Jill Jackson - 02 - Voodoo Doll

A year after the death of the man who abducted her, Sergeant Jill Jackson has been promoted and is stronger than she's been in years. With the promotion comes a transfer to a task force targeting gang-related home invasions, a new partner, and some of the grisliest cases Jill has ever encountered. The gang is believed to be responsible for at least five brutal home invasions over the past two months, the most recent culminating in a vicious machete attack that left one of the victims crippled. When the violence escalates to murder, Jill suddenly finds herself hunting a psychopath in a race against time.

• Praise for Voodoo Doll
  
• Praise for Vodka Doesn't Freeze
  
• Title Page
  
• Copyright Page
  
• Dedication
  
• Acknowledgements
  
• Epigraph
  
• Prologue
  
• Chapter 1
  
• Chapter 2
  
• Chapter 3
  
• Chapter 4
  
• Chapter 5
  
• Chapter 6
  
• Chapter 7
  
• Chapter 8
  
• Chapter 9
  
• Chapter 10
  
• Chapter 11
  
• Chapter 12
  
• Chapter 13
  
• Chapter 14
  
• Chapter 15
  
• Chapter 16
  
• Chapter 17
  
• Chapter 18
  
• Chapter 19
  
• Chapter 20
  
• Chapter 21
  
• Chapter 22
  
• Chapter 23
  
• Chapter 24
  
• Chapter 25
  
• Chapter 26
  
• Chapter 27
  
• Chapter 28
  
• Chapter 29
  
• Chapter 30
  
• Chapter 31
  
• Chapter 32
  
• Chapter 33
  
• Chapter 34
  
• Chapter 35
  
• Epilogue
  
• About the Author
  

Praise for
Voodoo Doll

'Clinical psychologist turned thriller writer Leah Giarratano brings a wealth of professional experience to her art . . . a page-turner, note-worthy for its expert characterisation and often chilling psychological veracity.'

The Age

'
Voodoo Doll
is more chiller than thriller. It's cleverly plotted and crackles along at an electric pace. I'm sure Giarratano has a growing fan base and it's great to see local talent getting an outing.'

Good Reading

'This is a seriously good read. Giarratano is taking on the big guns, and winning.'

MX Melbourne, Brisbane, Sydney

'I suspect a series. Bring it on.'

Sue Turnbull,
Sydney Morning Herald

'
Voodoo Doll
is the follow-up novel to the best-selling debut,
Vodka Doesn't Freeze
, and it's an absolute cracker . . . So lock all your doors, snuggle up under your doona and get ready for a thriller that you won't be able to put down.'

Newcastle Herald

'Plumbing the depths of her experience . . . Giarratano's writing has an air of authenticity missing from the work of her peers. Creepy, nasty and oddly compelling, it's definitely not light reading.'

GQ Australia

Praise for
Vodka Doesn't Freeze

'There's a true-crime relentlessness about
Vodka Doesn't Freeze
that suggests it's been written from the heart by someone who really cares deeply about child abuse.'

Sue Turnbull,
Sydney Morning Herald

'Giarratano writes with a style that immediately grabs and holds your attention, diving unerringly to the heart of each scene and describing it in full, no-nonsense detail. Her characters are filled with flaws that beg to be examined more closely and she satisfies this need, laying bare the good and the bad in equal measure.'

www.crimedownunder.com

'Particularly nasty crime fiction that threatens to keep you awake at night can always be dismissed with that hoary old chestnut "It's only make-believe" . . . No such comfort with a debut book by Leah Giarratano.'

Lucy Clark,
Sunday Telegraph

LEAH GIARRATANO

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted by any person or entity, including internet search engines or retailers, in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including printing, photocopying (except under the statutory exceptions provisions of the
Australian Copyright Act 1968
), recording, scanning or by any information storage and retrieval system without the prior written permission of Random House Australia. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author's and publisher's rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

Voodoo Doll

ePub ISBN 9781864715408
Kindle ISBN 9781864718041

Voodoo Doll
, although inspired by real Australian crimes, is a work of fiction. All the characters in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to any actual person, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

A Bantam book
Published by Random House Australia Pty Ltd
Level 3, 100 Pacific Highway, North Sydney NSW 2060
www.randomhouse.com.au

First published in Australia and New Zealand by Bantam in 2008
This edition published by Bantam in 2009

Copyright © Leah Giarratano 2008

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted by any person or entity, including internet search engines or retailers, in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying (except under the statutory exceptions provisions of the Australian
Copyright Act 1968
), recording, scanning or by any information storage and retrieval system without the prior written permission of Random House Australia.

Addresses for companies within the Random House Group can be found at
www.randomhouse.com.au/offices

National Library of Australia
Cataloguing-in-Publication Entry

Giarratano, Leah.
Voodoo doll.

ISBN: 9781863255899

A823.4

Cover illustration by Superstock
Cover design by
blacksheep-uk.com
Typeset by Midland Typesetters, Australia
Printed and bound by Griffin Press, South Australia

For Joshua and the rabbit:
we forever run together through
every page of this book.

Thanks to our Aussie diggers – our defence forces
and emergency services. When it feels like nobody
cares, remember there are millions of us in silent salute.

'. . . in a real dark night of the soul, it is always
three o'clock in the morning . . .'

F. Scott Fitzgerald,
The Crack-Up

F
ACE MASHED INTO
the carpet, Joss concentrated on breathing. If he kept his chin tucked into his neck, it reduced some of the pressure from the boot pressing down onto his cheek. Swallowing was out – his bottom lip was crushed flat against the rug, preventing him from closing his mouth. He let some more saliva trickle out; a wet patch had already formed under his cheek.

He angled his eyes to the left. He'd seen only three of them, all in balaclavas – the gorilla now standing on his head, the small, wiry one guarding the front entrance, and the fuckwit terrorising the women in the loungeroom. But he knew there were four: he could hear the screams of his host, Andy Wu, coming from the back of the house. Each scream was preceded by a dull thwack, a sound Joss already knew he would never forget.

He searched for an option; knew he had none. Not yet anyway. He tried to ignore the point of the machete, inches from his forehead, and focused again on his breathing.

Andy's wails were fading. From the room next door, Joss heard his wife, Isobel, her voice trying for calm, reasoning. Andy's wife, Lucy, was moaning, a low, animal keening. He'd heard nothing from the children upstairs. They had to still be asleep. God, he thought, please let them stay asleep.

All sounds suddenly stopped.

A pair of black combat boots appeared in the doorway and walked towards Joss. Each step upon the polished floorboards left a red imprint. Horrified, mesmerised, Joss watched the boots draw closer. They stopped in front of his face. The blood on the boots filled all of his senses. He could taste it.

'Watches, wallets, phones, jewellery. Get them all.' Boots spoke to the man above Joss.

The gorilla removed his foot from Joss's face. 'Did he open the safe?'

'Now what do you think?' Boots answered. 'We're ready to go. Go and make sure everything's okay in there.'

Joss felt the attention of the man in the boots shift downwards. His head free, Joss was able to incline his face upwards a little. When his eyes reached the dripping machete above him, he dropped them back to the carpet.

A boot nudged his shoulder.

'That your wife in there? Isobel? Is that her name?'

Joss considered the weave in the rug beneath his face.

The boot cracked into his head. Joss felt his left cheekbone snap.

'Nah,' Joss managed, pain gyrating through his head. 'Met her here tonight.'

'Nice.'

'Um, thanks?'

'Smartarse, aren't you?'

Shit, Joss thought. 'Look. I just want this over.' He rode a wave of pain with each word he spoke. 'We just want to be safe. You came here for money.' He kept his eyes down; this guy was just waiting for a reason.

'Hmm. So give me your wallet, phone and watch.'

Sixteen minutes earlier, Joss had been helping Andy Wu, his wife's boss, clear away the remains of the barbecued dinner Andy had served them in his courtyard. The Wus' two children and his own little angel had been carried upstairs, leaden weights, sound asleep.

When Andy, on his way back into the kitchen, had dropped a ceramic platter onto the concrete, the crack was like a gunshot, and Joss had automatically hit the ground, rolling off the path. Reactions like that usually embarrassed the fuck out of him. Tonight, it had given him ten seconds to take in the sight of Lucy Wu with a fifty-centimetre blade held to her throat, a black mask behind her emerging like a piece of the night. Joss had scrabbled through his pockets. With an awkward twist of his arm, he had managed to throw his wallet into the bush behind him.

Lucy's eyes had bulged, silently screaming. While the intruder had motioned Andy to his knees, Joss had carefully taken his mobile phone from his shirt pocket and palmed it. He had been about to throw it to join his wallet when another pair of eyes and a glint of steel materialised in the night. Joss had dropped the phone onto the lawn. When he'd stood, signalled to rise by the machete, he had stepped on the mobile, and pressed it lightly with his toe into the night-wet grass.

Now, face down on the floor, he carefully lifted his wrist to show his watch to the man above him. Moving slowly, he unclipped the heavy silver band and lay the watch next to him on the floor.

'I don't carry a wallet,' Joss said.

'Sure you do.'

'I don't need one. I've got a company card. I didn't bring a wallet tonight.'

'Your phone then.' The voice was flinty.

Joss felt the man above him tensing. From the corner of his eye, he saw the blade leaving his line of vision. This guy was not going to accept that Joss had nothing at all on him; he was going to use this as an excuse for more blood. Joss inwardly tightened, preparing himself to roll.

'
Công an
!'

Joss knew the Vietnamese words from his childhood –
police, danger
! It came from the skinny one at the front door.

He heard the man above him exhale. He sounded disappointed. His voice flat, Boots directed the other men. 'Out the back.'

To Joss, he said, 'None of you will move from this house for thirty minutes. I may not have your ID, smartarse, but I can find you through these people. If you go to the cops we will be back.' He paused. 'Hell, maybe I'll come find you anyway.'

Anger overriding his training, Joss could not stop himself from raising his face to meet the man's eyes.

All the air left the room when their eyes locked. A millisecond later, Joss prayed he had been able to mask his shock of instant recognition, but he knew the intruder would have heard his gasp, seen his pupils dilate.

The man above him laughed when Joss dropped his eyes back to the ground.

Over the roar of blood in his ears, he barely heard the men leave the house. He hoped that the man in the boots would take his reaction for fear; that he hadn't noticed the nonverbal cues that indicated recall, identification.

The problem was, Joss could recognise those cues, and his hammering heart told him he'd seen them mirrored in the other man's face.