Limbo (34 page)

She’d been chatty when they’d placed their orders and Dash didn’t see any hope of her leaving without a decent chinwag. It was the county way, after all.

‘Brisbane,’ he supplied. If he kept his answers short maybe she’d get the hint.

‘Ah, the big smoke,’ she joked. ‘You come for the markets?’ she asked Joy. ‘They’re getting quite a decent rep these days.’

Joy glanced at Dash. ‘Yes,’ she said, returning her attention to the waitress. ‘There’s quite a crowd.’

‘Good to see the town finally getting back on its feet. Didn’t survive the recession very well. I’m only sorry poor Kath,’ she tipped her chin at the empty shop next door, ‘couldn’t hold on long enough to see it. I reckon the Grapes of Wrath would have made a killing on these weekends.’

Dash almost dropped his coffee mug on the table. ‘The Grapes of Wrath?’ he asked, deliberately not looking at Joy, who was practically gawping in his peripheral vision.

She really needed a better poker face.

The older woman laughed. ‘I know, right? I always told her she should call it something else so people knew straight away it was a bookshop. But she liked the nod to Steinbeck, she said.’

‘Yes,’ Dash murmured, trying to keep a lid on his gut kicking into overdrive again.

‘I noticed there are a couple of places closed up,’ he said, forcing himself to be casual and come across as equally chatty. ‘How long ago did the bookshop shut up?’

‘Oh gee.’ The waitress scratched her head. ‘Have to be seven or eight years now. Can’t get anyone interested in leasing it either. Such a shame.’

Dash nodded sympathetically. ‘And did…Kath…live in town? Is she still around or did she leave altogether?’

‘Yeah, she lived up on Hutchins Road. They had a little hobby farm. But she and her hubby left when the business went bust. A lot of people left in the recession. Headed up Benaraby way for a sea change.’

Two customers walked into the café and the waitress excused herself with an, ‘Enjoy your lunch.’

‘Oh my God,’ Joy hissed at him as she retreated. ‘What does it mean?’

‘I don’t know? Maybe Hailey was being held in Kath’s old place? See if you can find Hutchins Road on Google maps,’ he said.

As Joy looked it up on her phone, Dash attacked his meal with gusto. Unlike Little Miss Constantly Starving he hadn’t eaten anything since six a.m. and his stomach was beginning to know it. He’d taken two bites when his phone rang.

‘Hey Jean,’ he said as he answered, staring absently across the street rather than at Joy, who was driving her phone with one hand and devouring hot chips like a porn star with the other, licking salt and sauce off her fingers as she went.

She didn’t bother with preliminaries. ‘He’s a qualified mechanic.’

‘Okay, excellent,’ he said, taking that on board. ‘Thanks.’

‘You’re welcome,’ she said and hung up in his ear again. He put the phone down on the table.

‘What’d she say?’ Joy asked, looking up from her ministrations with Google.

Dash’s gaze came back into focus as he processed the information and he realised the place he’d been staring right through across the street was the petrol station with the attached garage and a sign saying
Repairs done here
.

Dash looked at it for long moments. ‘He’s a mechanic,’ he said, not taking his eyes off the target. The doors to the workshop were wide open and there was a car up on the hoist.

Joy must have noticed him staring because she looked across the road as well. ‘Are you thinking what I think you’re thinking?’ she asked.

He nodded. ‘Yup.’

She looked back at him. ‘He could be across there right now, couldn’t he?’

‘Maybe.’ He cut his gaze back to her. ‘Did you find it?’

She looked back at her phone. ‘Yep. It’s up in behind the town. And it’s really long.’

She handed him her phone and Dash swiped with his thumb, following the entire length of the road. It was long.

‘What now?’ she asked.

Dash looked up. ‘Firstly, I’m finishing my panini. Then I’m going to go and buy some oil for the car.’

‘Ooh. Good thinking,’ she nodded. ‘You need the garage for that.’

‘Right. If Ron’s there we’ll follow him when he leaves. If he’s not, we’ll go and check out Hutchins Road.’

‘Okay. Sounds like a plan.’

Dash watched as she dipped three chips in sauce and popped all of them in her mouth.
For the love of God…

‘Do you think she’ll be at Ronald’s?’

‘Isabella?’

‘Yes.’

‘Maybe. I don’t know. They could have moved her since the murder or maybe she’s always been kept at a different location to Hailey?’

‘But what does your
gut
tell you?’

Dash put his knife and fork down and looked into her eyes. ‘I think if we find where Ronald lives, we’ll find Isabella.’

She nodded. ‘For what it’s worth, I do too. I’m just too…nervous to pin my hopes on it.’

He shrugged. ‘That’s okay, I’m nervous too.’

She stopped mid-chew. ‘You are?’

‘Of course. There’s a lot riding on this. For Isabella. For her father.’

‘And you.’

Dash nodded. ‘And me.’

‘Then we’d better be right,’ she said.

He lifted his coffee mug and clinked it against hers. ‘I’ll drink to that.’

***

Ten minutes later Dash was heading over to the shop that serviced the petrol bowsers. He’d ordered more coffees because the café was as good a place as any to monitor Ron’s movements without seeming suspicious.
If
he was here.

A woman who didn’t look dissimilar to the waitress at the café smiled at him as he approached the counter. ‘Hi darl,’ she said. ‘Can I help you with something?’

Behind her was a glass window that looked over the inside of the garage. Dash could see legs around the other side of the car but had no idea who they might belong to.

‘I’m after some oil,’ he said. ‘Car’s run out again. Think it must have a leak somewhere.’

‘You want Ronnie to give it a once over?’ she asked, jerking her thumb over her shoulder, indicating the workroom. ‘The place shuts in half an hour but I’m sure he could have a quick look.’

Dash had to stop himself from doing a jig. ‘Nah,’ he declined, smiling politely. ‘It’s only a slow leak I think. It’ll get back home and I’ll get my guy to look at it. Thanks though.’

‘No worries, darl,’ she said. ‘Oil’s down the back, take your pick.’

Dash forced himself to walk calmly to the back, forced himself to peruse the selection and look like he actually gave a crap which one he was buying. He chose randomly then bought it back to the counter, snagging a bag of Chupa Chups as he passed them.

If this day turned out the way he hoped it was going to, then there was cause for celebration. And he was prepared to watch Joy suck through an entire bag of lollipops if it meant Isabella Richardson was safely back home with her father.

***

Joy’s heart skipped a beat half an hour later when Dash quietly announced, ‘He’s on the move.’

The wait for Ronald to finish work had seemed interminable but now that it was over adrenaline charged into Joy’s system, making her jittery. She turned to see the heavily jowled, bald guy she recognised from the mug shot leaving the garage. ‘It’s definitely him,’ she murmured.

‘Yep.’ Dash nodded. ‘It’s him alright.’

Ronald walked across the street towards them. Joy’s heart beat a little harder. ‘He’s coming our way,’ she whispered.

‘It’s fine,’ Dash murmured. ‘Drink your coffee. Act normal. He doesn’t know we’re looking for him.’

Joy nodded, although the coffee felt like bile in her mouth as Ronald’s foot hit the pavement not two meters from where they were sitting before he veered to the right and out of Joy’s line of sight.

‘What do we do now?’ Joy asked, her voice low.

‘He’s going into the chemist.’ He took Joy’s coffee off her. ‘Quick. Follow him in.’

Joy’s pulse picked up a little more. ‘
Me
?’ she squeaked.

He nodded. ‘In case he saw me buying oil earlier. I don’t want to make him suspicious at all.’

‘But…what do I do?’

‘Just go in and look at stuff on the shelves, try and get close enough so you can hear what he’s saying.’

Joy frowned. ‘Does it matter if we’re just going to follow him?’

‘If he’s picking up a prescription he might have to give an address and we wouldn’t
have
to follow him. Less chance of being made. Now will you go already?’

‘Okay.’ Joy stood automatically at the urgency in Dash’s voice, even though her legs felt as weak as wet string.

She turned and headed for the pharmacy, her heart pounding so loudly in her ears she doubted she’d hear a bomb exploding right next to her. The automatic doors slid open, for which she was grateful; her hands were shaking so hard she doubted she’d have been able to coordinate them enough to open a door.

A clean clinical smell assaulted her hyper-alert senses as she entered. It smelled like a hospital and for an awful moment Joy thought she might throw up. She swallowed hard against the impulse. The carpet tiles on the floor absorbed her footfalls but she still felt conspicuous as hell. She was scared shitless Ronald was going to turn around and know she was following him.

Joy’s pulse was now so rapid she wasn’t sure if she was going to survive the whole
tailing
experience. If her heart didn’t trip into some funny life-ending rhythm any minute now she’d be stunned.

Jesus, if this was P.I. work, Dash could keep it.

‘Here you are Ronnie, all ready.’

Joy ducked straight into the nearest aisle and plucked the closest thing off the shelf. She looked down to find a box of extra-large condoms in her hand.

It said a lot about her state of high anxiety that she didn’t even think of Dash as she looked down at them blankly.

‘Can I help you?’

Joy practically hit the ceiling at the pleasant enquiry to her left. Her heartrate nudged into
danger-Will-Robinson
territory. ‘No, th…thanks,’ she said, forcing a smile onto her mouth and fumbling the condoms back onto the shelf. ‘Just looking.’

The assistant smiled in a way that told Joy she was used to people becoming a stumbling nervous wreck when sprung with condom boxes in chemists. But at least she left her alone and Joy moved further down the aisle, closer to the counter.

She could see Ronnie’s bald head over the top of the shelving as she grabbed a tester bottle of perfume from a neat row of them and sprayed.

‘This is the last repeat on the Ozmeprazole for your granddaughter,’ the woman behind the cash register said.

‘Think we’re just about done with it anyway, love. She’s much better now. Think we’re finally kicking the reflux.’

Reflux?

Joy heard tutting as she picked up another bottle and sprayed. ‘Poor darling, she’s really suffered, hasn’t she? Some babies just draw the short straw.’

Her heart drummed in her chest to the refrain of
holy fuck, holy fuck, holy fuck.
He had her. He really had Isabella.

‘Yeah. She’s had a rough trot.’

‘Well give her a kiss for me,’ the woman said as she took the money. Joy feigned interest in the perfumes, spraying them around randomly like she was a freaking connoisseur as they completed the transaction.

‘Bye,’ Ronald said, and Joy watched over the top of the shelf as he headed for the door.

Joy shoved the bottle she had in her hand back into the shelf, where it clattered on the glass and clicked against the next bottle, both noises sounding impossibly loud to her ears. She looked around nervously then forced herself to walk as casually as possible to the door. Her legs felt robotic and the spot between her shoulder blades burned as if a dozen eyes were watching her every step.

How on earth did shoplifters ever make it out the door without having a heart attack?

Joy almost collapsed in a heap on the ground the second her feet hit the pavement. Her lungs felt like they were being crushed from the outside in and it was an exercise in determination that she even managed to turn back to the café. A pain in her chest reminded her she needed to take a breath but when she realised Dash wasn’t where she’d left him, real panic set in.

She looked around wildly, vaguely hearing a brief horn beep and turning towards it, more out of reaction than instinct. Sweet relief flooded through her when she spotted Dash standing near the Volvo in the centre parking strip, waving at her, and she scurried over, her hand shaking as she pulled open the door and slipped inside the car.

‘Jesus,’ Joy said. ‘You frightened the crap out of me.’

‘Sorry,’ he said, starting the engine, his gaze fixed in front of him where Ronald was climbing into an old blue Ford Falcon. A child’s car seat was clearly visible through the window. ‘I wanted to make sure we were ready to go when he left.’ He glanced at her and wrinkled his nose. ‘Jesus Christ, you smell like you were in the middle of perfume factory explosion.’

Joy blinked at his statement, her mind taking a second or two to process what he said. ‘Oh yeah.’ She sniffed her wrist. ‘I was feigning interest in the testers.’

‘Feigning?’ He snorted as he returned his attention to Ronald, who seemed in no hurry to leave. ‘It smells like you opened the lids and poured them all over you.’

‘Well I had to do something while I was in there,’ she retorted.

He looked at her, his gaze falling on her still-shaking hands resting in her lap. ‘Are you okay?’

Joy rolled her head and glared. ‘No. I think I’m still in cardiac arrest. How do you do this shit all the time?’

He shrugged. ‘It’s not usually this critical.’

‘And I thought singing country music in a Newcastle bar was hazardous.’

‘So?’ he prompted, glancing back at the Falcon. ‘Did you find out anything useful?’

‘Yep,’ she confirmed as she watched Ronald light a cigarette. ‘He was picking up a prescription for reflux medication for his granddaughter. Ronald said he didn’t think it would be needed for much longer as the reflux was much better and the chick behind the counter said, poor darling, some babies just draw the short straw.’ Joy looked at Dash’s profile. ‘He’s got Isabella.’

He turned his head to look at her. ‘Yes. No address or anything?’