“You were ages!” the girls whinged. “We thought you’d been kidnapped!”
“My hair’s gone all frizzled in the heat!” Maddie wittered.
Sophia told them the bare bones of her successful mission and they were elated; high fiving each other and feeling as smart as regular women detectives. Sophia got Heather to drive her round to the Robertson’s house and leave her there. Bob welcomed her with hugs and Ellen with kisses, but neither were impressed with her, once she told them her news. In fact, Bob was livid. “You bloody well did what?”
“Now steady on, Bob. Remember your blood pressure,” Ellen interjected. “She’s only done what you would have.”
“It’s a police investigation!” he shouted and Ellen flapped her arms at him.
“And she’s worked out what they couldn’t. She won’t go back there, will you, Soph?”
“Well, I was hoping to come back and interview Hettie with you...”
At the sight of Bob going a horrid shade of puce, Sophia decided perhaps home was a better place for her. Bob confiscated her phone, wrote down Hettie’s address and the instruction about the shortbread and drove her home.
At the house, Edgar’s SUV was parked on the driveway, which was unusual and another car parked behind it. Sophia stared at it as she and Bob went up the front steps. “I’ve seen that car somewhere before,” she mused. Bob put his fingers firmly into the centre of her back and pushed her up to the front door.
As the door clicked shut behind them, two little bodies hurled themselves at the girl’s legs.
“Soph!” Maisie squealed, demanding to be picked up, while William hugged her thighs and kissed the front of her jeans.
“Oh, thank God!” Sophia sighed loudly and saw the odd look Bob gave her. She was thrilled to see Dane’s brother and sister but even more pleased to be spared the double telling-off Bob planned to act out alongside Edgar.
“Luff you, Soph,” Will whispered and snuggled into Sophia’s legs. She sank down onto the steps so she could hold them and enjoy their fragile bodies and childish scent. They reminded her of Dane and happier times.
Marie and Carl sat in the family room with glasses of cold water and Edgar wore very old clothes covered in splashes of paint. Sophia looked at him curiously. Edgar greeted Bob warmly and introduced him to the children’s foster carers. Sophia was grateful Bob didn’t just launch into her catalogue of errors, but the look he gave her told her she was going to get it later.
“We haven’t met,” Marie said, shaking Sophia’s hand, “but the children talk about you all the time.”
Sophia’s mind took her back to the awful night a few weeks ago, when Dane had arrived in the early hours, injured and trailing his tiny responsibilities. “Yes,” she smiled sadly. “They came here a few weeks ago when...well, when it all went wrong at their place. They stayed overnight and disappeared the next day.”
Sophia sat on the floor with a child on each knee, their little arms tangled around her neck. They had a little whispered spat about who loved her most, but in the end agreed that it was probably Dane and shut up.
Edgar’s smile encompassed Bob and Sophia as he announced, “Carl and Marie can account for Dane’s whereabouts during that missing half an hour the other night. He turned up at their place, covered in cuts and looking sick. He wanted to see the kids.”
Carl looked suddenly very guilty. “I could see he’d been in a fight and wanted to help him get cleaned up before they saw him. They’ve just started to settle and I didn’t think it was helpful for them to see him bleeding. He didn’t seem quite right; he kept repeating himself. I took him into the lounge and sat him down so I could go and get some first aid supplies from the kitchen. I was only gone for a few seconds but when I got back, he wasn’t there. The ranch slider was open and I heard his car start. I couldn’t catch him and we haven’t seen him since. We got worried and tried all the numbers we had, but couldn’t reach him. I know we didn’t meet, but we picked the children up from this house a few weeks ago. We thought we’d try here. We’ve been a couple of times, but figured a Sunday evening was probably the best time to catch anyone in.”
Sophia cuddled the little bodies to her firmly, knowing in part, the nightmare was over. She loved their tiny arms and legs and how strong their hold on her was. They were so loyal and sweet, despite all the harm adults in their life had caused. Smelling the strong washing powder scent on William’s clothes made her want to cry, making an imprint of the children for her memories, figuring she probably wouldn’t see them again. Sophia concentrated on the familiar ache in the healing scar on her thigh as William’s bony bottom compressed it.
She used it to distract herself from the sadness inside. Mission accomplished. She did it. She salvaged Dane’s job for him, proved he didn’t kill his stepdad and ensured he wouldn’t go to prison.
Bob took Sophia’s mobile phone to the police station with Carl, to meet the detective handling the murder enquiry. Then he went to see Hettie. Maria took the little children home. They hugged and kissed Sophia with genuine affection. “Luff you heaps and heaps, Soph. When can we see you again?”
“Oh, soon guys,” she sniffed, dangerously close to breaking. As Edgar shut the door after their departure, he didn’t expect his daughter to break down into floods of tears.
“I thought you’d be happy, sweetheart,” he said gently into her hair. “I guess it’s just the stress of it all.”
But it wasn’t. It was the end of something very wonderful and Sophia didn’t want to face it. She should have rung Maddie and Heather with the good news; knowing they would celebrate how their sleuthing paid off, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to. She needed to finish with Dane, but wasn’t yet sure how to do it. Writing a note was the coward’s way out, although maybe things would have been different if Sally at least dignified Edgar with one.
To her dismay, a knock on the door a few hours later admitted an elated Bob, closely followed by the tall figure of Dane. Sophia knew she went immediately red and cursed her pale skin for betraying her. Dane seemed awkward and still in pain and Bob informed them he had discharged himself as soon as the handcuffs were removed.
“Would it be alright if he stayed here, just for tonight?” Bob asked Edgar and Sophia cringed visibly. She knew Dane saw, his dark eyebrows knitting just slightly at her reaction and she worked hard to keep her face neutral. “You’re jolly quiet, Miss Armitage, I must say!” Bob said to her and she looked down at the carpet anxiously, finding Dane’s eyes on her as she looked up again. The situation was agonising.
The sound of a key rattling around in the front door sent Edgar out into the hallway leaving the two teenagers, the jubilant and oblivious lawyer and one hell of an atmosphere. Running footsteps came down the hall to the family room and Sophia’s mother burst in, closely followed by Edgar. She faltered slightly as she saw her old employer, at least having the decency to look ashamed. Dane had a double take at the older version of Sophia, dressed in neat slacks with a lacy summer top that fitted where it touched. “What the hell’s going on with my daughter?” she said accusingly, looking straight at Edgar. “You told me she wasn’t the one stabbed at school. Now I find out that she was. And what’s this about a criminal boyfriend?”
Edgar’s face was impassive and feeling suddenly in the way; Bob reached down from his great height and kissed Sophia gently on the cheek. Raising his eyebrows, he said in a low voice, “We can have a little chat about personal safety and risk taking, another time.”
He shook hands warmly with Dane and Edgar and behaved as though Sally hadn’t just burst into the room, leaving without looking in her direction. It didn’t faze her in the slightest. “Is anyone going to explain?” she demanded and Edgar shrugged and went into the kitchen to boil the kettle, for a drink he didn’t want. He wasn’t about to stand and argue with the vitriolic woman.
Sal turned to look at her daughter, her eyes softening and she modified her tone. “Soph, are you ok?”
Am I ok? Sophia decided the answer was probably no. Right then, she was far from ok. But she nodded anyway, wanting the moment to be over and her mother to go back to wherever she came from.
Spotting Dane propping himself up against the television cabinet, looking like he badly wanted to sit down but didn’t feel it was appropriate, Sally pointed a perfectly manicured finger at him. “Please tell me this is not the criminal boyfriend? And please tell me he isn’t staying here with my sixteen-year-old daughter?”
Something snapped inside Sophia. She wondered if it began with the appearance of a woman she hadn’t seen for almost three months, a woman who was meant to feel something for her, but clearly didn’t. Or perhaps the crater in her heart split open with the use of the word, ‘boyfriend.’ The cyclone inside welled up with such violence it took even her by surprise and she felt like a detached spectator, watching herself get right into her mother’s personal space and shout into her face. “He isn’t my boyfriend! He’s having a baby with someone else! You don’t have any rights here! Leave Dad alone and stay away from me! I have nothing else left for you to take!”
Then she ran, fresh energy coursing through her veins, mixing with the adrenaline and endorphins as Sophia pounded down the stairs and flung open the front door. She had no idea where she was going, but ran anyway. The tiny bits of metal which became detached from the pavement in the extreme heat, bit and stabbed into her bare feet as she blindly hurtled down the alleyway at the end of the street. Discovery Park opened up in front of her and she pelted across the grass, feeling a wonderful freedom.
Halfway across, her brain finally got her attention and she slumped down in the middle of a soccer pitch. The paddock was infested with onehunga weed and the prickles pushed their way into the soles of her feet, embedding themselves and causing her pain sensors to object. She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “It’s like everything else in my life!” she yelled. “It looks good from a distance, but when you get up close it’s irreparably broken!”
The vast area of green was deserted. Nobody heard or cared. Sophia sat and picked the prickles out of her feet, hoping nobody came looking for her. “Especially her!” she muttered, knowing a visit from her mother would finish her off. At least they all knew how she felt now. With any luck, by the time she composed herself enough to get home again, there would only be good old Edgar left to pick up the pieces and glue her together. Sophia pulled the last prickle out and hobbled over to the play park, feeling grateful for the small mercy of privacy. The lady-vicar’s words came back to her, “This too shall pass,” bringing her distant hope.
“Sophia Armitage, you’ve survived worse,” she told herself, acknowledging the truth with sadness. She plonked herself on the swings, relishing the temporary freedom being high in the air brought and closing her eyes, she dreamed of happier times back when her family was whole and her parents were still the people she believed them to be. After a stomach churning swing, Sophia knew she needed to stop and re-enter the real world. It came to her like a bitter blow; she couldn’t aimlessly swing here for the rest of her life and then just die. More’s the pity.
The surface under the swing held the day’s heat and felt sore on Sophia’s bare feet when she tried to stop. She kept her eyes closed and coasted to a steady halt, each swing bringing her back under the control of gravity. She wondered how long it would take for Dane to find somewhere else to go and her mother to return to her love nest. She opened her eyes, deciding to wait for another half an hour just to make sure.
A dark movement in her peripheral vision made Sophia jump and she whipped her head round. Dane sat on the swing next to her. His dark hair hung in his eyes, his head lowered to face the ground. His left hand clutched the chain of the swing, but his other gripped his damaged ribs. Sophia stopped her swing and felt a familiar sensation as her brain dried up and left her no words to speak. Mind blank.
Sophia bit her lip and stood on the superheated surface with a wince of pain. She felt Dane’s stare on the side of her face and gulped. It was hard not to turn and acknowledge him. She promised herself she would never let a guy get to her like this again, never give someone else the right to break her like Sal destroyed Edgar. Dane’s blue eyes burned in her cheek and eventually she succumbed and peeked. Everything about him looked ill, his colour, his posture and the dampness of his hair where it met his forehead. But his eyes were steady and powerful, like intense blue pools of water. They were the colour of the icy lahar at the top of Mount Ruapehu, almost a perfect reflection of the bright summer sky. His dark lashes blinked and Sophia sighed. It was important to do this right and she was brought up to be nice. “I don’t think we should see each other anymore...like this,” she said, her voice steady but her heart shattering like a crystal vase. She wafted her hand to take in the play park, the soccer pitches and the endless weed-infested grass.
“Like this...as in, on children’s apparatus.” Dane didn’t smile.
“No! Like this, as in...my...boyfriend.” Even saying the word seemed to cut like a knife, irritation budding in Sophia’s tone.
“So I gathered,” Dane replied. “Can I ask why?”
She looked at him with astonishment. “Because of the baby you’re having with Louise! I’m not getting in the middle of that.”
Dane shook his head to clear it, moving his hand from his ribs to rub his eyes and back again. “I’m just not getting this,” he said, sounding desperate. Sophia resented having to explain it to him. She wanted to leave him sitting there pathetically on a child’s swing and go home, but fear of him falling off, dictated she stay. It was a bit pointless getting the cops off his back only to leave him to die in a kiddie’s playground.
“Louise is pregnant!” Sophia gritted her teeth, stilting her sentence. “I heard her say it was yours and you wouldn’t take responsibility. I don’t want to be involved. I feel...confused.”
“You feel confused! Welcome to the club!”
“Oh my gosh! So, you’re still denying it? Poor Louise.”
“Oliver!” Dane gasped as he tried to sit up. “Oliver got Louise pregnant, not me. Get your facts straight!”
Sophia shook her head. “I heard her say...”
What actually did she hear? Sophia tried to conjure up the awful scene in the toilet. It shouldn’t have been hard; she went over and over it many times since. But as she replayed the chance conversation, the words rearranged themselves unhelpfully in Sophia’s head and she realised with horror; Louise said nothing of the kind. She never said Dane’s name.
“Louise wouldn’t say it’s mine, because it’s not!” Dane said, emitting a tight, awful cough. “So at what point did you jump to your damning little conclusion?” His voice held the sneer Sophia heard him use on other people and it chipped away at the ice over her heart.
“She said the father wasn’t interested because he liked someone else. Then she wished Sandra had chopped that person’s leg off.” Sophia gulped.
“Right!” Dane hauled himself up using the swing chain and the seat jerked and hit him in the butt. His eyes flashed dangerously from inside a pain wracked face. “Well, thanks for that. Thanks for coming to me first with your imaginative speculation...oh, you didn’t.” He shook his head at her, even the slight action paling his colour further.
The jigsaw pieces fell into place quickly as Sophia recalled the ‘little chat’ Matt and his mates had with Oliver last year. Remorse rode her like a rodeo bronc, relentlessly digging in its heels and making her squirm.
“But Darren hinted at it too. He said it wasn’t just Sandra that had the hots for you. I assumed it was Louise.”
“It was Jane!” Dane spat. “And just so you know, Jane really is my cousin. Our junkie, alcoholic mothers are sisters, so it was hardly likely to happen, was it? Why unite two defective sides of the same family? Besides the very obvious fact that I always fancied you, so it was pointless. They all knew that!”
Sophia let out a heavy sigh and hung her head.
“So let me get this straight,” Dane said, fixing his flashing eyes on her face. His breath came in short pants and he gripped his side. “You were one of the few people who didn’t believe I killed my stepdad and told me you loved me while I was handcuffed to the bed. Yet you would so easily believe I could knock someone up and just leave them to deal with it alone?” He shook his head sadly. “You’re not the person I thought you were. Fine. We’re done, Soph. As soon as I can get across there, I’ll be out of your life for good!”
Dane’s hand waved towards the alleyway onto Sophia’s street as his chosen direction, before pitching forward. His butt rested back on the swing seat and he coughed again. Blood spattered onto the floor and Sophia leapt in terror. “What can I do? Dane, you’re bleeding!” She desperately wanted to touch him, her hand reaching out to stroke his hair but Dane’s recoil was enough to warn her off. “I’ll get help,” she squeaked. “But Uncle Bob took my phone to the cops. I’ll have to run home.” She hovered, unsure of herself.
Dane said nothing, coughing up more spray onto the ground. Sophia took off running, skirting the spiteful grass and pounding her sore feet over yet more stones and grit. At the front door, she hammered until Edgar answered it. “It’s open!” he greeted her crossly. “It’s like a bloody motorway in here anyway...Soph? What’s happened?”
Her ashen face crumpled in misery and Edgar sighed and held his daughter tightly, her feet bleeding into the bristly door mat.
Edgar drove the SUV round to the park and retrieved Dane with great difficulty. The teenager refused to go back to the hospital.
“Fine!” Edgar retorted in annoyance. “But don’t die in my son’s bloody bed or I’ll kill you!”
Dane rolled his eyes and leaned on the man’s arm, pushing Sophia’s helping hand away. She sat in the back of the car broken by Dane’s rejection, knowing she deserved it.
Edgar put him to bed in Matt’s old room and even though he was only the other side of the wall and she didn’t sleep a wink, Sophia neither heard nor saw Dane again that night.