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Dean glanced in the rearview mirror and saw the same bloody truck that had followed him to the Marrakai pub yesterday afternoon. He’d given the driver the finger as he’d turned into the pub. The bastard had tailgated him most of the way from Darwin.

Now it looked like the same bloody truck. The guy must do the run to Jabiru a few times a day. The bastard was on his tail again. Dean indicated well before he turned into the farm, but that didn’t help much; the truck almost hit his ute as it roared past.

As he drove into the farm, Dean wondered if they’d gone away like McLaren had said they were. They didn’t seem to spend a lot of time together, so maybe they weren’t happy. None of his business.

He looked around as he drove in; the place was quiet, and it did look like they’d gone. He grinned, suited him. He had no intention of digging any bloody trenches.

The dogs were yapping down the back, and he was tempted to go down and deal with them, but he wouldn’t waste time; all he wanted to do was get the job done and get out of there. They could starve for all he cared.

He parked behind the shed, just in case they did come home. He didn’t want to be caught in the house. The dogs kept barking as he walked towards the homestead. It wasn’t a bad place. He wouldn’t mind having a house like this one day, but he didn’t want to work in the boondocks like this. He might move to Fremantle. He had a mate who lived there, a guy he’d done time with in WA a few years ago. He’d look him up when he got over there.

Dean pulled out his tools and put the coolant on the floor as he picked the locks. The screen and front doors were open within seconds. To make sure there was no one in there, he knocked on the front door and yelled, ‘Hello, anyone home?’ All was quiet.

He strolled into the kitchen and opened the fridge. There was nothing decent to eat there—just healthy crap. The water bottles were full again, so he tipped a little out of each one and then topped it up a few mls of the coolant. The milk was a quarter empty, so he took the container out, put a few more mls in there, and gave it a good shake after he screwed the lid back on. The water thing on the bench was only half full. He’d topped it up the other day and wondered if she noticed it had been full. This time she wouldn’t notice anything; the stuff would probably kill her in a couple of hours.

The coolant bottle still had about a third left, so he took the lid off the water container and tipped the blue coolant into the water. It swirled and coloured the surface.

Dean opened a couple of drawers before finding a spoon. He gave it a good stir, and the water cleared almost instantly. He turned, and his elbow knocked the bottle.

‘Shit!’

The bottle tipped over, and some blue liquid ran down the front of the white cupboards. He found a sponge in the sink and wiped it off, then chucked the spoon and the sponge into the sink, put the lid on the empty coolant bottle, and dropped it in the kitchen bin. By the time they found it, he would be long gone. If they found his fingerprints, they would be looking for Dean Drummond, not Jerry White, the cool man about town in the black ute.

This time, Dean locked the doors as he left. He wondered if McLaren had blamed her for it last time. From what Russell said about the symptoms when he had been planning it, there would be confusion and shit like that. So, he got away with it. This time, he would lock the doors to be on the safe side.

He climbed into the ute, started the engine, listened to the throaty purr with satisfaction, and gunned it along the dirt driveway that led to the gate.

When he reached the highway, Dean tapped the steering wheel. ‘Right to Queensland? Or left to WA?’ he muttered.

The west won, and he roared to the left and sped up the highway, turning the stereo on full blast. He sang along with the country and western channel, glancing in the rearview mirror occasionally.

Looked like that fat bastard truck was behind him again.

‘Fuckin’ hell,’ he yelled. But it couldn’t be because the truck was going in the opposite direction to the way it had been going on his way in.

Dean grew more nervous as he drove. He turned the music off as the truck roared up behind him. What was the bastard doing? Had he waited for him? Or was it another mad truckie? He looked ahead; there was another truck coming towards him. The truck behind him accelerated, closing in on the back of his ute. His ute began to slide across the road towards the oncoming truck. Dean yelled and swore as he fought with the steering wheel, but the truck behind kept pushing harder and harder.

‘What the fuck!’ he yelled as his ute headed too close to the truck heading east. He gripped the wheel and tried to swerve left, but the momentum from behind forced him across the road.

Pain jarred through his entire body as his ute went under the front of the truck. The sound of screaming, grating metal filled the cabin as excruciating pain tore up his legs, through his stomach and into his chest before black descended.

Chapter 33

McLaren Mango Farm - Sunday afternoon

Cy

Cy watched as Dee and Tarni said goodbye to each other. It had been a fantastic weekend, and he’d enjoyed both Ryan and Dee’s company. He’d seen a totally different side to Tarni; she’d blossomed in a social situation. Watching her build cubby houses with the twins and crawl around the living room floor with them had been hilarious. He’d been surprised by how well she interacted with the two little boys, and by the end of the weekend they were calling her Aunty Tarni.

Dee hugged Tarni one more time. ‘Don’t forget to email me the recipe for that cheesecake,’ she said. ‘And thank you so much for bringing it. It was yummy. I love Baileys.’

Ryan hugged Tarni too. ‘Make sure you come back and see us again soon.’ Cy didn’t miss the significant glance his cousin sent his way. ‘You make sure you bring Tarni back, won’t you, bro?’

‘I’d love too,’ Tarni said. ‘Honestly, I had the best time. I feel so refreshed.’

‘For sure,’ Cy said. ‘We’ll see you soon. Don’t forget to call me if you need a hand with the mustering.’

‘We’ll miss Ellie this time. It’s hard to find a pilot as good as she is.’