Caleb’s car finally died on the outskirts of Resurrection Bay. After a last shuddering jolt, the Commodore cruised to a stop in the middle of
the empty highway, windscreen-wipers at half-mast, headlights dimming.
Shit, not now. He’d broken every road rule and speed limit, but it had still taken three endless hours to get here. Six-twenty a.m. Twenty
minutes late already.
He threw open the door. Ran. Down the darkened side street towards the bay, rain misting his face and arms. He’d been asleep on the couch
when the text came, TV still on, mind fogged with dreams. Blocked number, no name or greeting. — Anton in danger. Res bay foreshore 6 am He’d bolted from his flat before fully awake, typing questions as he went. No reply.
At the Bay Road shops now, chest heaving, the foreshore park opposite. No cars, just Marty McKenzie’s dump truck abandoned as usual near the pub. Caleb sprinted across the road. The rain had stopped. A pale wash on the horizon, daylight peeling back the shadows. Empty boardwalk and wide-open lawn, mounds of struggling garden beds. Everything still, except the beacon out on
Muttonbird Island flashing its warning. No standover men beating Ant with iron bars, no drug dealers demanding payment. Cops couldn’t have scared them off – he’d passed both patrol cars attending a pile-up outside town. Ant would be here somewhere, hiding.
Lot of ground to cover, the reserve stretched all the way to the marina in the distance. He zigzagged across the grass, looking behind the pavilion and broad red gums, breath rasping in his throat. His brother had to be here. Couldn’t bear it if he wasn’t. Nearly a month now, desperately clinging to hope.
Through the playground to the orange dump truck, its squat shape glowing faintly in the nearby streetlight. Empty, not even Marty passed
out drunk on the front seat. A flash in the corner of Caleb’s eye as he turned from it. Something moving? He wiped the water dripping from his hair. Scanned the inky landscape.
Up near the toilet block, someone was crouched in a garden bed, waving. Dark hoodie pulled up, familiar hunch to his shoulders – Ant. Relief dissolved the bones in Caleb’s legs. Not dead. Not lying blue-lipped in an alleyway, needle still in his arm. But was he high or hiding? Couldn’t have chosen a worse place for it either way, a few straggling bushes in the middle of a sloping lawn. Once the sun was a little higher he’d be exposed like an overgrown garden gnome.
Caleb hesitated; Ant would never forgive him if he ruined a deal. Then again, Ant was never going to forgive him, anyway. He started across the grass…
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