Gone Tropical (7 page)

Hadi nodded and took a swig from a water bottle.

“She was staying at the Wellington Hotel?” Stuart asked.

Hadi nodded again.

Stuart could hardly believe his damn bad luck. He’d arrived on Braxton Island, showered, unpacked, and was sipping his first cocktail when Col burst into his suite, enraged, shaking his mobile phone at him. A photo of an orange-haired bitch with short spiky hair, that looked vaguely like Amy Helm, grinned back at them.

Col had screamed at him like a hysterical woman. “She’s your bloody problem,” he’d said. “I don’t want her on this island. You’ll have the friggin’ Aussie Federal Police following her and within a week my business will be in the crapper. Or we’ll both be dead.”

Stuart had finally calmed Col down, realizing his old friend had sunk deeper and deeper into his cocaine habit. An hour or two later, they’d drawn up a plan together. Hadi would fly to Cairns. Stuart would go back to the mainland, and the two would join forces. They’d have access to one of Col’s cars. They’d find out where the woman was staying and figure out if it was his ex-wife, or some good looking skinny bitch with the same name. Then they’d take it from there.

“You sure she’s inside?” Stuart asked.

“Praises be to Allah…she’s in there.”

Stuart frowned. “I mean she could have slipped out.”

“Hardly likely, old chap.” Hadi shook his head, lit up a cigarette and blew the smoke out the open window. “I know for certain that is her jeep. I pulled some strings at the car rental agency. It was rented to Amy Helm, an American tourist.”

It was well past eight and not quite dark yet, still hot, and Stuart was tired. Amy would never drive a bright yellow jeep. He was sure of that. But then again she wouldn’t have spiky orange hair either. He needed a hamburger, and the aromas from the beer garden next door wreaked havoc with his senses. His belly grumbled. “Want to take turns, get a bite to eat?”

Hadi scratched at his chin. “That would be risky. Col said
you
have to I.D. her. I wouldn’t cross him. I’m assigned here until at least ten o’clock.”

“Then what?”

“Well, that would mean she was in for the night. We’d start again early in the morning. I doubt a young lady of her background would go out on the town alone.”

“What do you do at ten?”

Hadi took a drag on the cigarette and leaned out the window, puffing the offending, smelly smoke into the night air. “Col wants me to go down the strip a mile or so and stake out a couple of men in another motel. We believe they’re connected in some way.”

“You’ll sleep all night in the car?” Stuart asked.

Hadi nodded.

“What do I do?”

A light came on upstairs and Stuart sat forward. Hadi ground out the cigarette, and indicated Stuart should slide down in the seat, and he did the same.

“Okay, bird, what have we got?” Hadi raised a scope. “This is an Owl Night Aero. I call it ‘bird.’ Praises be to Allah…and the rich men who can afford such things. At least it is a starry night with little cloud cover and I’ll get a good look.”

There were shadowy movements behind the drapes.

“Come on, baby,” Hadi murmured. “You’ve slept all afternoon. You know you’re hungry. There’s a ton of places along the strip. Ooooh, yes, praises be to Allah…come out and play.”

Stuart bunched his fist. One more “Praises be” and Hadi was getting it. Then he remembered the Glock in the glove compartment. He released his fist, and flexed his fingers. He had to go along with the plan.

****

Amy woke up starving. Damn. It was close to nine p.m. and now she wouldn’t sleep tonight. And she hadn’t taken that stroll on the beach. She walked out onto the terrace. Music, and the smell of meat grilling, floated up from the old fashioned pub next door.

Twenty minutes later, in the beer garden, she found a small table in the corner underneath a huge tree. The male singer gyrating on the tiny stage nodded. Hot guys clustered around the bar, beer bottles raised to their lips, eyeing her. She ordered a chardonnay and a hamburger and sat back, her gaze settling on the guy in a time warp. Typical 50s bad boy.

He sauntered across the room. “On vacation?”

Amy nodded.

“Takin’ a cruise to one of the reef islands, are ya’?” He rested one hand on the back of the chair opposite, and took a swig from his beer.

“No. I’m interested in the rainforest.”

“My kinda place…lot of snakes and bugs and stuff.” He gave her a cheeky grin. “Mind if I join ya’? Name’s Brian Crockett.”

“Amy Jane, um…Turner,” she said quickly and smiled again. “Please, sit.”

“So, where are you stayin’ in the Daintree?”

“I don’t have accommodation booked yet. Can you suggest anything?”

He appraised her. “Ritzy or hostel?”

“Something in between, I think. I don’t need five-stars but I don’t want to really rough it either.” The hamburger, French fries, and salad arrived and she eyed the food hungrily. “Sorry, but I have to eat.”

“No worries. Dig in,” Brian said. “You’ll need a four-wheel drive.”

“Got one.”

“You’re American, eh?”

Amy nodded and chewed. The hamburger really was great.

“Couple of decent motels in Daintree and a few good pubs in Cooktown, or are ya’ goin’ west?”

“West, I think,” Amy said with a casual air. She picked up a French fry and dipped it in ketchup. “Help yourself to the fries if you like.”

“Nah, I’m good, but thanks. Chips.” He nodded toward her plate. “We call ’em chips, and that’s tomato sauce. You Yanks call it ketchup, don’t cha?”

Amy smiled, nodded and kept eating. “Are there any decent places around Laura?”

“Hang on a sec, I’ll get some info.”

Brian went into the hotel. She hoped this information was only going to cost her a beer or two. She didn’t want anything else, didn’t want to have to fight this biker-boy off. He wasn’t exactly her type. But, you play with fire, you risk getting burned. What was her type? She took a sip of wine and hummed along to the music. Jake Turner’s face flashed before her and her body pulsed with need.
Damn him.

She scanned the room, her eyes settling on a dark haired man who had come in after her. He was seated alone in the far corner with his back to her. Why was he familiar? Her skin prickled. His dark hair was caught into a band making a limp ponytail, the bald top of his head glistened under the light. Was it the same man she’d seen in Sydney?

The door swung open, and Brian held a bunch of pamphlets in his hand. “Here.” He turned the chair around, straddled it, and passed the papers across to her.

“Thank you. Can I buy you another beer?”

“Nah, it’s my shout. Wine?” He beckoned the waitress.

“No, thank you. I need to get up early.” Plus she needed her wits about her if the man in the corner was following her. If he was, it meant she was closer to Firth than she thought. The two had to be connected.

“Got friends out there, have ya’?” Brian handed off the empty beer bottle and a few dollars to the waitress. “I’ll have another, and keep the change, darl.”

“Don’t be bloody callin’ me darl, ya’ moron. I’m not your old lady,” she said loudly.

Amy laughed. “No, no friends in the area.”

The waitress returned and placed a bottle of beer in front of Brian, and left.

“I’m going back to the States in a few days, and I want to pack as much adventure in as possible. I love your country.”

“Yeah, it’s bloody beaut. Best place on earth, if ya’ ask me.” He raised the bottle and tipped the air in a salute. He took another long slug of beer and leaned forward. “Go ahead. Take a look at those brochures.”

Amy lowered her voice and leaned across the table. “Have you heard of Bungumby Lodge? It’s on the outskirts of Laura.”

“Yeah, it’s a well-known place. It’s a bit rustic. Let me see.” He reached for a brochure and began to read out loud. “No modern conveniences, no telephones…”

Amy reached over grabbed the pamphlet. “Sorry,” she said lowering her voice. “I um, don’t want anyone to know where I’m going.”

The man was still there. If he’d followed her, he’d have a rental car. She’d go out to the parking lot and copy down the license plates of any rentals. Then she’d make note if any of those cars followed her. Brian stared at her a questioning frown on his face.

“You know…a young woman, alone,” she said. “Can’t be too careful.”

He nodded.

She read the rest of the pamphlet. No televisions in the cabins, telephone available in the lodge. Nature is the entertainment. Midnight guided strolls to the falls, and into the Daintree forest, tours offered to the Great Barrier Reef. Her heart pounded. She couldn’t concentrate.

“You know what this means, don’t cha’?”

Amy shook her head.

“Spiders, snakes, mossies, and flies.”

“Is the place clean?”

“Yep. People that run it are great cooks, too. Or so I’ve heard, never been there m’self, hard to get to, on a Harley. Even the paved roads are a hazard. You’ve got cattle stations out that way and they’re unfenced. The cattle are bloody stupid and wander onto the highway. You can have a huge Brahman bull walk along the side of your car. Between them and the kangaroos it’s dangerous, especially early morning, and at dusk.”

A tiny thrill ran through her when she read about the Thompson family, and the ecologically sound retreat they’d owned and operated for over twenty years. Could she book into a cabin and risk her ex-husband being on the property, and maybe in the cabin next door? She should check it out first. Do a day trip. Find out who else was staying there. With only twenty cabins that shouldn’t be too hard to do. She had people skills. She knew what questions to ask. “How long does it take to get to Bungumby?”

Brian pursed his lips. “About three hours, maybe four. If ya’ want to do a day trip, I could go, share the driving. I’m off tomorrow, have to be back in Cairns by nine or ten o’clock in the evening. I’m a high school science teacher, got summer camp. Monday…can’t be late.”

A teacher
? Amy sat back in her chair.
Who’d have guessed?

“It’s a bit rough, a girl on her own out in the country.”

Amy widened her eyes. This could be good. It was a risk, he was a stranger, but maybe it was a necessary risk. She glanced across the room. The man stood, walked to a nearby table. A man with gray hair sticking out from below a baseball cap sat with his back to the room. The creepy man said something. The guy handed him a salt shaker and creepy man took it and went back to his seat.

“Thank you, Brian. I’d love the company but I need to get some sleep, now. Here’s my telephone number. Give me a call in the morning, and I’ll tell you where we’ll meet.”

Brian wrote his number down on a thick cardboard coaster and handed it to her. “This is my mobile. It’s always on. Call me if you need anything. Or if ya’ change your mind.”

The strange man rose, pushed back his chair and walked into the men’s room.

“I have to run,” Amy said. She tossed money on the table and hurried outside and scanned the cars in the parking lot behind the pub. No rental vehicles, he must have parked on the street. She hurried along the rough road toward the parking lot of her motel, and heard the crunch of running feet. It could be Brian. It could be the creepy man. She ducked behind a tree.

She saw nobody, but the footsteps got louder. Her heart pounded as she slid deeper into the rainforest undergrowth and hid behind a large eucalyptus. The bark of the tree was peeling off in sheets, and she knew stinging ants, spiders, lizards, even snakes could be close at hand. She didn’t care. Bites from animals she could deal with. She pressed her frame tight to the trunk, thankful she’d worn blue jeans and a dark green top. Someone ran hard, and then another set of footsteps followed. She eased forward, catching a glimpse of them under a streetlight. It was the gray-haired fellow with the baseball cap and she couldn’t be certain, but every instinct told her it was Firth.

Within minutes, a dark colored jeep drove slowly down the alley, its lights on high beam. She saw a flash of the license plate which started with CB. It wasn’t a rental.

When the driver turned the corner to the main street, she took off her high-heeled sandals, and ran along the edge of the road. Tiny pieces of gravel bit into the tender soles of her feet.

Adrenaline coursed through her as she tore through the room, leaving the lights off, tossing the few things she’d bothered to unpack back into her bag. She dialed Sarge’s mobile phone, but it went to voice message. No time for explanations. She dialed Brian’s number with shaking hands and wondered about using the hotel telephone. This time it was an emergency, and she wasn’t calling his home, just his mobile.

“Stay there,” he said. “I’m in the pub, be right over. Wait for me in the dark, at the bottom of the stairwell.”

She’d never been happier to hear the sound of a stranger’s voice before. Brian she could trust. Brian she had to trust.

Chapter Six

“Phone,” Jake yelled, above the sound of the shower running.

“Answer the bloody thing,” Sarge yelled back.

Jake did, and told Helen her husband would be in touch in about five minutes. He saw a missed call, redialed and found it was from a cheap motel a mile or so up the street from theirs. He spoke briefly with the motel manager, then turned toward Sarge who had come out of the bathroom in a cloud of steamy air and wrapped in only a white towel.

“Amy checked out. She was in a motel up the street. She’d tried to contact us.”

Sarge shook his head. “I never heard the bloody thing ring.”

Jake grimaced. “Oh, and call your wife.” He tossed Sarge’s mobile onto the bed and went to retrieve his own. Although late in the evening, because they had spent hours cruising all the major hotspots and expensive hotels, he decided to call Diana.

“She’s gone, you mean left Cairns?” he asked, and moved the cell phone to his other ear. “With an Aussie guy?”

“I’ll call in the morning, darl,” Sarge said. He closed off his phone and moved closer.

Jake could hardly hear Diana; loud music played in the background. She said she was in a club. “What did you say?” He rubbed a hand across his eyes. Damn jetlag was catching up with him. “She’s gone toward Cooktown…the back way? Oh, tomorrow morning, okay.” Seconds later he shut off his cell phone and scratched angrily at the day old bristles on his chin.