Wildflower Ridge

by Maya Linnell

  ‘Stupid bitch. Look what she made me do,’ said Sam, flexing his fingers indignantly.

  Pete’s voice came out in a snarl.

  ‘You wife-beating, child-snatching arsehole. Get away from her.’

  Sam’s face transformed into a confident mask, his breathing heavier as he winked at Pete.

  ‘Lucky she likes it rough.’

  Penny fumbled behind her back. She clasped a drawer handle and pulled it open as Pete’s self-control reached its limit. He shook with fury as he approached Sam, flailing punches left, right and centre. Penny fished in the drawer until her fingers clasped the first weapon she could find.

  ‘Where are the kids, you fucking sicko?’

  Pete continued to rush at Sam, grunting with each blow. Penny tossed a glance over her shoulder, seeing the implement she’d grabbed was a meat mallet. She held it behind her back, trying to work out how and when to intervene as Sam used speed against Pete’s bulk. Pete reeled from a series of sharp jabs to his face, one eye instantly swelling closed. His heavy punches began lagging as Sam danced around him.

  Penny felt sweat dripping down her back. The room’s temperature rose in a sweaty, blood-scented fug. The men panted as they squared off against one another. Fear gripped Penny as Sam ducked a sluggish blow to deliver a lightning strike to Pete’s windpipe.

  Pete fell to the floor. Sam’s face lit up in triumph as he swiped a bloody hand across his brow. His excitement was palpable, perverted even, as if he were getting a kick out of the whole thing. Penny looked at the door, wishing Tim would choose that moment to burst into the room. The door didn’t budge, and she realised she was now acutely vulnerable, stuck in a room with a man who apparently enjoyed inflicting pain.

  A nasty smile crossed Sam’s blood-smeared face. His voice came out in sharp gasps, evidence that Pete had landed a few good punches before he’d hit the deck.

  ‘You were always stronger than your sister, weren’t you, Penny? The prettiest one with the best head on her shoulders, good at running away with her tail between her legs.’ His eyes travelled lazily along her body, scrutinising her breasts as he spoke. Penny shuddered as he came closer. ‘You should do that now before things get really messy. Unless, of course, you take after your sister. You like that type of thing too, do you?’

  Lara pushed herself up into a sitting position. Pete lay where he had landed, his eyes still closed. Blood trickled down the side of his face.

  Penny felt her phone vibrate in her pocket but didn’t dare relinquish her grip on the mallet. She shook her head, knowing she was the only one who could get herself out of this situation.

  ‘You’ve got it wrong, Sam. Lara’s the strong one. But when you mess with one McIntyre, you mess with us all.’ Penny windmilled her arm as if she were sending a cricket ball down the pitch. The meat mallet crashed down on Sam’s left shoulder with a sickening thud. She lunged at him, head down as her knee connected with his groin, then thrust her head upward, feeling a jolt of lightning arcing across her skull as it connected with his jaw. The impact slammed them into the tiles. The wind whooshed from her chest. She curled up on the cold floor.

  Penny closed her eyes against the pain. Her body and her mind fought for dominance, and she used the last of her strength to suck in air and scramble away from Sam’s body. His eyes were closed and she noticed a raised spotted pattern on his forehead. Dazed, it took her a few seconds to understand what the marks were. She looked across at Lara, who kneeled beside her ex-husband, her hands wrapped tightly around the mallet.

  Lara’s voice sounded far away and Penny smiled faintly at her words.

  ‘Nice move, sis. I think this bastard needs a lot more tenderising though.’ She flicked the mallet down onto his forehead again. The dull thud instantly caused another square of dots to appear on his skin.

  ‘Steady on, Lara. We don’t want to kill him.’

  Lara giggled.

  ‘Says who? Only thing stopping me is a jail sentence. Help me tie him up before he regains consciousness. Check his room for ropes or duct tape. There’s bound to be some in his bedside drawers.’

  Sixty-four

  Tim ran through the hallway, terrified by the silence that had greeted him as he’d flung open the back door.

  ‘Everybody okay in here?’

  ‘Nothing an ambulance won’t fix. But still no kids. How about you?’ Penny’s voice was hopeful as she called out to him.

  ‘No kids either.’ Tim approached the doorway, his eyes wide as he surveyed the kitchen. He blew out a sharp breath of relief at the sight of Sam tied up like a wild boar. Lying on his front, his hands and feet were fastened together behind his back. Pete waved feebly from his position propped up against the wall, a bag of peas pressed against his head. Lara tried for a blood-spattered smile but only managed to wince. Her hand cradled her ribs.

  ‘Jesus, Mac, I leave you alone for five minutes and it turns nasty. What have you been teaching her, Lara?’

  He saw Penny cringe at his choice of words, and shame suffusing Lara’s blotched face. Get your foot out of your mouth, Patterson. He walked across the room to inspect the binds keeping Sam immobile. Penny had used lashings of duct tape around his ankles and wrists and had linked the limbs with baling twine.

  She flashed him a grin, looking almost giddy with relief. ‘If you can’t tie knots, tie lots, right?’

  He nodded, impressed with her handiwork. Sam rocked back and forth, testing his binds. A rush of anger surged through Tim’s tense body when he saw spit flying in Penny’s direction.

  Tim bent down close to Sam. He felt like smacking him in the face to shut him up, but there had already been enough violence for one night.

  ‘Bloody bitches. They’re crazy. Help a brother out, would you, Tim?’

  Tim shook his head, pulling the socks from Sam’s feet. He grimaced at their damp warmth and pushed them into Sam’s mouth.

  ‘No brother of mine would ever disrespect a woman like that, Sam. I can’t believe I trusted you, called you a mate for all those years. I’m going to give you a little break while we all catch our breath, and then you’re going to tell us where Cameron and Evie are.’

  Penny leaned over, her floral scent calming him as she secured Sam’s socks with a strip of duct tape.

  Penny ripped open every cupboard in the lounge room until she was sure she’d checked all the nooks and crannies. She returned to the kitchen as Tim swept through the bedrooms and bathrooms a second time.

  Frisking Sam’s body with distaste, she pulled a mobile phone and an iPod from his pockets. She handed the phone to Lara, crouched down and embraced her gingerly.

  ‘I wish you’d told us, Lara. It would have explained a lot.’

  She watched the hardness ebb away from Lara’s face, regret replacing the hostility she customarily reserved for Penny.

  Lara hung her head. ‘How could I? I made a pact with myself when I left. I didn’t want his actions to rule the rest of my life or feed the rumour mill. So apart from the counsellor at the women’s helpline, no one else knew. And I managed pretty well until you came home, flaunting your high heels, your high-income lifestyle that I desperately wanted. The opportunities and freedom that were never an option for me. And then I finally manage to leave this bastard—’ Lara laughed dryly—‘for all of a month or two, before he wormed his way back into my life. He would have got custody of Evie if the authorities had seen that bloody video. It was his fantasy not mine, but I’m the one caught on camera.’

  Penny worked hard to keep her face neutral, knowing sympathy was the last thing her sister wanted. Her heart ached to think of the pain Lara had endured, the emotions she’d cloaked in bitterness. She was sceptical such a video would have helped Sam, but it was obvious Lara thought so.

  Lara busied herself with unlocking Sam’s phone. She typed in two passwords, hitting the jackpot on her second attempt.

  ‘Not smart enough to change your password though, are you, Sam?’

  Penny averted
her eyes as Lara scrolled through his photos and videos.

  ‘Quite a collection here. You haven’t wasted any time trawling the Western District for other suckers to film, have you?’

  ‘I’ll archive the email on Dad’s computer. Then you can choose whether to destroy that version or keep it as evidence,’ Penny suggested.

  ‘Don’t delete them all—we’ll need something to give the police,’ said Pete. ‘Kidnapping, creating and distributing non-consensual pornography, extortion, blackmail, domestic violence … they’ll be interested to see that. Give us a look at the iPod. Can’t imagine it’s his.’

  Penny passed Pete the device and he flipped it around in his hands.

  ‘Looks like Cameron’s.’ He pressed a switch on the side, taking a sharp breath as the screen lit up. ‘Justin Bieber, Taylor Swift—definitely Cameron’s. Where did you get this? Where’s my boy?’ Pete took the mallet from Lara and stood over Sam’s prostrate body. Blood from his broken nose dripped onto Sam’s face. Pete’s eyes darkened as he grappled with his self-control. His voice came out in a tight snarl.

  ‘Unlike you, I don’t get any joy from hurting people, so I’m going to give you one last chance to explain.’ He ripped the tape from Sam’s face, watching him gag as he spat the socks from his mouth.

  ‘I don’t have him, I swear. I don’t even know where Evie is. She buggered off just before you got here. I wasn’t going to hurt them. You’ve got to believe me.’

  Pete shoved the socks back into his mouth and put a new strip of tape over it.

  ‘I wouldn’t believe you as far as I could throw you. We’re calling the cops.’

  Penny ended the call to the police station, but before she could put the phone back into her pocket, it began vibrating again. ‘Home’ was written across the screen. She put it on speakerphone, so Pete and Lara could hear.

  ‘Any sign of the kids?’

  ‘We’ve got Cam,’ cried Diana, her voice breaking. ‘The neighbours dropped him home a minute ago. He knocked on the Clearys’ front door, wet as a shag and inconsolable. But physically he’s fine.’

  Penny felt a rush of relief and watched Pete’s swollen hands come to his bruised and bloodied face, tears streaming down his cheeks. She took a shuddering breath, her lip trembling as she clocked Lara’s frozen expression.

  ‘Evie?’

  ‘No. But Cameron said she went with Sam. They both did, but he dropped Cam off a kilometre down the road, told him to wait in the Clearys’ hay shed until I picked him up. He waited and waited, then made his way to the Clearys’ cottage. Vince left too, something about an event he needed to prepare for tomorrow. What’s happening at your end? Everyone okay?’

  Penny let Vince’s departure wash past without a second thought; nothing he did surprised her anymore.

  ‘All accounted for, but no Evie. Sam reckons she went missing just before we arrived, but he’s such a lying bastard, it’s hard to know what’s what. We’ll keep looking.’ Penny felt like kicking Sam for emphasis but restrained herself. She ended the call and moved to Lara’s side. Lara’s mute distress was worse than her sarcastic remarks and whisky-throwing rage. Penny ground her teeth and scowled at Sam.

  ‘We’ll find her, Lara. If it’s the last thing we do.’

  Tim walked back into the lounge room, pausing as he listened to the tail end of Penny and Diana’s conversation.

  ‘Penny, Lara, Pete. You’d better come see what I found in the garage.’

  Sixty-five

  Tim used his torch to guide them down a hedged pathway to the garage. He slid open the latch and fumbled for the light switch.

  Penny squinted against the sudden burst of artificial light, opening her eyes slowly to inspect the workshop. She jumped, her breath catching in her throat as a cat brushed up against her legs, pressing its body against her.

  ‘Damn cat, nearly gave me a heart attack. Scoot, puss.’ Tools hung from the wall, an extensive collection of ropes lay in one corner and buckets of paint lined the workbenches. They stepped around an antique tractor in the middle of the room and followed Tim up a narrow ladder.

  He passed the torch to Penny and climbed onto the mezzanine level. Penny moved up the last few steps. She gasped at the scene before her, crawling in next to Tim. Her head almost touched the ceiling as she kneeled beside him.

  Lara got to the top of the ladder, grimacing with pain. She assessed the room silently. A freshly made bed took up the majority of the floor space, cartoon characters smiling up from the quilt cover. A hanging rack of pink clothes stood on one side, and a bookshelf full of books and Barbies on the other.

  ‘Looks like he was preparing for a visitor,’ she said softly.

  Tim pressed his lips together.

  ‘More than just an overnighter.’

  Pete’s voice floated up from the bottom of the ladder.

  ‘Don’t leave me hanging. What is it?’

  ‘Sam’s made up a bedroom for Evie.’ Penny heard Lara’s voice falter, but then the familiar McIntyre determination shone through in her next sentence. ‘She’s got to be here somewhere. I’m going to keep looking.’

  The garage door creaked closed and Pete’s and Lara’s voices rang out as they extended their search outside.

  ‘What if we don’t find her, Tim? I thought finding her in a dam would be unbearable, but … Maybe it’s time to call the police?’

  Penny leaned her head on Tim’s shoulder, letting go of the tears she’d held back for Lara’s sake. His arms reached around her, and she sobbed to the faint soundtrack of a badly wounded and desperate mother calling her daughter’s name.

  Tim stroked her hair and held her until the tears ran dry. She wiped her face with his shirt. His chest was warm underneath the thin, wet fabric. She looked up into his eyes.

  ‘I’m sorry about the farm too, Tim. I never meant to sabotage your dreams. Can you please come back and help me? No more drama. No more aggro.’ She was tempted to tell him what she did want more of, starting with a T and ending with an M, but stopped herself. Now is sure as hell not the right place for this type of discussion. He doesn’t feel that way, anyway. His behaviour confirms it time and time again. She recalled the exceptions to the rule—the shirtless moment in the hall bathroom and the time she’d jammed her finger in the gate. The way his body had betrayed him, speaking a timeless language more powerfully than the words that continually pushed her away.

  Tim’s grey eyes flashed, his gaze suddenly as chilly as his rain-sodden clothes.

  ‘I don’t know if I can, Mac. It’s been … a rough ride. Let’s talk about it later, after we find Evie.’

  He pulled away and crawled past her. She saw the sadness in his face as he turned to step down the ladder. Penny hugged her feelings to her chest, glad she’d held them back. It had already been one of the most emotionally taxing nights of her life, without heaping rejection on top of it all.

  Rickety rungs creaked and flexed as Penny followed him down the ladder. She moved cautiously, only relaxing when she felt Tim’s strong arms either side of her, steadying the ladder. She hesitated, breathing in his nearness as she waited for him to step aside. But he didn’t.

  ‘Penny?’

  She turned slowly, her first name sounding unfamiliar coming from his lips. Her pulse raced at his proximity. If she let go of the rails and turned fully, she knew she’d be eye-to-eye with him. And then, if she just leaned in, her lips would brush up against his. A flutter of hope swelled in her belly, and she gripped the sides of the ladder tighter, guarding herself against hurt.

  ‘Yeah?’

  His breath came out in a rush, as if he’d been holding it. He let go of the ladder and stepped away, staring at the floor.

  ‘It feels wrong to think about anything other than Evie right now. You know what I mean?’

  Penny blinked away guilty disappointment, reality crashing into its place. She shrugged, stepping down onto the dusty concrete.

  ‘Sure. Let’s give Lara and Pete a hand. We can
’t rely on the walking wounded to cover much ground.’ She forced lightness into her voice to disguise the foolishness she felt.

  Tim held the door open for her. She ducked under his arm and kept her chin tucked to her chest as she walked out into the relentless rain.

  A strong wind whistled through the whippet-thin blue gum trunks along the boundary, teaming up with the rain to skew the noises around her. Penny couldn’t hear Pete or Lara anymore, but she picked up Tim’s voice to her right, and a series of short, sharp barks ahead.

  She felt movement at her legs again and almost tripped as the clingy cat wound its way through them and stopped directly in her path. It was the first feline she had seen that didn’t mind being wet, and she trained her phone torch on the tabby as it bounded away. She took a step towards it, halting as her brain mocked her movements.

  Great idea, Penny. Following a cat? And a dim-witted one at that. Next, you’ll be showing it a missing person poster and expecting an answer. She looked back towards Tim, his light beaming across the far end of the utility shed. She shook her head and continued calling as she headed in the cat’s direction.

  ‘Evie. Evie.’

  She watched the cat walk behind a stand of trees. The barking she had heard earlier became frantic and she picked up her pace. The hems of her jeans were soaking wet, but the cold and wind dropped into insignificance as she rounded the corner and spotted a series of raised dog kennels.

  ‘Evie?’

  Her heart sang as she heard a familiar voice reply through the rain and wind.

  ‘Aunty Penny? Aunty Penny!’

  Penny rubbed her eyes and craned her neck to make sure she wasn’t imagining the small body climbing out of the sheltered box, but there she was, wet and shivering, her own flesh and blood. The dog in the adjoining cage licked Evie’s face as she crawled along the wire enclosure and unlatched the door.