Fifty Fifty (Detective Harriet Blue #2)(81)

‘You don’t look right,’ he said. ‘Come back in and sit down.’

‘I can’t,’ I said. ‘I’ve got to go.’

The baby boy in the other room started crying. We ignored it, watching each other, both wanting to speak. But there was nothing more to say. I made a choice. Perhaps the wrong choice.

I turned and left.





Chapter 129


REGAN SHIFTED IN the driver’s seat. His wet clothes were sticking to the seat cover, the heat of his body fogging the windows. He had almost passed out in the darkness behind the service station as he sat binding the gunshot wounds in his shoulder and stomach, shoving wadded fabric he’d ripped from a blanket in the back of the car into the blood-soaked flesh. He’d tied pieces of the thin blanket awkwardly in a loop under his arm and around his neck, rolled it tight around his gut. The dizziness, the pain didn’t matter. He needed to keep ahead of the roadblocks before they came into place. He’d go to ground later and think about getting his wounds treated. One step at a time. He’d survive. He always survived.

Getting away from the officer in the water had been easier than Regan imagined. He’d felt the impact of the bullets and fallen into the waves, and in the confusion, the rushing people and the bouncing lights, he’d simply slipped away. Dived low, come up shallow, dived again. Let the sucking current take him.

The swirling panic he’d felt as he crawled out of the river on the opposite bank to the police had reminded him of that night long ago. The last time he saw Sam.

It had been a starless night. Low clouds slithering across the sky above the tops of the black pines, reflecting the dull orange glow of the power station. It was almost as though no time had passed at all. He’d been seventeen years old. Sam about the same. Two idiot teens walking in the dark together, talking over each other, trying to get through it all, everything that had passed in the time they’d been separated. There had been so much to say.

Regan had been careful about his words. He didn’t want to let slip words he’d never dare say in real life. I love you, Sam. I’ve needed you here.

Hours ago they had come down to the river, to their favourite spot. They’d gone to the hanging tree and swung off the old rotting rope there. Regan was so glad Sam was back, even if it was only for this night. Sam was being bounced through overnight care for stealing his last foster father’s car and joyriding through the city. He’d be put in a group home down in Nowra for a few weeks until they could see him through a rehabilitation program and rehome him.

Though Sam would be swiftly out of Regan’s life again, it wasn’t going to be like last time. They were going to keep in touch. Sam had a mobile phone now. They were going to be together. A year, and they’d be eighteen years old. Legally eligible to be released from state care. They could do what they wanted. Completely and utterly free. Regan had already started counting down the days.

It was Sam who spotted the light that evening. They’d been strolling back along Henry Lawson Drive, about to cut through a park into Revesby Heights. Back to Regan’s foster house, before his carers noticed he was gone. The light was at the back door of a small fibro house off the edge of a children’s park. The two boys sank onto the rubber seats of a pair of chain swings, twisting this way and that, letting the momentum spin them around.

‘Bit late for the vet to be open,’ Sam had commented, exhaling cigarette smoke.

‘Maybe it’s a rabbit with a stomach ache.’ Regan lit his own cigarette, squinting at the door. ‘A kangaroo with its pouch stuck shut.’

‘You’re weird,’ Sam had said, pushing off and swinging hard.

Regan snorted. ‘Lots of money, being a vet.’

The two boys swung back and forth, the iron frame squeaking above them. Regan put his feet down eventually and dragged himself to a stop.

‘Maybe we should go in,’ he grinned, watching Sam swing. He took a knife from his back pocket and slipped the blade open with a snap. ‘Gimme all your cash or the puppy gets it!’

Sam laughed.

‘I’m serious.’ Regan slapped his friend. ‘Come on. Let’s go have a look.’

‘No way.’ Sam dragged himself to a stop. ‘We’d get caught.’ ‘As if!’

‘They’ve probably got cameras. Security guards.’

‘Security guards?’ Regan laughed hard. ‘It’s a fucking vet! Who robs a vet?’

‘Exactly.’

‘ Exaaaactly.’ Regan grabbed Sam’s arm, felt his bicep beneath the shirt. He squeezed. ‘The dude won’t be expecting it. Let’s get what we can and go into the city. This is a great idea!’

‘This is a shitty, shitty idea.’ Sam got off the swing. ‘I’m not interested. I’ve got weed at home and it’s not gonna smoke itself.’

‘Come on. Don’t be a pussy.’

‘I’m not a pussy,’ Sam spat. His fury was surprisingly quick, rising from nowhere. ‘You’re the fucking pussy. Talkin’ about sticking up places like a fucking gangster. Who the hell do you think you are?’

‘I’ve stuck up places.’

‘No you haven’t.’

‘Yes, I have.’ Regan stood. Something inside him was stirring, turning in his chest. It felt like fingers creeping around his heart, threatening to squeeze. He’d said the wrong thing. He needed to fix it. But the words kept coming. The anger kept rising. He couldn’t lose Sam. Not now. ‘You don’t know me. You don’t know anything about me, man.’