Unexpected
“Stupid girl.” His voice sounded harsh and jarring and his fingers pressed into Leilah’s cheekbone as he hauled her upright. She heard her muffled protests doused by his palm. Her knees smarted from open cuts and her shoes felt cased in cement from the sheer volume of water which had soaked into them. The man released her arms but jabbed her in the back and she grew silent in obedience to the primal desire to stay alive. “Interfering bitch!” He swore and Leilah felt a sob bubble into her chest. With nowhere to go it sat there, causing pain and reminding her of all her reasons to survive. Mari. Hector. The boy who encased her ring finger in a daisy chain. Someone would miss her. Eventually, but perhaps too late.
He forced her to walk, holding a hand over her mouth and jabbing her in the spine with something unyielding and metallic. When Leilah slipped, the blunt end moved upward and pressed into the side of her neck. She swallowed, understanding finally what the barrel of a gun felt like when raised in a threat. Dogs barked in the distance, an insignificant sound against the cacophony of bush noises. Leilah recognised Moss’ excited yip and a tear squeezed from her left eye. She prayed her father wouldn’t release him, knowing he’d track her and meet the ready bullet meant for her.
The cave opened up in her peripheral vision, its dark interior sinister and laden with the aura of death. Harsh hands shoved her towards the mouth and she resisted the inevitable, dropping to her knees and loosening her joints until she resembled a floppy uncooperative doll. Memories of misbehaving for Mari popped into her mind, the technique learned early and proving successful though irritating. Mari. Beautiful, faithful Mari.
The man cursed and tried to drag her, releasing the hand across her mouth. As his fingers trailed dangerously across her teeth, Leilah bit down with enough force to detach a slender length of skin. He let out an uncontrolled yell and leapt backwards, but not before he’d kicked her in the side. Leilah’s breath exited in a whoosh and agony fired from her ribs to her brain. Her lungs burned as she tried to inhale, finding the action impossible. Her vision blurred as her cheek hit the ground and the angry man drew his leg back again for another kick. Someone else appeared in between, someone with bare, calloused feet used to walking without shoes. The feet creased across the toes as the newcomer bent and rested a hand on her back. “Don’t!” he cried, the voice high and girlish but the feet male. “Leave her alone.”
The feet ran around behind Leilah and frantic fingers dug beneath her armpits and tried to heft her upright. She let out a wail of agony and depleted the last of her air. Her captor appeared in front of her, his face dark with anger and his left hand squeezing the bloodied middle finger of his right. A bud of satisfaction ticked in the back of Leilah’s brain that she hadn’t accepted her fate. She channelled the stubborn determination handed down by successive generations of Derehams. He wouldn’t get her in the cave, not alive anyway. Her breathing came easier, but her bottom left rib sent darts of pain radiating upward. She leaned back against the legs behind her and felt grateful for the hands holding her upright. The cop from Vaughan’s place paced in front of her. “Bloody kids!” He sucked the back of his finger and wore a groove into the undergrowth. “Bloody kids.”
“You killed my brother.” The voice behind Leilah wavered and the cop sneered.
“Little pervert!” he snapped. He jabbed a finger at Leilah. “He liked bedtime best, kid. You should learn to close your curtains.”
Leilah’s chest tightened and she gaped. Her breaths sounded shallow and her lungs hurt too much to manage more than ragged pants. She grew up not closing curtains or worrying about other people. The back of the house faced a lonely mountain and the front rose above its foothills. Nobody else but Hector and Mari featured in her life beyond the farm’s boundary fence. Not ever. Until now. The sense of ugly violation washed over her again and she shivered. Kevin’s fingers shifted to her shoulders.
“He liked her.” His voice pleaded clemency and the cop shook his head.
“Is that why you started spying on her, mate? Because you’re a little pervert too?”
“No!” Kevin’s voice rose in protest and Leilah cringed, hearing the veiled affirmative behind it. “I thought she killed him at first. He went out most nights and I thought he was seeing her. I wanted to know what happened to Malcolm.”
The cop’s shoes stopped in front of her, forcing Leilah to crane her neck to see his face. He jabbed a finger into Kevin’s chest and the legs behind her shifted, sending her ribcage into another spasm of pain. “Yeah, he saw her all right. She just didn’t know about it. You’re another little pervert from a pervert family.” He snorted with satisfaction. “No kid snitches on me and gets away with it. I thought he understood.”
Leilah groaned. Mari had identified Malcolm to Tane’s father. The unknown customer drinking her coffee was right here. Nobody would suspect a cop. Malcolm mentioned Vaughan because he knew him and because Horse’s place offered another access point to the drugs. The unexpected police raid had spoiled the cop’s fun, but he’d blamed Malcolm for the leak. Leilah wondered if the Donnelly adults even knew about their son’s nocturnal wandering or the drug grove on their doorstep. They would soon.
The cop backed away and resumed his pacing. Leilah felt Kevin’s legs shaking behind her spine as he spoke and answered her question. “I thought you were my dad’s friend. You bought us presents back from America. Malcolm loved his yellow tee shirt.”
The man laughed, a cruel, high pitched sound. “Yeah. I got that so I could see him from a distance when I followed him into the bush.”
Kevin swallowed. “If you use your gun up here, it will echo.” His voice wavered as he delivered the warning and Leilah heard the faint trace of hope.
The cop stopped and shook his head. “I’m not stupid!” he spat. “I didn’t use it before when I followed your snot brother here, did I? He said he understood our deal. I wouldn’t tell anyone about his spying on the girl and he wouldn’t squeal on me.” His lips curled back in a snarl and he pointed the gun above Leilah’s line of vision. She guessed Kevin’s spotty face might be the target. “He liked the extra cash from doing odd deals for me locally. It took months of planning and cultivating to grow that crop, cutting through the back of your place and making your stupid dad think I’d taken up hunting.”
Kevin’s hands shook on her shoulders. “You’re crap. You caught nothing.” Teenage pique overrode common sense and Leilah tested her voice to tell him to stop. The sound emerged as a gargled groan and hurt her chest.
The cop shook his head and lowered the hand gun. “You’re a family of idiots!” His lips drew back into a grin. “Ten bucks here and there for access to the bush. It’s pathetic. He’s so desperate not to go bankrupt, yer dad asked no questions.”
Kevin’s fingers dug into her shoulders and Leilah tried to shrink away. “He thought you were his friend.”
The man wrinkled his nose. “The dude who set this crop up is angry, kid. He knows Malcolm grassed us up and he’ll come for your family.”
Leilah heard Kevin’s voice break as he exhausted the last of his resolve and he sounded pitiful. “You can’t just get rid of us both. People will search.”
“Rock fall.” The cop waved his gun at the sheer face behind the cave and gave a satisfied nod. “Grey-wacky falls all the time. Did you know it’s one of the most unstable rock surfaces in New Zealand?” He jerked his head towards the cave. “I’ll make it convincing. Two kids making out in the bush getting buried in their secret love nest.” He snorted. “They’ll find her undies and draw their own conclusions.”
Leilah swallowed. Slips happened all the time on the mountain. Washouts and tomos created an ever shifting landscape. The man spoke the truth. Nobody would notice yet another pile of rocks and she’d lay under them, perhaps already dead or just waiting for its terminal release. She’d already drafted her goodbye letter to Hector and Mari, outlining her plans to leave. She couldn’t yet reveal her intention to attend university because she hadn’t passed her exams and accepted a place. They’d find the scribbled version and list her as a runaway.
The cop examined the end of his gun and his eyes narrowed. He released the safety catch and Leilah heaved a painful sigh. They’d feared a gun which couldn’t hurt them. Until the click of his index finger turned it into a lethal weapon. “Silencer.” He stroked the extended barrel and grinned. “I’ll aim it up there and by the time the rocks start falling, anyone who heard the pop will assume it was the slip starting.”
In his dreams. Leilah’s painful chest and rasping breaths prevented her sarcasm gaining air time. Landslides didn’t work like avalanches. Otherwise the stray bullets from hunters would reduce every mountain in the country to rubble. She wanted to tell him he’d do better tying them up and starting a bush fire in the tinder dry undergrowth, but couldn’t. Thank goodness for townies.
The stray rock hit the cop in the temple and Leilah saw his mouth gape open in shock. The next one landed in the same place as he wavered, the trajectory allowing for his backward motion and delivered by the hand of a competent cricketer. His eyes rolled back into his head and his body crumpled. But not before his finger squeezed the trigger in a reflex of convulsion and the silencer muted the flying bullet’s pop into the air like a released champagne cork.