Blood Secret (8 page)

‘Rennie?' Naomi asked on the other end of the phone.

‘Hmm?'

‘I said, when do you want to tell Hayden?'

Never. She knew what it was like to be a kid and get bad news and she didn't want to be the messenger. But pretty soon Hayden would want to know where his father was. ‘Give me an hour.'

Trish was at the table when she hung up. As she sat, Eliza appeared with the French toast.

‘It's horrible why he's here and everything,' she said, depositing the plates. ‘But I just took the coffee out to the car park and how hot is that cop?'

It was possibly a tad tactless, but Rennie smiled. Eliza was twenty, at uni part-time, four days a week at Skiffs, and when she'd started there in her last year of school, she'd been self-conscious and, as far was Rennie was concerned, too sweet for her own good. Rennie made it her mission to toughen her up. Taught her how to handle the customers, to fend off the leery ones and stand up to the complainers – and how to cuss in the kitchen and rib Pav without mercy. The cop comment made Rennie proud. ‘I wasn't really paying attention. Did you stop for a chat?'

A soft pink crept across her cheeks. ‘Just for a second.'

‘Good for you.'

She grinned proudly. Trish dismissed her with a shunt of her head, looked back at Rennie, her face
suddenly solemn.

Rennie's stomach tightened. ‘What?'

‘This situation with Max, it might not be what you think.'

What she thought was that something like this belonged in her other life. ‘I don't know what to think.'

Trish reached across the table and took Rennie's hand. ‘He's done this before.'

 

 

10

Something shifted inside Rennie. She pulled her fingers from Trish's grasp. ‘
What
has he done before?'

‘Disappeared.'

Rennie didn't want to believe her, wanted to tell Trish she had it wrong, that Max had never done anything like that, that he
wouldn't
. But Trish had no reason to lie. Still, there was an accusation in her voice when she spoke. ‘When?'

‘Look, I didn't want to say anything in front of the cop . . .'

‘When?'

‘When he and Leanne were together.'

Rennie had met Leanne, had heard the pissed-off way she spoke to Max. She'd wondered what they'd ever seen in each other. Leanne was attractive in that well-coiffed, fake nails, plenty of make-up kind of way and Max was as unpretentious and laid-back as you could get. Rennie imagined living with someone who had an attitude like that would make anyone want to walk out and slam a door every now and then, just to breathe some clean air. And she imagined Leanne would keep the drama going for as long as she needed to. ‘What do you mean by “disappeared”?'

‘He took off and didn't tell her where he was.'

Rennie's pulse picked up. ‘How long was he gone?'

‘The first time, it was just overnight. They'd had . . .'

‘The
first
time? How many times did it happen?'

‘Four or five, from memory. The final time, it was for a week.'

Rennie stared at her. This was Max they were talking about. Max who didn't let the sun go down on an argument. Who knew what it was like to be left alone and fearful. She pushed her plate away, the sweet, eggy smell of it making her nauseated now. ‘And what, he just came back and they picked up where they left off?'

‘I don't think it was as simple as that but yes, he came home, said he was sorry and they tried to work things out. They were unhappy for a long time. They fought a lot. Every time he took off, it was after a huge blue.'

Rennie didn't remember her parents' fights but she'd heard the stories and seen the scars on her mother's body. She shoved back her chair, wanting to move but stuck to the spot by disbelief and horror. ‘He
hit
Leanne?'

Trish frowned. ‘No.'

‘You said a fight.'

Trish watched her a second. ‘I meant a shouting match, not domestic abuse.'

Rennie ran a hand through her hair as she tried to make sense of what was whirling inside her. Relief and dis­belief. Horror and confusion. Max had shouting matches? He'd disappeared before? There was a chance this wasn't an accident or violence, that he'd just gone somewhere and not told her? It should be good news but it didn't feel
like it.

A rumble from the table made her look down. Her phone vibrating on the timber. A text from Naomi:
Spoke to H. No calls from M. Sorry. C u soon. X

She looked at Trish. ‘Naomi.'

‘Anything?'

‘No.'

Trish made a face. There was sympathy in it but she looked uncomfortable, too.

‘What?' Rennie
asked again.

She stirred her coffee slowly, as if she needed the time to make a decision. ‘I saw the two of you having . . . well, words at the party last night and you were both a bit tense when you got here and, look, it's none of my business but I thought if you've been arguing, having problems, whatever . . .' She didn'
t finish.

‘What are you saying? That he's gone somewhere because we had an argument?'

‘It might be a reason.'

Rennie pressed her lips together with incensed denial. Max wouldn't leave over a . . . a spat. It was ridiculous. ‘We didn't have a
fight
. We don't have
problems
. We . . .' She stopped, doubt like a fist in her throat.

What the hell did she know about relationship problems? Before Max, she'd never spent enough time with anyone to have a problem. The only problems were that she didn't get close and she didn't stick around. Were they having problems and she didn'
t know?

She'd snapped at him after the road rage kid finally left. They'd snapped at each other later at the cafe. She remembered Max's words, the ones he tossed at her before she went to the kitchen.
Let's just file it with all the other stuff you haven't told me
.

She glanced up at Trish. She wasn't good at talking about herself – had spent most of her adult life revealing as little as she could – but maybe she needed a second opinion from someone who'd known Max longer than she had. Someone who knew how to hold a man for more than a few short years. ‘What constitutes having problems?'

Trish seemed about to smile before a frown flitted across her forehead. ‘I don't know, hon. Arguing a lot. If it was Pav we were talking about, I'd say throwing things.'

Rennie hesitated. ‘We argued yesterday.'

‘What about?'

‘The kid in the car park. I suppose I should've been grateful he wanted to protect me but I didn't want that, it wasn't what . . .'
Look after yourself. Don't do anything stupid.
She'd wanted to shout her sister's standing order at him, surprised that after so long they were the first words on her lips in the driveway of the bottle shop. ‘Then he carried on as though I was a basket case over it, like I couldn't handle it. And . . . and I was mad at him.'

‘That's just shock.'

Not shock. She knew what that was like. ‘I told him he was an idiot if he went to check on the car.'

‘Not the most diplomatic way of putting it but that would be true.'

Rennie remembered his face when she'd said it. His words:
Is it what just happened or what happened before?
Oh, Christ, before. She turned her face to the counter, not wanting to share it with the cafe. ‘Fuck.'

‘Rennie, come on. That's nothing to worry about. It's hardly the kind of argument he'd walk out over. He and Leanne used to have real doozies.'

She shook her head. ‘He asked me to marry him last night. Before the party.'

Trish's face softened and a small smile curled her lips. ‘Oh, that's great. Congratulations, hon.'

‘I said no.'

As Trish's smile faltered, something slid to the pit of Rennie's gut. ‘It wasn't a flat-out rejection. It was, but . . .' They'd been lying among the discarded clothes on the floor, entwined, spent and a little sweaty, chuckling at the spontaneity of the passion. ‘I didn't think he was serious.'

‘A proposal is always serious.'

‘He didn't get down on one knee and say, “Will you marry me?” It wasn't like that.'

‘However it comes out, it's a man's pride at stake.'

‘Except that . . . we always said we wouldn't get married. Like that movie about weddings and funerals – we'd agreed to
not
get married. He said he'd been burned once, it'd hurt too many people and he didn't want to do that again. Which was fine by me. More than fine. I saw what happened between my parents in the name of marriage and family and I've had to live with the consequences. I'll never put my name to a marriage licence.'

It was more than she'd ever said to Trish about her past and she guessed the momentary silence from her was the information being washed and diced and put into context.

‘I'm sorry about your family,' Trish finally said. ‘You never talk about them. I figured you had a reason.'

‘There's nothing to be sorry for.' Trish had given her more than her family
ever had.

‘Have you told Max about them?'

‘Bits. The more palatable bits.' And half-truths and watered-down versions. How do you tell a lover that violence and madness are in your genes? That your father murdered your mother. That you are capable of it, too. ‘I wanted him to know that all the good things in my life happened when I came here.'

‘Maybe he changed his mind about getting married.'

And not talk to her about it? Would he just propose and expect her to follow his lead? It didn't make sense. None of it did. And it was doing her head in. Okay, Rennie. He's missing – focus on something that'll help. ‘Where did he go when he disappeared before? Did he ever tell you?' Maybe she could just go look there and deal with the
fallout later.

‘The first time, he slept in his car out at the point.'

‘I looked this morning and he's not there. Where else did he go?'

Trish hesitated. ‘How much has he told you about what happened with Leanne?'

She knew they'd married young: Max was twenty, Leanne, nineteen and pregnant. He'd told Rennie he gave up uni and took night shifts underground for the extra pay and that Leanne had hated being stuck with a baby in the backwater of Haven Bay. Max loved Hayden and had held on, trying to avoid the train wreck of their separation. He was in hospital recovering from the mine cave-in when Leanne decided it was over, leaving him and taking Hayden to live in Sydney – too far for Max to travel until he got out
of rehab.

‘How much do I need to know?'
Rennie asked.

‘It's just . . . if he hasn't told you.'

‘He's missing, Trish. Just tell me.'

She took a breath. ‘After he got out of rehab, he used to turn up at our place some nights and talk to Pav. The two of them would sit in the courtyard for hours, drinking and talking. I think it was some kind of confessional for Max. Maybe he needed a man who wouldn't judge, who had a few sins of his own.'

‘And?'

She tucked an imaginary hair behind an ear, rubbed her lips together before she spoke. ‘He had affairs. When he disappeared, he was with other women.'

Rennie didn't speak. Was struck dumb by the words. By their implication. By Trish's inference. She struggled to find voice. ‘And you think he's . . . with another woman?'

‘I don't know, hon.'

She wanted to stand up and yell that he wouldn't do that. But something stopped her. A spark of fear, a tap of doubt, her sister's voice.
We don't get a happy ending. We've seen too much shit. We're too fucked up. No one can
love that.

Max said he loved her and she'd believed him. Now she wondered if she'd wanted a better life so much she'd let herself forget the one that had shaped her. Had she been kidding herself for five years?

 

11

Rennie pushed her chair back and swiped up her mobile and keys. ‘I need to go.'

Trish held onto her arm. ‘You haven't eaten anything. You should try to have something.'

‘I . . . can't. Not now. I just need to . . . go.'

‘Then take something with you.' She signalled to the counter. ‘Eliza, put a muffin in a bag for Rennie.'

‘Would you like it heated, Rennie?'
Eliza called.

Rennie waved a dismissive hand. ‘Forget it.'

Trish followed her through the cafe, keeping her voice low. ‘I'm so sorry to be the one to tell you, but in the circumstances, I thought you should know. It doesn't mean that's what's happening now. It might be something else entirely.'

Rennie stepped into the street, her squint in the glare feeling like a scowl. ‘He's missing and so far every possibility has a horrible outcome.'

Eliza appeared in the doorway and held out a bag. ‘Apple and cinnamon.'

Rennie took it to avoid further discussion, flicked her eyes back to Trish. ‘Ask Pav who Max might stay with.'

Trish's face filled with regret and concern. ‘Rennie, honey . . .'

‘And ask Pav who Max stayed with the other times.' She didn't wait for a response, just headed for the car park with long, resolute strides, not sure what the hell to think now, just knowing that moving felt a whole lot better than sitting in Skiffs waiting for Trish to drop
another bombshell.

What would she do if Pav came up with names? Ring and ask to speak to Max? If he answered, at least she'd know he wasn't dead or hurt. At least that'd be a change on the past.

At the lane as she stopped to check for traffic, she saw the man with the camera again. He was across the road, outside the real estate agency, looking back along the street towards the lake. The camera was hanging from his neck, a chunky thing with a fat lens that he held onto with a cupped hand, as though he was supporting its weight – or ready to click a photo.

Rennie turned the corner, glancing over her shoulder again. He was studying the display in the window now, properties and early Christmas decorations, his back to her. Old habits made her take a mental snapshot – average height, slight build, brown trousers, beige shirt, brimmed hat. She walked a few paces, took another glimpse, hoping to catch a reflection of his face but the sun was bright overhead and all she saw was the mirror image of the lane opposite and herself looking furtive as she headed away.

Out of sight of the street, she wove a path between the scattered vehicles in the car park, agitated with doubt and indecision. Should she tell the police Max had disappeared before? Would they contact Leanne for the details, follow up on the women he'd stayed with previously? It was years ago – would he still know them? Maybe there were others now. Maybe last night's proposal was a final test – rejection, and he was done. Across the tarmac, the uniform cop was still standing by the crime scene tape looking bored under his police-issue cap. Rennie thought of the splotch of blood he was guarding and the kid in the four-wheel drive and reminded herself what
had
shaped her.

Her life before she came here made violence the first and obvious conclusion. It didn't belong in Haven Bay but that didn't stop her mind making the leap. She almost wished Max had tired of her, that she could say she'd seen it coming and was satisfied that was the reason he'd dis­appeared. But she couldn't. And as she drew closer to the cop, knowing from experience that fast, instant action was sometimes all that would save you, she wondered what kind of response the police would have if they knew Max had gone missing before. Would they decide he wasn't worth their
immediate attention?

At the bumper of her car, she called to the cop. ‘Has the detective arrived?'

‘Thirty minutes away.'

Half an hour of waiting, worrying, second-guessing, blaming. No, thanks. ‘Tell him he'll need to call me.'

She drove out of the lot, stopped at the T-junction facing the lake, turned right and, for the second time that day, followed the road that led to Garrigurrang Point. The large houses that overlooked the lake were awake now: curtains and windows open, people about, cars on the move. This was Haven Bay's version of wealthy suburbia: six or seven streets that met the road at right angles, sloped straight up to the crest of the hill then back down out of sight, reconnecting on the south side like rungs in a ladder. The blocks were big, the homes angled for the best view, lots of glass and decking. Then the residences were gone, replaced by the close-packed bush of the conservation area. If the spit of land that was Garrigurrang Point really was a finger, the protected reserve would be the nail, its tall gums forming a canopy over dense native brush, huge hunks of sandstone heaved up by the earth and rough tracks that meandered down the incline to the green strip of the picnic grounds that sat at the very end of
the point.

She stopped in the parking bay where she and Max ate fish and chips in winter and flicked her eyes around the view. Would he have come here? If Trish was right, if he'd disappeared willingly because he was upset or angry,
why
would he come here? He didn't have his car and it was a long way to walk in the dark. If someone else picked him up, same question: why come here? It wasn't the most private place, even at night. The sparkly lights on the opposite shore drew more than just Rennie and Max with their fish and chips. Most weekends there were at least a couple of cars with steamed-up windows. They'd fogged up their own a few times, scrambling into the back seat, giggling like kids. Like the kid she'd
never been.

Had he done that with someone else? She clenched her teeth, told herself to concentrate on finding him, deal with the rest after she knew he was safe.

Getting out of the car, she started across the park. The afternoon had turned into one of those fairy floss cloud days, early summer warmth and the air still enough to hear the gulls crying as they wheeled out over the water. She kept to the road side of the grass, watching the ground. The metal clip on his watchband sprung open sometimes. If he'd been brought here forcefully, it might have fallen off.

She wasn't alone: there was a family finishing a hamburger lunch, four or five boys with bikes and a football. As she turned at the end and started back along the water's edge, she passed a boy and girl holding hands and talking quietly as they gazed out at the lake. Rennie and Max did those things out here as well. Picnics on the jetty, feeding the fish with crusts. Sailing club parties. Family days when his sister or parents were in town.

She lifted her gaze to the conservation area, squinting in the glare – they'd walked through there, too. A three-minute drive from the main street and you were in hushed bushland that felt like an eternity
from anywhere.

It was the first place Max had taken her. Not on a date – he'd just convinced her it was sacrilegious to live in Haven Bay and not walk through it at least once. She'd only been here a month and it'd sounded like a line but she went because she wanted to know what it was like to be
a local.

He parked up near the ridge where the tarred road ended and they walked the rutted tracks as far as they went, then the foot trails that led to the top of the hill. Clumps of long native grasses crowded the path so she could barely distinguish its beaten earth. ‘If you see a snake, just stand still,' Max had called back to her and she'd almost turned and left him to it. At the highest point, he'd spread his arms and cried, ‘Isn't great?' It just looked like a bunch of bush to her and she wondered if his Steve Irwin-style enthusiasm was an act for the new girl in town.

Then he led her off the trail through the tangle of scrub to a huge, flat rock ledge at the top of a steep drop on the south side of the finger. Down below was Garrigurrang Point Road and rocks and the shore, but he stretched an arm out towards the rippling, watery, deep green expanse that lay in front of them, told her the Awabakal people had stood right there, looking out to the long neck of channel on the opposite side that led to the mouth of the lake and the ocean beyond it. They'd called it Garrigurrang, meaning ‘the sea'.

Not that Rennie had seen the ocean. After fifty years of conservation, the native growth was too thick for a clear view. Although, the enormous guns that had stood up here during World War II were testament to the vantage point it had offered back then. The gun emplacements were next on Max's tour: five sunken, circular, concrete pads where the weapons had sat, spread out in the bush like the footsteps of a
giant elephant.

He showed her the dark, hollow cubes of concrete underneath that were the bunkers and ammunitions storage, explained how he and James and the other local kids had used the anti-aircraft command centre as a playground. During the war, it'd been manned day and night to protect the seaplane base on the other side of the bay from the feared Japanese invasion. According to Max, the abandoned structure had later made an excellent fort, warship, dungeon
and cubbyhouse.

He'd shown her the hawk's nest and the resident mother and baby koalas and the almost vertical short cut down to the road, pointing out the rock halfway down where he and James had carved their initials, back when they were too young to understand the concept of ‘leave only footprints, take only photos'.

She'd realised well before they were back at the car that his enthusiasm wasn't an act. Max knew every square metre of the bay and the point and all that lay in between. The whole place had been one big backyard for him growing up. He loved it, had never lived anywhere else, couldn't fathom what Leanne had wanted to escape from. It hadn't taken much to talk Rennie around to its charms, although she didn't have his passion – only Max could pull that off without sounding like a nutcase. In five years, the place had managed to burrow its way through the stone wall of her heart like no other place had in her nomadic life.

After the night her mother had fled with Rennie and her sister, twelve months anywhere was a long stay. Pursuit and fear kept them on the move for years and ‘home' was whatever caravan, on-site cabin or dingy flat they stored their backpacks in. Later, after her mother was dead and her father was serving his first sentence, Joanne upheld the rules, finding new schools, new jobs, new towns every six months or so. They never became attached – to places or people. They weren't staying; there was no point. When Rennie finished high school, they followed the work: the beaches and resorts in summer, the snow and mountains in winter.

Then their father, Anthony, was released and the hunt started again. For two years, they skipped out on employers and rent, running and hiding, lying and ducking to keep their trail hidden. When it was over and the cops finally believed their story and a judge put their father away again, they suddenly had years ahead of them without needing to run. Rennie was twenty-three, Jo was twenty-six and neither of them knew how to stay in one place. They moved and worked and partied – until Rennie was backhanded by a man she'd slept with and lashed out. Dr Foy called it an ‘episode'. Jo said the bastard deserved it. Rennie worried about what was in
her DNA.

Then they came here. Jo lasted three weeks. She wanted to head up the coast to somewhere bigger and brighter. Rennie didn't. There was no argument; they both knew it was coming: twenty-nine and thirty-two years of age was way past time for cutting the
apron strings.

Rennie had planned to stay a year – long enough to fulfil her goal to sketch the bay through its seasons. She drew the wild southerlies and ferocious thunderstorms that battered the shore. And the lake when it was as still as a millpond and sailboats waited for a breath of wind; when it was chopped up and throwing windsurfers into the air. Then she did it all over again with paint and canvas. And she ran, worked at the cafe, made the tentative journey to friendship with Trish and Pav and Naomi, made love to Max and moved into his home. And for the first time in her life, she had one of her own.

She told Max she wouldn't stay. Told herself she'd eventually pick up and leave like she always had. She figured there'd be an argument or a drifting apart, and driving off into the sunset would be the obvious step. And when her father came out of prison the next time, there'd be no encumbrances. When she and Jo had word of his release, they'd hit the road again and get on with the life they'd been dished up, staying out of sight and trying to keep others out of his path.

It hadn't occurred to her that Max might love her, that there might never be a breaking point, that she wouldn't get restless. Or that her heart was capable of tenderness and compassion and forgiveness and trust. And love.

Almost back at the car, she aimed the key, watched the flash of amber lights as the locks disconnected and felt the pull of the place like a magnet under her feet. Sanity. Serenity. Home. She took a last, fruitless glance around the picnic area, pulled open the driver's door and told herself Max hadn't left. This was his home more than it ever
was hers.

Rennie drove on around the Garrigurrang Point loop, along the south side of the finger, past the top end of the main street where there were houses instead of shops and onto the shores of Winsweep Bay, meeting up with the road she and Max went in on last night. She slowed to search the winding verge again, not expecting to find anything new, wondering if she missed something the
last time.

She remembered losing her keys once and spending hours searching the house. The obvious places first: her handbag, the hook by the door, the old dresser. Then she looked in spots she might have left them in a distracted moment – pockets of clothing, the basket under the phone, her bedside table. She'd tried to think of logical explanations, hunted through kitchen drawers, the TV cabinet, the laundry bin. Widening the circle, she'd looked under the bed, in the studio, the garden. Finally, she'd pulled the place apart, forgetting logic and hunting through the bathroom, the pantry, the spare room, under the cushions on the sofa.