Fifty Fifty (Detective Harriet Blue #2)(66)

‘You,’ he pointed at me. ‘Take those wires over there, tie them up. And don’t think you’re going to do it loosely. I’ll check.’

I crawled on my hands and knees to a pile of electrical wire nearby. The men had been drilling, sending charges through the rock wall, exploding bits off to get deeper into the seam. I wondered just how secure this all was, if in the end a collapse from the rock above would bury all of us. A Venus flytrap snapping shut on greedy flies. I looked up. The crack in the earth went all the way up. There were stars up there beyond us all. Maybe there was hope. Mick was muttering to Jace as I crawled over to him and began tying his hands.

‘Sure must be a lot of it for you all to have decided you’ll just take off and leave everyone behind,’ Mick was saying. ‘Let’s see. If I wanted to start a new life, I reckon I’d need a hundred grand minimum. A hundred grand could see you set yourselves up pretty well in Thailand.’

‘Fuck off, idiot,’ Jace snapped, his chin resting in the dirt, teeth together. I moved and tied Frank’s hands.

‘But then, you guys have been out here for ages, I reckon,’ Mick mused. ‘I started to notice you acting weird months back. Let’s say it’s three months of ferreting the rocks away. Then Soupy Campbell finds you with some. You have to bring him in on it all.’

‘What’s your plan here?’ I asked Mick. He’d elected me to bind everyone. He must have some level of trust in me. I tried to keep my voice low, non-threatening. ‘You’ll leave us all tied up here and then go raid everyone’s houses, take the rocks and leave. That’s what you’ll do, right?’

Mick didn’t answer. I’d tied all Jace’s men and moved to Kash. His hands were sweaty.

‘Because there’s really no need to hurt anyone,’ I continued. ‘The guys will tell you where the gold is hidden, so you can get away with plenty of time.’

‘Shut up and finish what you’re doing.’

‘You’re talking about theft,’ I said. ‘That’s all. Leave now. Then if you’re caught, you can probably plead out. You do not want to find yourself on the run with six murder charges. When they find us, they’ll shut the whole country down to catch who did it.’

Mick flicked the gun at the sand. I lay down and felt his bulk shift over me, the sickening press of his crotch against my backside as he pulled my arm behind my back with his free hand.

‘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.