Temporary Intrigue (27 page)

“I’ll see you out,” offered Leigh, either suddenly and uncharacteristically hospitable or, more probably, just glad to get rid of him.

Dimity hardly noticed they had gone. She felt chilled to the bone. Realising the kitchen door was still open, she went over and shut it.

“That’s a good idea.” Leigh had returned. “Never know who’s hanging around.”

She reached around Dimity, turned the key in the door and removed it. Her dressing gown fell slightly open. With vague surprise Dimity noticed she was wearing jeans, a sweater and sneakers. The information slid into her mind and out again.

“I’m going to pack a few things,” she said.

Leigh moved away, opened a drawer with her back to Dimity and closed it.

“No you’re not,” she said.

She turned around.

In her hand was a carving knife, pointed straight at Dimity.

****

On his way to the car, Josh remembered the baseball bat. In his anxiety to get Dimity away, he had left it at the scene of the attack.

He jogged down the road to the corner and was relieved to find it still lying on the footpath. With a vague idea that evidence should be preserved, he picked it up and walked quickly back. He was unsure yet whether he planned to hide the bat to protect Shane or hand it over to the police. Right now it seemed irrelevant. Whatever he did would make no difference to the agony Dimity would feel over the fact her brother had tried to kill her.

The overwhelming need right now was to get her out of that house. Somehow he sensed she was still in danger. Maybe Leigh was, too. They should have told her what had happened.

He stopped in front of the house, suddenly more uneasy than ever.

There was something he should have noticed, something out of place.

A car pulled up beside him. Shane got out and waved as the car took off. Josh recognised Malcolm at the wheel.

“Hi.” Shane stared at Josh, then at the bat. “What are you doing with that?”

There was no fear, no guilt in his expression. Instead Josh saw puzzlement and suspicion tinged with indignation.

A completely normal reaction, in fact, to finding somebody loitering outside your home at night, armed with your own baseball bat.

“Hell.” Josh knew now what had been bothering him. “I said she’d had a fright. I could have meant a dog went for her, or a car nearly hit her. How did Leigh know I was talking about an attacker? How did she know I frightened someone off?”

Before Shane could speak, Josh strode up the path to the front door.

“It’s locked.” Still clutching the baseball bat with one hand he banged on the door with the other, then gestured furiously at Shane. “Where’s your key? Quick!”

Shane was looking at him as if he thought he’d gone mad.

“Do you mind telling me what’s going on?”

“I think Dimity’s in danger. Open the damn door, can’t you?”

Still unconvinced, Shane produced his keys from his pocket, unlocked the door then pushed without success.

“The safety chain’s on. Leigh! Are you there?”

He knocked a couple of times.

“The kitchen door!” Josh remembered Dimity putting Bert into his kennel. “It might still be open!”

He tore around the house, hearing a crash and a scream from inside.

“Call the police!” he yelled at Shane, who was following him at an infuriatingly slow pace.

The kitchen door was also locked, but the venetians were open a fraction. Looking in at an angle, Josh could see part of the room. His heart seemed to stop. The table had been overturned. Dimity was on one side of it, pinned against the cupboards. On the other side crouched Leigh, with a large knife raised at shoulder height.

Shane, now beside him, uttered a violent curse, fumbled a phone from his pocket and hit three numbers. At the same time, Josh swung the baseball bat, shattering the window to smithereens and launching himself into the room almost in the one movement. Shane was not far behind him.

“Apparently she’d always lived hand to mouth. Anything was better than nothing. She said she wanted to kill me so Shane would get the insurance money and the house.”

Hearing herself repeat the words Leigh had spat out in the kitchen the previous night, Dimity could still hardly believe them.

“And somewhere down the track, something similar would have happened to Shane,” said Josh.

“I hadn’t thought of that.” Dimity gave him a horrified look.

“Don’t. It’s all over.”

Josh had arrived early as arranged, and she and Shane had accompanied him to the police station where they all gave statements. After taking Shane home they were now, at Dimity’s insistence, on their way to work in Josh’s car.

“She followed me in Shane’s car that night when I was walking Bert, and tried to run me down. She gambled that I wouldn’t recognise the car if she had the headlights on full blast. And Shane didn’t hear the car leave because he was at the computer with his earphones on.”

“Quite a risk,” said Josh. “But she’s not rational.”

“She pretended my brakes were faulty in case she had a chance to tamper with them. She knew from working at the service station how the puncture would cause problems, but she was smart enough to wait for a chance to do it away from home.”

Dimity stared unseeingly at the city buildings they were passing.

“When Shane asked her to pick him up at the reception and told her where my car was so she could meet him there, she grabbed a skewer from the kitchen on the off chance she’d have time to do it.”

She sounded more indignant than fearful, Josh was glad to hear.

“One thing I can’t work out,” he said, “is why there wasn’t any damage to Shane’s car when she rammed you that night at Shenanigans.”

“So that’s why you were prowling around his car.” Dimity gave the ghost of a chortle. “Believe it or not, that first accident was genuine. Leigh had nothing to do with it, but it started her thinking. Remember she and Shane were in town the day I went to the interview at the hotel? She said she spotted me crossing the street and wished she could push me under a bus. That’s when she really decided to go after me.”

Turning into the hotel parking basement, Josh eased the car into its spot and took her hand. “I’m sorry I worried you with my suspicions about Shane. I should have thought more laterally.”

She tried to smile and failed dismally, but returned the pressure of his hand.

“As you said, you don’t know him as well as I do.”

He lifted her hand to his lips, then pressed it against his cheek.

“And at the risk of repeating myself, you don’t have to come to work today.”

Dimity shook her head.

“I’d rather have something to take my mind off it,” she said, seeing again in her mind the nightmare picture of Josh and Shane struggling to hold Leigh until the police arrived.

Josh put a protective arm around her shoulders as they made their way to the stairs. “Shane looked as if he was still in shock. How’s he taking it?”

“He’s horrified that he was fooled by her, but the thing that upset him most was the fact that Leigh had been trying to hurt me.” Dimity pondered her late night talk with Shane. “As far as I can see, he was staying with her more out of habit than anything. This made him see her as she is.”

“Tough way for it to happen.”

Almost immediately, Josh had to leave for a workshop he had agreed to run at the convention.

“I’ll buy you a coffee when it’s finished,” he said. “And I can miss most of the other sessions today. Gail can hold the fort.”

Dimity forced a smile, grateful for his understanding. Since the events of last night, she had never felt so close to him.

She passed the time with some desultory typing. Amanda left for morning tea but she stayed, expecting Josh any minute. When she thought she heard him, she glanced up.

It was Gail, looking important with a black folder.

“Tell Amanda I left this for her,” she commanded. “I imagine Josh is glad he won’t have to cover for you any more after Friday,” she added, casting a withering eye over Dimity’s desk.

“I beg your pardon?”
Gail gave her a scornful look.

“Everyone knows he’s had to work late most days to make good your mistakes.”

While Dimity struggled to find her voice, the phone rang in Josh’s office. Gail walked in and picked it up. When she emerged, the malicious smile on her thin lips reminded Dimity of a cat fresh from enjoying a bowl of top quality cream.

“Ready for coffee?” said Josh, walking in.

Dimity was on her feet immediately, picking up her handbag.

“There’s a message on your desk, Josh,” Gail said.

“Thanks. I’ll check it when I get back.”

“She left her name.” Gail’s smile was impossibly sweet. “Maddison.”

Josh jerked back as if a cobra had launched itself at him.

“Maddison?” His expression was a combination of shock, consternation and – incredibly – what looked like absolute embarrassment.

“Maddison,” confirmed Gail. “She said she was your wife,” she added loudly and clearly.

Swivelling on her heel, she threw a gloating look at Dimity and walked out.

Dimity waited for Josh to deny it.

To laugh, take her in his arms and make everything right again.

A lifetime seemed to pass while she stood there, waiting.

“Dimity–” Josh broke the silence at last. She turned her head slowly and saw the admission in his eyes.

“Wife?
”

His breath hissed inward.

“I was going to tell you.”

For the first time she understood what a mist of rage was. Beyond its haze, she could see him only indistinctly. Blood boiled through her body, threatening to surge upwards and explode out the top of her head.

She had to get out of there.

Somehow she was in the corridor, her feet rushing her towards the lift. She jabbed the ‘down’ arrow but suddenly couldn’t bear to wait. Turning blindly towards the stairs, she collided with Josh.

“Dim, I’m sorry. Please listen.”

“You don’t have to explain anything to me.”

“Of course I do. Please believe me, I’ve been trying to tell you.”

“Of course you have.” Dimity tried to focus on him. “Tell me one thing.
Was
that woman your wife?”

“Yes!
” The word exploded in the hallway. Amanda, on her way back from morning tea, skirted around them, eyeing him apprehensively. “But it’s no big deal–”

“Of course not.” Dimity was suddenly icily calm. “And your
wife
feels that way too?”

The lift door opened. She stepped in.

“For God’s sake!” Josh’s voice was rougher than she had ever heard it. “She’s in Canada. We’re not–”