34

The gunshot roared over the sound of the car alarm. The impact drove Matt backwards. His hip caught the handrail. The momentum pushed him over the top. And he disappeared into the garden under the verandah.

Oh, God, no. Jodie gripped the bottom rung of the handrail, watched as Kane walked to the edge of the verandah and looked over.

‘What the fuck . . . ?’ It was Travis. Standing at the front door, blood on his face, shotgun in his hand.

Kane hooted, raised a fist in the air, shouted, ‘I got Wiseman. I fucking killed the cop after all.’

Jodie sank to her knees, bent double in the dirt under the deck. Oh, God, no. Not Matt. She’d made him go back a second time for her friends. And Kane had killed him. Pain clawed at her chest. It was her fault. She pushed her forehead into the soil. She couldn’t breathe. Her chest had turned to stone. Angie was dead and now Matt was dead. Twice her fault. Two lives she owed.

‘Get the other two and find the tough bitch,’ Travis yelled. He was angry, his voice bellowing over the siren. ‘We get the stuff, get them sorted and get the fuck out of here.’

A shotgun blast rocked the night. Jodie felt herself scream but the sound was drowned out by the explosion echoing off the roof of the verandah and rolling around the hills. When it was over, the car alarm had stopped and the silence felt like deafness.

Travis’s voice cut through it like a chainsaw. ‘Just do it, you goddamn fuck-up!’

Jodie listened from under the deck as Travis’s boots crossed the verandah. Sound was amplified in the new silence. Kane swore under his breath. Travis took half-a-dozen steps inside, made a brief shuffling sound on the timber, a grunt and a scrape. Then the footfalls disappeared. She sat up. Travis was in the hole.

She looked over the edge of the verandah again. Kane was leaning against the wall, bent over his leg. There was a wet, bloody circle on his jeans, something sticking out of it. The nailfile she’d given Corrine. Anger churned in Jodie’s gut.

Kane had held a gun to Corrine’s head and he’d killed Matt.

And now he was going back for Louise and Hannah.

Angie’s face swam in her head. Not the one from that dark night. The other one. From the hockey pitch. The one that knew Jodie would always take the shot, the one from out wide. The long shot.

Do it, Jodie.

The game wasn’t over. It was getting close but it wasn’t done yet.

Up on the verandah, Kane yelled as he ripped the nailfile out of his leg.

Okay, Jodie. Think.

You have to help Louise and Hannah.

It wasn’t a long walk for Kane to the bedroom end of the barn. She couldn’t beat him there no matter how fast she ran. So she had to stop him before he got there.

Adrenaline hummed inside her. Her brain stepped up a gear. She saw everything at once. The light circling the barn like a shield, the front door wide open, the two windows either side of the chimney.

She rose, looked through the closest window. A curtain billowed in the breeze through the smashed glass door and furniture was scattered randomly about the room. Out on the deck: the crate of timber, the wicker chair. The power box.

She heard footsteps on the timber, swept her eyes back around the corner, saw Kane moving away from her. He was going to the bedroom via the verandah, not in through the front door.

Jodie pulled off her boots and moved swiftly along the garden in her socks. When she was level with the chimney, she slipped under the handrail, took two long strides to the wall, lifted the cover on the power box and flipped switches.

Darkness closed around her like a solid object. It was suffocating, claustrophobic. Her heart raced and her breath came short and fast. She blinked hard, saw nothing but black. Now, Jodie. If she couldn’t see, neither could they.

She ran in her socks on the balls of her feet, feeling her way along the wall, around the corner to the back of the barn. Kane was swearing from somewhere around the front. There was silence inside. She dropped to her hands and knees, crawled along the timber deck, one shoulder to the glass wall. At the smashed panel, she stopped, squatted in the doorway.

She couldn’t see a thing. Kane was outside cursing, calling Travis, clumping about like a damn wind-up toy with a missing leg. She inched around the doorframe, listened for noise from under the floor. Then she saw it. A flash of pale light on the wall near the front door.

It was Travis. With the torch. He was still under the barn.

Jodie jerked up to a crouch. Was halfway through a step before she pulled herself back. Her legs wanted to run, to charge down the hallway to the wardrobe. But that would be stupid. In the darkness, the lounge room was an obstacle course of furniture and broken glass, and Travis would hear her. She wouldn’t make it to the hall. Her muscles ached to take off but she forced herself to step slowly, quietly over sharp nuggets of shattered glass. Hands outstretched, she found her way to the island bar, held onto it as she dropped to a squat again, hunkered down behind it and listened.

Kane was tramping around on the deck, still yelling for Travis, too loud for her to hear anything else. She lay down, put an ear to the cold floor, thought she heard a faint shuffling underneath. As she sat up, another flash of pale light flipped across the ceiling. He was definitely still down there.

She felt her way around the kitchen side of the island bench, waited at the other end. Kane was making a shushing noise along the wall, as though he was running his hands over it. Maybe looking for the power box. Maybe trying to find the front door to get back inside. Her heart pounded. Her hands shook. Don’t stop now.

She stuck her head around the bench, looked right towards the hole in the floor. It was so black, Travis could be standing right in front of her and she wouldn’t know it. The thought made the hair on her head stand up and she put a trembling hand out. There was nothing. She turned the other way, rose to a crouching stand and stepped into the darkness.

She moved cautiously, found the wall then the doorframe, slipped across into the hall, pressed her back against the wall and waited. Her pulse sounded like a drum. It was all she could hear. She wanted to suck in a lungful of air, gasp and pant, but in the silence of the barn, a breath like that would reverberate like a wave crashing. She closed her eyes for a moment, opened her mouth and breathed slowly in. Listened for the shushing sound out on the verandah and heard a noise that made her body go rigid.

It was a creak. The kind of creak a floorboard makes. She looked back towards the lounge room, saw a torch beam slice through the darkness.

She pressed her hands to the wall behind her, tried not to make her own shushing sounds as she scuttled sideways down the hall. The light flashed into the corridor, made a yellow circle on the wall opposite. Fear filled her throat. Travis must have heard her. The urge to bolt felt like a hand in her back, throwing her forward. Hold it together, Jodie, or you’re dead. And so are your friends.

Her hand found a doorframe. Her bedroom. She rolled around, pressed herself into the corner between the wall and the built-in wardrobe. Listened.

She couldn’t hear Kane. Couldn’t tell if he’d stopped moving around or the sound didn’t carry through the walls. She closed her eyes, held her breath, strained till her ears hurt.

A thud. Soft. Somewhere near the hall, not actually in it. At least she didn’t think so.

She moved to the edge of the wall and turned her face towards the black space that was the doorway. Listened some more.

The other bedroom was just a couple of steps further down the hall. Three at most.

Two steps to get out of the doorway, three to the end of the hall, two more and she’d be standing in front of the walk-in robe. Lou and Hannah were seven steps away.

Come on. You can make it, Jodie.

She took a deep breath. And another one. Held the doorframe with one hand, took a step.

Torchlight speared the dark hall. Shaky, moving up and down, searching. It burned a circle into the paintwork opposite, roved across the open doorway at the end of the hall. Kept travelling right.

Jodie thrust backwards towards the centre of the room, watched in horror as the light hit the doorway she’d been standing in, spilled onto the floor, illuminated the navy blue toes of her socks. Then moved away.

There was a noise in the hall. A shuffle, a faint scrape. Travis was there, moving towards the bedrooms. The light got closer, brighter, continued its searching movement.

Jodie took two long strides to her bed. Dropped, pressed herself to the floor. Fuck, fuck. This was such a dumb place to hide. The bed was too low to slide under. The quilt too short to cover her. One look with the torch and he was going to see her. She curled into a ball, made herself small, slid along the floor, pushed her head into the wall.

Something cold and hard shifted behind her. It felt like a block of ice against the bare skin between her sweater and the top of her jeans. She reached around, gripped it in her fist and felt it fill her with strength.

The tyre iron. She’d never returned it to the loan car. She’d left it under the bed. And now she had a weapon.

The source of light was close now. She could hear Travis breathing. She propped her back against the bed, gripped the tyre iron with both hands and waited.

Torchlight jumped about the room, from the window, to the other bed, around the walls. Then left.

There was a footfall outside the door. Jodie looked under the bed, saw Travis in the doorway, shining the torch straight ahead into the other bedroom.

Stay away from my friends, you bastard. Anger brought Jodie to her feet and gave her the courage to move. She stepped quickly, quietly across the room, tyre iron out in front as she watched Travis. He stopped in the doorway at the end of the hall, let the torch fill the other bedroom with a dull glow. He was a silhouette framed by the door. A target now. But Jodie waited. There wasn’t enough room to swing the tyre iron here. She waited and prayed he didn’t turn around.

He didn’t. He moved into the bedroom. One step. Two. At three, she moved. Slipped around the doorframe, stepped in behind him, pulled back the tyre iron like a baseball bat. Maybe he heard her. Maybe he was giving up and leaving. He turned, saw Jodie as she started her swing. Jerked away.

She tried to adjust the fall of the tyre iron but it was too late. She’d aimed for his head. Got him hard across a shoulder. A walloping chop that threw him sideways, knocked the torch from his hand. But didn’t knock him down.

He spun around, too fast for Jodie to reverse the thrust of the tyre iron. He shouldercharged, slamming her against the wardrobe door. Air gusted out of her lungs. The tyre iron fell from her hands and she doubled over, gasping for air. Inside the wardrobe, Louise and Hannah screamed.

Keep your eyes open, Jodie. The torch was on the floor but there was enough light to see him take half a step back. She pushed off the door, drove her knee up. Missed his groin but got him high on the thigh. Not a great shot. Not enough to cripple him but enough to make him stoop and grunt. She pulled her hands in tight to her chest, lifted her elbow like a wing and twisted hard at him. Swung her whole body into it, just like she taught her students. Made contact with his jaw, snapped his head around. He stumbled away, still on his feet.

She could hear Lou and Hannah shouting on the other side of the wardrobe door. You’ve nearly got them out, Jodie. Don’t stop. She closed the distance to him as he straightened up, slammed the heel of her hand under his chin.

As he fell, a light came on.

Not the room light. It came from outside. Bright, white light coming in through the bedroom window. Jodie looked up and squinted in the sudden glare. That was her big mistake. Travis grabbed her ankle, pulled her leg out from under her. She hit the floor hard, kicked out at him as he tried to grab her feet, scrabbled frantically backwards.

But he kept coming, clawing his way up her body, eyes narrowed and angry in his blood-smeared face. She kept lashing out, striking with her feet, her knees. Must have made contact somewhere, felt him fall away. She rolled over, scratched at the floor, slipped in her socks, pulled herself up to her feet, made the door, slammed into the doorframe. He was behind her, she could hear him, he was yelling, cursing, still getting to his feet. Run, Jodie!

She was in the hallway, past her bedroom door, almost out. Then skidding, trying to stop, sliding in her socks, legs wheeling on the slippery timber. Oh, Christ, no. Kane was at the other end of the hall. A silhouette in the door like his brother had been. Only she could see his face, see the ‘gotcha’ look. And knew there was no way out.