Читать книгу Dance with the Devil - Sandy Curtis - Страница 7

'Answer me, Emma! If it's your demented killer out there we're both in trouble!'

Emma realised Drew was right. She'd thought he was safe here with her, cocooned by the torrential rain, but perhaps the killer had found out where Drew had been dumped and was now bent on finishing what he'd started.

'There's a rifle - but I took the bolt out. I couldn't trust Dad with it, he - '

'Emma! Karl! Are you in there?' A deep male voice sounded from the front veranda.

Emma sighed with relief. 'It's okay,' she reassured Drew, 'it's J.D. He owns the adjoining property.'

'Can you trust him?'

'With my life.' Emma watched Drew's frown deepen and wondered at the cause, then walked to the front door. She felt a rush of affection for the big man standing on the veranda, shaking rainwater from his coat and hanging it beside hers. Without his help this past year she wouldn't have been able to keep the property from deteriorating even further than it had.

'I found your horses on my land, Emma, so I brought them back. I put them in the stables.' There was no smile on his face. The brooding question in his eyes made Emma realise he must have seen the grave.

'You'd better come in, J.D. There's someone I think you should - ' she broke off as his gaze swung up behind her and she saw the tensing of his shoulders under the denim work shirt, the tightening of his jaw. She knew she would see Drew behind her if she turned around. She gestured over her shoulder.

'Drew Jarrett - meet John Devlin O'Connor.'

Ten minutes later they were seated in the kitchen with Emma making coffee and toast as she filled J.D. in on her father's death and Drew's arrival.

J.D. ran a hand through his thick brown hair. 'I'm sorry about your father, Em, but maybe it was better for it to happen this way.'

Emma caught Drew's puzzled look. 'My father had Alzheimer's,' she explained. 'It was getting very hard to look after him - he had few lucid moments.'

'And the rest of the time he was an abusive bastard,' J.D. broke in. He held up a placating hand at Emma's protest. 'I know you loved him, and he was a good man before, even if he was too hard on you and your mother, but he made your life hell this past year, Emma.'

He switched his attention to Drew. 'You look familiar, Drew. What do you do for a living?'

'I'm a lawyer.'

J.D. raised an eyebrow. 'That might make you a more likely candidate for crucifixion, but that's not where I've seen you before.' Suddenly he smiled, strong white teeth brilliant against the weather-tanned skin of his face. 'State triathlon titles last month. You came third. It took a lot of guts to keep going after that spill you took in the bike leg.'

'Triathlon?' Emma echoed.

'You know, Em - twenty-kilometre runs, two-kilometre swims and thirty-kilometre bike rides to see who's the fittest of the fit.'

'I know, J.D., I just didn't think…'

'Would you mind if we concentrated on working out who in this valley might want me dead?'

Emma saw the embarrassment on Drew's face. 'The man who came fourth?' she joked, and tried to stop her smile at the look he flashed her.

She was grateful J.D. had come. Grateful not to be alone with Drew after that devastating kiss. It had shaken her - right to her toes. But it was Drew's caring, his tenderness, that made her feel vulnerable. And vulnerable wasn't a feeling she was comfortable with.

'Have you any idea what this man - you said you thought of him as the devil - looks like, Drew?'

Drew described his unsuccessful attempt to escape. The impression he had from the brief feel of the man as he'd grabbed him, was of an extremely tall man, heavily muscled, with longish hair.

'There was something about his skin texture…' Drew closed his eyes, let his mind, his body, remember.

'His neck…the skin was loose, not firm like a young man's. He could be in his late forties - perhaps older.'

'Well, I know everyone in this valley, Drew,' J.D. spoke with conviction, 'and no-one fits that description.'

'He couldn't live too far away, J.D.,' Emma broke in. 'Drew was still chained up when the storm with the purple lightning started. So if you take out fifteen minutes by the time this man whipped and nailed Drew - ' she stopped, the empathy which made her such a good doctor seeming to work overtime where Drew was concerned. Her flesh cringed with the pain he must have endured.

'The storm lasted about twenty minutes here. It had moved in slowly from the north-east. Then it was about two hours before the winds reached cyclonic force.' J.D. rubbed his jaw. 'It could mean they live in the valley north of this one, or further to the east. But if that storm was widespread, it would be possible you were brought here from the south-east.'

'And we're only assuming the woman who saved me knew Emma was a doctor. It could have been pure coincidence I was dumped here. And maybe…maybe he didn't want to kill me. Just inflicting psychological and physical pain might have been his idea of revenge.' Frustration gnawed at Drew. There had to be some way of working out where he'd been held prisoner. If only he hadn't lost consciousness in the van. Ten minutes or two hours - he didn't have a clue.

'What I can do is radio the police in Cairns and let them know.' J.D. said. 'The only road out of here is cut by the floodwaters from the river so you won't be able to get back for a few days at least. And the rescue helicopters will be too busy with the victims of the cyclone to have time to take you out.'

He stood up. 'Em, I'll get the police to tell your mother about your father's death and let her know you're all right. And I'd be happier if you both came and stayed with me.' J.D. sighed his frustration as Emma began to protest, then continued, 'Do you want me to let anyone know you're safe, Drew?'

'Just ask them to contact my office and tell my colleagues what's happened. Ask if they could arrange for someone to pick up my vehicle from the fishing shack.'

J.D. nodded and said to Emma, 'Get your dad's rifle, Em. You'd better get it working just in case.'

As Emma walked from the room, J.D. turned to where Drew sat at the table. 'I wish Emma wasn't so stubborn about staying here. I don't like the idea of some lunatic looking for you, and Emma getting in the way and being hurt.' His expression darkened. 'And I don't want Emma hurt by you, either. Understand?'

'No-one will hurt Emma while I'm alive.' Drew spread his bandaged hands on the table. 'And I'd nail myself to this table before I'd deliberately hurt her.'

J.D. nodded, apparently satisfied. Then his right eye closed in a slow wink. 'I'll come back with some clothing for you. Seems to me Karl's shorts aren't doing a good enough job.'

Emma slipped the safety catch on the rifle. Her fingers caressed the worn timber butt. It felt like a lifetime ago she'd fired at a cardboard target on a tree, her father's rough voice both encouraging and criticising her.

She'd never been good enough, no matter how hard she'd tried, never been the son he'd always wanted. Even when, after months of practice, she could hit the bullseye nine out of ten shots. She wondered bitterly if ten out of ten would have been good enough.

'Did you come home to look after your father? You said you'd only been back here a year.' Drew's voice brought her back to the present.

She nodded. A year. The longest year of her life. The constant strain of looking after an adult who behaved like a petulant child one minute and a tyrant the next, had been exhausting.

'Where were you before?'

'Africa. Europe before that. I work for Médecins sans Frontières - Doctors without Borders - or I did until I found out how quickly Dad had deteriorated.'

'Did you resent having to give up work to look after him?'

'Resent?' She considered the word. 'Not really. In a way I was pleased to come home. I thought for once Dad might need me.' She laughed bitterly. 'I thought he might even be grateful. For once, just once, he might even tell me he loved me, might even say he was proud of me, that I'd done something…'

She broke off, embarrassed. Her father's lack of ability to display his love had hurt her deeply, a hurt she had never confided to anyone but her mother.

'Fathers aren't very good at that sort of thing, are they. My father wouldn't give one word of praise, let alone say he loved me. My mother used to say I had to accept him for what he was because he didn't know any different, but I figured he was just too stubborn to change.'

Emma nodded her agreement. Then she blinked in surprise at Drew's next words. 'After my mother died, my father changed. It was almost as though he no longer had a reason for being so tough, so macho. It was only years later he told me that Mum had made him promise to change, to break the pattern he'd learned from his father.'

'Do you have a good relationship with him now?'

'He was killed in a work accident a few years ago.' There was a world of sadness in Drew's eyes. 'I would have liked to have told him how much it meant to me to know he loved me, but I always thought there'd be time. There never is, is there.'

Emma bit back a reply. There was a terrible anger burning inside her. A deep, festering anger and resentment she thought she'd buried long ago. Perhaps it was her grief, perhaps the overwhelming futility of wishing and hoping for something that could now never be possible, but suddenly it burst out. She jumped to her feet.

Her anger was a wild beast inside her. A beast that demanded release. She picked up a plate from the sink and flung it across the room. It shattered with a crash that helped to abate the storm within her.

'I had a brother…' Hell, why tell Drew her problems? He had enough of his own, didn't he? But the blue eyes that focused on her gave Emma the distinct feeling that explaining her feelings was exactly what Drew wanted her to do. She sighed. 'An older brother. When I was six years old, we both came down with viral meningitis. Matthew developed complications. He died. I don't think Dad ever forgave me for being the one who lived.'

Drew said nothing, just nodded in sympathy. A deep melancholy swept over Emma. She tried to push the emotion aside. She'd seen grief, felt grief, too often to succumb to the chains it could create.

'I have a bedroom to clean up.' She stood. 'You probably want to clean up, yourself.'

Drew stroked the stubble on his cheek. 'A shave, and a shower if possible, would be great.'

'A shave I can arrange. But I'm sorry, the shower is out. You can't get your back wet, and you'll have to wear plastic bags over your hands to have a wash.'

'What?' Drew raised one eyebrow. 'No sponge bath from my personal physician?'

That exact thought had already plagued Emma. She knew it would be far easier for Drew if she bathed him. But the memory of her reaction to his kiss warned her it would definitely not be easy for her. She bent down and picked up the pieces of the smashed plate and dropped them in the bin. She turned to Drew as she walked into the hallway.

'I'll put what you need in the bathroom.' Her voice was coolly professional, but she couldn't help the smile that tugged at the corners of her mouth. She suspected what he needed wasn't just a shave and a shower.

She hurried away before Drew could comment.

It was awkward shaving with plastic bags over the dressings on his hands, but Drew was passably pleased with the result. Even running a comb through his tangled hair gave a pleasure that surprised him. In the heat of his prison shed, sweat had trickled itchy trails through his hair and bristles. The chains had prevented him from scratching them. A minor irritation, but it had reinforced his feeling of helplessness.

The sensation prickled in his scalp again. He dug his fingers into his head, rubbing in a slow determined massage, and fought against the memory of darkness, the feeling of suffocation. It was only when his breath escaped in a rush that he realised he had been holding it in anticipation of the appearance of his captor.

He almost succumbed to the temptation of standing under a hot shower and washing away the grime of the past week, but ran a small amount of warm water into the bath instead. Keeping his feet out of the water proved more difficult than he'd thought, but the relief at finally being clean again was worth the effort. He'd only been teasing Emma about the sponge bath but, as he imagined her soft hands on the more intimate areas of his body, he was pleased, but perversely disappointed, she had refused. He knew he wouldn't have been able to control his reaction if she'd touched him.

Emma called out to him through the closed door just as he stepped from the bath. He wrapped a towel around his waist, cursing the restriction of his bandaged hands, and opened the door.

If he'd been less observant he would have missed the gleam of desire that shone briefly in her eyes as she looked at his now clean-shaven face, and his heart soared in response. Each time he saw her he wanted her with a fierceness that amazed him. But the way she seemed determined to keep him at arm's length frustrated him badly.

She held out a bundle of clothing. 'From J.D. He said something about there being a bit more room.'

Drew's eyes narrowed at the innocent look on her face - he suspected she wouldn't have missed the meaning behind J.D.'s comment.

In her other hand she held a plastic jug. 'Would you like me to wash your hair? I know how hard it is to feel really clean if your hair's dirty.'

His rapid agreement had as much to do with desire as a need for cleanliness. Even though he told himself he should be concentrating only on discovering the identity of his would-be killer, he seemed unable to stop the ache in his chest that formed at even the thought of Emma.

Her fingers massaged his scalp as he leaned over the handbasin. He could feel the soft outline of her body pressed lightly against his. It took an immense effort of concentration to ignore his body's reaction and listen to her words.

'In a lot of places where I worked, there was no running water, or little water because of drought or war. I used to tie my hair up and wear a hat to try to keep my hair clean. Washing it was an impossible luxury when people were dying from lack of water.'

Drew had a mental image of Emma working in a grass hut in a dusty jungle clearing, ministering to the sick and injured. From what he'd seen of her already, he sensed she would be irritated by the lack of amenities only if it hindered her treatment of her patients. If her treatment of him was any indication, she was a compassionate physician.

Emma poured clean water through Drew's hair, then towelled it dry. She had told herself that offering to wash his hair was a kindness she would have given any other person, but she knew she was lying. She wanted to touch him. Touch him, apart from the necessity of cleaning and bandaging his wounds.

Touch him in ways she hadn't touched a man in a long, long time.

Too long without sex she castigated herself. Any man would look good.

'Do you have a pen and paper?' Drew asked.

Emma looked up from where she knelt before the stove, pushing wood into the firebox.

'In the desk drawer in the living room. Why?'

Drew shrugged, J.D.'s cotton short-sleeved shirt allowing him freedom of movement without catching on the dressings on his back. To Emma, the blue of the shirt seemed to pale in comparison to his eyes. They were a deep shade of blue, with a piercing intensity she felt impaled her each time he looked at her.

'I've been going over in my mind where I could have come in contact with this devil, but I can't recall ever meeting someone who resembles him. I thought if I made a list of everyone who'd ever threatened me, it might give the police somewhere to start.'

'Everyone? Just how long would this list be?'

Drew chuckled. 'Hopefully not too long. But in my profession you tend to make enemies without meaning to.'

'What if he comes here, Drew? What will you do?'

The tiny frown lines between his eyes tightened. 'I've been thinking about that, Emma. And to tell you the truth I'm scared.'

'Of what he might do to you?'

'No.' Tension invaded his body, and a sudden savage glint shone in his eyes. 'Of what I might do to him.'

Two hours later, Drew tossed down the pen in disgust. It didn't matter how many names he wrote down, how many convictions he cross-referenced against the prison sentences given, he couldn't pin-point a likely suspect. Not one of his clients, convicted or acquitted, had been anywhere near the physical size of the devil.

There had to be a reason the devil wanted to kill him, but he was no closer to identifying him than he'd been as he lay in that stinking shed and tried to figure it all out.

Emma hammered the last nail into the boards crossing the broken window in the spare bedroom. Drew had offered to help clear away the debris caused by the cyclone but she had refused. She needed time to think, to work out what she was going to do with the property.

Two months ago, her father had slapped his Will down on the table where she'd been going through the mail, sorting the bills into what was possible to pay and what would need a phone call asking for more time.

'You'd better keep this, Emma,' he'd muttered. 'Or I might lose it like I've lost everything else.'

She'd felt a surge of pity for him then, an aching sense of loss for the man who would never again be her father. She'd stood up and gone to hug him, only to see his expression change.

'I want steak tonight, Patricia,' he'd growled at Emma. 'Why aren't you cooking it? Always playing with those damn paintings.' He'd walked away, shaking his head. 'Can't eat paintings. Can't eat paintings.'

It had been the last time her father had said anything rational to her, even if he had confused her with her mother.

When she'd felt emotionally capable of doing so, she'd read the Will, and learned her father had left everything to her.

She'd felt like a noose had tightened around her throat.

Emma made sandwiches for lunch. Drew made the coffee. She started to tell him to leave it to her, but recognised his need to do something.

She felt vaguely guilty that she hadn't offered him some counselling about the ordeal he had been through. After all, it was something she had done before with trauma victims while she had been treating their physical wounds. But something in her shied away from becoming too involved with Drew. A deep-seated instinct warned her that the empathy she usually shared with her patients could very easily turn into something far deeper with this man.

Drew cradled his mug in both hands. 'How long had your father had Alzheimer's?'

'A long time, I think. It had come on so gradually no-one realised. He'd never been an easygoing man and he just seemed to get more cantankerous. I hadn't seen him for about eighteen months when I got a letter from J.D. saying he'd taken Dad in to see a doctor. Apparently he'd deteriorated quite quickly after a bout of flu.'

'You and J.D. - you're good friends.'

It was a question. Emma looked at him, surprised at the intensity of the look on his face.

'J.D. and my brother were friends. After Matthew died, J.D. took on the role of big brother. My parents divorced when I was seventeen - I was away at university. J.D. kept in touch - letters, phone calls. I always relied on him to keep me up to date on Dad.' Sorrow showed briefly on her face. 'Dad was a lousy correspondent.'

'Did he leave a Will?' At her startled look he quickly apologised. 'Sorry. Professional curiosity.'

'He left everything to me. The house, the property, what little stock is left - and enough debts,' she finished bitterly, 'that I'll have to sell everything to pay them. I never wanted anything from him. I don't care about the money. But I grew up here. This is home.' She stood up, gestured to Drew to follow. 'I want to show you something.'

In the living room, Emma waved her hands at the photographs lining the walls. Drew had noticed them that morning but hadn't paid them much attention. They were all of horses - beautiful, sleek horses. He knew enough about horses to know these would never work a property or be bought as pets.

'Once, we owned one of the most successful thoroughbred breeding studs in the country. We weren't big, but Dad's expertise was respected. He knew all there was to know about horses. Unfortunately he knew very little about people.'

'Your mother included?'

'Very perceptive, Counsellor.'

Drew shrugged. 'It's easy to be perceptive about other people. Harder about yourself.'

It was an observation Emma agreed with. She'd always found it hard to analyse and come to terms with her feelings about her father. She suspected she could have the same problem where Drew was concerned.

The dogs, Jess and Ned, had relinquished their guard over Emma's father's grave and moved onto the front veranda. Drew discovered this when he pushed open the front door that afternoon and was greeted by low growls and a warning bark. It didn't take him long to get Jess to accept him, but Ned wouldn't allow him within patting distance.

The steady rain drummed onto the tin roof in a never-ceasing cadence. Drew looked out at the debris from the cyclone still littering the water-soaked yard. He's out there! Somewhere out there in the valley, or perhaps further away. Someone who'd decided that I had to die.

The door banged behind him. Emma propped her father's rifle against the wall, took her Driza-bone off the hook and pulled it on. 'I have to check the horses,' she explained.

Drew reached for the other coat. 'I'll go with you.' He saw she was about to protest. 'I don't think you should go alone.'

The meaning of his words hung in the air.

Finally she nodded.

Emma blinked to adjust her vision as they walked into the stables. The odour of newly turned earth mingled with hay and dampness.

She glanced down at her father's grave. Tears stung her eyes but she resolutely walked past. A welcoming whinny greeted her as they reached the two horses J.D. had returned. She placed the rifle against a wall, hung her hat on a peg.

'Hello, Quest.' She rubbed her hand against the forehead of a chestnut-coloured mare. The horse snickered, her soft lips searching Emma's other hand for the treat she knew would be there.

The black horse in the end stall reached its head around, its large brown eyes hopeful. Emma moved along, murmured a greeting, proffered the treat. She smiled as the horse nuzzled her coat, searching for more. 'Don't be greedy, Solomon,' she chided.

She turned back to Drew.

Her heartbeat froze in her chest as he lifted the rifle towards her head.