Fifty Fifty (Detective Harriet Blue #2)(64)

‘What did you say?’ I asked.

‘ I told her to do the program. And I told her to have the baby. I’d take him until she was through with it, until she found her feet. And if she never found her feet, well, that was OK. I figured if she’d dropped out, she’d have been all broken up about it. If she’d had an abortion, she’d have been broken up about that, too. This was the only way I could think of that she could get out of it without tearing herself in half.’

The infant grizzled. I lifted him higher against my chest and patted his nappy-covered backside. Put my cheek on his head.

‘It’s not the best place in the world,’ Jed said, looking at the walls, still stained from years of neglect, the blazing desert sun rolling by the windows. ‘But it’s a solution to a problem.’

Jed stood. I guessed it was the signal for me to go. I didn’t seem capable, at first, of giving the child back. Some ludicrous part of me saw this place as a solution to my problem. To every problem.

I handed back the child. He held the tiny boy and looked at my eyes. Seemed to know I wanted to stay. Here was a safe place, deliberately constructed on the edge of nowhere, too far into the wild for problems to reach. The kind of place they sang about in sad songs. All the hurt, all the badness, all the worry a person had could be sent here to be swallowed up by this man.

I felt the cruel sense that I belonged here tugging at my chest, even as I headed for the door.





Chapter 96


IT HAD ALL happened so quickly. Love stories were like that, so Regan had heard. He’d got chatting to the teenage Sam Blue at the Christmas party and discovered the gangly, shy, black-haired boy was living with a family in Panania, not far from where Regan was in Picnic Point. Their foster parents knew each other. Sam had only just arrived, having been separated from his sister after their last placement fell through. The boy missed her. Regan had listened, marvelling quietly at his gentle voice.

There was no way Regan could have told Sam what he felt back then. The obsessive thoughts, the dreams about Sam. He wondered if his friend ever suspected. It was a struggle to stop himself from bringing Sam gifts at the house in Panania, turning up too often, staying too late to talk and giggle in the small blue room his foster parents had put him in. Everything Sam said stuck with Regan. He’d shown Regan a picture of a red racer bike in a catalogue, and Regan had begun to see red bikes everywhere deliciously displayed on street corners and in bike racks, unlocked. Regan closed his eyes sometimes and thought about what Sam would say if he brought him one of those racers. Imagined him in awe, crying with gratitude, throwing his arms around Regan, the press of his thin, hard body against his own. Bliss. But it was far too risky. Their bond was one perfect thing he wasn’t going to ruin. It was pure, untouchable, beautiful.

Joyous months passed. Sam and Regan would meet on the roadway down to the river. Firelight and smoke in the air, the heady scent of dope near the rock wall or on the grey sand. Circles of other kids laughing, whooping. Regan remembered sitting on the edge of the pier with his feet in the water and some nameless girl’s face in his crotch, smoothing back her hair as she bobbed up and down on him, looking over and meeting Sam’s eye as another girl worked on him. The stab of pleasure deep in his guts, making his legs twitch. They’d lain with the girls afterwards, whoever they were. The girls were easy to ignore. Regan closed his eyes and felt Sam’s elbow touching his, listened to the other boy’s breathing. It could have been just the two of them under the stars. He suddenly felt free.

And then, before he knew it, Child Services was there at the door in Picnic Point. His foster parents had decided to travel Italy and couldn’t bring him along. Another placement had been arranged. The couple told Child Services to handle telling Regan, because they were too emotional about it, and they knew he was an emotional boy, too.

They’d meant difficult. But they couldn’t possibly know that Regan was slowly graduating from difficult to dangerous.





Chapter 97


NOW, REGAN STEPPED silently down onto the toilet in Harriet Blue’s apartment and turned around, sliding the bathroom window closed behind him. The gentle click as the latch caught was the only sound in the apartment. He stood in the dark looking at the things on her vanity, feeling sick little zings of excitement at the sight of them. Comb. Pill packets. Creams.

He went into the short hallway and gazed at the gold light falling on the polished floorboards from the living room. This was a good apartment. A solid investment for someone who worked hard and spent little on their social life. Regan knew that the place had been sold, probably to fund Sam’s legal defence. In mere weeks, all of this would have to be packed up and shipped out. Regan was glad that he could see it as it was, Harry in her natural environment, the girl Sam had talked so much about.

There was no one home. He was sure of it. The lights must have been a tactic by Harriet to appear at home, something to drive away the press or curious gawkers who might try to take advantage and sneak in.

Regan had the distinct sense of her abandonment of the place as he walked into the study. He looked at the work of the Georges River Killer on the corkboard behind the desk. Pictures of his victims, both alive and as he’d left them, lolling dead on the grey sands like washed-up sea creatures. There were forensic reports here. Criminal profiles. Harry’s notes. Regan had seen some of these things already in the briefcase he stole from Edward Whittacker. They were close behind him. But it wasn’t over yet.