Page 48 of The Question of Us (Fisher & Church #2)

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Madigan

“Samuel, tell me what to do!”

“Okay, okay,” he shot back, sounding truly worried for the first time. “Give them a few seconds and then hang a U-turn and follow, but keep your distance.”

“But what if Nick and Gazza aren’t with them?” I protested.

“But what if they are?” Samuel argued grimly. “If we don’t follow and they’re in one of those cars, they could end up anywhere. We can always come back to the house but once those cars get out of our sight...” He didn’t need to finish.

“Fine,” I grumbled. “But I don’t like it.”

“Like I give a shit,” he snapped. “How about you just do as I say for once while I talk to Angela, who, need I remind you, isn’t at all happy about this shitshow. You’re messing in her backyard.”

“Great. Just what I need.” I did a three-point turn and headed back the way I’d come. “Someone’s bound to notice if I keep parading in front of the house like this. It’s a quiet road.”

“Then don’t be seen,” he answered slickly and I wanted to slap him.

“Now why didn’t I think of that?”

Samuel groaned. “Jesus Christ, I’m dealing with children. Tell me when you see their taillights.”

It didn’t take long. I caught them about a kilometre down the road and hung back as Samuel instructed. Another couple of kilometres and the lead car began to slow.

“Looks like they might be turning off,” I told whoever was listening. “There’s a tourist viewpoint sign pointing to a dirt road on the left. I think it leads to a car park.”

The front car made the turn.

“Yes. They’re taking it.”

“Drive past,” Samuel urged. “Don’t slow until you can pull over somewhere safe. Then kill your lights and text me your location.”

I did as he said, making a right-hand turn across someone’s driveway on the opposite side of the road, and then backing up into it. I killed the lights, texted Samuel my location, and kept my eyes on the dirt road to the viewpoint as I waited for him to reply.

“Come on, Samuel. Gazza and Nick could be in that car and I’m sitting here twiddling my thumbs. I need to see what’s happening. What if?—”

“Stay put,” Samuel growled. “You don’t have a chance against two men who are presumably armed.

Angela is doing her best to convince her boss to let her check it out, but they’re not happy.

It’s been a busy night in Wangaratta and they’re currently winding up a four-car accident on the state highway.

In addition to that, Marty Klein is a big deal and well respected in the community, and here we are asking them to look into the whereabouts of two grown men who have been missing all of an hour at one of Marty’s parties. ”

“A big deal, huh? Explains why they were so willing to believe his story, and Lee’s,” I grumbled.

“You don’t know that,” Samuel warned, lowering his voice. “That’s a big accusa—hang on.”

I heard muffled voices and figured one of them was Angela.

“Okay, so they’ve agreed to let Angela and her partner leave to check it out, but her bosses are less than happy with us, me included, thank you very much.

They also emphasised that this better be a genuine emergency or else.

Regardless, it’s gonna take them forty-five minutes to an hour to get to you from the accident site. ”

“An hour?” I roared. “Did you tell them Nick’s been kidnapped and Gazza drugged?”

“We don’t know that for sure,” Samuel hedged.

“Like hell we don’t. If Nick and Gazza are in that car, they might not have ten minutes, let alone forty and we—oh fuck, one of the cars is coming back toward the main road.

” I leaned forward to peer through the windscreen.

“It’s the big SUV, not Gazza’s. It’s turning right onto the main road and heading back toward Marty’s. I’m going back.”

“No. It’s too risky,” Samuel pleaded.

I flipped on my lights and headed for the main road. “I’m gonna search that car park for Gazza’s car, and nothing you say is going to stop me. I’ll call when I find it.”

“Madigan, don’t?—”

I cut Samuel off before he could finish and accelerated down the road. I took the turnoff at speed and almost drifted off the dirt road into a thick stand of gums. Recovering just in time, my heart banged against my ribs like a crazy motherfucker and I didn’t blame it one bit.

Entering the sizeable car park designed for around sixty or so vehicles, I slowed and did a full loop.

The viewpoint sat above a deep valley, which, even at night, under a canopy of stars and a half-moon, was pretty damn spectacular.

Picnic tables and public barbecues were dotted along the valley lip.

Restrooms sat at the exit end. And tourist boards indicating various tracks and walks for the adventurous sat at either end.

But there was no sign of Gazza’s BMW.

My heart dropped as one possibility occurred to me.

I glanced toward the steep drop-off and swallowed my panic.

But a safety barrier sat between the parking lot and the lip of a bluff, unpassable except for one car-sized gap at the far end.

I stared at the spot, licking my lips, persuading myself that there hadn’t been enough time for them to roll a vehicle over the edge.

They’d been in and out too quickly. Hadn’t they?

Shit. I fumbled with my seat belt and popped the lock.

I had to see. I had to know. I had the door half open when the side mirror caught the flash of something parked in the shadows on the far side of the restrooms. I slammed the door shut and drove back across the lot, my headlights illuminating a newer model black BMW backed into the bush.

I reached for my phone, my hands shaking. “I found it,” I blurted before Samuel had a chance to say a word. “It looks empty but I’m going to take a look.”

“Fuck.” Samuel’s voice caught in his throat. “Just be careful, okay? And keep the line open.”

I popped the flashlight on my phone and headed for the BMW. “Front seats are empty,” I told him, barely recognising my own voice, it was shaking so hard. “The back too. And the keys are in the console.” I tested the door. “It’s unlocked.”

“Don’t touch anything if you don’t have to,” Samuel warned. “Use your shirt or something.”

Shit. I hadn’t even thought of that.

When I didn’t reply, Samuel checked, “Are you okay?”

“No, I’m fucking not,” I snapped. “Now, are you going to keep asking stupid questions or are you going to let me finish?”

Samuel sighed. “Jeez. Okay, go on.”

I walked around to the boot and stared at it for far too long before finally popping it open with my shirt covering my fingers. It was empty.

The air whooshed out of my lungs and my knees turned to jelly.

“Madigan? Talk to me, dammit, please.” He sounded panicked.

“It’s empty,” I told him. “There’s nothing. No blood. No clothes. Nothing. I’m gonna walk the rest of the car park just to check, but they weren’t here long enough to do much other than dump the car.”

Or so I hoped.

Using the phone’s flashlight, I made a quick survey of the immediate surroundings, including as far as I could see into the valley below, but there was nothing to find. When I’d completed the circuit, I slid back into the driver’s seat and killed the light.

“There’s nothing here,” I told Samuel. “Only the car. I think Marty was just getting it off his property in response to my phone call.”

“Let’s hope so.” Samuel didn’t sound as certain as I’d have liked. “Now sit tight and wait for the pol?—”

“No way.” I cranked the engine and belted up.

“If Marty ditched the car without Gazza in it, then something’s not right.

Assuming Marty has Nick as well, if Marty wasn’t suspicious about Gazza’s association with Nick, then why not simply leave him with the car and rely on his foggy memory to confuse things?

That might even have been the original plan.

Drug Gazza. Have his way with him. And then dump him down the road like Gazza had left the party and then pulled over to sleep and sober up. ”

“There’s a lot of assumptions in that scenario,” Samuel pointed out, like I wasn’t already aware.

“I know.” I headed for the main road, talking as I drove. “But it makes sense, right? The only reason to hold on to Gazza is because they have Nick and have somehow put the pieces together, meaning they also likely know who I am.”

“Shit,” Samuel hissed. “This is turning into a fucking nightmare.”

“You’re the one who pointed out what a control freak Marty is, remember?

” I put him on the spot. “And how he might react to finding out we were trying to help Lee get out of there. Tell me that getting Gazza’s car off the property without him doesn’t mean they’re cleaning up their mess.

That it doesn’t mean they’re covering their bases and keeping their options open just in case. ”

Samuel said nothing, which said everything.

“You can’t because you know they are. You fucking know it.” My voice rose in challenge. “Just like I do.” I hit the main road and whirled the steering wheel to the right. The car thudded over a tree branch and almost spun out.

“Slow the fuck down,” Samuel ordered. “They’ll hear you coming a mile off, if you don’t kill yourself first.”

He was right and I eased my foot off the gas.

“They’re in this mess because I wanted to come here, Samuel.

Me. Not you. Me. And I am not going to sit in a fucking car park with my finger up my arse while god knows what’s happening to the man I love.

” The words were out before they even registered in my brain and I slammed my hand on the steering wheel.

“Goddammit, Samuel, now look what you made me do. He doesn’t even know that yet. ”

Nick should have been the first person to hear those words, and he would have been if I hadn’t been too much of a chicken shit to say them when I had the chance.

“Madigan, I?—”