Crystal Coffin (35 page)

He touched her hand, thinking that maybe he did. In the army, if you lost a mate you honoured their memory, and the angel thing sounded like the same theory.

‘How nice,' Fletcher said. ‘But I disagree.'

‘Aaron!' Nikki screamed, stumbling back against the horse. Locklin stepped in front of her, keen to see the face of his enemy. A second later he felt the cigarette packet pushed quickly into his back pocket.

An older skinny man with an earring planted himself in the open gateway and pointed the business end of his Winchester directly at Nikki. ‘Want 'em done here?' he asked.

‘No, Ricks!' Fletcher snapped. ‘We're cleaning up, not leaving a mess — and they're going to help.'

‘Okay,' Ricks said. ‘You heard the man. Out here, now.'

Locklin led Nikki forward, keeping himself between her and the Winchester. He walked slowly, trying to get his feet within kicking distance of Ricks and his rifle while his eyes scanned for resources.

Nothing here, he realised, but they were headed towards the house.

‘Cut that out, loverboy,' Fletcher said, seeing Locklin's eyes dart left and right. ‘You're outnumbered.'

Ricks pushed Locklin forward and confiscated the mobile phone that was hanging off Nikki's waist. He pulled the plastic sim card and battery out of it to make it useless without call codes or power and dropped it all into the water trough enjoying the splash.

‘Two on two makes it equal where I come from,' Locklin said, analysing them.

‘The gun is on our side,' Ricks said smugly.

‘Rifle,' Locklin corrected.

‘What?' Fletcher said, screwing up his nose.

‘It's not a gun, it's a rifle,' Locklin said, goading them more to find their weakness. ‘A gun doesn't have rifling down the inside of the barrel to spin the bullet on a tighter trajectory. If you're going to let your toy boy use it, he should at least know how it works or he might hurt himself.'

‘Get moving, smart mouth,' Ricks said, realising that he was being baited.

Locklin did as he was told, continuing to evaluate.

‘Where's Maitland's wife and the kids?' Fletcher asked. ‘Inside?'

‘They're at the carnival,
Daddy
,' Nikki heckled. ‘Want me to fetch them?'

‘Oh, you two are a nice pair,' Fletcher snapped. ‘Shut up, both of you.'

Locklin climbed the steps behind Nikki, positioning himself slightly to the left as he went through, putting himself closest to the side with the counter. There was always something on a kitchen counter, he realised, and with two men behind and Nikki in front, he'd have the perfect opportunity to —

Damn! He swore silently. Who cleaned up this kitchen?

Ricks pushed them on through the hall, wondering which way to go next. ‘Where's the stuff?' he asked his boss.

Fletcher signalled that he wanted to pass and Ricks waved them up against the wall with the rifle while his boss went through to stop near the first door.

‘Here,' Fletcher said, taking down the painting from opposite Nikki's room. He turned to pass the painting to Locklin, confident he wouldn't do anything with a bullet pointed at his back and Fletcher thought that the sooner he turned him into a packhorse, the better he'd feel. But he didn't like the way Locklin was looking at him, and signalled Nikki to come forward instead. ‘Pass this to your boyfriend,' he said, handing it to her. ‘And be careful. It's worth more than the both of you.'

‘You don't know him at all?' Nikki asked her stepfather, needing to know.

Locklin stared at her, willing her not to reveal his identity.

‘Why should I?' Fletcher snuffed ignorantly. ‘I've never taken an interest in your boyfriends before.' He thumped his way along the hall taking down paintings, until Locklin was carrying seven that were all stacked so the frames kept the canvases from being touched or scratched. He packed three more onto Nikki and carried two larger ones himself and gave the signal for Ricks to back everyone nice and steady towards the kitchen.

‘Hardly a reverent way to carry the merchandise,' Fletcher said, still thinking about the packing cases and the Landcruiser.

‘Paintings!' Locklin exploded. ‘All this is over stupid paintings?'

‘You bet,' Fletcher said with a grin on his face. ‘Eighty-four million dollars' worth of stupid paintings.'

Guns, drugs or smuggling of victims to harvest for their bodily organs, he could understand. People involved in those kind of things were supposed to be the scum of the earth. But his father had died over a bunch of stupid paintings!

Locklin wanted to punch the wall. He wanted to smash every picture frame in the house over that cold smug face and drive that freakish grin all the way to Hell. He controlled the rage instead, feeling his muscles coil tight and his blood turn to acid. Now was not the time. The Winchester would shoot through him and into Nikki.

He forced air out between his teeth like a pressure valve releasing as Fletcher ducked into the room that he'd once called his bedroom. He heard the bedcovers rip down and saw Fletcher emerge with the two blankets draped over his shoulder.

‘We'll use this as packing,' he said, giving Ricks the signal to head to the car.

Ricks made the packhorses go out the back door first. ‘You want the paintings in the boot?' he asked.

‘On the back seat,' Fletcher said, ‘there's more room.' He nodded to their captives. ‘
They
go in the back.'

Ricks herded them down the stairs to the car and Fletcher rested his portraits against the back wheel, giving him two free hands to get things ready. He took the tow rope and the tool kit from the boot and put them on the floor behind the driver's seat. Then he used the pliers from the tool kit to cut the internal manual boot release, and tossed the pliers on top of the tool kit. When he locked this pair in the boot, he didn't want them getting out by using any complimentary safety feature.

He stacked his two paintings on the back seat, the first one face down, the next one face up. He continued the stack with paintings he took from Nikki, weaving blankets between them as needed to prevent damage.

‘You're done,' Fletcher told Nikki when her arms were empty. ‘Get in,' he said, motioning her to boot.

He shoved her when she didn't move, her legs stiff with fear, her skin cold with sweat. He shoved her again and she planted her feet, this time with determination.

‘No!' she spat. ‘I'm
not
getting in there!'

He shoved her again and she tripped into Locklin. Locklin stepped over her, pushing the paintings into Fletcher, betting that he wouldn't want to drop them.

‘Run!' he shouted and she bolted.

Locklin spun on his heel as Fletcher teetered with the paintings. He threw a roundhouse kick at Ricks, but the rifle had moved.

‘Stop!' Ricks shouted as the muzzle came up under Locklin's ribs. ‘Stop!' he shouted again. ‘Or the boyfriend gets it!'

Nikki skidded in the gravel.

Locklin had his arms up for balance and he moved them slowly to his head.

‘That's better,' Ricks said. ‘Nice and civilised.'

Locklin spat on his face, but caught a punch to the kidneys from behind.

‘Thanks, boss,' Ricks said, driving the barrel into Locklin's midriff and dropping him to his knees. He raised the Winchester up and brought it down hard on Locklin's head, taking him to the ground. Then he kicked him and knocked him out before turning back to the car.

‘Where were we?' Fletcher said, pushing Nikki closer to the boot.

‘I'm not getting in there!' she screamed.

‘Doesn't look like you got much choice,' Ricks laughed.

Nikki gave him the finger right in his face and Ricks scowled. ‘Let me shoot her boss,
please
?'

‘No. I want to dump her out over the ocean alive. There'll be no blood or body that way if forensics come looking.'

‘Well,
he's
bleeding,' Ricks said, turning. ‘Hey! Where'd he go?'

Fletcher, Nikki and Ricks all looked around at once and saw nothing. Fletcher kicked the wheel of the car. ‘That's all I need,' he said, swearing.

‘You take the girl and go, boss,' Ricks said. ‘Farran and Kirk will be here any second. We'll bag him and catch up.'

‘I'm not getting in that—'

‘Boot. Yeah yeah,' Fletcher said, kicking gravel at her. ‘We've heard that song. Get in the front.'

‘I can't drive!'

‘Do I look that stupid?' Fletcher said, shoving her roughly to the other side. ‘You're just crazy enough to accelerate into a tree. Passenger seat, now!' he ordered, opening the door.

Ricks shoved her in and pointed the Winchester at her head. He glanced around while Fletcher tied her hands behind the seat with the tow strap and blew her a kiss as he slammed her door.

‘You sure you'll be right here, Ricks?' Fletcher asked, getting in and starting the motor.

‘Yeah, boss,' Ricks said, stroking his rifle like it was his best friend. ‘There's only one of him, against all of me.'

A latch clicked and Ricks brought his Winchester round to face the Magna. It was parked with its boot open down by the cattle yards, but the only thing moving was a horse that was tied up on the far side of the yard.

The nose of the Magna was parked under a bougainvillea, angled slightly away from him and for the first time, he noticed the specialised numberplates — six blue numbers on a white background with the RAAF rondel and the slogan ‘Power for Defence' in little writing underneath.

He sent five rounds from his lever-action rifle through the car from tail to nose, just in case flyboy was hiding on the other side. The horse screamed on the fifth and he grinned, pumping two more into the car between them just to see it buck and try to break its lead.

He waited a second to see if the fuel tank would explode like they did in the movies, but it didn't and he put another round through where he thought the tank should be in case he missed it. Still no fire, but he could hear fuel leaking.

‘Bugger,' he said, realising the bullets must have gone clean through without a spark. He took a box of matches out of his back pocket and grinned anyway, pleased that his boss wasn't here to put a damper on his fun.

He approached the yawning boot slowly, seeing a blue metal trunk inside. It was padlocked and he rapped on it, trying to hear if it was empty, but he couldn't tell. He checked the far side of the car and found nobody, and then worked his way along the front, peering cautiously inside. Nobody there either, and he walked off a bit to light a match. Then he flicked it under the car and hit the dirt.

The explosion went over him and the horse screamed again. Wuss, Ricks thought as he got up, it barely touched you.

He turned round to check out his handiwork and admired the flames and the nice crackling effect of the sap in the bougainvillea branches exploding as the plant incinerated. If his boss could see the flames or the plume of black smoke from the boathouse over the treetops, he'd just blame it on flyboy.

Behind him, Locklin lunged into the stables with the mobile phone he'd rescued from the car. He hadn't meant to bump the boot release, but he hadn't meant to catch the butt end of the Winchester with his forehead either.

He suppressed the headache at his temple with one hand and thumbed a code into his mobile with the other to cancel call forwarding to his message bank. Then he dialled the number for directory assistance and followed the prompts to ask for connection to wakeup calls and programmed the automated system to dial his mobile back in fifty seconds and again in one and a half minutes, just in case his friend outside couldn't hear much over the fire.

He set the ring option to vibrate and set the phone down on an upturned metal bucket in the fourth stall. He added a lightweight metal hoof-pick beside the phone and grabbed a pitchfork before closing the door as he came out. He ducked quickly towards the back of the stables, crouching in a stall two doors down and resting the pitchfork on the straw beside him. Then he waited.

The phone rang — he could tell by the racket the hoof pick made as it danced around the phone on the upturned bucket.

Ricks followed the noise in on the breeze like a kid following the smell of hot dogs at a party. He burst though the door, knowing it to be a trick. The noise was too loud and too constant. He ignored it, laughing loud as he blasted three shots into the stall nearest to him, two shots into the one behind him and two into the next one along from that.

One left, Locklin thought as the hoof pick stopped dancing.

Ricks glanced around, more concerned now that the noise had stopped. He kicked open the door to the fourth stall and found it empty except for an upturned bucket. He smiled as the phone buzzed and the hoof pick started to dance again, but his smile was his last. He fell with a pitchfork through his back, but Locklin made no attempt to pull it out.