‘Sometimes I let the boys take the ute and go off down the paddocks,’ Blake cut in. ‘You ought to see them when they get back. It’s like they’re a bunch of five-year-olds again. Grass in their hair and sparkles in their eyes.’
Trevor laughed. I ignored the uncomfortable stirring in my stomach, trying to think of the last time Chrissy had romped back into the house after a day in the wild, grass in his hair and sparkles in his eyes. The last time he’d been outside by choice at all. ‘You know, that sounds pretty good, actually.’
‘You can sit up on the verandah with me and Melissa and have a barbie, ay? Bring your missus. They can fret about where the kids are and we can sink some schooies.’
‘Am I invited?’ Trev asked.
‘You? Mate, I couldn’t be clearer: I’m trying tocut downon the number of boofheads coming in and out of my house.’
I laughed now. Feeling a part of something. Feeling the enveloping arms and golden gaze of the in-crowd. Like I was in fuckinghigh school again. Blake rolled his eyes, jerked a thumb towards Trev, conspiratorial. ‘This guy, eh?’
‘I appreciate the invitation,’ I said. ‘I’ll give it some thought.’
‘We’re just down here.’ Blake pointed at the windshield. ‘The one with the red mailbox. Five minutes, tops.’
‘Is that all?’ I chewed my bottom lip. Teetered on the jagged edge of destiny for a few precious seconds without knowing I was doing it. ‘Ah, well. Fine.’
‘Good.’ Blake smiled.
‘I’ll let you blokes go,’ I said, tapping the car roof. ‘Maybe get that wheel alignment done again, huh?’
I got back into the cruiser and followed the Jeep at a respectable distance, leaving that life-changing moment deep in the wilderness behind me. We got to the main road leading back to the Mountain. When Blake Sanderson pulled to the roadside by a big red mailbox, he stuck his huge arm out the window in a wave, and I waved back, feeling worthy.
The call came four hours later. I was deep under the doona, with a belly drum-tight full of the world’s best meatlover’s pizza and half a bottle of wine. Climbing up through the layers of consciousness took deliberate effort, akin to pulling myself, hand over hand, up the rugged face of a cliff. Delle sat bolt upright in bed, saw it was my phone and not hers, and slammed back down again like a cartoon vampire. I took three or four tries to slide the electronic button on the screen in the dark.
‘Yeah?’
‘I need you to listen to me very carefully,’ Hayley Twitcher said, in a voice that made my skin grow cold in a sudden, sickening rush. ‘And don’t say anything until you’ve heard all of the information I’m about to give you.’
‘O … kay …?’ I shot out of the bed, went to Chris’s room, threw the door open. His figure was there in the sheets, twisting, reacting to the light like a bat, all scrambling limbs and squinting eyes.
‘What is it?’ I said into the phone. ‘What’s happened?’
‘Blake Sanderson just wrapped his car around a fucking tree.’
‘What?’
‘He had a passenger with him. Trevor Willis. Willis is dead, and they’ve just taken Sanderson in for surgery. It’s not looking good, Evan.’
‘What the fuuuu—’ I forgot how to breathe, to swallow; coughed and went into the kitchen. I was starting to shake now. ‘Are you serious?’
‘Yes, I’m serious, Evan. And I’m getting more and more serious by thesecond, because I’m here at the hospital, and I’m seeing it and hearing it. Sanderson just told an emergency room nurse that a local cop pulled him and Trevor over not ten minutes before they crashed and that cop cut them loose again.’
The words wouldn’t come. They dissolved before they were half-formed. There was screaming in my head. A long, loud, animalistic wail.
‘Was that cop you, Evan?’
‘No.’
‘Are you sure? Because Acosta was here all night, and Jenny says it wasn’t her. Is she lying?’
‘No, no, no, no.’ I shuddered. Delle was behind me, eyes full of fear. ‘No, I mean, I didn’t … I was there but I didn’t … pull them over.’
‘You just drove by them?’
‘No, I mean—’
‘Jesus, Evan.’ Hayley’s voice was shaking. ‘Trevor Willis has got two kids. Blake was saying he couldn’t feel his legs. This isnot good.’
