Fifty Fifty (Detective Harriet Blue #2)(68)

‘Who says they’re gonna find you?’ Mick asked.





Chapter 102


TOX CRACKED HIS knuckles and smiled, and the man smiled, and they rushed at each other.

He was a prison fighter. Tox could tell that right away. You’ve got to fight fast in prison, before the guards stop you, so Regan faked only once before throwing in his first punch. Tox grabbed the fist as it sailed past his ear, yanked the man forwards and hit him hard in the sternum.

Regan spat air, crumpled in half, fell on the coffee table, smashing it to pieces.

Tox grabbed something – a vase or a sculpture or something, he didn’t look – and clubbed the man. Once. The second time was blocked.

The kick in the knee was unexpected. Tox backed up into a bookshelf, sent more objects smashing.

Regan was on him. A punch to the jaw that crunched his teeth. Tox blocked the second swing, palmed his attacker in the nose. Blood down the front of Regan’s shirt, fast and heavy. The man ignored it. He was a good fighter. Focused, determined under pressure. He’d have been a good killer. Those girls wouldn’t have stood a chance.

Tox saw them in his mind, a tiny flash, smiling teeth and bright eyes, beautiful futures. It was what he needed to refocus himself. He leapt forwards.





Chapter 103


THE PROBLEM WAS tying my wrists with the gun in his spare hand. The cast made things even trickier. He tried, gave up, backed away. I shifted my hands to the ground beside my shoulders, in a push-up position, ready to spring. I didn’t know what was going to happen next, but I was the only one with my hands free. It was on me. Sweat was stinging on my burned skin. I planted my toes in the sand, wiggled them down until I felt hard earth. Mick was watching us all. Deciding. I could still talk him out of this. Surely.

‘Everybody thinks about getting out,’ Mick said gently. He rubbed his beard. ‘I mean, I get it. I grew up here, just like you guys. By the time you’re old enough to figure out there’s a whole other world out there, you’ve already grown roots. You stay, or you abandon everything. Everyone. There’s no in-between.’

He was apologising. Saying sorry for what he was about to do. My throat was tight with tension. I could barely breathe.

‘ This was your only chance,’ Mick said. He pointed the gun at Jace. ‘It’s my only chance now.’

‘No!’ I screamed. The gun roared, not once but twice. Mick was a seasoned killer. A country man. He’d shot dogs that got too old, horses that got lame, dingoes that wandered onto his property.

He’d shot Jace in the head and turned and clicked back the hammer and shot the man beside him, Damien, before I even got to my feet. I slammed into him, the image of their bucking heads still shuddering through my mind.

There was screaming. Men screaming. The two surviving men, Frank and John, crawled and cowered against the rock walls. Kash was on his feet, stumbling, trying to rip the wire from his wrists. I struggled with Mick for the pistol. His round belly pushed at my chest as he leaned back, hands high, trying to tug it from my grip.

The third bullet hit the wall above us, dislodged rock and dust. It was in my eyes, in Mick’s eyes. I stepped back and kicked him in the crotch before he could take aim again. It was a hard horse-kick with my heel leading. He went down. I grabbed the gun and smashed the butt of it over his nose, crushing bone. I pulled it back and swung again, hammered him in the temple.

Kash’s hands were free. He grabbed the gun before I could pound the unconscious man beneath me another time.

Jace and Damien were dead. I went to their bodies, turned their heads, checked for a pulse. Kash was already disappearing through the gap in the rock to call for medical assistance.

I took the wire Kash had stripped from his wrists and flopped Mick onto his belly, started winding it around his wrists. Frank Scullen and John Stieg were watching me, speechless, as I pulled the wire and knotted it over and over again.

‘I should make you arseholes free yourselves,’ I said as I went to untie them.





Chapter 104


THE TACTICS WERE dirty. Tox liked that. He’d pinned Regan on the carpet, tugged and twisted him up into a headlock, but the other man had got hold of a shard of the broken vase and jammed it into Tox’s forearm.

He stumbled into the kitchen and pulled the shard from the wound, spraying blood on the cupboards. There was a kettle nearby with a curved handle. Tox grabbed it and threw it, listened to it clunk off Regan’s head. There was a wine rack by the door to the kitchen. Regan grabbed a bottle and held it by the neck like a club.

He lunged. Tox grabbed the arm before it came down, smashing the bottle against the top edge of the fridge. He got a couple of punches in while Regan was distracted. They fell against the fridge, rattling things inside. Tox went for Regan’s throat, his thumbs gripping his windpipe, crushing tendons. Regan’s boots slipped in the wine. He was under him, between his legs. Tox grabbed a handful of shirt. Regan grabbed his ankle, brought him down, tried to crawl away while Tox recovered.

Tox steadied himself against the kitchen counter and spied the knife block. Regan was coughing, gurgling, something in his throat broken or bent out of shape. Tox slid a knife from the block. A lean, mid-size filleting blade. Razor-sharp. He turned towards his victim. The fantasy of every mother and father with a raped daughter. The beast at your mercy, a sharp blade, his legs splayed. Tox would have to hand Regan over to the police alive. He knew that. But maybe there was something he could do to make sure the man never raped a young woman again.