Already Dead (14 page)

Frustration flashed in Kate Walsh's eyes. ‘What have you got to do with whatever happened out there? The police said Brendan hijacked your car. But you ended up holding his gun and now he's
dead
.'

Her last word was hard-edged and angry. Jax had used the same tone more than a few times in the past year to make her point. She saw the one Kate was making – and it wasn't that something else was going on. It was that she didn't understand what the hell had happened. Jax knew what that was like; it didn't make it easier to explain. ‘He wasn't shot. I didn't shoot him.'

‘No. He was running. The TV said he was running away when he got hit by that bus. You had his gun. The police had to take it off you. Was he running from
you
?'

The accusation stung – Jax had been trying to stop him. But considering the media coverage, it was a fair assumption. Possibly it would also be a fair response from a terrified carjacking victim who suddenly found herself in possession of the gun she'd been threatened with. The problem was, Jax had come here to tell Brendan's wife the true story, but her message had been derailed by suspicion
and she wasn't sure how to get it back on track without shifting the blame to,
He wasn't running
from
me, he was running
to
you
.

Jax licked her lips, rolled them together, told herself to start somewhere else.

She talked about Brendan – how he'd thought people were after him, how he said a lot that didn't make sense, how he was agitated and confused. She didn't mention the threats, the scary mood swings, the near fatal crashes – no wife needs to hear that when she's still reeling with her husband's death. Jax said instead that he wouldn't get help, that he'd kept the gun on her, that he'd followed her into the cafe with it at her back and that his paranoia eventually infected her.

‘When we pulled over, there were police everywhere. He wanted to run, I had hold of his arms and he … he bolted and …' She closed her eyes. ‘And then I was holding the gun. I didn't point it at him. I didn't point it at anyone. I tried to stop him. I didn't want him to run. I'm so sorry.'

Kate listened to it all with her gaze on the floor, wiping tears from her cheeks with a balled-up tissue. When Jax finished, the other woman folded her arms, took a few moments to get words through trembling lips. ‘Why are you here – to tell me my husband died because he was crazy? So you can feel better about how it turned out?'

Was that how it had sounded? ‘No. I wanted to tell you he loved you.'

‘Shit.' Kate swung her face away, her lips crushed together before they disappeared from view, the knobs of her spine shuddering inside her T-shirt.

Jax clenched and unclenched her fingers. This was the moment she was here for, to deliver the details she thought
Kate Walsh would want to hear, except … maybe she didn't need details. Maybe it was just Jax who got fixated on them, stuck in place until she could move on with all the facts tucked neatly under an arm. She closed her eyes, told herself she should leave Brendan's wife with her own grief, not someone else's version of it.

‘I'm so sorry,' Jax said again and stood, picking up her bag, planning to leave before she upset Kate more. Then a memory took hold like a hand pulling at her elbow.

I wanted to get there first but I don't know if I can make it that far. It might have to be you. You might have to tell her.

Jax hadn't promised and she didn't know what Brendan had wanted her to tell – but she couldn't leave without making an attempt.

‘He was trying to reach you. He thought he was going to die. He told me if he didn't make it, I should tell you.' She stopped. It wasn't the message, but … ‘Tell you that he loved you and Scotty. I don't know why he thought he was going to die. I wondered if he wanted to kill himself but his death in the end was by accident. He wanted to protect you, though. I can't tell you what from but he was thinking of you and Scotty.'

A knock at the front door echoed hollowly down the hallway. Kate didn't move, didn't acknowledge the sound or Jax's words, but the shuddering in her spine had stopped. Now she sat with both hands in fists on her lap, face aimed at the blank wall opposite. Footsteps sounded on carpet; the guy with the leather skin passed the doorway. Jax hoisted her bag to her shoulder, deflated, disappointed in herself. She'd wanted to achieve something better.

As the lock on the front door rattled, Jax tried to explain. ‘My husband died last year. I desperately wanted someone to tell me what he was thinking in the last moments of his life. I wanted you to have that. I'm sorry if it's not what you wanted to hear.'

Halfway to the door, Jax saw Kate's face swing around as though she'd decided she wanted the last word. ‘Brendan had post-traumatic stress disorder. He got it in Afghanistan.' Kate said it as though it was a disease he'd picked up, like malaria or cancer. ‘He had nightmares, anxiety, sometimes flashbacks.' There were voices from the front door. ‘He worried about threats he couldn't see.' She interlaced her fingers in front of her, held them out to Jax. An offering, a trade of information.

‘Kate?' It was the old guy in the doorway. ‘It's those detectives.'

Jax turned as Aiden Hawke walked in, followed closely by the female detective who'd spoken with him on the motorway – two sets of white shirts and black trousers, one with a tie, the other with shoulder-length black hair. In tandem, they looked at Kate, widened their view to the second person in the room, and transferred their focus to Jax. It looked like a rehearsed, three-step manoeuvre. They must have been surprised to see her, not that either of them gave much away: the woman did a slow blink, something flashed through Aiden's eyes. Too fast for Jax to catch before he glanced back at Kate, but it definitely wasn't pleasure at seeing her.

Aiden spoke first, stepping towards Kate as he held out his hand. ‘Thanks for seeing us again. You remember Detective Constable Suzanne May?' There were murmurs of ‘How are you?' and ‘Have you been in touch with your
family?', then a loaded silence as the detectives turned to Jax.

‘Miranda,' Aiden said, as though he was proving he knew her name.

Well, duh. Everyone had seen him hold a gun on her. It left Kate Walsh wondering if Jax was a weapon-toting, carjacker vigilante. ‘Aiden,' she answered, trying to inject a bit of yeah-I'm-setting-the-record-straight.

He glanced at Kate and back. ‘Do you two know each other?'

He knew they didn't. ‘We've just met.'

He watched her a second longer. ‘Are you on your way out?'

That was the plan before Kate started talking about Brendan, but Jax had sat through sessions with police and knew now wasn't the time to pursue that conversation. Aiden's time-to-go tone reinforced her decision. ‘Yes. I'm going.' She glanced at Kate, wondering if she'd see her again. ‘Thank you for hearing me out.'

As she turned for the door, she remembered what was in her bag, tucked in a pocket and unused for twelve months.
Why the hell not?
She pulled a business card out and placed it on the coffee table. ‘In case you want to talk,' she told Kate.

Aiden glanced at it, then at his cop partner and said to Jax, ‘I'll see you out.' He followed her down the hallway, standing wordlessly at her shoulder as she opened the door. Did he have news, something he didn't want to say in front of Kate Walsh?

He stepped into the searing heat behind Jax and she waited as he pulled the door almost closed. ‘Why are you here, Miranda?'

‘Not Jax today?' She smiled. He didn't return it. ‘To talk to Kate Walsh,' she said.

‘I asked you not to do that.'

The tone was mild but the words sounded like a reprimand. She frowned, bewildered, a tad irritated. ‘No, you didn't. You told me you couldn't give me her number.'

‘You knew what I meant.'

‘I thought it meant you
couldn't
give it to me. If you didn't want me to talk to her, you should've said, “Don't talk to her.”'

A muscle at the side of his jaw ticked in and out. ‘How did you find her?'

‘I looked her up in the phone book.'

‘There are about a hundred Walshes in the phone book.'

‘It's closer to two hundred. I rang twenty-eight of them.'

His eyes held hers, not quite a glare but on the same path.

What did he think she'd done? ‘I've worked a phone before. I used to be a reporter.'

‘Is that what this is about?'

‘What?'

‘Were you trying to get an interview from Kate Walsh?'

Surprise made her eyebrows shoot up. She spoke emphatically. ‘I'm not writing a story. I don't even have a job.'

‘An inside scoop is a good way to get one.'

Whoa
. She straightened up as though he'd shoved her. Figured if he could accuse her of lying, she could accuse him right back. ‘You seem pretty worried about me writing stories. Maybe I
should
start digging. Maybe there's more to why you were on the motorway following me.'

He blinked. ‘My concern is about Kate Walsh. Her husband died in an incident that started a media party.
She's got no family here, just a few neighbours to look in on her and no experience in dealing with reporters.'

‘And you think
I'm
a problem? You should be asking me for advice. I'm the expert on being widowed in a media party. That's why I'm here. I knew you'd only give her the bare essentials and I wanted to tell her what happened. At the end.' She pressed her lips together.
Christ, don't cry now
. ‘She should know Brendan was trying to get to her and Scotty.' Her voice cracked on her last words, tears welling as she turned her face away. On the greying timber decking at her feet, she saw Aiden's shadow cock its head, smooth its tie.

After his push for answers, his silence made her glance back at him, hoping he understood. But she was way off.

‘This isn't about Nick.' His voice was firm: not empathy but an instruction to step away.

And anger flared in her belly at another cop taking that tone with Nick's name on his lips. She kept her voice low so it wouldn't carry inside. ‘What, you have a conversation with Detective Anita bloody Lyneham and you think you know where I'm coming from? Let me guess what she told you. That I liked the publicity:
Watch out for her, she'll be looking to milk it with this one
.'

The momentary slackness to his mouth told her she wasn't far off the mark. ‘You need to walk away from this, Miranda.'

She let out a brief, scoffing breath. ‘You don't know what I need. You got one part right, though. This is not about
my
husband. It's about Kate Walsh's husband. And I'm glad I came because you left her thinking he was having an affair with me and he ran into the traffic because I was aiming a gun at him. Great police work, Detective Senior
Sergeant Hawke. Keep the family in the dark so they don't know what to think. Well, the media isn't the only element in this that Kate Walsh doesn't have experience with. I think she needs advice from someone who's already been fucked around by a police investigation.'

He held up a hand, conciliation in his tone. ‘Miranda –'

‘And I don't give a shit what you think about me being here.'

If he said any more, she didn't hear it over the thump of her shoes on the verandah and the blood pumping in her ears as she stalked to her car.

Jax slammed the car door, fought the key into the ignition, then held on to the steering wheel as her heart pounded so hard she could feel it slapping against her ribs. She wanted to tip her head back and gulp at the air but Aiden Hawke was still watching her from Kate Walsh's porch and she could do without him shaking his head and making more assumptions. So she pushed the stick into gear, negotiated the corner, waited until she was out of sight and pulled over again, chest heaving, fingers tingling, a pulse
whump-whumping
in her ears. Christ, what was happening?

The air-conditioner was blowing a gale but she couldn't breathe. Eyes squeezed tight, she fumbled for the controls on the door handle, found the button for the window, heard the glass start to slide – and memory hit like a brick through the windscreen. Brendan was lunging, shouting; tyres were squealing, horns blaring; the car was swerving, tipping; Brendan bashing his head:
Drive! Drive!

Then the car door was open and she was tangled in her seatbelt, trying to escape. ‘
Fuck.
' She was in the road, dodging a passing car, hand to her stomach, vision
swimming. And sick. Holding on to the hood, heaving into the gutter like a cheap drunk on a girls' night out.

When there was nothing left, she stood in the shade of a kerbside tree, wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, pushed the hair from her face and burst into tears.

Bloody cops. Bloody Brendan Walsh. Bloody fingerprint dust on her trousers. And the removalists and the bank and the fucking bastard who'd run down Nick. And Nick for running on that road, for not telling her why he was there, for not trying to ring
her
. Fuck every ugly, sad moment that'd brought her to Newcastle again.
Fuck
.

She pulled in a breath. And another one. Glanced around at the empty street, at the corner she'd come around, grateful she'd managed to get out of Aiden Hawke's sight before she lost it.

She didn't want to get back in the car, didn't want Brendan Walsh shouting at her while she drove, but it was too hot to walk up the hill to Tilda's. And she wasn't sure it was where she wanted to be – not like this, not with her aunt's concern and Zoe's worried eyes. Shaking, her insides cramping, she sat in the doorway with the engine running until the air-conditioner was blowing cold, then steered the car to the beach, working her way along the foreshore to the harbour, turning around and working her way back again, the sight of the ocean smoothing out her breathing and heart rate, something tight and angry steeling her bones against the trembling.

Aiden bloody Hawke.
An inside scoop is a good way to get one
. Bastard cops. Anita Lyneham was a woman but she still had the credentials.

Eight months after Nick's accident, when her damn Homicide unit hadn't come up with anything fresh since the
first weeks of the investigation, when the inquest was rushing at them with no evidence, Anita Lyneham had accused Jax of keeping the story alive for the sake of her own ego. The TV interview had nothing to do with ego and everything to do with trying to push the questions into new ground. She'd talked about Nick, their life together and the tragedy of his unexplained death, in return for a public appeal for information. Nick had been respected by a lot of people and the story created more coverage than Jax dared hope for. It also intensified the battle of wills with the detective: Anita Lyneham accusing Jax of using Nick's death for attention, and Jax refusing to see why a public appeal for information was undermining the police. Whether it was the blunt talk between them or protocol – or sheer obstinacy – the detective had refused to share the breakdown from the stream of calls that came in after Jax's interview. And now Anita was in Aiden Hawke's ear.
Fucking cops
.

Jax pulled her car into a parking area across the road from the beach, found a spot facing the water. There were vehicles either side of hers, a couple of surfers laughing as they dried off, a runner melting in the heat. She had an urge to get out and walk, to let the salt air fill her lungs and clear out the souring panic, but it fought with an opposing pull to stay hidden and safe within the metal around her. In the end, she wound down the windows and let the afternoon nor-easterly cut a swathe through the car. It blew hair across her face, tugged at her shirt, sent the occasional sting of airborne sand, but her anger hung on, stubborn and determined.

This isn't about Nick
.

She'd seen the way Aiden watched her before he said it. He had a Psych degree under his police badge and had
staked her out a bazillion years ago, and now he thought he had her all worked out. He'd done all right at the station the other night, realising her questions were about reassurance. Yeah, and how hard was that? She'd just survived a damn carjacking, who wouldn't need reassurance? Today, at Kate Walsh's house, he was way off base. He thought she was there because of some sick desire to keep Nick's tragedy alive. He had no idea.

A year ago, her life had been torn open and beaten to death without an explanation. She and Zoe had never been given a reason why their future had been rubbed out like unnecessary words on a whiteboard. For more than twelve months, the same unanswered questions had been on a relentless circuit in her brain. She'd wasted whole days in police stations begging for information; walked streets, knocked on doors, asked people what they'd seen that morning; transcribed notes, opened files, filled them with words, read them until she knew them by heart – and still she had no answers.

Then Brendan Walsh changed the wiring in her head. There were questions in there but different ones and Aiden Hawke had no idea how good that felt. This wasn't about Nick. She didn't want to think about Nick, couldn't bear it any longer, was worried that something inside her was close to breaking.

This was about
her
and what
she
needed.

Okay, yes, if she was honest with herself, it was possible Brendan Walsh had broken something else. The nightmares were ugly, she had a constant low-level buzz of anxiety, and she'd just thrown up in a gutter. But it wasn't the same worn damaged part of her she needed to protect for Zoe's sake. She needed to focus on the new questions and give the others a chance to rest.

She grabbed her bag, wound the windows up and stepped out of the car. Crossing the road, she bought a bottle of water from the cafe at the top of the beach stairs, kicked off her sandals, went down to the sand, sat in the cool shade of the sandstone beach wall and pulled a notebook and pen from her bag. She drew a line down the page and marked one side ‘Real', the other side ‘Not Real', and started writing.

It didn't take long; there wasn't much. The Real side had: army, Afghanistan, interview/quote, Kate + Scotty, and a lot of blank lines. Not Real was an empty column.

Kate said Brendan had worried about threats he couldn't see, but that didn't confirm anything he'd said as Not Real. Aiden told Jax there was no evidence someone had followed Brendan – again, not confirmation. Then there were the nano spiders and missiles. Okay, something for the ledger. She lifted her pen and paused.

Nick had tracked money, lies and liars through mountains of numbers, correspondence, emails and memos. The evidence had been stacked around his office in colour-coordinated and tabbed files. Printouts of notes, lists, tables and handwritten pages. And he'd never moved anything onto the ledger until it was confirmed. She flipped the page, wrote ‘nano spiders' on the top line, ‘missiles' on the next, and stared at the waves gathering, cresting and crashing to the sand.

She'd ribbed Nick about going overboard on the research, of prolonging the agony of the detail because he couldn't bear the process to end. When their lives were overrun by a story, it was his saving grace that he could joke about it. He'd tell her he made little piles because a large one would topple and bury him, that he'd found a
shopping list buried beneath the paper and some guy was going to be in big trouble for forgetting the carrots, that he wasn't sure if he was looking for a needle or the straw that would break his back. And he always told her the only way to understand the detail was to see the whole picture.

So she closed her eyes, looked at her memories of Brendan and wrote a list of everything he'd talked about: something stuck in his head, Already Dead, the confusion over her phone, helicopter crashes, being lied to, the friend who'd hit a pedestrian, getting the gun, holding things off for two days, Scotty learning to read before he went to school, the something Brendan didn't know that made him cry. And the bit she most wanted proved as Not Real: that people had been following him, trained people who wouldn't stop – and that she'd been in their sights too.

It was a long list, two messy pages, by the time she'd added notes and drawn lines to remind herself of the connections. And it was late. Not dark, not even close, but the shadows from the flags and the few remaining beach umbrellas stretched long and dark along the sand. She must have been sitting there for more than an hour. Pulling her phone from her bag as she stood, she dialled Tilda's mobile. ‘Hey, it's me,' she told the recording. ‘Sorry, it took longer than I expected. Be home soon.'

From the top of the beach stairs, Jax could see the parking area was almost empty, just a line of vehicles in the row that faced the water, hers included. She didn't bother pulling her sandals back on, dangling the straps from her fingers as she crossed the road.

A woman in shorts and a bikini top lifted a collapsed stroller into the back of the first vehicle in the row.
Two-thirds of the way down, a man had his back to Jax, unlocking a driver's door. He was wearing a business shirt, the end of a tie blown over his shoulder. Maybe he'd stopped to enjoy the view and the breeze before heading home from the office. As she stepped up to the footpath, a second man in shirt and tie appeared, standing up as though he'd been squatting at the boot of the same car. She watched them as she followed the curve of the path. Her car was somewhere near there. She couldn't remember how far down the row, couldn't see the colours and shapes past a chunky ute that was between her and them.

Glancing around, she wasn't sure what she was checking for, just curious … no,
cautious
and suddenly itchy with sweat. She went wide on the path, trying to find the green of her car further down the row, reminding herself Aiden Hawke thought she was safe, that there was no-one after her, that she'd had a panic attack this afternoon and her reactions weren't entirely objective at the moment. Nowhere near objective, if the palpitating of her heart was anything to go by.

And then the pounding got louder. Her car wasn't further down the row. It was right there where the two men were standing. One on each side of it. The man facing her said something. Not to Jax, to the other guy. He lifted his head, turned and looked at her. She stopped, three car-lengths away on the lip of the gutter, watched as his eyes took her in before he stepped up to the footpath.

‘Hey,' he called. Deep voice, nothing in it but confidence. ‘You Miranda Jack?'

She flicked her gaze to the other guy. He looked right back. ‘Yes,' she said.

‘Can we have a word with you?' the first guy asked.

She stayed where she was, swallowed in a dry mouth, fingers tightening around the straps of her sandals. Police? A pulse tapped in her temple. Had they recognised her car? Did they have something to tell her? That Brendan
was
being followed? Her breath came faster, her heart beat louder. Maybe she was paranoid. Maybe Brendan hadn't broken anything but infected her.

‘Do you mind if we talk in the car?' the guy said, pointing at it.

She glanced at her car, at the second guy, at the first one now smiling at her. There was no spark of decision, no planning. Just instinct. She took a giant step off the gutter, grabbing for the bag on her shoulder, casting a look at the people mover heading her way – and leapt in front of it. Running to beat it, reaching the footpath on the opposite side before swinging her head to see if she'd just made a fool of herself.

The people mover had braked in front of Guy Number One. He had his palms flat on its windows, watching her through them, dodging to get around it as the driver stopped and started, not sure whether to stay or go. Possibly the guy was a cop, possibly he was reacting as any cop would. Possibly, but …

Her legs moved like they belonged to a wind-up toy. On one side of her, the path dropped two metres to the sand; across the road, the car park was behind her and she was passing big, expensive houses. Guy Number One was in the road behind her, tie blowing in the breeze, pelting along in her wake. No shouting, no orders to stop, no identifying himself as a cop. Just gunning for her.