‘Did you find anyone?’
‘No,’ I knelt beside Snale. ‘What did you find?’
‘I think it’s this.’ She pointed to a messy diagram in blue and red ink. ‘I think it’s connected to the seat. If he gets up, it’ll blow.’
I grabbed the diary and took it to Kash, who was standing on his toes with another torch, trying to see down the back of Zac’s seat.
‘Oh Jesus.’ Zac panted, his sweat-drenched hands squeaking on the other side of the glass, fingers spread, desperate. ‘Jesus Christ, I think I can hear ticking.’
Kash snatched the diary out of my hands, glanced at the diagram. ‘Thought so. Circuit-breaker. It’s linked to the driver’s seat. We can open the doors.’
‘Don’t open the doors!’ Zac cried. ‘I don’t wanna die! Oh God! Please!’
‘Let’s go with the front passenger side,’ Kash said. ‘Just in case.’
We ran to the other side of the car. Kash pushed me back.
‘I’ll do it.’
He eased the handle of the passenger door out. There was a click. My mouth was dry as I cringed, waiting for the blast.
There was none. I rushed forwards to the doorway beside Kash, reached out and grabbed Zac’s hands.
‘It’s OK.’ I squeezed his hot fingers. ‘Don’t move. We’re gonna figure this out.’
Kash leaned in the doorway, trying not to touch anything, and shone the light quickly around the seats, the console, the back of the cabin.
‘Christ,’ he breathed. ‘It’s all wired up under the seats. I can’t get to it from this angle.’ He stood back, kept his voice low. ‘I can hear a timer ticking.’
‘Can you see it?’
‘No, it’s tucked up underneath. All the wires are. I can’t get at it unless I put my hand in there, and we have no idea where the switch is. If I disrupt the connection at the wrong point the thing will blow.’
We were walking unconsciously away from the car, taking steps out of the blast zone. Zac sat in the driver’s seat, reaching for us, sobbing.
‘Please don’t go! Don’t leave me here!’
‘What can we do?’
‘We can try to replace his weight on the seat,’ Kash panted, looking wildly at the house. ‘It’d have to be at least the same weight as the boy. We don’t know how sensitive the switch is. If it’s too light it might –’
‘I got it.’ I ran towards the house. In the hall was a backpack hanging on a row of hooks cluttered with hats and coats. I grabbed it and sprinted into the living room, almost slipping on the floorboards, and dumped the contents of the bag on the floor. I grabbed at anything heavy and started shoving. Wine bottles. A huge dictionary. A cast-iron sculpture on a shelf. Things were crashing everywhere as I went along. My hands were shaking so hard I could hardly use them. Zac’s screams burned in my ears.
‘I’m coming!’ I screamed. ‘I’m coming, Zac! Hold on!’
Chapter 67
CAITLYN’S KNEES BUCKLED beneath her. It was the only thing that saved her from his full arm swing, the punch sailing over her head as fear consumed her completely. She flopped against his legs, defeat turning her limbs to jelly. He grabbed her waist, hair, tried to get a hold of her. He was standing too close. Stepped back.
‘Stupid bitch,’ he snarled. He flipped her, hands beneath her arms, gripping painfully at the tender flesh. ‘Get back in there!’
It was the sight of the doorway that awakened the fury again in Caitlyn. The enormous sucking weight of the room beyond it. The hours, days, weeks she had lain awake in that concrete nightmare, dreaming of release. Her limbs suddenly hardened. She lifted her leg and slammed it into the doorframe, shocking him, sending them both staggering backwards.
‘No!’ she snarled, facing him, her body bent with pain and exhaustion. ‘Never again!’
She didn’t know how to fight. She’d never so much as been in a loud argument with a stranger. It was raw animal terror taking over now. Her hands sprang into claw-shapes, her jaw set and teeth bared. She threw herself at his middle with all her might. They hit the ground hard, his legs coming up and around her waist, arms and hands gripping at her face. She let him pull her into his embrace, bit some part of him hard through his shirt – his shoulder or upper chest. She was blinded, wild, tugging at his face and ears, scratching at his eyes.
He rolled and she was suddenly free, stumbling into the walls. She ran as though through water, trying to pull herself along. His footsteps pounded after her.
Chapter 68
I RAN OUT the front door of Snale’s house, stumbled, caught myself and rushed to the passenger-side door of the four-wheel drive with my arms full of the bag. Snale was standing on the lawn not far away, her face twisted in anguish. Kash stood dazed, his hands by his sides. The bag in my arms was spewing items. I dumped it on the passenger-side seat. The kid was wide-eyed, teeth chattering, his legs drawn up and arms gripping the ceiling of the car. Shock and terror.
‘Zac, slide this between your legs. Don’t get up until it’s on the seat,’ I stammered. ‘I … I think it’s heavy enough. I think …’
I remembered seeing a loose house brick by the front door. Zac grabbed the bag. I turned towards the house, stepped back, already twisting, already seeing the brick in my hand, only metres away.
I heard the timer scream.
Chapter 69
HE WAS BEHIND her. Right behind her – his fingers tangled in the very ends of her hair, yanking some of it free. Caitlyn ran through the labyrinth of halls searching for light, seeing only boarded-up windows and locked and barred doors. What floor were they on? What time of day was it? A part of her frantic brain throbbed with denial that any of this was real. She had dreamed so many times of escape. Part of her wanted to stop pushing her body, lie down, give in, wake again in the cellar room where she belonged. Her whole life outside the room had been a dream. She had no mother, no job, no apartment. She’d been born in these dark depths. She needed to stop fighting.
The exhaustion was hard to push back as she reached the stairs, a mountain of chipped and splintered wood reaching into more dark space. Just as she leapt forwards, he grabbed her ankle, yanked her down. Her chin hit the bottom stair hard, cracking her teeth. Caitlyn grabbed one of the banister rails and it snapped free in her hand. It was light, rotten and damp, but she threw it anyway, causing him to release his hold. She hurled herself up the stairs and turned right, no idea where it might lead.
Caitlyn’s only terror now was running into a dead end. If she was cornered, she knew she would not be able to fight on. Already her knees and hips were aching, threatening to fail. She could hear him breathing, looked back and saw no one there. She tried a door and found it locked. He must be circling around to find her, using another set of stairs. Caitlyn screamed for help, banging on doors. The rain was leaking through the ceiling here. She shoved hard against a door and fell into the wet street.
The light was blinding. Caitlyn crawled towards the blurry, distant road, trying to find the breath to scream. People were there, walking back and forth, streaks of colour in her ruined vision. She called out, but no one turned. Her voice was gone.
She felt a hard hand encircle her arm and yank her backwards.
Chapter 70
THE STREET WAS flooded with people. I was aware first of voices shouting and footsteps hammering the earth nearby, hands on my body, dragging me, pulling me, lifting my head. I was trapped in a dream, being ravaged by a mob. I opened my mouth and tried to draw air but my ribs felt flattened.
I lay assessing my injuries. I’d hit the back of my head hard. My left radius was broken. And if I didn’t get some air soon, I’d be able to add collapsed lungs to my list. I opened my eyes and watched the stars turning around and around against the blackened sky until Kash’s face interrupted them. There was a hose in his hand.
His big hand was on my head. I realised he was hosing me. I could feel the cold water rushing down my shoulders and over the backs of my arms. My clothes were dr
enched.
‘It’s only flash burn,’ he was saying. ‘Don’t worry. You’re fine.’
‘Zac,’ I coughed. I tried to sit up. The four-wheel drive was on fire. People were standing all around it, their mouths open and eyes wide in the dark, watching the flames four, five metres high. The roof of the vehicle was twisted backwards like the lid of a tin can, the doors nowhere to be seen.
‘Don’t move.’ Kash tried to force me down. ‘You were thrown quite a distance. You could have a spinal injury.’
‘Is he in there?’ I asked. Kash didn’t answer. ‘Did the kid make it out?’
More voices above me. The grass beneath me felt cool, welcoming, its soft green fingers reaching up over my wrists, dragging me down. I let my head loll to the side, looked at the crowd around the car lit by the flames. Gold masks.
At the edge of the gathering, nearest to me, I could make out Jace Robit and a slender woman, his wife, in her nightgown. A tall, shaggy friend of Jace’s joined him, and then came the other two and their wives. Jace nudged his friend in the ribs and pointed to the car. Stuck out his hands, as though warming his palms, his face cracking with a grin.
Chapter 71
‘I’VE GOT YOU,’ the man growled, heaving Caitlyn up from the ground, a helpless bundle in his thick arms. ‘I’ve got you now, love.’
Caitlyn was so exhausted. Her head fell back against the man’s arm and she looked up at him. Shaggy blond hair, a hard face with dark, tired eyes. He was running with her, glancing back towards the building as he made for the street. ‘I’ve got her! Get a medic!’
‘Where is he?’ she asked. ‘Is he … Is he …’
‘I don’t know,’ the man said. ‘But he’s not here, and that’s all you need to know. I’m police. You’re safe with me. We’ll get the prick, don’t you worry about that.’
‘I killed a man,’ Caitlyn whispered. Sleep was pulling at her. There were people all around them now, faces appearing at the man’s shoulders as they pushed through. Sirens wailing.
‘What?’
‘I killed someone,’ Caitlyn said.
‘Yeah?’ The blond man gave a crooked smile. ‘Welcome to the club, sweetheart.’
Chapter 72
I WAS IN a tiny cubicle lined with pale green curtains, lying stiff as a rod under hot white lights. I jolted as I felt hands around my throat, squeezing, hard fingers against my jaw. I reached up with my good arm and realised it was a plastic neck brace. The pain at the back of my head swelled and I groaned long and low, hoping someone would hear me and bring me drugs. Something was swimming in my system. Probably morphine. My eyes were running tears down my temples. Morphine always makes me cry.
I felt for the velcro strap at the side of my neck.
‘Don’t even think about it.’ Kash’s voice. He pulled my hand away. ‘You haven’t had your X-ray yet.’
The television in the corner was playing some game show. A plump, middle-aged woman was jumping up and down in excitement, apparently having chosen well from a selection of gold briefcases being exhibited by tanned models.
‘Zac.’
‘He didn’t make it,’ Kash said.
I felt a whump of grief in the pit of my stomach, hard as the blow of a fist. Immediately the blame swirled, as it always did, a cacophony of voices roaring between my ears.
You should have known he’d steal the gold.
You should have listened when he told you he was running away.
You should have known Snale’s house was a target.
You should have saved him.
You should have saved him.
You should –
‘You were pretty lucky, stepping back like that just in time,’ Kash said. From the corner of my eye I could see he was watching the television. ‘You’ve got first-degree burns. They’re like a bad sunburn. They’ll be gone in a few days.’
I lifted my left arm and examined the dark blue cast running from the crook of my elbow to my knuckles. My wrist was shattered. I knew the feeling. Had done it before, taking a swing at someone and hitting a wall instead.
‘Where are we?’
‘White Cliffs hospital. Four hours out of Last Chance. Medevac picked us up.’
‘Are you OK? Is Vicky –’
‘Everyone’s fine,’ he said. ‘Except Zac.’
I lay sweating in the neck brace, listening to the game show host introducing the rules of the next round. There was forty thousand dollars on the line. A lot of money for some people. Enough to give a life for. Enough to die for. Three more days, and I’ll be home, Sam. I could last the distance, but not like this. Not lying here, staring at the lights.
I pulled off the neck brace. Kash didn’t stop me this time. Probably tired of my bullshit. I sat up and felt the stitches in the back of my skull, the bald patch shaved there.
‘What kind of bomb was it?’ I asked.
‘You shouldn’t worry about that right now.’
‘Just tell me.’
‘It was a circuit-breaker,’ Kash sighed. ‘Like I thought. Forensics have a few pieces of it that they’re examining. It was a more sophisticated job than the one that killed Theo Campbell, but not by much. There would have been two triggers. One was a pop-up hinge, like you see on kitchen cabinet doors, the flashy ones without handles. Instead of pulling the door open, you push it, it clicks and when you release it, the door pops open. You have to push again and hear the click for the door to close. The killer would have wired the hinge so that when Zac sat down it clicked and completed the circuit. If he’d have got off the seat, it would have popped open, breaking the circuit, setting off the bomb.
‘Looks like the secondary trigger was a plastic kitchen timer that we heard ticking. You can get them at the supermarket for about three bucks. The whole thing would have cost little and been easy to source without raising suspicions.’
‘Still. Let’s check with the store in Last Chance and the surrounding towns and see if any kitchen timers have been bought recently, and by whom.’
‘The results on the IP searches across the valley have come back. No one teaching themselves to make bombs in the last year. We’ll need another warrant to go back further.’
‘Christ.’ I rubbed my eyes. ‘Why didn’t I think about someone targeting us? The first victim was the chief of police. Of course it makes sense they’d go after Snale next.’
‘It mightn’t necessarily have been Snale that they were after.’ Kash shrugged. ‘Maybe it was you or me. Maybe it actually was Zac.’
I lay back against the pillows and watched my partner watching the TV. His mouth was turned down and his eyes were set. He wasn’t his usual self. All the bravado, all the heroic puff had left his voice. He seemed drained. When he spoke, I realised why.
‘I know you spoke to Tenacity,’ he said.
Chapter 73
I SAID NOTHING. My job as a Sex Crimes detective includes working with the utmost discretion at all times. A good majority of the victims I deal with don’t want anyone to know what has happened to them, particularly their families. Confirming or denying that I knew Tenacity at all was completely against the rules. Kash seemed to know, didn’t seem to care. He kept talking, turning the wedding ring on his finger around and around.
‘You must have dealt with her after the assault,’ he said. ‘I know you can’t say anything. She thinks I don’t know. Her mother told me not long after it happened, said Tenacity didn’t want me to know because she thought I’d probably turn it around, make it a part of my obsession. Well, she was right, of course. I just added it to the hatred I was already feeling. It spurred me on. I’d only just come back from a deployment in Afghanistan, and went right back as fast as I could. Stupid. So stupid.’
He stretched and settled in the seat, his long legs splayed before him. The woman on the television screen was dying of joy. She was up to seventy-five thousand dollars.
‘That night in Kuta, in Bali,’ Kash said. ‘I’d only been out of the bar for about thirty second
s. I walked out to take a phone call from my mum. It was too loud in the bar. I got out the front doors, turned left and went over to stand on the street corner. I felt the pressure wave thump right through the middle of my body. I was actually knocked off my feet by it. I didn’t even hear the bomb blast. I felt like I’d been hit by a car.’
He ran a hand through his hair. I sat watching, seeing him standing on the corner of the moonlit street hung with neon lights. People screaming.
‘And then I look back and the whole place is on fire,’ he said. ‘And people are running out of it. Some of them are burning. Some of them were missing pieces. I was a surfer. I’d never seen anything like that. Not even in the movies. It was like I’d died suddenly and I’d awakened in hell. And I knew right away – whoever had caused this, they were from hell. They had to have been. Because this wasn’t the sort of thing that happened on Earth.’
The woman on the game show was up to a hundred thousand dollars. A heat rash was creeping up her neck and cheeks. She wiped at her eyes, breathless. Kash watched her.
‘From then on, that’s how I saw it,’ he said. ‘I thought there were evil people, demons, walking around on the Earth, plotting to open up the ground and unleash their world on us. I had to fight them. Because if I didn’t fight them, what was the point of it all? I dropped everything. I went after them. I devoted my life. It was like my wife and my job and my family and my friends had never existed. I had a clear mission, with clear enemies, and that was all that mattered. And then last night …’
He seemed to drift away. I waited.
‘Yesterday I was right back where it all started. Feeling the blast. The pressure wave. Staring at the flames.’
‘It’s not …’ I struggled to find the words. ‘That time hasn’t been wasted. You’ve fought a good fight. There’s no way of knowing how many lives you’ve saved through your work.’