In Safe Arms (26 page)

Josie injected a false bravado into her voice she didn’t feel. The thought of fronting the public, of seeing her Dad standing in the dock being formally charged with a string of offences as long as her arm, was enough to make her want to hide under the bed the way she had as a child. The disturbing thing was, that first night she’d stayed awake and contemplated doing a runner. Changing her name and taking off across the Nullarbor to Western Australia or the Northern Territory. Why should she be tarred with the same brush as her father, shoulder the burden of a family pedigree she’d been born into through no fault of her own?

But she couldn’t do it. She’d never been a choker, never been a quitter, and she’d never leave her mother.

‘I think I’ll take a shower before Mum wakes up.’ She picked up a take-away menu from where it lay on the table and handed it to Allegra. ‘Do you want to choose something for dinner? One of the security guys is going to pick up food for everyone later. They’re making a list.’

‘I
hope
it’s later,’ Allegra said dryly, ‘it’s only three thirty.’

‘I know, but apparently the boys are hungry.’

‘The boys are always hungry,’ Allegra replied with a smirk.

Josie stood, set Astro on the floor and cast her eyes around the spacious room. The house resembled something out of a beautiful living magazine, the clinical space decorated with large strategically placed ornaments. It lacked the cosiness of her small apartment close to the city, the soul of Nate’s comfortable mountain style lodge.

She sighed. For her, Nate wasn’t only on the TV — he was everywhere. She saw him in the ironman on the breakfast cereal box, saw the shade of his eyes in Luke’s nightly glass of scotch, heard him in the low tonal notes of a guard’s voice.

Come on, Jos, just keep swimming
.

In the bathroom, she stripped off her clothes, turned on the shower and concentrated on what she would say to her father tomorrow.

And she steadfastly refused to look at the deep white spa bath in the corner of the room.

9:30 a.m. Tuesday

The bustle of the gallery had hardly settled when Silvano Valenti appeared in the dock. As the media continued flowing into the court room, the police prosecutor read through the formal charges one by one.

Her father entered no plea.

Bail was formally denied.

The entire thing was over in fifteen minutes.

Luke left with her mother, exiting through a back door to avoid the media scrum, while Josie and Allegra made their way to the cells. Nervous and sick in the stomach, Josie rode the elevator to the lower ground floor, still unsure of what she was going to say to her father.

And then the elevator doors opened, and the first person she saw was Nate.

Josie forgot to breathe.

Devastatingly handsome in a well-cut suit, it was clear he’d been waiting for them.

‘Josie, Allegra.’

He didn’t smile, and his eyes were wary when he looked at her. He didn’t shake hands, maybe because of the thick file he held, just cocked his head in that endearing way and spoke in a soft voice. ‘Follow me.’

The bowels of the court house were a hive of activity, uniformed police and plain clothes detectives escorting handcuffed prisoners to and from the court. Many interested faces turned their way, and Allegra nodded to those she knew while Josie moved in a surreal state, gaze fixed firmly in the middle of Nate’s broad back.

‘Take that corridor.’ He stopped and pointed with the file, glancing over his shoulder as he waited for them to move in front of him. ‘Mitch Kennett’s down there, and you don’t want to walk past him.’

They turned into the corridor, this one quieter than the previous thoroughfare.

‘I’m sorry I couldn’t get you a private interview room, but with the number of people being charged today, we’re short on space. I’m afraid you’re going to have to speak to your father through the bars of the cell.’

Josie nodded, throat so parched she could hardly get the words out. ‘Thank you for letting me see him.’

His eyes softened momentarily, and then he pointed with the file again, indicating they keep going. ‘It’s not nice down here, but it’s better than the prison. Try not to look at the other prisoners as you pass. He’s down the end on the right.’

Blood pulsed through Josie’s head, a furious cymbal keeping rhythmic time. She clenched her hands, stared straight ahead, reined in the turmoil when she wanted to scream and shout and rant.

They came to a halt a short distance from her father’s cell.

‘Are you sure you’ll be okay?’ The kindness in Allegra’s voice brought a lump to Josie’s throat. ‘One of us will come with you, if you like.’

Josie shook her head. ‘No — thanks anyway.’

Nate’s eyes bored into hers, and he nodded once, as if he understood this was something she needed to do on her own.

Allegra reached out and rubbed the top of her arm. ‘If you’re sure, I’ll go see Henry for a minute. I don’t want to — but I should.’

Allegra’s words gave Josie strength. Life was full of doing things that you’d prefer not to do, like fronting up at kindergarten when you couldn’t speak properly, or leaving your primary school friends to attend boarding school, because that was your parents’ wish.

She could hide away, take the easy route like her mother, and leave. Or she could stand up like Allegra, confront her father when it was the last thing in the world she wanted to do.

And she would, because she’d done it before, and it was those hard decisions that had made her stronger — in the end.

She looked into Nate’s eyes. ‘I’m ready.’

‘I’ll be right here if you need me.’

A strange calmness descended over Josie as she covered the final ten steps it took to reach her father’s cell. It struck her that this must be the way people felt when they faced their death, recognition of the inevitable, an acceptance of their fate.

And then she was there.

Her father was sitting on a metal bench fixed to the floor. He was dressed in the suit he’d been wearing when Nate had arrested him, the suit in which he’d made the first of what was sure to be many court appearances.

He looked up as the movement caught his attention. ‘Josie.’

He got up off the seat and came towards her, slowly, a man she felt she didn’t know. Face lined, there was a grey pallor to his skin, and he was thinner, as she’d seen in the news broadcasts. Those times, he’d been upset, his voice cracking as he’d spoken of his only child, but now, his eyes were watchful, harder, as if the need to hide his true self was no longer there.

She reached up and gripped the bars of the cell, and in that instant knew her father hadn’t been worried for her at all. What he’d feared was this.

Exposure.

Revelation.

Capture.

‘How’s your mother?’

Josie raised her eyebrows, let her voice drip with sarcasm as she repeated the words he’d said on TV barely a week ago. ‘She’s in the kind of state you would expect a
wife
to be in.’

She sucked in a breath as he too reached up and gripped the bars of the cell, saw Nate move closer in her peripheral vision.

Her father smiled at her fright, and in that moment something died inside of Josie.

‘Why?’ she asked.

‘Why? Because that’s who we are.’

She shook her head, refused to back away any further, refused to let him intimidate her. ‘Not me.’

‘Not yet.’

‘That will never be me.’

‘Wait until you hit a downturn, wait until you hit a recession and the building company your father started is going down the toilet.’

‘Is that what happened?’ She needed to know, needed to find out the reason why.

‘Yeah, that’s what happened.’ Her father pushed off the bars then, shrugged out of his suit coat and flung it on the bench. ‘I needed to find another way of making money, of keeping the company afloat. The bikies were growing more powerful, but they needed a large injection of cash to really get going. I saw an opportunity.’

‘So it went from there?’

Her father came back and stood on the other side of the bars, and this time Josie didn’t flinch, didn’t even blink.

‘It went from there.’

‘So, it was greed?’

He smirked. ‘You never complained, did you?’

If there was any flicker of feeling left inside her for her father, it was snuffed out right then. But this time, she refused to let him see just how devastated she was. He hadn’t even asked about her ordeal, hadn’t even enquired if she was alright.

She just needed to say her bit, and go.

‘You’re wrong, Dad. Money never made me happy, and I would have given it all up for a two bedroom house in the suburbs. All I ever wanted was a normal family, so don’t you dare blame Mum and me for your weakness.’

She steeled herself inside, determined to get the words out. ‘You destroyed people’s lives, destroyed whole families, grew rich feeding other people’s addictions. I can never forgive you for that.’

He started to interrupt, but she stepped back, making it clear the conversation was over. And it
was
over.

She only had one more thing left to say.

‘I wanted to see you, so I could tell you I won’t be seeing you again.’

When he didn’t speak, she turned away. ‘And I needed to tell you that myself.’

Body numb, Josie moved towards Nate, and this time he splayed a warm hand between her shoulder blades as he led her back the way they’d come.

‘That was a brave thing to do. Are you okay?’

Finally, Josie let go of her breath. ‘Yeah. I mean, I feel like shit at the moment, but later I know I’ll be glad I did it.’

His mouth quirked in a half smile and when they reached the elevator, he turned and gazed back down the corridor. ‘Allegra seems to have been caught up somewhere.’

‘It’s alright. I can wait here.’

Before she could guess his intention, he pushed open a door leading into the fire escape. ‘Come in here for a minute. I need to talk to you.’

Panic welled inside Josie. She didn’t want to be alone with Nate. It tore at her heart just to look at him. And it was agony being this close, and not able to touch him.

But he left her no choice, and she followed him into the stairwell. And then they were standing on the cement landing, face to face for the first time since she’d fainted in the hotel.

‘Why aren’t you returning my calls?’ he asked bluntly, looking as pissed off as he had the night he’d run her off the road. ‘I want to be here for you, and you’re shutting me out.’

Clean.

Straight to the point.

No bullshit.

And she thought men were supposed to have a hard time expressing their feelings. ‘Oh, gees, let me think, Nate, maybe it’s got something to do with my life disintegrating around me.’

He raked an impatient hand through his hair. ‘Yeah well, my life’s not that great at the moment either.’

She didn’t want to fight with him. She wanted to lean into him, have him fold her in his arms and tell her everything would be okay. But she couldn’t forget the way he’d looked at her — like she’d
known
.

‘You’re life’s great, Nate. You’ve got “O”, you’ve got Kennett and the main players in the Altar Boys, hell, you even got Henry Grace and Ong Chung as a bonus. You’re being hailed as a hero cop, and you are. You should be happy. What more do you want?’

‘I want you,’ he said hoarsely.

It was as if all the air left Josie’s body in the one puff. He wasn’t supposed to say that. ‘That’s just being greedy, detective.’

‘What kind of lame answer is that?’ he growled.

Before she could reply, they had to step aside as two people came up the stairs. When she looked at him again, he was staring at her, eyes narrowed, jaw set in a brutal line. ‘Come on, Josie, you’re not usually one to play games.’

When she didn’t answer, he tucked the file under his arm and raked an unsteady hand through his hair. ‘For the record, I always believed you. I never doubted you.’

‘Well you could have fooled me, detective,’ she said quietly.

‘I did it because Dickson was there. I had this feeling I just couldn’t shake. I had to force myself to treat you like anyone else.’

‘Well Dickson was kind to me that day. But that’s beside the point now. There’s something I need to say.’

Come on, just like he did. Clean. Straight to the point. No bullshit
.

‘I can’t do this. I’m sorry.’

There, she’d said it. It didn’t matter that her heart was haemorrhaging, that he was staring at her with so much hurt in his eyes she wanted to take it all back and kiss his pain away.

‘Do I get a reason?’

She moistened her lips with her tongue, looked up and down the stairwell to make sure they were alone.

‘I’m ashamed,’ she admitted, voice barely a whisper. ‘I’m so ashamed, Nate, and I’m not good enough for you.’

‘That’s crazy.’
He stepped towards her, but she pushed a hand against his chest. She wouldn’t be able to stand it if he touched her. Wouldn’t be able to get through what she needed to say.

‘Please.’ She blinked to clear her vision, sending tears overflowing onto her cheeks. ‘Just let me finish.’

She pushed on before anyone else could interrupt them. ‘You’re an upstanding citizen, an outstanding detective with a brilliant career ahead of you. And I’m…’ To her horror her voice cracked. ‘I’m the daughter of a notorious crime boss.’

She could see by his expression he was doing it tough, see by the way he stood with his hand covering the lower half of his face, he was having trouble staying silent.

‘If we stay together, this will haunt us. People will know, and there’ll be speculation about why you’re with me. You’ll be tarnished through association, just like I’ll be tarred with the same brush as my father. While everything’s new, it’s easy to believe we could conquer anything. But it will rear its ugly head later on, and you’ll resent it, resent me.’

He closed his eyes briefly, and when he looked at her again, a telltale glisten glowed in his beautiful eyes.

‘I
won’t
do it to you.’ She dashed the tears from her cheeks with the back of her hand. ‘I won’t bring you down like that. Please, don’t ask me to do it.’