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‘Looking.’
‘Looking at what?’
‘The house.’
‘Sorry, I didn’t see your car until I reached it or I wouldn’t have driven so fast. Jock asked me to get to the base quickly.’
‘Why were you there?’ she persisted. ‘At the house, I mean?’
‘I was visiting my mother.’
‘Your mother?’
‘She moved in there with her husband last month.’
‘Her husband?’
‘Yeah. They moved here while I was –’ He caught himself. No one needed to know where he’d come from. They generally turned him into some sort of a hero or something as soon as they heard Afghanistan. A hero was the one thing he wasn’t.
Her brows drew together. ‘Hold on, Panos Sordina is your father? I thought your surname was McLaren.’
‘He’s my stepfather. They’ve only been married a few years. And what’s with the twenty questions?’ Now she was getting under his skin. Not only bossy and sassy, but a sticky beak as well.
Ellie pushed past him and headed along the verandah, without answering. He grabbed her arm; no one was going to treat him like that.
‘Would you like to tell me what’s bugging you?’
She stared at him as she turned. ‘That was the farm where I grew up. Sordina bought it from my . . . my family.’ A dull light came into her eyes as he held her gaze and she moved out of his grip. His fingers tingled where he’d held her. ‘You’re in number eight, third on the left.’
Without another word, she strode along the verandah to her own apartment three doors away. She pushed the door open and went inside. The door closed with a loud click behind her.
Kane shrugged and called out before he thought better of it. ‘And it was a pleasure to meet you, too, babe.’
He made sure his voice was loud enough to be heard through the closed door.
Chapter 4
Thursday night
Parliament House, Darwin
David Johnson didn’t remember the elevator’s descent to the lobby, just the sensation of the frigid air-conditioning blowing on his neck when he stepped through the doors. He clicked the remote control key of his SUV, threw his briefcase on the back seat and climbed in, then sat there for a moment and let the heat warm him. The aftertaste of whisky lingered in his mouth. Never again would he drink it without reliving the feeling that crawled through him at Fairweather’s threat.
David opened the window after he started the car, letting the hot wind of the tropical night blow through his hair.
He didn’t care about Fairweather’s threat to go to the media. That was part of his everyday life. But the threat to his family . . .
David took his position very seriously, and his integrity had seen him through difficult scenarios and many hard decisions. He was all about what was best for the Territory. He would play along with Fairweather and then vote as his conscience – and what was best for the Territory – dictated.
Blackmail wouldn’t wash with him.
Not now. Not ever.
He turned the car out of the parliamentary car park, waved to the security guard and headed for home as the words ‘you have two weeks’ pounded through his head.
Two weeks. Two weeks. Nowhere near long enough to give considered thought to the two issues and liaise with the committees.
How dare the bastard put me into this position? But the faces of his children kept filling his vision. David had no doubt that Fairweather would follow through with his threat. He’d seen the power the man wielded over the past two years and knew he would do anything to get his own way.
