Page 18 of Lawless (Dauntless Island #2)

A few steps brought me closer enough to have a decent look at her.

She was in her late forties or her early fifties, slender, and she wore her greying hair—it must have been a vibrant gold at some point in her life—loose past her shoulders.

There was something frail about her—a first impression that made no sense, because she was slender, but not too thin, but there was something not quite right about her.

The way she held herself, maybe, as though she was ready to take flight at any second if only the wind would catch her right.

“Hi,” I said again.

She turned and looked at me, and her gaze slid right past me.

She wasn’t all there.

“I’m Dominic,” I said again. “What’s your name?”

She hummed a little, the only indication she’d heard me at all.

“It’ll be dark soon,” I said. “Is there anyone missing you?”

She crouched down and held out her hand, and Frank ambled over to be quietly adored.

I wondered if she’d drifted in from the front of the street, like a leaf carried on the stiff ocean breeze.

I also wondered who of my neighbours I could ask.

Okay, so Eddie would have headed home to the lighthouse with Red Joe, but Amy was probably home above the museum with Baby Joe.

Amy was friendly. She ought to know who this woman was.

Or, I could yell out for Natty and hope I got his attention and not Will’s. ...

I looked across the fence just in time to see Natty hurrying out his kitchen door.

He looked flustered, the panic in his expression fading when he caught sight of the woman, and then morphing into something else when he met my gaze.

It looked as though he was ashamed, and I knew immediately that he knew this woman, and that he was ashamed of her.

Or maybe not that he was ashamed of her, but that he was ashamed about me meeting her, as though, I don’t know, he thought I was going to judge him for her somehow?

He ducked his head as he climbed over the sagging fence. “Mum,” he said, his voice hoarse. “Mum, you’re meant to stay inside.”

She stood and turned to him like a flower seeking the sun, a smile brightening her expression. “Natty,” she said. She cupped his face in her hands, as beautiful as he was in that moment. “Look at you! You’re so grown up!”

His gaze flicked to me and then back again. He caught her wrists in his hands and lowered her hands gently from his face. “Mum, come back inside, okay? Dinner’s almost ready.”

“Do you want to introduce us?” I asked.

“I...” Natty cleared his throat, his gaze still not quite meeting mine. “Mum, this is Dominic. Dominic, this is my mum, Susan.”

“It’s good to meet you, Susan,” I said.

Her only response was a faint shadow of a smile that was gone even before I caught it.

“She doesn’t...” Natty swiped his tongue over his lower lip and finally lifted his gaze. “She doesn’t take much in.”

There was a lifetime of pain behind those bland words—defiance too—and I wanted nothing more than to reach out and pull him into a hug. I smiled instead. “That’s okay. I just wanted to introduce myself.”

“She won’t remember,” Natty murmured.

“That’s okay too.”

The Coffee with a Cop thing at my local old people’s home back in Sydney had prepared me for this.

I’d drunk so many cups of tea and coffee on those days that my bladder had been in constant danger of exploding.

There’d been more than one resident there who didn’t remember me from visit to visit, let alone anything else.

But that didn’t mean you couldn’t sit down and have a long chat, or even just sit with them and listen to some old records and look through some photo albums. And hell, there had been a few residents who hadn’t even noticed I was there when I sat down beside them, but the point wasn’t to be noticed. The point was to be there anyway.

Frank wound himself around Susan’s ankles, and she crouched down again to pet her.

I crouched down too. “I call her Frank, but Natty says she’s called Princess.”

She smiled again, and she was achingly beautiful. “Hello, Frank.”

I glanced up at Natty. He looked away, wiping his cheek with the heel of his hand.

“She’s a good cat,” I said, but Susan had drifted again. She traced her fingers down Frank’s spine, and Frank purred furiously.

“Natty!”

Natty jolted at the shout and turned towards his house.

Nipper Will stood there, glowering beside the laundry tub. “What the hell are you doing? What’s Mum doing over there?”

“She came over,” Natty said.

Nipper Will’s glower deepened. “You’re supposed to keep an eye on her!”

“She’s fine,” Natty said. “It’s fine. Jesus .” He sighed. “Mum, come on, we need to go home before Will blows a gasket.”

I stood up, unease coiling in my gut. “Are you okay with him?” I asked in an undertone.

Natty huffed. “Yeah. He’s just... ugh .”

He sounded more pissed off than afraid, which I took as a sign that it was okay. There was nothing sinister going on behind closed doors at the Harpers’ house, just two brothers who butted heads over the care of their mother.

He drew Susan to her feet with a hand under her elbow, and they made their way back towards the fence.

Nipper Will glowered for a moment longer, and then turned and went back inside their house.

Natty helped Susan step over the fence. I waited for him to turn and wave, or say goodbye, or something, but he didn’t.

He just ushered his mother inside, and pulled the door shut behind him.

I stood watching the door for a moment. I had no fucking idea what I was waiting for, but there was a tightness in my chest as I held my breath for whatever it was. Some sign that Natty was thinking of me, maybe. It didn’t come.

Then Frank yowled and reminded me it was time for dinner.

* * *

I worked on my map of the island over dinner.

Well, over the heated up spaghetti on toast that I was calling dinner.

I really needed to learn how to cook better.

Maybe once we got internet that moved faster than a frozen snail, I could go online and order a slow cooker or something.

That way Evening Me could have a nice hot meal waiting, as long as Morning Me remembered to start it all up.

The flaw in the plan was Morning Me—that guy was a lazy fuck—but it was still worth a shot.

I wiped a blob of sauce off my map, shifted Frank’s tail out of the way, and looked at what I had.

It was workable. I’d printed out a topographical map of the island, and added as many buildings as I could, carefully labelling them with the occupants’ names.

I had about six or seven houses filled in: the Harpers, Amy and Baby Joe, Mavis Coldwell over her shop, Button John and his family, Robbie Finch and his sister Katrina, and Red Joe and Eddie up at the lighthouse.

It was a very short list of the people who actually spoke to me—and Mavis only spoke to me to harangue me.

The majority of the houses in the village were still blank, and as for the houses outside the village, dotted over the island.

..well, I had no idea who lived in most of them.

But instead of viewing that as a failure, I decided to look at it as an opportunity.

Filling my map in would give me a reason to visit everyone, and introduce myself, and hopefully make at least a tiny dent in the solid wall of the islanders’ hostility.

Weirdly, today’s council meeting had made me feel better about this whole situation.

Amy, even though she had been born and bred on the island, sure hadn’t been winning any friends with the whole truck thing, and while Red Joe was certainly listened to by the islanders, that didn’t mean they always liked what he had to say.

The islanders weren’t a hivemind, even if that was the first impression they gave, and Eddie was proof that even an outsider could eventually find a place here.

I tapped my pen against the northern coast of the island. Seal Beach and Mayfair Bay. Did anyone live up that way? I’d get the bike out sometime this week and go and find out, or maybe Natty could tell me.

Natty .

I checked the time. It was almost nine, which was about when Natty usually started his show—early to bed, and early to rise, I guess.

I went and washed my plate in the kitchen sink, and then locked the front door of the station.

Then I climbed the stairs to my house, and went into the bedroom.

Frank followed me up the stairs, but she liked to sleep in the front room that was now my living area.

It had probably been the main bedroom when Short Clarry had lived here. I left my door ajar for her anyway.

My bedroom was dark. I crossed to the window and pushed it open, letting in the cool breeze from outside. It was sharp at the edges; not cold enough to make me shiver, but with just enough of a bite in it to grab my spare blanket and shake it out over the bed.

There was a light on downstairs at Natty’s house.

I sat on the edge of my bed and pulled off my uniform shirt, then leaned down and unlaced my boots.

The air was cool on my shoulders, making my skin prickle.

It wasn’t just the breeze though—it was the anticipation.

However stupidly confused my brain was about this whole situation—we really, really needed to talk about it—my body was onboard.

I slept like the dead after wanking to Natty’s little shows.

My socks and pants followed my boots onto the floor, and then I sat looking out the window, breathing in the salt air and listening to the distant sounds of the small waves crashing endlessly up against the harbour wall.

It was so dark here, a deeper darkness than I’d ever known in Sydney—but it was peaceful, not unsettling.

Weird Dauntless Island with its centuries-old cottages and its bloody history should have been teeming with angry ghosts—if you believed that sort of thing—but the darkness here was deep and soothing.

It would be very easy to fall in love with Dauntless Island.

Well, maybe if the islanders weren’t so bloody mean .

I watched Natty’s dark window for a while longer, waiting for the flick of his lights to signal he was starting. But they didn’t come, and eventually I climbed under my covers and closed my eyes.

Yeah, we really needed to talk.