Black Ice (21 page)

And she loved him.

It was as simple as that.

'Yes,' she breathed.

Daniel closed his eyes. Then a long, shuddering breath escaped him. 'Thank God,' he muttered.

'Now can we go get Catelyn?' Kirri asked, and the smile in her voice echoed the one in her heart.

 

Joshua and Lorraine insisted they stay for dinner and tell them everything that had happened. Daniel saw Kirri's need to be cocooned by the security and normality of family and gratefully accepted their hospitality. He was even more grateful to shower and change out of the mud-encased clothes he'd been wearing. Then he booked the three of them on the earliest flight back to Cairns the next day.

In the warmth and security of her father's ordinary suburban home, it was almost possible for Kirri to believe that no danger lurked somewhere in the darkness, and that the events of the day were some nightmare to be soon forgotten. But as they walked into her hotel room later in the evening, the memories came flooding back, taunting her with what
might
have happened.

Daniel put her bags down, then went into his room through the interlinking door. Catelyn squirmed out of Kirri's arms. Kirri watched her daughter, chubby arms outstretched and nappy wobbling, as she followed her father. In spite of the tiredness eating into her bones and her anxiety for their safety, she smiled. They were going to be a family.

A few minutes later Daniel returned, Catelyn snuggling into his shoulder.

'I think she's tired,' he said softly.

Kirri pointed to the single bed. 'Pop her in. I'll make a cup of tea and we'll sit out on the balcony. I want to talk.'

'Make mine coffee.' Daniel saw the look in her eyes. 'Strong. I think I'll need it.'

 

'Daniel, why do you feel you have to come back to Sydney? Wouldn't it be better to let the police investigate?'

Daniel felt the coffee slide down his throat. He savoured its heat and aroma for a while before he answered. 'Do you think it was a co-incidence that your flat was broken into a few days after you met me in Noosa?'

'What's that got to do … Oh, no. You think whoever's trying to kill you went looking for you at my place. But that would mean -'

'Yes.' Daniel's lips thinned into a grim line. 'I'm sure now that it wasn't just a random break and enter. He knows where you lived at Noosa, so I can't be sure he won't follow us to Cairns. And if I'm with you, it would put you in danger.'

'But nothing happened at the valley. We were safe there.' She leaned forward in her chair. 'Daniel, please stay there with us, at least for a few days. The dogs won't let a stranger get within cooee of the house.'

Kirri's big blue eyes posed a temptation Daniel had trouble resisting. He was loathe to leave her, but once he was sure she was safe with J.D., and that he understood the gravity of the situation, then he would come back to Sydney.

'I'll think about it,' he tempered. 'But I'm not letting Philip know where we've gone.'

They sat in silence for a few minutes. The full moon had waned, and the water of Botany Bay was black beyond the well-lit esplanade. To Kirri, menace seemed to hang in the air. 'I'm glad you're sharing my bed tonight,' she said to Daniel.

He paused, coffee cup to his lips. The slight raising of the corners of his mouth and the way he looked at her over the rim of the cup told her that once again she had delved into his thoughts.

 

Kirri turned off the light as Daniel joined her in bed. She turned into his embrace. Their kiss was long, deep, and comforting as much as arousing, and she felt some of the tension ease from her body.

She resisted the passion that flooded through her as his chest moved against her nipples. Her mind had been turning over everything that had occurred since she had met Daniel, and she felt they had overlooked one thing. 'Daniel, what if your adrenaline injector wasn't lost?'

'You mean, what if someone had taken it?' Daniel propped his head on his hand and looked down at her in the faint light seeping in through the gap in the curtains.

'If they knew you were allergic to peanuts …'

The thought that someone knew him well enough to know about his allergy sent a shiver down Daniel's spine. It wasn't something he normally discussed, and only disclosed on any documentation for safety and legal reasons.

'So whoever broke into your flat could easily have done the same at Philip's house,' he mused.

'And also added peanut oil to the other oil that was there.'

'If Philip had given him a key, he wouldn't have needed to break in.'

The conjectures hung in the air between them, curling with invisible threat. Targeted by a professional killer - even the thought made Daniel feel exposed, vulnerable. He'd book a return flight to Sydney as soon as he saw Kirri and Catelyn safe in O'Connor Valley.

Only the gravity of their conversation had deflected Daniel from his need to make love to Kirri, but as her hands began to travel down his chest and tease across his groin, desire, hot and urgent, flooded through him.

'How soundly does Catelyn sleep?' he asked.

'Very soundly.'

'Good.' He smiled against her lips.

Kirri returned his smile.

She wanted him. Ached for him. Needed him with a fierceness that left her shaken.

In the short time she had known him, he had crept into the most tightly guarded corners of her heart. She had agreed to marry him. No conditions, no limitations. It shocked her to realise that she would gladly surrender her highly prized independence to be with this man.

But now she needed to wipe away the fear that clutched at her. The fear that she could lose what she had only now regained. Daniel's caresses were tender, and she knew he was trying to be gentle because of her bruised shoulder, but tenderness wasn't what she needed right now.

She flung her leg across him, reached down to guide him into her.

'Wait!' His cry was guttural, as though forced unwillingly from his throat. She heard the rip of foil, then he sheathed himself. Kirri wanted to protest against the barrier. She wanted to feel the smoothness of him inside her, skin to skin, heat to heat, but knew this was not the time, not with his life under threat.

With one fluid movement, she knelt over him. She lowered herself down, luxuriating in the sense of completeness as he filled her.

His hands covered her breasts, rasping the nipples between thumb and forefinger. Heat coiled down into her womb, spreading fire. She moved with a steady rhythm, taking, taking, taking him deeper and deeper inside her.

He groaned, harsh in the darkness, and his hands slid to her hips, moved her faster, harder.

Her nails raked his chest, urging him on. Vaguely she heard her own short gasps as pleasure rippled through her.

Then her body arched, and colours exploded in her mind. She collapsed on Daniel's chest as he thrust deeply, groaning his release.

Long minutes later Kirri raised her head from Daniel's shoulder. 'Was it always this good for us?'

'We had a little adjusting to do at first,' he murmured, then smiled as he breathed in her scent with its overtones of honeysuckle, 'but we practised so much we got it right in the end.'

'Sure feels like it,' she sighed as she snuggled back into his embrace.

Daniel's arms tightened around her as he thought about the attempts on their lives. He was convinced Philip Weyburn was behind them. He had a lot to gain from Daniel's death, but surely now the police had been called in he would stop. But how desperate was he?

Daniel realised he knew very little about the man who was now his partner.

 

J.D. was waiting for them at Cairns Airport. He hugged Kirri and Catelyn, and the handshake he gave Daniel conveyed his approval at Kirri's news that she and Daniel were going to be married.

'Mick Landers phoned,' he said as they stowed their luggage in the Nissan Patrol. 'He said the police have found the green Commodore that sideswiped you, abandoned in Sydney. It had been wiped clean of fingerprints. When they checked the engine number they found the car had originally been stolen, then given a new number and re-registered. But the ownership details and everything else about it were false.'

'So it looks as though our killer definitely has criminal connections?' Daniel mused.

'Mick seems to think so.'

Kirri remembered her terror as their hire car had hurtled off the mountain road, and shivered as she strapped Catelyn into her safety seat in the Nissan.

 

'The police have an identikit picture of you.' Barely controlled fury sizzled through the mobile phone. 'They're questioning everyone at Brand & Weyburn.'

Brett gave vent to his baser vocabulary as the implications struck him. Then he muttered, 'I'll bet that artist bitch of Brand's did it for them.'

'Don't think this gets you off the hook. It just means that now you'll have to kill him any way you can. And you're going to have to be very careful not to be seen.'

'Won't the cops be protecting him?'

'He's checked out of his hotel, so my guess is he's left Sydney. Knowing Brand, he's taken the woman and the child home. You have their address.'

'I'll have to fly. What if the cops are checking the airport?'

'You've had to disguise yourself before. Do it again.'

 

J.D. felt a shadow pass over him. He looked up to see Daniel standing in the doorway of the big steel shed. 'What's up, mate?' he asked, and tossed the box he was looking through onto the work bench.

Daniel walked into the shed. 'I want to see a lawyer. Are there any in Gordonvale?'

'A couple.' J.D. looked shrewdly at Daniel. Despite his initial misgivings, he'd grown to like and respect the big American. 'What's the problem?'

'I want to change my Will and make Kirri and Catelyn my beneficiaries.'

'Does Kirri know this?'

'No. I know how stubborn and independent she is, and she'd only protest. But I need to know that if anything happens to me Kirri will be financially secure. And that means being able to do the type of painting she really wants to do, as well as looking after Catelyn.'

J.D. gave Daniel a searching look. 'Don't you think we'd look after them?'

Daniel smiled. 'I wouldn't have brought them back here if I thought otherwise. But from what Cate said, Kirri has already refused to let you support her financially while she paints. This way, if something happens to me, she won't have any choice but to accept.'

J.D. nodded. 'Okay. Phone book's in my office. Just look up Solicitors in the Yellow Pages. Tell them you're in a hurry - they'll fit you in. Oh, and if you can get an appointment this afternoon, will you grab me a few new gate hinges?' He indicated the metal gate propped against the wall. 'It needs a new hinge and we've run out.' He reached into his pocket and tossed Daniel a set of keys, nodding towards a ute parked in the shed, oxy-acetylene cylinders strapped into the back. 'Use the ute.'

 

Ten minutes later Daniel returned. 'I have an appointment in half an hour.'

'What did you tell Kirri?'

Daniel smiled. 'That I'm going in to buy a gate hinge for you.'

J.D. returned the smile. 'Then I guess you'd better weld the new one on for me when you get back. You
can
weld?'

Daniel looked across to the equipment on the ute. 'Looks similar to back home, so no problem.'

'Good. I've got to check on some cattle.' J.D. watched him walk around to the driver's door. 'Daniel!' he called. Daniel stopped. 'Be careful,' J.D. added.

 

It paid to have friends who had friends all around the country, Brett thought as he once more took possession of another "recycled" vehicle.

The drive from Cairns to Gordonvale didn't take as long as crossing from one side of Sydney to the other. Brett didn't look at the scenery. He was starting to get jittery. It was unlikely the cops were looking for him up here, but he made sure he stuck to the speed limit. He hadn't had time to get a disguise and a new driver's licence, but he'd managed to pass through Sydney airport without seeing a police uniform.

The brochure he'd got from Jenny had told him that Kirrily Smith lived in O'Connor Valley south of Cairns, but he needed more specific directions than that. In a small cafe in the main street he ordered a hamburger. The young waitress took his order to the cook, then came back to wipe down the already clean table. He pushed his sunglasses to rest on his hair.

'Just travelling through?' she asked.

'As a matter of fact, I'm looking for a friend, Bernard Nelson. He's living in some place called O'Connor Valley. He's an artist.'

'Nelson?' A frown wrinkled her forehead. 'No. Not in the valley. The only artist there is Kirri Smith.'

'Perhaps Bernard stayed with her. I'd like to catch up with him.'

'Well, go a few kilometres up the O'Connor Valley Road, and look for a big sign that says Connaught Downs Cattle Stud. Her brother, J.D. O'Connor, runs it.'

'Thank you.' Brett smiled at her, and as she returned his smile he experienced the thrill that always gripped him when he so easily deceived a woman.

 

Fifteen minutes later he wiped his mouth with a serviette and contemplated his next move. Through habit, he'd positioned himself next to a window, and as he gazed out at the traffic and the pedestrians, he jerked up in his chair.

A ute had pulled up across the street, and a tall, big-shouldered man got out and walked into a hardware store. Brand! He'd swear it was him!

Brett strode out of the cafe and walked over to the ute. It looked like a work vehicle. Where would Brand get - Ah, he thought, Kirri's brother, the one who runs the stud.

Brett's mind raced. The hot-wiring skills he'd acquired as a sixteen year old had been expanded to different proficiencies by his nineteenth birthday, but there were too many people passing by for him to put them into use.

He surveyed the equipment in the tray of the ute. Oxy-acetylene. Interesting. His post-high school tech course had covered welding and cutting, and although he had an aversion to manual labour, he was resourceful enough to realise they were skills which could be utilised in other areas.