by Sarah Barrie
Logan leant on the side of the ute beside Connor. ‘That’s what this was all about. You wanted to intervene and turn their lives around before they were beyond help.’
‘Guess I’d just like to think it’s working.’
‘Worked for Harvey, Blake and Dustin. Travis and Matty are working out and well, then there’s Orson. I’d say that’s a pretty good batting average. Might not always run that way, but I reckon you can give yourself a pat on the back.’
‘I think we both can. A big part of this has been you. But if it’s got Bailey killed, I’m not really sure how I feel about it all anymore.’
‘I’m pretty sure I still feel good about Harvey and Blake and Dustin, about Travis and Matty, maybe even Orson. Not so much whoever did that. That guy can rot in hell.’
Ned shouted an instruction down the line to Matty, who answered with a ‘Yep!’
Connor checked his watch. ‘I think it’s knock-off time.’
‘Agreed. Let’s call them back.’
The men were scattered along the fence line checking for stray bits of wire and rubbish they might have left behind.
‘Right, guys! Let’s go!’ Logan bellowed.
Travis came back with Ned, then Matty appeared.
‘Where’s Orson?’ Connor asked when he didn’t show.
‘No idea,’ Ned said with a frown. ‘He was up past me at one point. Then I lost him, thought he must have gotten round me to come back here.’
‘Guys, have you seen him?’ Connor asked Travis and Matty. Both shook their heads. He exchanged glances with Logan.
‘Probably just nature calling,’ Logan said, but he began walking down the fence line to look.
‘Jump in the ute,’ Connor said. ‘We’ll drive. He could be a lot further along. He’s been working at full speed all day.’
But there was no sign of Orson. They drove back and forth repeatedly, calling, then traipsed into the scrub surrounding the paddock, while the knot in Connor’s stomach got tighter and tighter.
‘He can’t have just vanished,’ he said.
‘He could if he took off in there,’ Logan said of the heavy bushland.
‘But why would he? There’s no reason for him to take off.’ Connor’s imagination kicked in. Snake bite? Hole in the ground? Concussion? Was Orson lying somewhere, hidden and hurt? The thoughts had him crashing further into the scrub, knowing that in conditions like these he’d almost need to fall over someone before spotting them. Then all the questions Orson had asked the first day they’d come out here resonated in his head.
‘I’m going to call Cole.’
Logan nodded. ‘And I’ll call Indy.’
* * *
Callie wasn’t sure what woke her, but it could have been the cold. She’d been dreaming she was in a pretty pink bedroom, playing with toys and chatting happily to a friend. Only it wasn’t a friend sitting beside her, it was Ava’s memorial stone. ‘Weird,’ she muttered with a shake of her head and a little laugh as she sat up. She’d kicked the covers off and the fire had all but died, only the faintest glow suggested it hadn’t entirely given up.
She shivered and rubbed her hands over her arms in an attempt to generate some warmth, then frowned as she realised the bedside table clock was off. Then she noted the fridge wasn’t generating its usual quiet hum. The power must’ve gone out again.
She dragged the blankets back up and located her phone, switching on the torch then padding out to put another log on the fire. She tossed one in and stood by it, allowed the warmth to seep into her. When she could feel her fingers and toes, she headed back to bed.
And couldn’t quite stop the scream as the torch beam swept around and lit up a set of eyes on the lounge chair.
‘Oh my God.’ She swore, then laughed at herself as the face of one of Paisley’s dolls shone back at her. ‘No monsters,’ she told herself out loud, holding her hand over her heart in a desperate attempt to steady it.
It took a couple of seconds for a more insidious chill to wash over the desperate relief. It ran down her spine, settled in the pit of her stomach. How had the doll gotten onto the chair? In the darkness, with only the mad, flickering dance of the firelight and the harsh, direct beam of the torch, Callie could have sworn that white, glowing face was watching her, laughing at her.
She spun around, and around again. Dolls didn’t move by themselves. They didn’t. How did it get there? She pointed the torch into all the corners of the room. She went through the same procedure with the wardrobe, Paisley’s room, the rest of the house. Everything was locked. Everything was as it should be. Except the doll. She picked it up. It was dusty, covered in a film of dirt that left a trail when she slid a finger across its face. How had that happened? She looked closer. Wait … this wasn’t the same doll. She took it into Paisley’s room, saw the other ones still in place on the shelf.
‘What—are you multiplying?’ she muttered. She tucked the doll in next to them with a trembling hand and noticed this doll had AW sewn into the bottom corner of the dress. She checked the other ones. Sure enough there was a PW and a EW. She thought of the memorial, the plaque. Ava? Paisley had never mentioned a sister. But who else would have one of her mother’s dolls? A cousin perhaps? Regardless, whoever Ava was wasn’t really the point right now. It wasn’t right that the doll had just turned up on the chair like that. She took another long look at the doll before hurrying out, firmly closing the door to Paisley’s room.
She sat staring into the fire for a long time trying to rationalise what had happened. But she had no answers as she finally crawled back into bed. After an age, as she eventually drifted off to sleep, Jonah’s words came to mind.
Have strange things been happening in the cottage, Callie?
* * *
Orson’s legs were screaming, his breath was a wheeze, but he kept going. He had to get as far from Calico Mountain as possible. The cops had swarmed in and he’d ducked them all evening, but they’d disappeared with the last of the light. He hadn’t seen anything but the faint gleam of moonlight on the dirt track for hours, but he was pretty sure he was headed in the right direction. A cop car had driven out this way as they’d wrapped up the search. Round every bend, over every rise, he’d hoped to find a road, a way out, but all he’d come across so far was more track, more bushland.
The chill invaded the extremities of his otherwise overheated system and his gut churned, empty. At the edge of the chill and the hunger lay what felt suspiciously like guilt for bolting on Connor and Logan, maybe getting them into some trouble. But hanging around was only going to get him killed. They all thought he was nuts. Kaicey wouldn’t even talk to him. Ned had told him to leave. Hypocrites. They were as guilty as he was. Especially Kaicey. She’d cop it. He’d be long gone. He knew where he was headed, knew someone who would help him get there.
He almost fell out onto the road as a truck flew past. He was ready for the next one and thumbed it down.
It took him right through to New Norfolk. He jumped out, waved and made his way down the little street, found the house he was looking for and, stumbling with exhaustion to the door, knocked.
Lights came on and the scuffle of slippers got closer. The door opened. Surprised eyes looked him up and down. ‘Well, whatever’s happened to you?’
‘I was working out at Calico Mountain, jumped the fence. I’ve been running all night. Had to get going. He’s been there. He got to one of the horses.’
‘Come in, come in. Let me get you warm, get you a drink.’
‘Thanks. I’m sorry about the time. I didn’t know where else to go.’ He sat on a stool at the kitchen bench, accepted a juice while the kettle boiled.
‘I bet everyone’s searching for you out that way then,’ the woman said, putting bread and butter and homemade marmalade on the bench.
‘The national park, yeah. They were. But I got away. Hard terrain to find anyone.’
‘No way they could know you’ve come out here?’
‘Nah. I was care
ful.’
‘Good.’
He was handed a sandwich. It barely touched the sides as he took one mighty mouthful after another. ‘Shoulda come here ages ago. Heard about Mike, tried to warn Kaicey and Ned. They wouldn’t listen.’ He kept talking between mouthfuls of food. He was starving, could have gone another sandwich.
‘Done?’
‘Yeah,’ he decided, because he was more tired than hungry. Was she going to make that coffee?
‘We’d better get you back then.’
He stopped sculling the juice and lowered the glass. ‘What?’
‘We can’t have anyone knowing you came here,’ she said, patting his hand. ‘You’re not one of us anymore.’
It took a moment to sink in. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. ‘Why not?’
‘You told tales, Orson. Nasty tales. That can’t be tolerated. So, are you ready?’
‘But—’
‘It’s no trouble.’
The voice behind Orson locked up the breath in his lungs and choked him with terror.
‘I’ll even give you a ride.’
He started to shake. The sandwich heaved in his stomach, then his bladder loosened, soaking his jeans. He couldn’t think, even to run. The mind-numbing terror was just too much. He turned, slowly, willing himself to be mistaken. He wasn’t.
‘Never mind, dear,’ said the woman he thought would shelter him from the monster stalking slowly towards him. ‘Our actions always catch up with us in the end.’
CHAPTER
18
Connor didn’t sleep well. They’d searched for Orson until nightfall and found nothing. He picked at breakfast, called Indy as soon as he thought polite to see if anything had happened overnight.
‘Official conclusion is he’s done a runner,’ she told him. ‘He’s taken off before—they call them episodes, where he thinks he’s being stalked by someone who wants him dead and he runs, then calms down and comes back.’
Connor cursed. ‘But he’d just got through telling me how much he was enjoying the program.’
‘Yeah and the day before that he was trying to convince Kaicey she needed to run away with him or die. We’ve got people out looking for him again this morning, checking all his known haunts, talking to everyone who knows him. He’ll turn up.’
‘All right. Thanks.’ He hung up and walked to the window. He would have sworn from Orson’s behaviour that he’d had something genuine to worry about. But what did he really know about mental illness? Not enough. He’d just have to hope Indy was right and he’d turn up safe and sound.
He buried himself in his office, got a couple of hours’ work out of the way. But he was restless, unable to settle to anything more, so he decided to walk it off. He headed in the direction of the stables, had almost decided to grab a horse to take another look for Orson—just in case—when movement in the garden caught his eye. Callie. And she was attacking the mulch like it was the enemy. He guessed he wasn’t the only one having a difficult morning, so he crossed onto the grass.
‘Hi,’ he said.
She glanced up, smiled. Sort of. ‘Hey.’
‘What are you doing here? It’s Saturday.’
‘That’s okay, isn’t it?’ The rake she was wielding came down hard beside his foot.
He moved away, then changed his mind and put a hand on the rake at its next sweep. ‘What’s up?’
‘I needed to get out of the cottage.’
The tension emanating from her had knots forming in his own stomach. ‘Why? What happened?’
‘Nothing. It’s not important.’
Because she looked like she wanted to tell him, Connor waited her out. She took another swing with the rake, then another before huffing and glaring as though she was aware of his tactic.
‘I woke up in the middle of the night and there was this doll sitting in the chair staring at me like something out of a bad horror movie.’
‘A doll?’
‘I’m possibly losing my mind, but I would have sworn absolutely blind it wasn’t there before I fell asleep. The cottage was all locked up. No sign anyone could have gotten in—and why would anyone break in to leave a kid’s toy on a chair? The damn thing just … materialised.’
‘There has to be an explanation,’ he said.
‘And all I keep thinking about is Jonah. I was down at the river tidying up Ava’s memorial stone and he turned up and asked me if strange stuff had been happening in the cottage. That’s odd, right? But I can’t see a kid that age running around in the middle of the night to play tricks on me.’
‘I’m a bit surprised a kid that age is running around all the way out there by himself ever. Who’s Ava?’
‘I don’t actually know. And I’m sounding crazier by the second,’ she admitted, ‘because I tidied up a memorial for someone I’ve never met. But it was so sad to see it unkempt. It just pulled at me.’ She laughed at herself. ‘You’re going to think you’ve employed a lunatic.’
‘Then you’ll fit in well around here. But if anything else happens out there that you can’t explain, please tell me. Or Indy. If someone is messing with you, harmless or not, it needs to be sorted.’
‘Okay. I already feel a bit better, actually, just for sharing. So thanks. Do you want a turn?’
‘A turn?’
‘I shared. And you looked about as cheerful as me when you stalked over here. So now it’s your turn.’ The smile she sent him nearly knocked him over. ‘That’s how it works. Come on, it’ll take my mind off my own dramas.’
‘You don’t need to hear it.’
She surprised him by sitting on one of the large rocks in the garden. ‘Well?’
Connor rubbed his forehead to forestall a brewing headache and sat beside her. ‘Just a problem with one of the rehab group. Looks like he’s taken off.’
‘What happened?’
‘He was up the back of the property where we were fencing the boundary line. He’d been asking the week before about what was on the other side of that fence, where it went, were there trails, that sort of thing. But I didn’t think he’d bolt. I just didn’t see it. I’ve since discovered he has a history of it.’
‘Then he shouldn’t have been here.’
‘Probably not.’ He stared into space. ‘And I probably should have kept a better eye on him. I thought the program could be a way of making something good come out of something bad. But I think I’ve just brought more trouble here.’
‘What was the something bad you were trying to turn around?’
‘A situation with an ex-fiancée.’ He laughed a little. ‘I kind of summed it up the other day.’
‘She shot you. Why?’
He sighed. He didn’t even know where to begin. ‘She got tied up with the wrong people, with drugs. When I found out, I wanted to help her get clean. She wasn’t interested and I couldn’t handle that so I broke it off. She shot back that she was pregnant.’
‘Oh, ouch. Tough one.’
‘I was worried about her, about the baby. I found a treatment program that could help her manage drug withdrawal safely during pregnancy. She wasn’t interested and we got into an argument. I went after her, and she stopped at the top of the stairs to tell me what she thought of me. But as she spun back around she stepped into thin air. I lunged to try and grab her but she went right down. She turned up the next day, told me she’d lost the baby. Then she went to stay with the guy who’d given her the drugs in the first place.’
He couldn’t believe he’d just blurted that out.
‘That’s awful, I’m sorry.’
‘So many people were put in serious danger because of the drugs that guy and his family were manufacturing. Indy, Logan, the family, the business—everything suffered. And I still thought I could get through to her, turn her around. I couldn’t.’ Connor smiled weakly. ‘So I took on this program for young drug offenders, aimed at helping them get back on their feet so they don’t reoffend. I thought that even though I couldn’t change what happene
d with Jules, perhaps I could help other young people. Turn their lives around.’ He rubbed his hand over his face. ‘But now this. It was a mistake to take the program on.’
After several moments of silence, he heard her take a deep breath.
‘So if we’re talking second chances, is having me here a mistake?’ she asked.
He knew there was probably too much warmth in his stare, but he couldn’t pull it all the way back. ‘Not from where I’m sitting.’ He allowed that to sink in, then laughed self-consciously. ‘I don’t generally blurt out that story. Sorry. It’s just been a hell of a couple of days.’
‘I don’t think there’s any way to get through this whole life thing without stuffing up,’ she finally said. ‘So you may as well stuff up trying to do the right thing as the wrong thing.’
‘When you put it like that …’
‘You’ve done this before—I know because Harvey was telling me his story. He told me that three kids have jobs and a new start. This time you’ve got more looking like going the same way. The other guy—I’m guessing Orson, right? It sucks. It’s not fair. But it’s not on you. And you’ll get this sorted, and in years to come it will be a distant bad memory. But this place will always be a good memory to those boys who succeeded here, who got their start. You haven’t failed, Connor. If you shut this down tomorrow, five people’s lives have changed for the better because of it. Isn’t that why you began in the first place?’
Now she’d done it. She hadn’t been staring, not sure of what to say. She’d been formulating the perfect answer. It took every ounce of willpower he had not to lean across the space between them and kiss her. If she hadn’t already said no, he would have.
‘Thanks,’ he said instead, clearing his throat when it came out a little rough.
She gave him a solid pat on the leg as she got up. ‘Anytime,’ she said, her voice returning to its regular, brisk friendliness. ‘I’d better get back to work.’
‘Me too,’ he said. ‘If I don’t see you at lunch, have a good weekend. You can call me, you know that, right? If there’s any more trouble out there. I’ll be around.’