Fifty Fifty (Detective Harriet Blue #2)(17)

My childhood had been full of rivers, fields, national parks. Often, Sam and I found ourselves in large families with multiple foster children lumped together with biological children. When child services found a willing foster carer, someone who was reliable, they sent them as many kids as they could possibly handle. Sam and I, two moody, aggressive white kids, would become part of an odd collection of youngsters all under the care of one foster couple. With so many kids in tow, traditional means of entertainment were off the cards. Going to the movies was too expensive. The families would take us to parks, rivers and long, empty beaches. Sam and I had spent time at the Georges River, but that time hadn’t been any more meaningful than it had been anywhere else. At least, it hadn’t to me.

Maybe there were things about Sam I didn’t know. We’d been separated now and then, sometimes for up to a year, when families wouldn’t take us both. Maybe there was another Sam, a brother grown out of those blank spaces in his life, the ones I hadn’t witnessed.

An evil Sam.





Chapter 22


THERE WAS LITTLE to say to Kash and Snale when I arrived in the kitchen in the morning. Kash was reading the Herald on his iPad, a two-page spread about my brother.

‘We’ve got to go,’ I said, drawing on my cap.

As we started walking into town, Kash lagged behind us, talking on his phone. I eavesdropped on his conversation, trying to distract myself.

‘You can’t take that. I bought it. You – But, Tenacity, baby, let me talk for a second, will you?’

Tenacity. I’d heard that name before. When I first learned Tenacity Bridge’s name, I thought she’d probably had a mother who’d thought she was cool landing her daughter with a moniker people would cringe at for the rest of her life, like mine. My secret shame, ‘Jupiter’, was at least my middle name and not my first, and I’d been able to hide it for most of my life.

The Tenacity I knew had been a victim I met in my work in Sex Crimes. A young man named Alex Finton had climbed in through her bathroom window one night and sexually assaulted her in her bed. I wondered silently if the woman Kash was talking to on the phone was the same one. How many could there be?

I was drawn out of my daydream by the crowd gathered out the front of the town pub, squinting in the sunlight. They turned angry faces on Kash and me. A sneer twisted the lips of the nearest person. It was only then that I noticed almost all of them were carrying rifles.

‘There they are,’ said one man, advancing towards us.





Chapter 23


‘WE WANT TO know what the hell’s going on.’ The man jutted his chin at me, turned and sized up the much larger Agent Kash. ‘We’re hearing the whole bloody town’s about to be attacked, and we’re seeing Sydney’s sent exactly two coppers to protect us. This is bullshit!’

‘Whoa, hold up.’ Kash put a hand out. ‘I’m not a cop. I’m a trained federal agent specialising in counter-terrorism.’

‘Terrorism?’ The group glanced nervously at each other, shifted their rifles. ‘Is it a terrorist?’

‘No.’ I stepped between them. ‘There is nothing to suggest right now that –’

‘Them Muslims,’ someone seethed. ‘I knew it’d only be a matter of ti–’

I didn’t have the patience for this. I was about ready to snap when a man broke in to the group, short and pot-bellied with thinning ginger hair.

‘Let’s keep this under control, huh, Jace?’ He put a hand on the rifleman’s shoulder. ‘I’m sure these officers know what they’re doing.’ The man turned to me, offered a hand. ‘I’m John Destro. Everybody calls me Dez.’

‘Dez is the mayor,’ Snale told me.

The man laughed, showing teeth so straight and white they could have been dentures.

‘Well, technically Last Chance is too small to appoint a mayor. I call myself that but I don’t get the salary.’ He smiled warmly. ‘I run the post office. So I’m the most powerful guy in town.’

He gestured to a two-storey building diagonally across the road from where we stood. It occurred to me exactly how powerful a postmaster could be in a situation like this. He literally had a monopoly on the essentials of life out here – food, alcohol, tools, farming supplies. It paid to be nice to the people who controlled your supplies, particularly when it was a two-day drive to anywhere with a population above five hundred.

‘I’m here to help in any way that I can.’

‘Of course,’ I said. ‘Thanks. You can start by telling everyone to put their guns away. There is no evidence of an imminent threat to the people of this town. And this many people running around with rifles and frayed nerves is going to get someone killed.’

I walked inside the pub, where the tables surrounding a large stage were packed with people, some of them already halfway through breakfast beers beside plates of toast. There were people on the upper floor, arms hanging over the railing, watching. This is what people do in country towns when there’s trouble: go to the local pub, gossip, get a hold on the situation, regardless of the work to be done that day. The place was the beating heart of the town. There was a sweaty bartender standing behind the long, polished counter, holding a pint of beer to his lips. The glass featured a brass nameplate with ‘Mick the Prick’ engraved on it. I guessed drinking on the job was acceptable here, at least.