’s arm. “Go and find the doc, love. And call Brenna. She’s been worried sick.”