The Hunting (14 page)

‘One?’ Renée asked, disbelieving.

‘One very rich man. One very rich lonely man, who is I hope fast asleep right now,’ Genie said. She ducked back down into the cabin to rescue some food for Mouch. He’d be hungry again soon now he’d puked his guts out.

Rian looked at them, thinking. ‘Grab anything that can identify us. All the wet clothes we were wearing, put them in a plastic bag. Mugs we used. Renée, there’s bleach in the cupboard. We have to wipe down the surfaces. It won’t be perfect, but let’s not make it easy for them to trace this to us, OK?’

‘CSI will trace us from every bit of spit, vomit and fingerprints we left all over this thing.’ Renée stated.

‘One, CSI is fiction. Two, the salt air will destroy mostly everything, and three, let’s not leave it to chance, OK? We stole this yacht and now we’ve wrecked it. Reverend Schneider is going to be pretty mad.’

Genie looked at Renée by the flashlight and they both sighed. Rian was right.

‘Then we’ll knock on the rich man’s door and hope he doesn’t shoot us.’

‘I’m loving the scenario, Ri,’ Renée stated. ‘You left out the attack-dogs.’

R
everend Schneider got the call at seven thirty a.m. He was making preparations for a breakfast baptism – one of the innovations he’d brought to Spurlake. Naming the child and a breakfast celebration for all the family. So much more user-friendly than the other churches.

The manager at the marina in Vancouver was not making any sense. He’d left management to his nephew and he’d logged out
Lord’s Business
, his yacht, the previous evening. The manager was annoyed that Reverend Schneider hadn’t informed him, or paid for fixing the compass. There was three hundred and twenty-four dollars owing, which he was going to take out of the last charter fee. In his opinion, letting kids use it for Bible studies wasn’t part of the agreement.

‘Bible studies?’ Schneider queried, astonished. ‘Horseshoe Bay? You got a description of the kids?’

‘I didn’t see them and they aren’t on camera. It was dark when they got here, but my nephew tells me they had a dog with them, which is against the rules.’

‘A dog? You listen here – I’m holding you responsible. I mean, I’m up here in Spurlake and you’re down there. You just gave my yacht away. Why on earth would you give the keys to kids and let them sail away?’

‘They had their own keys,’ the man replied. ‘It’s you who needs to think about responsibility.’

Reverend Schneider was stunned. The keys he’d noticed were missing just the day before. But who knew? Who could possibly know he had a yacht? It was his big secret, his hideaway. Kids and dog? He had a sudden sinking feeling that he knew
exactly
who had his yacht. Genie Magee, that’s who. This was her revenge. He was sure of it. She was still alive and so, incredibly, was that darn dog. He could have sworn he’d killed it. The hunters hadn’t found her body after all. Fortransco had reported a car that had driven off the highway with Genie in it, but they hadn’t actually witnessed a dead Genie Magee and they had also mentioned a dog at the scene.

There was no doubt in his mind at all. It was her.

He looked at his watch. The baptism would be over by nine thirty at the latest. Everything else could wait.

‘I’ll be there by one. Alert the coastguard. That is a stolen yacht.’

R
ian woke nursing a stiff back. He glanced out of the window. There was a pink sky and the clouds looked like a million sheep. He looked around and discovered Genie had gone. Renée was still sleeping on an inflatable bed she’d found. Rian was pleased they’d found this hideaway. It was an empty storeroom above the garages, some thirty metres or so from the mansion. With attack-dogs in mind, he’d vetoed going anywhere near the main house. No need to wake them up or disturb them. As long as they were up early, they could melt away. The guy would wake up and find a yacht parked on his shoreline, but no damage done and Reverend Schneider would get it back eventually.

He went down the stairs, hoping to find a bathroom. He wondered where Genie and Moucher were and how long she’d been awake. He glanced back at Renée but decided to let her sleep a little longer.

Outside, the first thing Rian noticed was that the yacht had moved. He knew he’d secured it, let out the anchor. It had beached. No way it could have got away.

‘Tide came up. He moved it,’ Genie said, walking across the lawn with a laden tray in her hands.

Rian spun around. The yacht was sitting snug alongside a small dock; it looked like a gnat next to the seventy-metre wedding-cake monster yacht moored alongside.

‘How?’ Rian began.

Genie was smiling. She offered him hot coffee and a muffin.

‘Come on, breakfast is served. Did you wake Renée? Check out the back of the garage. Blue door. You’ll find a studio flat. Hot shower, Ri. Go find the shower.’

Rian looked at her in wonder, grabbed his breakfast, then spun around and headed back into the garage.

Genie called Moucher and he bounded across the lawn and joined her. He was happy. He’d fed on cookies and some chopped liver. He was even happier to be on dry land.

Genie hollered Renée’s name and told her to get up, join her in the flat.

She eventually appeared, bleary-eyed and her face creased from where she’d been sleeping. ‘I can smell a latté,’ she cooed. ‘Where did you get these from, girl?’

Genie just smiled. ‘Drink, eat, shower and then we got to go.’

‘Go?’

‘We scored a ride to Gibsons.’

Renée shook her head. ‘I go to sleep in the
Titanic
and wake up in fairyland.’

‘Not exactly. Shoo – Ri’s already in the shower. We have to be quick.’

Renée clutched her latté and muffin and went in search of the shower. ‘You’re a star, girl,’ she yelled over her shoulder.

Half an hour later they all felt one hundred per cent better than they had in days. Renée was studying the studio flat and making notes as she dried her hair.

‘It’s neat. Only one window though. Who lives here?’

‘No one at the moment. Last guy quit. The guy who lives here owns all those cars out there and he likes to have a full-time guy looking after them.’

Rian had already checked out the Cord 812 SC Phaeton and the Jag XK120. He liked the ’63 Ferrari best though.

‘Who is this guy?’

‘Some rich businessman. He commutes. The cook doesn’t know where he goes. She doesn’t speak much English. Her husband rescued the yacht and he speaks a little. He seemed excited to see me. Don’t know why. I think they’re North Korean. She said Mr Strindberg was really nice to her and helped her after she escaped.’

‘Strindberg?’

‘He owns all this and another thousand acres up the Sunshine Coast so no one can build near him.’

Renée was impressed. ‘Wonder what it’s like to be this rich?’

Rian wished he had more coffee. ‘I guess we’ll never know.’

‘We’re going to Gibsons. Caretaker’s going there to get some stuff. At least we have options. I don’t know what, but we have to think about what we’re going to do.’

‘We don’t have much money left. About a hundred and twenty-five dollars, I think,’ Rian said. ‘I don’t suppose we rescued any of the food we bought?’

‘Nah,’ Genie said. ‘Water ruined most of it.’

She looked at the clock on the wall. ‘We need to go. Come on. Wait till you see what the mansion looks like inside. Like a palace.’

Renée stood up and grabbed Genie’s hand. They walked out of the flat, past the antique cars and out into the sunshine. Rian and Moucher followed.

‘Maybe he’s single?’ Renée mused. ‘Lonely, rich, foolish man ready to fall the charms of a young thing who needs to be taught the wicked ways of the world.’

Rian chuckled. ‘I don’t know what you’ve been reading, Renée, but consider yourself corrupted.’

‘Don’t worry. I’d let you have one of the cars, Ri. I won’t be mean. You can eat cake, Genie. Any day of the week.’

They walked across the perfectly manicured lawn and entered the mansion.

They were told to wait in the gallery, a huge ground-floor space that ran one whole side of the mansion. It had a black-and-white marble floor, many boring photographs of machines and people none of them knew and some valuable art that made little sense.

Genie had a creeping sense of unease now. There was something odd about this gallery. The objects were all too strange. Bent metal, half-destroyed objects. Was this art or debris? She knew something about modern art and knew it could be found objects or even a toilet seat. Anything could be art, apparently. But this room was filled with half-objects, broken things. She stared at something that looked a like a pet cage, only it looked like someone had take a huge bite out of it. There was a collection of distorted human limbs in glass fish tanks filled with formaldehyde; how gross was that? Another held eyes – some misshapen – and then there were bits of animals too. It was seriously sick art.

‘Who owns this place?’ Renée asked, staring at a collection of insects with limbs missing. ‘He is seriously weird.’

Genie was looking at a framed photo. A young boy was standing next to someone who looked a lot like Marshall, but younger. He was holding up a copy of
The Province
with the headline:
Colder than outer space
.

‘I know you’ll think I’m crazy, but I swear this is a picture of Marshall with his son when he was a kid,’ Genie said frowning, looking for the date. ‘Marshall sure looked different back then. Look at his hair, it’s on his shoulders.’

Renée came over but shrugged. ‘Maybe. It’s a stretch. I mean, why would that picture be here?’

Genie was slowly making her way along the wall of framed photos. She stopped suddenly.

‘Take a look at
this
photo!’ Genie exclaimed. ‘Really, what kind of creepy guy owns this place? Ri, come and look.’

They gathered around a photo of a younger Reverend Schneider standing with what had to be Mr Yates, Rian’s mother’s new boyfriend, and a small guy with silver hair and a fancy suit. They had a shovel between them. Rian read it out aloud.

‘Blessing and Ground Breaking – Silverlake 1997, Yates, Strindberg and Schneider.’

‘I don’t believe it,’ Rian said. He was growing worried now. What were the chances they’d know anyone in a photograph in this rich man’s mansion? He looked around him at the leather chairs, the marble statues and the vast expanse of marble floor. How many houses had their own art gallery anyway? This guy was super-rich and clearly he had a connection to the Fortress. Was this a coincidence they had ended up here? He didn’t think so. Mr Yates’s voice droned in his head. ‘There are no coincidences.’ Yet here was a
picture
of him standing with Reverend Schneider, no less.

Mouch was investigating the underside of the Persian rugs when Genie let out a piercing scream.

‘What?’ Rian was at her side in a trice.

Genie was staring at a life-sized photograph in a metal frame. It was three metres square. A perfect image of herself, taken at the exact moment of disintegration on the teleport transmission platform at the Fortress. Rian felt goosepimples rise.

Genie stared at it, growing intensely dizzy and scared as all the terrible memories came flooding back. All the blood drained out of her face. Rian caught her as her legs gave way.

‘No, no, no …’ she was saying as she continued to stare at herself. She vividly remembered her arms and legs disintegrating, all her atoms flying away like so much sand – the expression on her face was calm curiosity. Her head was completely bald and the whole air around her seemed to shimmer.

How was this even possible? Who had taken the photo? How had it got here? Who exactly was this man that he had this picture of her? Had he bought them? If so, who was selling them?

‘Werry good photo,’ a voice said behind them in a strong Korean accent. ‘My wife, she knew it you, soon as you come.’

‘Jesus,’ Renée whispered, horrified. ‘Is this a trap? We have to get out of here, guys,
now
.’

They had to carry Genie out. She was too distressed. They put her in the back seat of the SUV and piled in after her. Renée held her hand and Moucher rested his head on her legs, sensing something was up.

Rian could hardly think. He hadn’t drawn anyone’s attention to it, but they had passed other pictures too. A boy screaming in agony, a framed image of freshly bloodied shadows on the transmission walls, and Fortress people. Another one of Reverend Schneider surrounded by weeping women, praying in the street outside a suburban house.

The Korean driver stared impassively at them. He wasn’t sure what was wrong with the girl, but he was happy because he knew who she was. If she was in the gallery, it meant she was famous, as far as he was concerned. His boss would be pleased to know he had treated her well when she came to visit in her yacht.

Genie took in deep breaths. She was physically shaking, felt wave after wave of nausea. She couldn’t get that image of herself out her head.

Rian squeezed in beside her. He could see she was white-faced with shock. He gripped her other hand to reassure her.

‘I’m sorry,’ he told her. ‘I wish you hadn’t seen that photo.’

‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘I was meant to. It’s fate, Ri. Something guided us here. We can’t run any more. It’s like a message to us. We can’t run, we have to face them.’ She closed her eyes but all she saw was that damn image of herself disintegrating. She felt hot tears escape. She was crying for the Genie who disappeared that day. She felt a ton of different emotions and her head swam with anger. She gripped Rian’s hand and pulled him closer.

‘I had a moment, y’know? I was with Cary and Denis, Julia came for a brief time too.’

Renée and Rian exchanged glances. They knew about Genie’s ‘moments’.

‘When? Just now?’ Rian asked, confused.

‘No, last night, on the yacht, just before the big wave hit us. We were in a dark tunnel. It led to a teleport chamber, but a real old one, like y’know, something they’d built and forgotten about. Denis found a map on the wall.’