41

Jodie woke in crisp, clean sheets, her body heavy and lethargic from the drugs she’d been given to sleep. She swallowed in a dry mouth, took stock of her injuries.

Stitches in her forearm, one high on her throat. A taped and bandaged hand. An array of tender bruises on her face, down her right side, on her shin. Blistered feet. Strained muscles. Not bad considering.

‘Oh, you’re awake,’ Hannah said.

Jodie rolled her head painfully on the pillow, saw Hannah and Corrine sitting on the bed beside hers. The hospital had cleared a four-bed ward room for them, made them all stay the night.

‘How’s Lou?’ Jodie looked across the room to where curtains were closed around her bed.

‘Still sleeping,’ Hannah said.

Lou and Hannah had waited in the bush until the shouting stopped before cautiously emerging. Jodie had clung to them, sobbed with them but their questions about what had happened went unanswered. One man was dead, another was unconscious and both she and Matt were bleeding – but all she could bring herself to tell them was that she was alive, she was okay, it was over. By then, Matt had tied Kane’s hands and feet and left him facedown in the dirt near the brother he’d murdered. Fifteen minutes later, a convoy of police cars turned into the long driveway, thanks to Corrine. She’d managed to negotiate her way through the dark scrub to the cottage on the road and made a triple-O call.

Jodie had sat dazed and in shock on the front steps of the barn as police swarmed around the hill. She’d wept with relief as Lou and Hannah were loaded into an ambulance but as Kane was stretchered into another van and driven away, all she’d felt was a cold, detached hollowness. She didn’t actually see Matt leave. He’d refused to go until she’d been taken down to join Corrine in the cottage. Seemed he had some code about not leaving before the hostages. No reason to argue with that.

It was after midnight before she and Corrine finally made the forty-minute trip in the ambulance and arrived at the nearest hospital. Louise was already in surgery, Matt was waiting his turn and despite the late hour, a cast of thousands had gathered. Family, police, reporters, camera crews and photographers. She was desperate to see Adam and Isabelle, to hold her children after almost losing them forever, but when she spoke to James on the phone, she asked him not to bring them in. She’d caught a look at her face in a mirror and didn’t want to upset them more than they needed to be.

‘How are you?’ Hannah asked, helping Jodie to sit, plumping her pillows.

‘Sore. Alive. Pleased to see you guys sitting there.’ Jodie tenderly fingered the bruise around her eye. ‘Actually, pleased doesn’t cover it.’

Hannah and Corrine smiled but they both looked uneasy with it, as though they weren’t sure smiling was the right response.

‘Are you really all right, Jodie?’ Hannah said suddenly. ‘Your face and your . . .’ She touched her hand to her throat, lowered her voice. ‘Did they do that?’

Jodie looked at the bandage on her arm. The wound wasn’t deep, it would heal quickly. But there was no dressing for what she felt on the inside. It was as though the rage that had coursed through her had burned her, left her raw and inflamed. ‘Kane did. But I did worse to him.’

‘He’s here in the hospital,’ Corrine said. ‘On another floor.’

‘There’s a police guard on him,’ Hannah said.

Jodie raised an eyebrow. ‘Is that to protect us or him?’

Hannah gave her the uneasy smile again.

Corrine said, ‘Reporters want to talk to us. They called me a hero on the news this morning. Well, they didn’t say my name. They said the one who escaped and ran down to the road and got help.’

‘You should talk to them,’ Jodie said. ‘You were really brave and people should know that. And you’re going to need to remember that yourself later.’

Corrine squeezed her eyes tight for a second. ‘I was really scared out there.’

‘Same,’ Jodie said.

‘What happened, Jode?’ Hannah asked. ‘At the end?’

Jodie saw Kane’s face along the length of the rifle again, looked away from her friends, out of the window to a gorgeous, sunny winter’s day. ‘It doesn’t matter now.’

Hannah said, ‘The hospital’s organised a counsellor to come and see us.’

Jodie shook her head. She didn’t want to tell them her version of events. Not yet. They would have their own nightmares to deal with. She didn’t want to add her images of knives and guns to the mix. Or what she did to reunite them with their families. That was her own burden. And her salvation. And she wasn’t sure she could explain that to them.

‘I’m going to pass on the therapy.’

Hannah nodded. She looked like she wanted to say something but didn’t.

‘I’ll get there but not today. There’s something else I need to do before I go home and hug my gorgeous kids.’ Jodie slid carefully off the bed, winced at the pain in her body as she moved.

Hannah put her hand out as she passed. ‘Wait. I need to say something.’ She lifted her chin, took a shaky breath. ‘I’m sorry, Jodie. For not believing you. For what I . . .’

‘It’s okay,’ Jodie said.

‘No, it’s not. I have to say this. What I did . . .’ she stopped then started again. ‘When we heard you on the other side of the wardrobe, I couldn’t believe you’d come back. Then Travis was beating you up, right there on the other side of the door.’ She swiped at a tear on her cheek. ‘I thought I knew better than you and it almost got us killed. I don’t deserve . . .’

‘No, stop.’ Jodie went to them, wrapped an arm around each one and pulled them close. ‘We’re friends. We’re all here and believe me, that’s all that matters.’

She took a shower, dressed in clothes Hannah’s husband Pete had brought in, stood in front of the bathroom mirror and examined her face. One big, purple, mottled bruise covered her forehead, right eye and cheek. Her lips were puffy and cracked. Her hair was a nightmare. She sucked in a breath, blew it out and thought about Matt.

Last night she’d invented the whole damn romantic delusion. Then she’d put a gun to a man’s head and almost blown his brains out. She figured that ugly, unhinged moment had blown a crater right through any chance she might have had with Matt, but she wanted to explain it anyway. Needed to. What he thought mattered to her now.

She knocked on the door to his room, hesitantly poked her head in. He was sitting on top of the bed in fresh clothes. His face was worse than hers. He had a black eye, grazes on both cheeks and his bottom lip was swollen. One arm was in a sling and his bad knee was thick with bandages under his trackpants. She felt guilty and grateful in equal measures.

‘Can I come in?’

‘Sure.’ He turned off the tiny TV hanging from the ceiling, kept the remote in his hand and his eyes on her as she walked across the room. Not pleased to see her, not unhappy either.

Jodie sat in the chair next to his bed. ‘You look good.’

He raised an eyebrow. ‘You too.’

She ruffled her hair, touched a finger to her tender cheek. ‘Yeah, I think the new look is working.’ She laughed.

A small smile played across Matt’s mouth as she did. Then he moved on, got to business. ‘Have you spoken to the police this morning?’

She nodded. ‘They didn’t tell me much. I said I’d go up to the barn this afternoon to walk through what happened.’

‘You don’t have to do that, you know.’

‘I want to,’ Jodie said. ‘I want to see the place in broad daylight. To replace the night-time images I keep seeing when I close my eyes.’

He watched her a second, tapped a finger on the remote. ‘You should know something before you go. In case you want to change your mind. The preliminary searches have turned up three bodies under the barn.’

Jodie’s stomach tightened. ‘Is that teenage girl one of them? Tina?’

‘They won’t confirm it until they’ve checked the old case records but, unofficially, her name was found sewn into the back of the coat you dug up.’

Jodie remembered the thick fabric she’d uncovered with the pickaxe, swallowed hard on the acid taste in her mouth. ‘What about the guns?’

‘The army is saying they’re part of a cache of weapons stolen from military training bases. The same gun scam Louise knew about. They’ve estimated the black market value of the stockpile from under the barn at around a quarter of a million dollars.’

‘Travis’s insurance,’ Jodie said. His face flashed in her head. Shut the fuck up. She closed her eyes, fought back the image.

‘Are you all right?’ Matt asked.

‘Yes and no. I won’t be turning the lights off any time soon.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Matt, what happened at the end . . . What I did . . . I . . . All I could think about was hurting Kane before he killed me. Then the gun was in my hands. I didn’t plan it. It just happened.’

‘You don’t need to make excuses.’

‘I’m not making excuses. I want you to understand. I’m not ashamed. I wanted to kill Kane. I admit that. But I didn’t kill him.’

‘I know what happened.’

The resolute way he said it and the unwavering look on his face as he did, told her what he thought. She would have killed Kane if he hadn’t stopped her. And there was no changing it.

Still, she couldn’t leave it there. ‘But don’t you see? You saw me at my worst. At the worst moment of my life.’

‘No, you’re wrong.’ His voice was firm, decided. ‘Last night you saved your friends. You saved me. And you pulled yourself back from the brink of a nightmare. It wasn’t your worst moment, Jodie. It was your best.’

She couldn’t speak for a moment around the lump in her throat. ‘Thank you,’ she finally whispered. It didn’t come close to covering how she felt but it was all she could say without breaking down and sobbing on the edge of his bed.

And she saw then that maybe she hadn’t blown her chance. She ran a hand through her hair, took a breath. ‘Okay.’ She was bad at relationships. She had trust issues, didn’t like to take chances. But she’d already crossed those bridges with Matt – no point beating about the bush now. ‘I’m not sure exactly how to handle this so I’m just going to say it. Getting to know you has been intense and, well, weird. And what happened between us, in the bush, well . . .’ She stopped. He wasn’t looking at her anymore, was gazing past her, like he’d lost interest. ‘What?’

He shrugged. ‘It’s okay. I know what you’re going to say.’

‘What?’

‘That it was just the heat of the moment. That it was nice to meet you but it’ll be better if we go our separate ways. Don’t worry about it, Jodie. It’s fine.’

Oh, jeez. Maybe he was the one who’d been swept up in the heat of the moment and in the cold light of day . . .

Then she remembered the way he’d kissed her last night. ‘Actually, I was going to ask you to come home with me.’

That made him look at her.

She shrugged. ‘My boss has given me two weeks off so with you rooming with your dad and the fact I’m not ready to be on my own just yet, I thought we could keep each other company.’

‘Jodie, you don’t need to . . .’

‘Don’t tell me what I need.’

Irritation sparked in his eyes before amusement slid in over it.

‘Look, the way I figure it,’ she said, ‘we both know what we’re capable of. It could be a good place to start.’

He watched her a second, one side of his mouth slowly turning up, like he was considering it. ‘So, your place then?’

She laughed. He seemed to like the way she did it. ‘Don’t get too excited. I’m thinking: you on the sofa bed, me in my own bed, and about eight or nine hours of uninterrupted sleep. Then maybe we can get to know each other, see if we still like each other.’

‘Are you going to laugh like that?’

‘You don’t like the way I laugh?’

‘Oh no, your laugh is great. It’s a very cool laugh.’

She liked the way he looked at her then, as though whatever she did was going to be just fine. ‘There’s something I promised myself last night.’ If she got another chance. She sat on the edge of his bed, looked at his bruised lower lip. ‘I’m sorry if this hurts but, hey, a promise is a promise.’ She leaned forward and kissed him. Long and slow. Closed her eyes as Matt wound his one good arm around her and pulled her against him.

When she was done, when he let her go, he raised an eyebrow. ‘Any more promises you want to make good on?’

She smiled. ‘There’s one more. How do you like your steak?’