Page 29 of Lawless (Dauntless Island #2)

DOMINIC

I woke up early on Saturday morning to Princess Frank yowling to go out.

It took me longer to get out of bed than I wanted to admit to myself—yesterday’s swim had taken it out of me.

Well, the swim wouldn’t have been too bad on its own.

It was the underwater wrestling match that had really done me in.

My abs ached like they hadn’t since I’d been in the academy and those sadistic arseholes had made us do sit-ups, and I had some interesting bruises in some even more interesting places.

Kicked in the balls by both Susan Harper and her son, though at least Natty had been kind enough to do it metaphorically.

Frank chose the front door instead of the back kitchen door.

Felt weird stumbling through my workplace in my track pants, bare feet and bed hair.

I half expected an inspector to pop out from behind the counter and yell at me for not wearing my hat in public—we’d had one of those in Sydney whose greatest joy was to write you up for that shit, even if you’d just picked yourself up off the footpath after a brawl with a drunk—or the rest of my uniform, when it came to it.

It still felt strange that there were no longer any boundaries between on and off duty since I was on call all the time and I lived at the police station.

I opened the front door for Frank and immediately stepped back from the suspicious packages on my front doorstep.

The standard operating procedures for suspicious devices and terrorist activity scrolled through my brain, until it finally occurred to me that the Dauntless Islanders would never murder me with a pipe bomb. They’d openly stab me.

Probably.

Frank sniffed appreciatively at a canvas bag, and I nudged it carefully with my toe.

That was not in the standard operating procedures for suspicious devices, but nothing exploded so I figured I was safe.

I crouched down and peeled the bag open.

Holy shit.

It was scones, and they were still oven warm.

They smelled amazing. And, nestled in the bag beside them were two tiny jars.

One looked to be raspberry or strawberry jam, and the other one was fresh cream.

There was another bag too; this one was one of the old green bags from Woolworths.

It looked worn around the edges and had obviously been well used.

I opened it to find a jar of what might have been soup inside.

I would definitely investigate it more closely at lunchtime.

I was grinning by the time I lifted the lid off the plastic bucket and discovered a bunch of prawns.

They weren’t dead, which was a terrible oversight, but now I had decent internet I could look up how to cook them.

“Thank you,” I told the empty street, just in case anyone was watching for my reaction.

I wasn’t sure where they’d be hiding if they were—behind the statue of Josiah Nesmith maybe—but it wouldn’t have surprised me at this point if the seagulls were reporting back to Mavis. “Scones for breakfast, Frank!”

Frank wasn’t too fussed on the scones, but she licked up a few dabs of cream.

I put my soup in the fridge, ate my breakfast, and tried hard not to feel like a cold-blooded murderer when I transferred the prawns from the bucket to the freezer. Frank was very interested in the prawns, but she’d have to wait until I googled how to cook them before she saw them again.

I showered, got into my uniform, and left the kitchen window open so Frank could come and go as she pleased.

I’d thought about Susan for a lot of the night, and Natty too, of course, and I wanted to check in on them.

I didn’t know if I’d catch Will Harper or not.

And not that I was avoiding him intentionally or anything, but I wasn’t exactly disappointed when I scanned the harbour and saw a couple of boats already out there heading for the horizon.

Their schedule was a mystery to me still, but probably had something to do with the tides and the winds and all the other arcane units of measurement on Dauntless that I had no idea how to read.

Yet .

Because, fuck it, I would learn. The islanders had given themselves away with this morning’s offerings—they weren’t all cold-hearted arseholes.

Even Mavis had pulled me back into the tinnie yesterday.

They didn’t hate me after all. And hot scones and fresh cream?

Hell, some of them were close to having to admit they liked me.

Delivered in secret. Anonymously. Probably under the cloak of darkness while wearing a mask that covered their whole face. But I’d take it.

I walked around the block—could you call it a block when there was no actual road and the houses looked like they’d been randomly dropped there from space?

—to the street behind mine, and to the front door of the Harpers’ house.

It was an official visit, so I didn’t just want to step over the back fence.

Also, I didn’t know if Natty would appreciate the assumption on my part that, whatever we were right now, I could just wander uninvited into his backyard.

Even if the Dauntless Islanders thought fences were vague guidelines at best, that casual attitude probably wasn’t allowed for an outsider and a copper.

I pretended my gut wasn’t clenching and plastered a smile on my face as I walked up to the Harpers’ front door and knocked.

A young woman answered. She was pretty and dark-haired, with a clever, assessing gaze.

“Hi,” I said. “I’m Dominic, the copper.”

“Yeah,” she said, and raised her eyebrows. “Obviously.” She gave me a moment to wonder if she was freezing me out, and then stood aside and gestured me in. “I’m Addy. Addy Barnes. Want a cup of tea?”

It was my warmest welcome so far in any house on Dauntless, apart from Eddie and Joe’s. “Thanks.”

Susan was sitting in the kitchen, her hands folded in her lap, and a beatific, distant smile on her face. She glanced up as Addy and I entered the room, but her gaze slid right over both of us.

“Hi, Susan,” I said. “How are you feeling today?”

She hummed, which was probably as good a response as I could expect.

Addy quirked her mouth. “She’s good.” She began to dig through the cupboard above the sink, pulling out a few mugs. “Will’s out on the boat, and Natty’s in the shower. He should be down soon.”

I sat down across from Susan and did my best not to think about Natty in the shower. “So, you’re Will and Natty’s cousin? Button John’s... sister ?”

“That’s me.” She poured hot water into the mugs, and dropped the teabags in.

She set mine down in front of me, and Susan’s in front of her.

Susan’s, I noticed, had been half-filled from the tap instead of the kettle.

Then she took the last two mugs from the kitchen bench and set them down too.

She took her seat, and I tried to look at her instead of staring at the empty spot that was waiting for Natty.

“Thanks,” I said, and took a sip of tea.

“Red Joe says we’re getting a doctor,” Addy said out of nowhere, eyeing me like she was waiting for my reaction.

“Oh. Well, that’s good, isn’t it?” I wasn’t sure. Who the hell knew how the islanders felt about doctors? Maybe a doctor had poked an islander in the eye two hundred years ago and they were all still holding a grudge.

Addy hummed thoughtfully. “It’s good,” she agreed. “We’ve got more use for one of them than a copper.”

“Statistically, I hope that’s true,” I said, “because you should go to the doctor regularly, whereas most people only call the coppers when something goes wrong. But there’s other stuff we do too.”

“Like what?”

“Like blue light discos.” It was all I could think of on the spot.

She snorted. “For all the teenagers running around the place?”

“Well, not now ,” I said. “But in the holidays when they’re back from boarding school. I could get some funding, put something on.”

“You do that,” she said. She lifted her cup, and her eyes danced above the rim as she took a sip. “Let me know if anyone turns up.”

“Oh, they’ll turn up,” I said. “Out of morbid curiosity if nothing else.”

Addy laughed, and I decided that we liked each other.

There was a fine line between being antagonistic and taking the piss, and I was pretty sure Addy was taking the piss.

She was still laughing when Natty appeared in the doorway, looking flustered and anxious as his gaze darted between me and his cousin and his mother.

He looked panicked, like he was wondering if I’d opened this whole conversation with, “Hey, Susan, did I ever tell you I know what your son’s dick tastes like? ”

“Hi,” I said. “I just came by to see how your mum was doing today.”

Natty swallowed. “Oh.” He sidled into the kitchen and sat down at the table. “She’s good, aren’t you, Mum?”

Susan smiled at him, and it was like watching the sun come out on a cloudy day. And then, before Natty could even bask in it for a moment, it was gone again, leaving no trace behind. The loss of it lingered in Natty’s eyes though.

“What’ve you got planned for the day, Natty?” Addy asked in a conversational tone that suggested it was second nature for everyone under this roof to pivot away from painful moments. “If Button John asks you to help him work on Dad’s old generator, say no.”

“I will.” His eyes widened. “He won’t try to work on it himself, will he?”

“Dad already gave it to Old Peter Corporal,” Addy said. “But Button John doesn’t know that yet.”

Natty nodded. “That’s smart.” He traced his finger around the rim of his mug.

“I’m helping Katrina Finch out. She’s over at Yellow Sarah’s because Yellow Sarah’s kids are sick, so she asked if I can pack the eggs for her this morning and Robbie can deliver them in the afternoon when he’s back from the milk run. ”

“Robbie’s an odd one,” Addy said.

“He’s not odd,” Natty said. “He’s just quiet.”