23

Jodie kept her face to the front door, heart pounding, too afraid to turn around. It was stupid, stupid, to think Matt would drive off, put two and two together and come up with vicious bastards about to rape and kill four women. And it was stupid to put her friends in more danger trying to get a message to him. Now Kane was going to snap Lou’s neck under his boot.

But the sound she heard wasn’t bones breaking. Beside her, Travis let out a soft chuckle. ‘Wiseman’s a fucking loser.’

Jodie looked at him, turned all the way around when Kane whooped, realised then that she’d gotten away with it. Travis and Kane knew nothing about her kids, thought she had a husband, thought she had something going with Matt. She’d said nothing to dispel that.

Kane lifted his foot from Lou’s neck. She scrabbled out from underneath. He grinned at his brother. ‘Wiseman was born a loser.’

Travis laughed again, quietly, like it was some kind of personal victory. He grabbed Jodie’s arm and dragged her towards the kitchen.

Kane’s wired, hyped-up energy had returned. ‘Fucking Wiseman misses out again. Yeah, we got four sluts this time. He doesn’t get any. Loser.’ At his feet, Hannah, Lou and Corrine were scuttling back along the floor on their butts. There was nowhere to go in the small kitchen but up against the cupboards. ‘Hey, bro, we should leave him something this time.’

‘Tie her up with the others,’ Travis growled and pushed Jodie at him.

Kane caught her hand, held it up and grinned. ‘Let’s give him the finger. One of theirs.’

Jodie wrenched her hand away, curled her fingers into a tight ball, was shoved hard to the floor by Travis. Louise hauled her back by the shoulders, embraced her tight from behind.

‘Tie her up,’ Travis ordered.

Kane ignored him, danced about in front of Jodie. ‘Four. Fucking four we got.’

Travis grabbed him by the shirt front and slammed him up against the island bench. Kane didn’t react, just grinned, flicked his eyes back and forth from the floor to Travis.

His brother shoved him again then just dropped his arms to his sides. ‘Yeah, we got us four sluts. So tie them together.’ He walked to the front window, looked out through a gap in the curtains.

As Kane tied her to Hannah, Jodie took in the shock on her friend’s face. Beside her, Lou’s knees were pulled defensively to her chest and Corrine, last in the row of hostages, was crying softly. Jodie turned to Kane, watched his pale eyes, the tattoo on his forearm and hoped Matt came back with a damn army.

‘Which one you wanna do first?’ Kane called across the room.

Travis pulled the curtains closed. ‘We eat first.’

‘Jesus, Trav, come on. Wiseman’s not coming back. We got plenty of time now.’

Travis stalked back across the room. ‘You want to go into town for supplies? You think you’re going to just stroll past those coppers and get a couple of bags of fucking groceries before we hit the dirt?’

Jodie couldn’t see Kane’s face now, only the stiffening in his neck as he held his ground and said nothing.

Travis kicked at something under the island bench, sending it clattering across the floor, and stared at his brother. ‘You think it’s going to work like that, Kane? Did you think of anything before you picked up that fucking piece of timber?’

A beat of silence. ‘Nah, bro.’

‘Then shut up and listen.’ Travis laid the gun on the bench, kept his hand around it, looked at Jodie and her friends, at his brother, at the front door. ‘We eat while we got food and give me some fucking time to figure it out.’ He looked over his shoulder to the glass wall. ‘Then we do what we came for, shut the bitches up and hit the road. In that order. You got it?’

‘Yeah. I got it.’

‘Then get it started.’

Kane hauled the women to their feet. ‘Do the food,’ he yelled.

So they did. Jodie and Corrine, the only ones with an untied hand, piled food onto plates then Travis held the gun to Hannah’s head, made them all walk to the big dining table and serve it up.

They were pushed to the floor against the island bench while Travis and Kane shovelled food into their mouths. It was cold now, overcooked and greasy, but it didn’t seem to matter. There was no talking, just gulping, huge mouthfuls of egg and bacon and bread and apple pie – Kane’s focus moving back and forth from his plate to his prey, Travis’s eyes on a continuous circuit around the barn: lounge room, front door, back windows, kitchen.

Watching them at the table, Jodie saw the differences between them went deeper than colouring. Travis seemed to have some level of cognitive ability that had bypassed Kane. Travis was getting a kick out of terrifying them, Jodie had no doubt about that, but not like his brother. Kane was an animal straining at a leash. Travis was more controlled. He was there for a reason, he was holding some kind of plan together and he had Kane on a short chain.

The chain got a whole lot longer when Travis went outside. He’d finished eating, pushed his plate away, scraped his chair back from the table and announced, ‘I’m going out to see for myself.’ He tucked the gun in the back of his jeans and left them alone with Kane.

Kane was laughing before the glass had slid shut. A high, feral, girlish sound. Like he was in the middle of a joke. It made Jodie’s blood go cold.

He looked at her. ‘You’re a fuckin’ prickteaser.’

He stood up. She shrank back, prayed he wasn’t going to ‘do’ her now. He took his time walking to her, laughing to himself. ‘Get up.’

They could have refused – he didn’t have the gun. But Jodie had seen how Travis handled him, didn’t dare cross him and she guessed the other girls felt the same. They struggled to get off the floor with their hands tied. Kane grinned and waited until they were upright. ‘You’re a fuckin’ prickteaser,’ he said again and slammed a fist into her stomach.

She doubled over, gasping in pain and shock, the blood in her head roaring as she tried to fill her lungs with air. Louise yelled obscenities, Corrine’s voice pitched high in a wail. Beside her, Hannah didn’t utter a sound but Jodie could feel her trembling violently. Kane laughed and pointed like they were putting on a goddamn show.

As she straightened up, she steeled herself for another beating, hoping she might be able to defend herself with her one free hand. But Kane had finished with her. His awful eyes were on Corrine. Then his hands. He was pawing her face, her neck, her breasts, laughing, telling her she was going to scream, it was going to be great.

He dragged her across the room, pushed her up against the dining table. She was crying and begging him to stop. Jodie watched in horror from where she stood at the island bench – and thought about knocking Kane to the floor with a shoulder tackle. She could do it, she knew how. But she was tied to Hannah and Hannah was tied to Louise and there was no chance of winning any kind of fight with two terrified, untrained women attached to her.

*

Matt spun the tyres through a tight U-turn, pushed the accelerator to the floor and fishtailed down the road as he picked up speed. He was around the intersection before thought kicked in.

It was crazy. He was crazy. There was no logical reason for Kane Anderson to be up at the barn. If he had killed John Kruger, why would he go there? Any idiot would leave the area. Revenge for Jodie rejecting him at the pub? Now you’re clutching at straws, Matt. Jodie wouldn’t be the first to fob him off.

No, it wasn’t Anderson. No way.

But Jodie’s pleading face flashed in his head again and he kept driving. It was someone. Or something.

His phone rang.

‘Hey, Matty. I found that number. You still want it?’

He eased his foot off the accelerator as he thought of Dan Carraro eating spring rolls and telling war stories with his junior detective. What would he tell him? ‘Hey, Dan, this hot woman I met yesterday had a bandaged hand and just told me a bunch of lies. How about you drive the thirty k’s out there and check it out for me ’cause I don’t think I can handle it on my own.’ Matt rubbed his head. ‘No. If you see him again, just tell him I called. Thanks, Reg.’ He hung up and tossed the phone on the passenger seat.

Shit.

The big engine growled under him as he coasted down the road. He didn’t want to go back to the barn – not after Jodie had told him to leave, not if there was a chance he’d fuck it up and have another tragedy on his conscience. But there was no way he could just drive out to Tom and Monica’s and pull up a chair for the evening. Not if he wanted to live with himself afterwards.

So what are you going to do?

He had no weapon, no police ID, not even his own car. He couldn’t go to the barn, knock on the door and ask what the hell was going on. Jodie had made that clear.

But he could scout around in the darkness up there without being seen. And if it turned out he was inventing reasons to spy on Jodie, he could just leave, go to Tom’s and no one need ever know how close he’d come to making an idiot of himself.

He could see the lights in old Wally Taylor’s run-down shack at the bottom of the track. He slowed and swung the car across the road.

It was just after seven pm – twenty minutes since he’d left Jodie on the verandah. He pulled the car off the road just beyond Wally’s cottage, searched the boot for a torch without success then took off at as fast a walk as his knee could bear.