Page 6 of Lawless (Dauntless Island #2)

It was definitely a horse, and it had a cart attached. I supposed that when there were no proper roads on the island, and no cars that I’d seen, people used different methods. The Dauntless Islanders were probably a bit like the Amish. But, you know, arseholes.

“Mavis isn’t so bad,” said a soft voice at my shoulder, and I almost jumped out of my skin. I turned around to see Robbie standing there, offering me a faint smile. He hefted a couple of churns into the cart—empties, by the hollow sound they made. “She’s just a little old fashioned.”

She was blatantly hostile, but okay.

“Right,” I said. “Um, says the guy with a horse and cart, huh?”

He snorted, and patted the horse’s flank. “You need milk?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I really do.”

“I don’t have any extra on me,” he said. “But if you can wait a bit, I can bring some to your house in about an hour.”

“That would be great,” I said. “I’m Dominic. Dominic Miller.”

He didn’t shake the hand I held out, but he at least looked a little rueful about it. “Robbie Finch,” he said. He slapped the horse on the rump, and it started to walk, pulling the rattling cart behind it. “Do you need eggs too?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Sure.”

“I’ll see you later then,” he said, and hauled himself into the back of the cart with the practised ease of a man who’d done it a thousand times before.

“Okay,” I said, and lifted my hand in a wave.

He nodded, but didn’t wave back.

Something told me that was the best I was going to get from the Dauntless Islanders.

* * *

E ddie Hawthorne turned up at the police station a few minutes after I got back from my unsuccessful trip to Mavis’s shop. He had the baby strapped to his chest again.

“Hi!” he said. “How was that storm last night? You look like you didn’t get any sleep at all.”

“Not much,” I said. “But that’s probably more to do with the fact I haven’t had any coffee. I think my milk got left in Newcastle, and Mavis at the shop wouldn’t sell me any.”

Eddie rolled his eyes. “God, this place , right? Did she put you on her waiting list?”

“You too, huh? How long did it take you to get off it?”

“Oh, I’m still on it,” he said, waving a hand and making the baby gurgle with delight. “I just make Red Joe buy our groceries.”

“Red Joe the mayor?”

“And my boyfriend,” he said, and I jolted in surprise at that. Eddie gave a knowing grin. “What? You thought they’d be as backwards about that as they are with everything else over here on Dauntless?”

That felt like a trap. “Maybe,” I answered slowly.

“Well, it helps that Red Joe is a Nesmith.” Eddie’s grin grew at the look of confusion on my face.

“Oh, man. They just threw you in the deep end, didn’t they?

Josiah Nesmith started the mutiny. He’s the one who hanged the captain of the HMS Dauntless .

Everyone here is descended from mutineers, and Josiah Nesmith is like their hero, to this day.

Joe is one of the few people who can claim to be a direct descendant, and that means something.

” He blinked at me through his glasses. “Well, on Dauntless, it means everything . People have been killed over it, and I’m not even kidding. ”

“Hold on,” I said, vaguely remembering the story Dave Chambers had told me about the murder that had got Dauntless Island an official police station. “Wasn’t the last mayor the killer, and didn’t he also try to kill you ?”

“That was a crazy week,” he said, eyes wide as he nodded. “Oh, and I’m also a descendant of the captain of the HMS Dauntless , so you can imagine how well that went down too!”

“Why would?—”

“Why would something that happened two hundred years ago still matter enough for people to kill for it?” He laughed. “Welcome to Dauntless, Senior Constable Miller.”

“Dominic,” I corrected him.

“Dominic,” he said, with a pleased smile.

“Anyway, I told Joe he should come and meet you, since, you know, he’s the mayor, but he’s stuck on a call with some tech guys about getting this phone aerial thing put on the lighthouse, and apparently there are some issues since it’s a listed site, so now the Department of Environment and Heritage is involved too and it’s turning into a major goatfuck.

Oops.” He belatedly cupped his hands over the baby’s ears.

“But it already has a bunch of satellite stuff on it, so what’s a couple more aerials? ”

I shrugged.

“Okay, so I’m trying to think if Amy has milk next door or not,” he said.

“I thought you lived next door?”

“Well, it’s technically my place since it comes with the museum,” Eddie said, “but I live with Joe at the lighthouse, so Amy, that’s Joe’s sister, and Baby Joe”—he patted the baby’s head—“moved in there.”

“I think I followed that.”

“Oh, also , everyone on the island has the same name ,” he said. “Not just first names, but surnames. There are at least four, maybe five, John Barnses, and don’t even get me started on the John Dinsmores. There’s enough of them to start their own footy team.”

“Seriously?”

“Oh, yeah.” Eddie grinned. “I’m writing a paper on it. There are like three hundred people on the island, and a pool of about twenty-five names. It’s insane.”

The more I learned about Dauntless Island, the weirder it seemed, and the more I worried that I might be totally out of my depth here.

I was great at community policing, but that was in a normal community.

Not a crazy one where I couldn’t buy milk and everybody was called the same thing, and people murdered other people because of how they felt about a mutiny that had happened two centuries ago.

I rubbed my forehead, where a headache was threatening to make itself known.

“I actually did get milk. Well, a promise of milk.”

Eddie raised his eyebrows. “Oh?”

“Yeah, from a guy called Robbie Finch?”

“Oh, Robbie,” Eddie said. “Yeah, he’s an odd one too. Super quiet. He and his sister, Katrina, have a farm in the middle of the island, with goats and cows and chickens. If you need eggs and milk, they’re your people.”

“He’s bringing some here,” I said.

“That’s good,” Eddie said. “Just...”

“Just what?”

“Just don’t count on it lasting.” Eddie bit his lower lip.

“Like, don’t take it personally or anything, it’s just that you’re a cop, which means you’re a representative of government authority, which is everything the Dauntless Islanders despise, and so they hate you with the fire of a million burning suns. ”

“Don’t take that personally ?” My jaw dropped. “How is that not personal?”

Eddie winced. “Yeah, sorry. All I’m saying is that if people find out Robbie’s delivering you milk, they’re probably going to give him a hard time. He might decide it’s easier to forget the whole deal.”

“Jesus.” Yeah, that was definitely a headache starting to form behind my eyes.

“Sorry.” Eddie winced again. “It’s... it’s easier if you expect the unexpected when it comes to how things work on Dauntless, and just try to go with the flow.”

“Yeah.” I felt like going with the flow would be a lot easier on a full stomach, and if I was sufficiently fuelled with caffeine.

Eddie wrinkled his nose. “This place is looking good though!” he said in a bright tone, like a parent trying to change the subject when their kid asked an uncomfortable question. “Very official and police-stationy. Well, apart from the curtains.”

I looked at the awful floral curtains and snorted.

They really were eye-wateringly hideous, and somehow, perfectly summed up my Dauntless Island experience so far.

The place was just off . Despite the sunlight and the ocean breeze, it had the same jarring vibe as those towns in horror movies where small children in old-fashioned clothes recited nursery rhymes in sing-song voices right before the killings began.

A shadow flitted past the window, and for a second I thought the locals were coming for me, probably led by Mavis who would beat me to death with a milk churn.

Then, when I shut that stupid thought down and remembered that this was real life and I was a capable adult and a police officer—they trusted me with a gun and everything—I figured it was probably Robbie Finch with my milk and eggs.

Whoever it was knocked briefly on the door, and then opened it.

“Oh, hey, Natty,” Eddie said in a bright, friendly tone, followed up by something I didn’t hear at all, because my brain went suddenly offline. Just crashed totally. Nothing but static.

Because the guy standing in the doorway was young and slender, wearing a black T-shirt that clung to the planes of his chest, and worn jeans that hugged his mile-long legs.

He had golden hair that hung in careless waves to his shoulder, like some sort of angel in a Renaissance painting, and hazel eyes, and flawless sun-kissed skin.

He was, without question, the hottest guy I’d ever seen, and it made no sense that he was here instead of strutting down a catwalk in Milan, where he clearly belonged.

He had to be the most beautiful guy I’d ever seen in my life, and he was looking right at me.

I blinked, and thankfully my brain fired up again, bellows wheezing and creaking somewhere in the back of my skull. I plastered on my smile. “Hi,” I said. “I’m Dominic Miller. I’m the new police officer. How can I help you?”