Hindsight (43 page)

‘If you know that, you know why,’ Grady replied, ‘and you can guess why that information can’t leave this room. Either way, I’ve done nothing to be ashamed of.’

‘Haven’t you?’ Mira listened for any sound of nervousness or deception from him. ‘Then tell me — do you really care for Mel Chiron, or did you just use her to get closer to me?’

‘Are you serious?’

‘No such thing as coincidence, Detective. What are the chances?’

‘Of me working this case — or dating Mel?’ He laughed. ‘It’s all the same. I’ve known Mel since high school. Ben’s father was my best friend. I was overseas for years, but as soon as I heard what happened to Ben, I could hardly stay away and do nothing. He’s my godson. I’ve been trying to clear his name for the best part of a year.’

‘Godson? And yet you arrested him for kidnapping me?’

‘You did
what
?’ Gabby gasped. ‘When did this happen?’

‘Last month,’ Grady replied. ‘Apparently, he was just taking her out for her first day trip, but there’d been a mix-up in paperwork and one of the jealous inmates found a phone and made a prank call. But if I hadn’t arrested him, it would have been somebody else, Miss Chambers. I did it to make sure he got a fair deal, and he did.’

‘Wouldn’t have hurt your position with Gregan either,’ Mira said, testing to see if she could push him gently into wanting to help. ‘I mean, Ben can’t be their favourite person in the world after all the trouble they went to framing him, so I dare say they would have enjoyed hearing news that you’d betrayed him too.’

‘Obviously, there were peripheral benefits,’ Grady confessed. ‘You can’t blame me for taking advantage of the situation. It’s all been for Ben’s benefit, ultimately.’

Mira frowned but suspected she might have done the same thing in his position. ‘You brought us in here for a reason, Detective. So I guess now it’s time to maximise your peripheral benefits.’

‘If you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking,’ Grady said, ‘the answer is no.’

‘It has to be yes,’ Mira argued. ‘These people can’t be left to build their empires while everyone stands about hoping to stumble across enough evidence to bag all of them at once. And you
must
agree with me; you’ve been out working hard to uncover whatever you can. But frankly, I’m sick to death of the whole bunch harassing both me and Ben. If I could aim a gun and fire, I’d pick them off myself, but I can’t. I can only do what I do, and you can either help or get out of my way.’ She headed for the door, but Grady beat her to it.

‘I’m not handing you to Gregan Greppia,’ he said as if the idea offended him.

‘This is your chance to crack the case!’ she insisted. ‘His son, Greggie, was so bitter! He was planning on using me against his father to secure a bigger take from all their money laundering — or take over the business himself — and if you’re the one to reveal it to Gregan, you can use the extra credibility to get closer and maybe learn the indentity of Mr Mystery.’

‘There has to be another way.’

‘Well, I’m open to suggestions. I’ve never planned anything bigger than a shopping trip with Ben before and even then it didn’t turn out how we figured.’

‘Hang on, if what you say is true,’ Gabby said, ‘then you’re way too valuable to hand over to the likes of them. Your insights seem neighbourly to miraculous, honey. If any of the Greppias ever got hold of you …’

‘I agree,’ Grady said, pacing again. ‘Imagine a crime cartel that could sniff up the dirt on every undercover cop who tries to infiltrate their organisation.’

‘They wouldn’t get that kind of dirt from me,’ Mira said, folding her arms. ‘I’ve got enough blood on my hands already. Listen, you know it’s inevitable. If you don’t hand me over, somebody else will — or I’ll go myself. Your cover is blown anyway, so you can either use me to recover your status with Greppia, or not. Your choice.’

‘My cover is what?’ Grady asked. ‘How?’

Mira gulped, feeling guilty all over again. ‘Sorry, I … didn’t meant to blow it. Greggie and his men overheard me while I was explaining things to the other two detectives who died soon after, and … well, I don’t know if Greggie’s crew have told Gregan about you yet, but they will. They heard me too, and they’re sailing to meet him now, as best I know.’

‘Where’s that?’ Grady asked, sounding seriously worried.

‘Before I answer that, there’s probably one last thing I should explain. They have Ben,’ she confessed. ‘They’re using him to get me.’

‘You told me he was at home!’ Gabby complained. ‘
Safe
, you told me!’

Mira nodded. ‘To the best of my knowledge that’s where he is. Last place they’d look, Greggie told me. He thought it was funny. But it’s me they want, or they won’t let him go alive. Can you see now, Detective? I
have
to go. And you have to trade me for Ben, or you’ll be dead too.’

Grady paced the room, his stride betraying the conflict going on in his head. ‘Where would that leave you?’ he asked. ‘No way. Are you crazy?’

Mira frowned. ‘I’m a little sensitive to that word, actually.’

‘Now who’s avoiding?’ Grady said.

‘It leaves me inside,’ Mira replied. ‘You wanted to get all the dirt, didn’t you? Well, get in line, Detective — or get me in, because with or without your help, I’m going to try.’

Grady carried Mira into the shallow water, hugging her like a baby.

He smelled so clean, and although his shirt felt as crisp as Lockman’s uniform, the material didn’t feel nearly so heavy duty.

Lifting her over the side of the Edu-cat, he set her down before climbing aboard himself.

‘ETA fifty minutes,’ Gabby called, already aboard and gunning the engines until the boat began to slide away from the bank. ‘Sit back and enjoy.’

Mira nearly threw up just thinking about it, but she steeled herself for the journey in the rear corner, where she could reach down and scoop water up to her face now and then as she needed it. But as it happened, the saltless river breeze helped to keep her mind on the problems ahead of her, and she managed to see much more of the ghostly city sliding by than she had on the first trip.

It seemed like barely a few minutes before they’d snaked around to the coast.

‘You okay?’ Gabby asked, unexpectedly close to her. ‘Oh, it’s okay. We’re on auto-pilot now. All the channel markers are programmed in.’

Mira nodded, knowing she didn’t need to say how much queasier she felt now that the water churning behind them was salty and the breeze had turned briny. She felt the blood draining from her face — so much so, that Gabby would have been blind not to notice.

‘The ocean always stinks of dead fish to me,’ Mira explained. ‘Millions of years of them, as if they’re still rotting, and it makes me sticky just to think of it.’ Even now, with dry hair and clean clothes, she could tell she’d been fully submerged in it. ‘The sea spray makes it worse.’

‘Mangroves can be pretty rank too,’ Gabby said.

‘Only when people trample through them. I had a small mangrove swamp in a corner of my place when I was a kid and it always smelled so clean — virtually filtered — until we went walking through hunting for crabs. Even then, it was easy enough to avoid stirring up the rotten-egg gas bubbles if we stepped carefully.’

‘You’re my kind of people,’ Gabby said. ‘Okay, so how do we want to do this? With Ben’s place you get a choice: lagoon landing or surf? Either’s possible so long as the wind doesn’t get any stronger. Surfside gets you closer, obviously. Waves should only be a metre or two, but timed properly, this baby can get you in and out of a lot worse.’

Mira cringed at the thought of Gabby beaching herself anywhere close enough that Greppia’s people could rush out to seize her too. ‘I don’t suppose Straddie has a taxi service? Or rent-a-car?’

‘Go straight to the ferry piers at Dunwich,’ Grady said joining them at the rear of the cat. ‘There’s a police station next door with a four-wheel drive.’

‘He speaks at last,’ Mira said. ‘I was beginning to think you’d bailed out on me.’

‘Tempting. I’ve been giving this a lot of thought and it’s not too late. I can ring across to the matron at Serenity, arrange a nice, safe room to drop you off.’

‘Try it!’ Mira argued. ‘I’ll jump overboard!’

‘No listen, Mira, I should call in a SWAT team for Ben and —’

‘Do it!’ she shouted. ‘By all means, yes! You’ll lose any chance of catching anyone on the gun-running side of things, but it would be great to have that kind of backup for a change. Only hurry, because I’m not stopping.’

‘SWAT them,’ Gabby agreed. ‘Not just for Ben’s sake. You could be hurt too, Mira, and if that happens, we’d be crucified by the law as well as the press, and we’d lose our jobs and our livelihoods. Not that I care what happens to me where Ben is concerned, but all angles need to be considered.’

‘Look, if you want to back out, fine,’ Mira replied. ‘I prefer it in your case, Gabby, but Detective Grady is already hamstrung by the whole mess and he knows it. Best way to solve this is for him to take me in, as his prisoner, so they think I lied about him being an undercover detective. He needs to make like he’s handing me over to Gregan, until we can get Ben out, catching Gregan red-handed for kidnapping and everything else he’s been investigating. He can’t get squeamish now or he’ll wake up dead in the morning.’

‘Wake up dead?’ he repeated, sounding almost amused.

‘You know what I mean! If you had enough hard evidence to make all the charges stick to Gregan and his clan, you’d have SWATed them already.’

‘Ben
is
the evidence now,’ Grady argued. ‘Enough to bring them in if he’s being held against his will in his own house.’

‘Yeah, is he?’ she asked, working hard to keep hold of her temper. ‘Not the way my luck is running. What if
none
of the Greppias are there? What if it’s just Ben and a handful of henchmen? Do you really want to let Gregan slip through your fingers
again
?’ She pointed east to the horizon where the dark mountainous dunes of Stradbroke Island scraped yesterday’s stars from the sky. ‘We are
this close
to bagging the whole bunch so we’ll never get trouble from them again. I just have to get in there and find the puzzle pieces we’re all missing — and you’ll have to trust I’m the only one who can do that.’

M
ira bade farewell to Gabby at the pier with a hug. She’d never hugged another grown woman before — only struggled with nurses while trying to avoid needles — so they bumped together awkwardly.

‘Thank you isn’t enough,’ she whispered cheek to cheek. ‘I’ll return the clothes first chance I get. I promise.’

‘Don’t sweat it,’ Gabby replied with a kiss to her cheek. ‘I won’t need them till I’m done in a week with the VIPs.’

‘Gabby, you’re off-duty?’ Grady asked.

‘Yeah, until six tomorrow.’

‘Then go straight home and lock everything.’

‘How do you lock a sloop?’ Mira asked.

‘I’ll camp ashore in my van with all my sporting gear … Just as soon as I batten down the hatches for this little baby.’ She climbed aboard the
Edukitty
again, her footsteps retreating inside the cabin.

‘This way,’ Grady said, hooking elbows with Mira. He led her up the ghostly pier, across a road to the police station and into the shadows of a well-treed park at the rear of a modest house. ‘The local sergeant’s place,’ he explained. ‘I’ll sign out the four-wheel drive.’

Through the muddy-violet shades of yesterday, the small home resembled a police cap, dark and squat with a brim that shaded the bay views from any daytime glare off the water.

‘It’s late,’ Grady whispered as they approached the fenceless lawn. ‘Almost eleven. Are you sure I can’t convince you to wait until morning at least?’

Mira shook her head and folded her arms. Ahead she could see the ghost of the police Landcruiser parked at the side of the house, under an awning — so close she could almost smell it.

He huffed and drew her to a halt under the shade of the last large tree that bordered the lawn. The tree also helped to frame the view, which seemed quite pretty with the purple moon over shimmering water, but obscenely serene compared to the hostage situation at Ben’s house only twenty minutes away.

‘Wait here,’ Grady said. She opened her mouth to complain but he silenced her with a firm finger against her lips, startling her. ‘I’ll be two minutes. Stay here, silent and out of sight. I have to go poke a bear for the car keys.’

‘What will you tell him?’

‘
Her
actually — and as little as possible.’

Mira felt a rush of panic at the thought that Grady might be going ahead to arrange a cell to lock her up ‘safely’ for the night — but the need to trust him as far as Ben’s house now outweighed the risks she needed to take. She strained to listen as he padded across the dewy grass and up onto the timber patio.

To the north she heard the rumble of thunder.

Grady knocked twice, causing a yipping dog inside to go off like an alarm. ‘Sergeant Delaney?’ he called. ‘Cassie! It’s me, Pete!’

Mira heard a string of muffled profanities inside, then within seconds, the door creaked open with a cough and Mira heard the inevitable question from a croaky voice: ‘What’s up, Pete?’

‘My bike broke down. I need to borrow the cruiser.’

Delaney sniffled, as if her head was full of the flu. ‘You need company?’

‘Nah, I’m set, thanks. Go back to bed.’

Delaney groaned, but a shuffle of slippers preceded the chink of keys. ‘I need it back by sun-up, in one piece this time.’

The door creaked closed, needing to slam twice before the lock clunked home soundly, but aside from the still-yipping dog, the house and sparse neighbourhood resumed their silence.

‘Too easy?’ Mira whispered as Grady returned to her side. Yet the lie about his bike had slid so smoothly off his lips. It struck her as ironic that the only cop she could trust also happened to be a proficient liar. A necessary evil, she supposed, for working undercover, but that didn’t do anything for settling her stomach after the trip in the
Edukitty
.

‘That wasn’t the hard part.’ He helped her into the passenger seat and dropped something heavy-sounding into the glove compartment.

‘What was that?’ she asked.

‘Can’t drive a car with a sidearm, Mira. It digs in.’

‘It’s loaded?’

‘Not much point in having it empty. A gun without bullets is just a club. But you can relax,’ he added as he fastened her invisible seatbelt. ‘It’s got a stiff safety.’

‘Okay, so what’s the hard part?’

He chuckled. ‘Hard part will be returning the cruiser if this little foray to Ben’s place turns out as badly as it did a fortnight ago.’ He closed her door with a soft clunk and she had to wait until he was behind the wheel before she could ask him what he meant by that.

‘The day Ben was shot,’ he explained as he gunned the engine and reversed out onto the silent street, ‘around mid-morning, I was called to a disturbance at the Drift Inn. First on the scene, as it happened. I was pulling into the alley near the pier, when some clot of a colonel shot my bike out from under me — said I got in the way of him apprehending two rogue scientists and their test subjects. I’m sure you know who I mean.’

Mira shivered at the memory. She’d fled the Drift Inn that day with Ben and the two docs, while Corporal Sei’s sister, Karin, had been shot and killed in the alley, trying to give them enough cover until they escaped.

‘I’m so sorry, I had no idea you were in the line of fire too!’

‘Not your fault. I got pretty good at missing you that day. Once at the Drift Inn. Once at Serenity and again at Ben’s place. The army had already airlifted him to hospital by the time I arrived, and while the colonel escaped by road, air, magic or whatever, he left a couple of snipers behind to ensure that any cops who turned up, couldn’t follow. They put a couple of rounds through the engine and fuel tank and if I’d have moved any slower they would have done the same to me.’

Mira could already picture that, but in her mind, the cruiser also burst into flames. Invisible as it was to her now that they were speeding north up the inappropriately named East Coast Road, it was still easy to imagine that the cruiser had been burned down to nothing.

‘You still don’t know how Colonel Kitching managed to get away with me?’

‘Nope. But care to share?’

‘I wish I could. Last I remember, he’d shot Ben and his dog, then bashed my head against the concrete path, near where you often park your police bike.’

‘Well, at least that explains why the army have hung around like a bad smell since then, bugging Mel. They must be hunting for clues.’

‘Who knows what they’re up to? They already have as much information as they need to arrest Gregan Greppia, in my opinion.’

The cruiser jolted onto a rough section of roadworks, and Mira braced herself for a bumpier ride, but the cruiser skimmed the worst of the ruts with barely a shudder, making for a much smoother glide.

‘I think I’m in love,’ she said, enjoying the ride.

‘Oh … ah, well, I have to remind you I’m spoken for already by Mel.’

‘Glad to hear it.’ Mira smiled. ‘I meant the four-wheel drive. You should try this road again in Ben’s car. It’s like being inside a milkshake maker.’

‘Don’t mock the Camaro, Mira. It’s thirty times older than this baby, and still going strong. It’s not the car’s fault anyway. Trucks from the sand mines tend to tear up the public roads. If you could see, you’d have noticed there are a lot of private side-roads, for company vehicles only.’

She glanced from side to side looking for signs of any mining companies, but saw nothing more than rolling hills of forest on the long, ancient sand dunes. Then she saw a gate with a sign for a mine and a road leading beyond it into the forest.

‘Any of those secret mining roads on Ben’s place?’ she asked.

‘Not likely. Mostly, they’re down the south end of the island where all the scenic roads are off limits now to the public.’

‘Ben’s place was a mining lease once too, wasn’t it?’

‘If it was, it probably still is. Are you thinking that may be how Kitching slipped away with you?’

Mira shrugged, unable to bear any more thoughts of that day. ‘All I know is Ben is waiting for us, and every minute of captivity is another sixty seconds as a prisoner.’

She clamped her eyes shut, trying not to cry. She sniffled anyway, then heard something close by her hip tear off and felt something soft nudge her hand.

‘Tissue,’ Grady said. ‘Reach down between the seats and you’ll find as many as you need.’

‘Thanks.’ She dabbed her eyes, smelled a strong scent of eucalyptus embedded in the tissue, and felt an icy tingle in the corners of her eyes that lingered, making her more awake and alert than she had been. The thin vapour also distorted and shifted the shade of time that she could see for a few seconds.

‘You know, this may sound crazy,’ she said, grateful to Grady, ‘but even blind, it’s not hard to see what Mel sees in you. I’m glad you’re not the asshole I expected you to be.’

‘I’m a prick actually. Just ask Ben; and since you’re practically family with Mel now, call me Pete, okay?’

She nodded, and opened her mouth to try it — until a frightening thought struck her: the Greppias might have look-outs posted who could read lips through a windshield.

Grady braked unexpectedly, as if he was thinking the same thing.

‘Greppia may have look-outs ahead,’ he said. ‘People with itchy trigger fingers and no tolerance for police. They’re also used to seeing me on a bike — no passengers. Get my drift?’

‘Sure. You want to ditch me because you’re worried I’ll get hurt.’ She unbuckled her seatbelt and grabbed the door handle.

‘Wait! If you go, we go together. We can walk in, bold as brass, or sneak in through the scrub, but either way, I’ve got a bad feeling. My guts are knotting.’

‘You don’t strike me as a chicken.’ She’d seen him in action a few times at the Greppia’s store and bold-as-brass seemed to be much more his style.

‘No, but you said you blew my cover to Greggie, right?’

‘By accident, sorry.’

‘Had to happen eventually but you said he’s gone ahead with his men to meet up with his father,
here,
right?’

‘Yeah … so?’

‘There’s something I still can’t figure. If I turn you over to Gregan as proof that I’m still on his side — who’s he going to believe, Mira? Me, or his son?’

‘Oh, it won’t be like that. Greggie’s out of the picture now. It’ll only be your word against the four who were with him.’

‘Hang on, Greggie’s
what
? You want to fill in that little gaping hole for me?’

Mira gulped, suspecting the answer was more likely to widen the gap between them. Or worse, cause him to cast her into the abyss of a dark cell, and yet she couldn’t lie without undermining her own confidence and sanity. ‘Greggie’s a little bit, umm … dead. He wanted to make me pregnant. He called it team-building.’

‘You killed him?’ He sounded more surprised than horrified. ‘
How?
’

‘My bikini. The strings are all stretched now.’

‘You strangled him?’

She nodded, and Grady stayed silent a long while, making her worry what he was thinking — surely, nothing she hadn’t already fretted over herself.
Criminally insane
sprang to mind, and institutionalised was probably a ‘monster’ word that applied to her after all.

‘Makes it safer for
you
, though, right?’ she asked. ‘Now it’ll only be your word against those four henchmen — and none of them witnessed what happened. They were in another part of the yacht, playing cards while he … died quietly.’

‘You know what I
should
do?’ Grady said finally. ‘I’ll have to arrest you.’

Mira laughed. ‘Handcuffs can’t hold me.’

‘I could use ties. It’s procedure.’

‘It’s stupid! I was defending myself — and I’ll get off anyway. I’ve been a resident at Serenity, remember? Everyone there is crazy. Diminished responsibility.’

‘Diminished …? I didn’t think of that.’ His voice trailed off, making her worry again.

‘Of what?’

‘This might actually work — if you’re sure Greppia’s people couldn’t guess what you used to strangle Greggie, then I’ve got details they don’t.’

‘Sure. You could say you beat it out of me.’ She grinned, knowing she had the scratches to back up his story.

‘Did you leave the bikini aboard?’

She shook her head. ‘I swam ashore. I don’t know where it is now. I think Gabby left all my wet clothes in a bag at the hospital. I’m not sure.’

‘No, she didn’t, and that’s our ace.’ He released her arm, locked her door and veered back onto the rutted road. ‘I saw her stow a bag of wet clothes in a locker aboard the
Edukitty
. So if they want proof that matches the marks on his neck, I’ll be able to trade it to get you back from them — hopefully without needing to leave you alone with them.’

‘I’d pay to see that. I mean, I may be naïve, but I can’t imagine anyone trading their goal for a hurdle, and that’s all that evidence is to them — just more evidence to deal with.’

‘Maybe, but I never enter any sticky situation without an exit strategy. I’m their cleaner, right? With a little luck, I should be able to make the evidence seem more valuable than a blind girl with a wishy-washy gift like ESP — and to be sure you’ll have the advantage when the time comes, I’ll make sure your cuffs are loose enough you can slip out whenever you need.’

Mira rolled her eyes. ‘I won’t need any help to escape, Pete. I’m already wearing my disguise.’ She tapped her sunshades. ‘I’m a regular Scarlet Pimpernel.’

‘I hate to break this to you, but they only disguise your eyes. I can still see the rest of you.’

‘You’re making the same mistake that they will. Trust me, blind doesn’t mean stupid or helpless.’

‘Apparently not. But you have to stay passive in there, and let me do all the work, okay?’

In reply, Mira took a moment to take in the direction and distance of his head by judging his voice, then punched at his ear with one knuckle extended — stopping just inside his ear and compressing air against his eardrum without actually touching his skin.

‘Woah!’ he yelped, leaning away too late.