Chapter 18
18
Grey
Grey had successfully avoided any talk about feelings or bombings, or feelings about bombings, by distracting Jett with the task of checking over Bessy. Just had to make sure the criminal who’d saved his life hadn’t cut the brakes or drained Bessy of any of her vital fluids before they left for Perth. He was staring at Jett’s boots, the rest of the Driver hidden under Bessy, when they heard it.
‘Help!’
‘What— Ow, FUCK!’ Jett’s skull collided with the car as he pushed himself out. ‘That’s Nella!’ he yelled, ignorant of the blood tracking its way down from his eyebrow.
Both men pelted out the garage door. Grey’s heart launched up his throat like a volleyed tennis ball.
Nella was about fifty metres away, near the outdoor lap pool behind Grey’s cottage, her back to them, facing the frozen army of karri trees lining the edge of the property. She was hunched over, her hands on her stomach.
Running towards her, from the karri trees, was—
‘What have you done to her?’ Grey bellowed at Max as the criminal hurled towards Nella, but he got there first, planting his body between the two women. Max slammed into him as Nella dropped to the ground.
‘Nel! Nel, where are you hurt?’ Grey tried to reach for Nella and hold Max back at the same time, but while he had run to put himself in front of Max, Jett had run straight to Nella and was now cradling her, his back in the way.
‘N–n–not me,’ Nella was stammering behind Jett’s shoulder. ‘Ar–Arnold.’
‘What?’ Grey snapped his gaze back to Max, who hadn’t moved. She was looking at him like he’d shot the sun down from the sky for a laugh. Guilt swarmed like a wasps’ nest inside him.
‘Arnold.’ Max pointed behind Grey, her eyes not meeting his.
Arnold Schwarzenegger lay on the ground by Nella’s knees, the same colour as the mud splattered across his matted fur. His eyes, normally sparkling with arrogance, were closed. Grey couldn’t see his chest rising.
‘What’s happened?’ Luca’s voice carried over the hill as he, Frankie and Tom descended on the morbid scene.
‘Fuck,’ Grey said. ‘Nel, just back away. Let’s, everyone, move away, slowly—’
‘NO!’ As Nella reached out for Arnold, Grey launched towards her but thankfully, Jett was thinking straight. He wrestled her back to the ground, away from the cat.
‘LET ME GO!’ Nella kicked out against Jett.
‘Nella.’ Grey tried to keep his voice level. ‘It might be a trap. It could be ... There could be another bomb.’ He had enough tact to leave out the inside Arnold part. ‘Everyone back to the house!’ he ordered.
No one moved.
‘Arnold!’ Frankie’s lip was trembling. Luca was white. Even Tom looked grim.
‘Let me look at him,’ Max said softly as Nella struggled against Jett, and Grey contemplated the logistics of dragging each of the Barbarani siblings back over the hill singlehandedly. ‘I know what to look for.’ Grey knew this part was for him. But something inside him thrashed against the thought of Max touching the cat. Which was ridiculous. He must just be tired from all the attempted murder.
‘Stay where you are,’ Grey conceded to everyone, ‘but let the record reflect my original advice was to leave immediately.’
Luca gave a frail salute. Frankie hiccupped through her sobs. Tom was the only one who had made any attempt to back away. Not exactly satisfied, Grey left Max to inspect Arnold while he scanned the karri trees, gun drawn.
‘It’s okay,’ Max’s voice was gentle. ‘There’s no bomb. He’s breathing.’
At her words, Jett released Nella, who flopped down in front of Arnold. ‘I can’t see!’ she sobbed. ‘I can’t see him breathing.’
‘Here,’ Jett said, placing Nella’s hand on Arnold’s chest, then his over hers. ‘Can you feel?’
With a whimper, Nella nodded, biting down on her lip. ‘There’s something wrong.’
‘Can you call Eliza?’ Luca said.
‘She’s in Vietnam,’ Jett said. Of course the bloody town vet and Nella’s best friend was AWOL when her presence would have been extremely useful. But she was there the time Grey had to strip naked to search for Vittoria’s lost bracelet in Tom’s hot spring, sitting on the rocks with Nella, and Grey could never prove to this day that she hadn’t taken a photo.
‘I know a vet,’ Frankie said. ‘He’s in my group.’
‘You mean your gang ?’ Tom asked sourly. ‘Aren’t they all in jail after the chicken farm incident?’
‘One’s at the bottom of the Indian Ocean,’ Luca offered. Although Grey had never met Forrest’s twin brother, Callum, he was glad it had been Forrest who was the sole survivor of the Valentine family boating disaster. If Ariana La Marca’s fiancé had died, Grey hated to think of all the potential reckless decisions he would have to stop Luca from making.
Frankie ignored her brother. ‘Quinton is—’
Everyone groaned, even Jett, who still hadn’t removed his hand from Nella’s.
‘Quinton?’ Luca said. ‘Isn’t he still marrying buffalo up north or something?’
‘Darting buffalo,’ Frankie corrected, her cheeks reddening. ‘To help them.’
‘Sure,’ Luca said, ‘because when is being shot with an arrowhead not helping someone?’
‘I will not have any criminals on this property!’ Tom said.
Grey’s gaze flickered to Max and he regretted it immediately; she was still kneeling beside Nella and Arnold, the edge of her singlet riding up to reveal the dimples he’d noticed when she’d reached for her phone in the hot spring.
‘Quinton is not a criminal!’
‘Yeah.’ Luca nodded. ‘Frankie doesn’t date interesting people.’
‘I didn’t date ... I don’t like Quinton ... For god’s sake, he wasn’t at the chicken farm. He joined Earth’s True Redeemers, like, last year ...’
‘How many hand jobs did it take for you to convince him—’
‘It might surprise you lot to know that some people actually care that our planet is slowly burning to the ground,’ she said, cheeks still red. ‘And it’s people like—’
‘Let me guess.’ Luca scowled. ‘People like ... me?’
Frankie sniffed. ‘Billionaires are responsible for a million more times greenhouse gases than the average person.’
‘Flattered you don’t think I’m average, Frank.’
‘Quinton knows ETR’s about real change, not just Instagram hashtags. He actually understands that climate finance is the way forward, and he knows there’s enough global capital to make the transition to a low-carbon global—’
‘Okay, we get it , Frankie, he’s got a big—’
‘Shut UP, Luca!’ Nella ripped her hand out from under Jett’s. ‘At the current moment, the only thing that’s actually dying is my cat! How far away is Quinton?’
‘Ten minutes, tops.’ Frankie was already on her phone, tapping furiously. ‘He lives in Bindi Bindi,’ she added in response to all the silent stares.
‘And how is he going to fix Arnold Schwarzenegger?’ Luca raised an eyebrow. ‘His electric touch?’
‘He has all his equipment in his ute,’ Frankie said, to her credit, without slapping her brother.
Grey turned away before anyone could interject with an ‘equipment’ pun, but wished he’d gone with one himself when he came face to face with Max.
‘I ...’ he started, but the words wouldn’t come.
‘It’s on the tip of your tongue,’ she said, lip curling. ‘It’s I’m a giant dickhead .’
He swallowed. ‘I’m a giant dickhead.’
She raised her eyebrows; clearly even that concession wasn’t enough.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I didn’t actually think you’d done something to Nella.’
‘So why—’
‘It’s my problem,’ he said, straightening up, ‘not yours.’
‘You know, a guy I arrested once coughed infected blood into my eyes and then, as he tried to say sorry, it came out as a torrential rain of vomit. That apology was better than this.’
‘I don’t do this well,’ he said.
She tilted her head. ‘Human interaction?’
‘I don’t normally have to justify myself.’
‘Must be nice.’
For fuck’s sake . ‘I thought I was too late again, that I’d missed something, just like with the backpack.’
‘I’m down here, Hawke.’
He’d been staring at a spot on a karri tree just behind her head. As he drew his gaze down to hers, everything tensed. Her green eyes pierced him like blades tipped with poison. The feeling spread through his body, uncontrollable. The only antidote was to look away, to make her leave, to move closer—
No. He would get a grip on this.
He would concede one tiny piece of broken glass from deep within his soul. A means to an end.
‘Last time I let someone into the Barbaranis’ lives, let’s just say it didn’t go well.’
Her expression wavered, like she’d just realised something. ‘Sophie?’
The ground shifted beneath him. ‘How did you—’
‘He’s here!’ Frankie called.
The familiar crunch of tyres against the gravel road snapped him out of it.
How the fuck does she know about Sophie? Nella wouldn’t have said anything. Jett definitely wouldn’t ... Frankie and Luca didn’t know enough about it, and Tom refused to invoke Sophie’s name, as though she was an urban myth that would strangle you through your mirror if you said her name too many times.
Doesn’t matter how she knows , Grey thought as he watched Quinton jump from the driver’s cab with a brown satchel. That’s not the problem.
The problem was that he should never have trusted Sophie. But he wasn’t going to make the same mistake again, not when all logic and reason were flashing red, neon warning signs that he shouldn’t trust Max Conrad.
But the problem, he was realising, was that he already did.