Down Among the Dead Men (Entangled Ignite) (2 page)

“Oh, blimey, Max. My parents were never divorced.”

Max gaped. “Then, what does that make me?”

Shrugging, Caitlyn said, “My sister.”

Chapter Two

The next morning, Caitlyn rolled over in the strange bed and studied her surroundings. The flimsy curtains did a poor job of blocking the morning sun and the room was already stifling. Did the lopsided wardrobe or the chest of drawers hold any clues to Wally’s whereabouts? She wouldn’t, as a rule, poke about in someone else’s belongings but she’d never been in a situation like this before. A man was missing. Not just any man, but her father. And she had a sister.
Holy cow
.

She opened the wardrobe doors without getting out of bed. The room was so small she’d have to go outside to change her mind. A jacket, two pairs of trousers, and three shirts. That was all. Except—she leaned back to see the floor of the wardrobe—a pair of old work boots. Which explained the smell. Either this was the pathetic extent of his wardrobe or her father had packed the good stuff and left the rubbish behind.

She dressed in the shorts and T-shirt she’d worn the day before and went looking for Max. Her sister was in the kitchen, waiting for the kettle to boil.

“Do you want toast?”

Caitlyn flattened a hand on her stomach. When had she last eaten? “Yes, please. I’m starving. I’ll make it, shall I?”

“Go for it,” Max said.

While she dropped bread into the ancient toaster and Max spooned coffee into the mugs, Caitlyn said, “Do you know where your father—I mean,
our
father—was going when he left?”

“No,” Max answered too quickly.

“Are you sure?”

“I wasn’t listening.”

Caitlyn sighed. It was as though lying was the girl’s default mode. She’d hoped they’d gotten past that with the discovery that they were sisters. “You said you’d help me find him, but it’s no help if you won’t talk to me. If you know where he was going, please tell me.”

Max took butter from the fridge and handed it to her. “There’s this man. He comes here every now and then. Whenever he comes, Dad goes out with him.”

“Did he go out with him this time?”

She nodded.

“Do you know his name?”

“I’ve heard Dad call him Chet.”

“Chet? Okay. That’s not much to go on, but it’s a start. What does he look like?”

“Dunno. I’ve never seen him. I know he drives a Kombi van because I hear the engine. Kombi van engines sound different from any others. But he only comes after I’m in bed.”

“So you don’t hear what they talk about?”

“Not really, but—”

A blast from a truck horn interrupted her. Max dropped her slice of toast onto the plate and headed for the front door. Following more slowly while she munched on her own toast, Caitlyn watched her lope toward the office.

“Morning, Red,” Max called to a white-haired man who was leaning against the office door.

“Morning, Max,” he said, moving away from the door so that she could unlock it.

Caitlyn strolled over to the office, observing through the window as Max took Red’s money. When he drove away in his ancient vehicle, Max left the office, but instead of returning to the house, she trotted toward the road.

“Where are you going?”

“To babysit. I do it for money,” she called over her shoulder.

“But you haven’t ordered my radiator yet.”

Max shrugged. “I’ll do it when I get back. I’ll only be an hour.”

An hour wouldn’t make a difference if the supplier still had time to include it in the day’s deliveries. “Okay, but what if someone else comes to buy fuel?”

Max just looked at her. “You’re here. You can take their money.”

“And if I hadn’t been here?”

“Then they’d come back later.”

Really? It definitely was a different world out here. Returning to the kitchen, Caitlyn found some dishwashing liquid and set to work on the stacks of dirty dishes. Max might be a brilliant mechanic—which remained to be seen—but she had a lot to learn about housekeeping.

Still up to her elbows in suds sometime later, Caitlyn heard a car horn. She hesitated before wiping the bubbles from her arms and heading out to the forecourt. A white police Land Rover stood there.

The driver’s door opened and an officer stepped out. “Who are you? Where’s Max?”

“She’s not here. I’m her sister.”

He grabbed the nozzle from the pump. “Since when has she had a sister?”

Loud cursing came from the back seat of his vehicle. She peered in and froze at the sight of Terry and Kyle. They wore handcuffs and Kyle had one arm in a sling, but they still managed to make obscene gestures in her direction. The officer yelled at them to be quiet.

She sucked in a deep breath and asked, “Are they under arrest?”

He nodded.

Queasy to think they might have assaulted another girl after leaving the servo, and that she could have stopped them if she’d reported the attack on Max, she stepped back. Another burst of swearing came from the car. Whatever they’d done, she hoped they’d be locked away for a long time.

Then she spotted the credit card the officer held out to her.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know how to do that.” She waved at the card. “Do you have cash?”

“No.” He returned the card to his wallet and swapped the wallet for his notebook and pen. “I’ll give you an IOU and come back later.”

“That will work,” she said, accepting the note with a glance at the pump to check that he’d written the correct amount.

“You didn’t answer my question. How long has Max had a sister?”

Ever since she was born
, she wanted to say, but it probably wasn’t a good idea to get the local law off-side by being facetious. “We’ve only just met. My father invited me up here to stay with Max while he’s away.

His eyes narrowed. “Where is he?”

“Um, Alice Springs,” she said, making up a destination on the spot. “He had to go there on business,” she said in a more positive tone. It wouldn’t do to give him reason to doubt her. “I’m Caitlyn, by the way.”

“Sergeant Peterson,” he said with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “I take it you’re not used to this type of work.”

“No.” She shook her head, but when he didn’t ask her what she did for a living, she chose not to offer the information. The less she said to him, the less likely she was to trip up and say the wrong thing.

Once his vehicle had disappeared into the distance, she went back to washing the dishes, all the time listening for customers. When, after nearly an hour, she heard one and raced outside, she was confronted by the sight of a dilapidated Ford and a driver whose stiff, scruffy beard looked like it was used to strain his food.

He still had the nozzle in the tank when a white truck pulled in and parked at the edge of the property.

Max jumped out of the truck and strode over to her. “I’ll take Ralph’s money, if you like.”

“Sure. Finished babysitting already?”

“Yeah. Ginny’s dad just had to do some work. That’s him. He drove me home.” She nodded in the direction of a short man with frameless glasses who’d gotten out of the truck. He walked with a bad limp, Caitlyn noticed.

A sudden tug at Caitlyn’s shorts made her look down into the face of a little girl with white-blond hair who was, she guessed, about three or four years old. “Hello.”

“I’m Ginny,” she yelled, before running around Caitlyn in tight circles.

Ginny’s father caught her hand and gave Caitlyn an apologetic smile as he tugged the little girl away. “Hey, Dale, this is my sister, Caitlyn, from Sydney,” Max said.

Dale did a double-take. “Pleased to meet you, Caitlyn. I didn’t know Max had a sister. ”

“Neither did I,” Max said.

With a warm smile he held out a hand and she shook it, noting the gleam of interest in his gray eyes as they met hers. He wasn’t good-looking—or at least, he wasn’t the type of man she usually found attractive—but there was something about his quiet, easy manner that appealed to her. Maybe she’d just had her fill of men with movie star looks and massive egos. Not that she was in the market for a man at all, obviously. She’d had a gutful of men and their games.

“Well, it’s great that you know now,” he said. “I hope you enjoy your stay. How long do you think it will be?”

“I really don’t know. My car’s broken down, so I have to wait for Max to do the repairs.”

“I see. She’ll do a good job. Don’t worry about that. She’s a car whisperer.”

“That good?”

He smiled. Startling blue eyes, dimples, and white, straight teeth—the combination was dazzling and sent shivers down her spine. Maybe she’d been wrong about him not being attractive. She clamped down on the idea before it could take hold, but couldn’t help returning his smile.

“Dale took me to the general store and gave me a ride home,” Max said, “because there was too much food to carry. Spent the babysitting money. Thought I’d better, what with having a visitor and all.”

“I would have given you money for food.”

“Oh, well. You can buy the next lot.”

“Deal. A police officer filled up while you were out. He wanted to use a credit card, but I didn’t know what to do with it. He’s coming back to pay.” She handed over the IOU.

“Michael Peterson.” Max nodded as she took the slip of paper, then her eyes widened. “You didn’t tell him anything, did you?”

“Of course not.” With a short intake of breath she said, “Oh, you’ll be pleased to know that he had Kyle and Terry under arrest with no help from me. I don’t know what the charge is, but it’s nothing to do with us.”

“What’s this about?” Dale said. “Have those two been causing trouble again?”

“Not for us,” Max said quickly.

Caitlyn pressed her lips together and avoided Dale’s gaze.

“Okay,” he said glancing between the two of them, “It’s clearly none of my business, but they’re bad news, those two. Max, I’ll put the shopping bags by the front door.”

“Great. Thanks for dropping me off.”

“You’re always welcome, and it was very good to meet you, Caitlyn.” He gave her another warm, crinkly-eyed smile before walking off, holding Ginny by the hand.

Max frowned. “What did Michael say about Kyle and Terry?”

“Nothing. Just that they were under arrest. Oh, by the way, I told him that Wally has gone to Alice Springs.”

“What did you do that for?”

“It made him sound like a responsible parent. I said he’d asked me to stay with you while he was away.”

“Right. Does that mean you’re going to stay here the whole time?”

“Until we find him, if it’s all right with you.”

Max shrugged as if it didn’t matter to her, but asked, “Do you want to learn how to take a credit card?”

“Sure.”

Caitlyn followed Max into the office. After showing her what to do with the card when there was an internet connection and what to do when it was down, Max went on to tell her everything else she needed to know about running the servo, which wasn’t much.

When a car horn sounded, Max looked through the window. “It’s Michael. Do you want to process his card now that you know what to do? I’ll put the shopping away.”

Caitlyn sighed with relief when she saw the back seat was empty, especially with Max home. She called Michael into the office and fumbled her way through the card transaction.

He tucked his wallet into his hip pocket. “How long are you going to be staying around here?”

“I don’t know for sure.”

“And how long will Wally be gone exactly?”

She eyed him warily. Had he been investigating since his earlier visit? “He didn’t say.”

He looked unconvinced but gave her a nod and left.

A minute after he’d left, the door opened again. “What were you talking about?”

Caitlyn looked up. “He was asking about Wally again.”

Max gasped. “What did you say?”

“I know we’ve only just met, but you’ll have to start trusting me if we’re going to get along. I said that I didn’t know how long he’d be gone. He did seem a bit suspicious about that.”

“He’s always suspicious.”

“Why?”

“How about, because he’s the police?”

Caitlyn waved at a chair against the wall. “Look, sit down for a minute. I want to know as much as you.”

“What do you mean?” Max flopped into the chair.

Caitlyn sat in the chair behind the desk. “You know something about Wally’s disappearance, I’m sure of it. You said that you think he’s been stealing opals, but you didn’t say why you suspect it, and you were going to say something about Chet this morning when we were interrupted. Come on, tell me what you know.”

After fidgeting with the string she’d used to tie up her torn overalls, Max said, “I don’t know anything for sure.”

“But you do have a theory?”

She nodded. “I think him and Chet, they might have been nightshifting.” Her voice dropped lower on the last word.

“Okay. So, you think he has a second job?”

Max’s eyes widened. “A second job? Dad?”

“Isn’t that what you said? Nightshifting—that’s like moonlighting, right?”

“No. And keep your voice down.”

Caitlyn shrugged. “There’s nobody here.”

“Nightshifting is…” Max glanced around the office as if she expected someone to pop out of a corner. “Ratting.” When Caitlyn didn’t respond, she rolled her eyes. “St—” Another nervous glance around. “Stealing opals,” she whispered. “Going into other people’s claims at night to work them.” Folding her arms across her chest, she stared at the floor.

“Oh.”

What had she stumbled into? It could mean a whole lot of trouble. She looked at Max digging a thumbnail into the chair’s frame and imagined her reaction if she said she didn’t need this and was out of here. Oh, Max would act all tough as if she couldn’t care less, but Caitlyn’s instincts told her it would be nothing more than bravado. Max was all alone here, and her father—
their
father—could be in deep shit, or worse. There was no way she could walk away now, no matter how much her sense of self-preservation wanted her to say she was out of there. Besides, she couldn’t go back to her mum with nothing to show for her dash up here. She’d promised to do whatever she could to stop her father selling the family home. She couldn’t go home and she couldn’t go to the police. She had no option but to look for their father and find out why he’d disappeared. She had to know whether he was alive or dead.