Little Secrets Read online

  Unclipping the first-aid kit, she rummaged through the out-of-date antiseptic and the bandages still in their wrapping until she found the box of Band-Aids in the bottom. She pulled one out and stuck it on her skin, stretched it over her blister and then fastened the other side down. The process of putting on the Band-Aid reminded her of being a little kid. Of being looked after, of knowing there was someone there to make everything okay. Her throat constricted and she couldn’t hold it in. Holding a hand over her face to muffle the sound, she began to cry. Horrible, aching sobs rose from inside her.

  Clenching her eyes closed, she tried to force herself to stop, but she couldn’t. She was so tired, too tired. Her eyes turned hot, tears overfilling them and burning down her cheeks. Crying was easier than not crying.

  She stood, looking up to pull the door closed so there would be no chance they would hear her at the bar. Through her watery vision she saw someone. A man, standing in the hallway, staring at her. She tried to reset her face, wiping her cheeks with her hands.

  “I’m sorry,” he said and, weirdly, he looked like he might cry too. She stood, her hand still on the doorknob, staring at him, not knowing what to say, so aware of her crumpled forehead, of a tear inching down one of her wet cheeks. His eyes flicked away from hers and her face prickled with humiliation.

  She pulled the door closed and sat back on the bed. Staring at the back of the door, she took some deep breaths. The surprise of seeing him had made the crying stop, at least, but now her heart was hammering in her chest. Rubbing her hands over her face, she wondered who that guy had been. She’d never seen him before. That wasn’t common in Colmstock. Not just that. He didn’t look like the other men in town. His face was so unusual, she wasn’t sure what his ethnicity was, and he was wearing a T-shirt with a band’s logo on it and blue stovepipe jeans that looked brand-new. Definitely not the usual uniform for the men around here. She crept over to the door again and opened it an inch, peering out, sure he was going to be standing there still. He wasn’t. But she noticed a Do Not Disturb sign hanging from the knob of the other motel room. Of course, they had a guest.

  Closing the door, she went into the bathroom to throw some cold water onto her face. She had been rejected before; she should know how to handle it by now. If she could make it through the rest of her shift, she’d figure everything else out tomorrow. That was all she had to focus on now, getting to the end of the shift. She stood still, centering on just the feeling of her bare feet on the carpet. Then quickly and cleanly she put the Band-Aid on her other heel and, gritting her teeth, pulled her shoes back on.

  Back in the kitchen, Jean was flipping a burger on the grill. It sizzled and smoked. Rose’s nose felt itchy with the acrid smell of burning, but she didn’t say anything. She would never tell Jean how to cook and not just because she was her boss. No one would say a word to Jean even if their meat was as black and rubbery as a tire, which was often the case. Even though she was nearing sixty, no one would want to cross her. You’d know it if she didn’t like you.

  Rose still remembered the one and only time someone did insult one of Jean’s steaks. Some dickhead friend of Steve Cunningham’s had demanded a refund. He’d told Jean that if she wanted to cook bush tucker she should go back to her campfire. That man had never got his refund, and he had not been allowed to set foot in Eamon’s again. Rose herself would have made sure of that if she’d had the chance, though Jean never needed any help. Even thinking about the guy now made Rose’s blood boil. Steve was lucky; he’d apologized repeatedly to Jean, and Rose could tell he meant it, so eventually he was allowed back.

  “Do we have a guest?” Rose asked as she bent down to install the keg she’d brought in earlier.

  “Yep. William Rai.” You could hear the pack-a-day habit in Jean’s voice.

  “What’s he like?” Mia called from behind the bar.

  “Quiet.”

  Rose wiped her wet hands on her shorts and went around to the bar. She put a jug under the beer tap and began running the froth out, happy to be away from the stink of singed meat.

  “Have you seen him yet?” Mia asked, quietly.

  “Yeah,” Rose said. His eyes had looked so shiny, but surely that was just the light.

  “And?”

  “What? You think he might be your soul mate?” she joked.

  Mia shrugged. “You never know.”

  Rose smiled and leaned back, watching the white creamy froth overflow from the jug as it slowly turned to beer.

  “So I’m guessing you haven’t heard back from Sage yet?” Mia said, looking at her carefully.

  Rose flicked off the beer tap. “No.”

  “Don’t stress about it—one more day won’t make a difference.”

  Rose looked up at Mia and smiled feebly. She wanted to tell her, she really did, but she was afraid she might start crying again in front of all their customers. Just as she was opening her mouth to ask if they could talk about it later, the tavern went silent. It was the sudden, loud kind of silence that felt wholly unnatural. Mia and Rose looked around.

  It was the guest. Will. He was paused in the doorway, every single pair of eyes in the bar on him. Rose had been right before—this man was not from Colmstock. He took the stares in, not appearing unsure or uncomfortable, and sat down at the far table. The cops turned back to their beers and the talking resumed.

  “Wow. He’s not bad,” Mia said quietly.

  “He’s all yours,” she told Mia. She could feel the humiliation crawling back. He must think she was such a weirdo, sitting there with the door open, crying. Hopefully he wasn’t staying long.

  Rose watched Mia peel a plastic menu from the pile. She walked swiftly over to Will’s table and put the menu down in front of him. Mia put her hand on her hip and, even without being able to see her face, Rose could see that she was flirting. The girl was hardly subtle. Will smiled at her, only politely, Rose noticed, and pointed at something on the menu. He didn’t know yet not to order Jean’s food. His eyes flicked away from Mia, and he looked straight at Rose, making her breath catch ever so slightly. She turned away and busied herself washing glasses.

  By the time his meal was ready, Mia was on her break. She was sitting up at the bar, eating what she normally did for dinner: a burger bun, the insides slick with tomato sauce and nothing else.

  “Order up,” Jean called.

  Mia shrugged at Rose, her mouth full. “I donf fink he fanfies me.”

  Rose looked around, trying to think of a way to avoid a second encounter with the stranger. Maybe she could ask Jean to do it? But she knew then they’d want to know why and telling them would be even worse.

  Grabbing the plate, fingers below and thumb on top, she strode toward him. Looking down at it, she saw that he seemed to have ordered a burger without the meat, just limp lettuce, pale tomatoes and cheese on the white bun. He was leaning back in his chair, reading a book, but she couldn’t see the title. As she stepped in front of his light, he looked up at her.

  “Here you go,” she said.

  He leaned forward. “Thanks.” He paused. “I wanted to ask...are you all right? Before I—”

  “I’m fine,” she snapped. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

  She looked him right in the eye then, daring him to mention what he’d seen. He didn’t.

  “Just checking,” he said and half smiled, creating little crinkles around his dark eyes.

  * * *

  At closing time, when all the stools were on the tables and the floor was mopped and drying, Springsteen was singing about dreams and secrets and darkness on the edge of town, and Mia and Rose sat on the bar, drinking beers. Their aching feet feeling blissful now that they weren’t on the hard concrete. Jean stood behind them, counting the money in the register.

  “How long is our guest staying?” Rose asked, trying to sound casual.
>
  “He’s booked in for a week,” Jean muttered, writing down figures on an order pad.

  “You keen?” Mia asked.

  “Nah, the opposite. He seemed like a dickhead. Really patronizing.”

  The sound of something banging on the window interrupted them. It was Frank, rapping his knuckles on the glass. He waved good-night, his brown eyes so hopeful that he looked more like a small scruffy street mutt begging for a scrap than a policeman in his thirties. They waved back.

  “That man needs to take it down a notch,” Jean said, slight disapproval in her voice.

  Rose didn’t respond.

  “He’s a nice guy,” Mia said, pushing it.

  “It’s not about that,” Rose said. “There’s just no point. This won’t be where I end up.” She took a swig. Mia watched her, carefully.

  “You heard back from Sage, didn’t you?”

  Rose didn’t look at her; she couldn’t.

  “I was so sure you had this one,” Mia said.

  Rose felt warmth on her hand and looked down. Jean had placed her weathered palm on top of Rose’s fingers.

  “You’re a fighter—it’ll happen for you. It might take a while, but it will happen.”

  For the first time that night, the tightness in Rose’s throat loosened.

  Jean withdrew her hand and placed two envelopes between them on the bar.

  “Patronizing or not, our guest tips well.”

  * * *

  The air felt cooler as Mia and Rose stepped off the porch outside. The cicadas were trilling loudly. Despite everything, Rose felt a sense of victory. She’d done it. She’d got through the shift, and now she could go home to grieve, while she still had a home. She looked back at the tavern as they walked toward Mia’s car, wondering again about the guest, Will. He must be a relative of someone, down for some family occasion. She couldn’t think of any other reason someone would want to stay in this town for a whole week.

  “Oh.” Mia paused next to her.

  “What?”

  Mia ran to her beat-up old Auster and pulled a parking ticket from the windscreen. She looked at her watch.

  “I was only three minutes late!”

  “They must have been waiting for it to tick over.”

  They looked around. The street was empty. Getting in the car, Mia held the ticket up to the interior light.

  “It’s more than I even made on my shift.”

  Rose took her envelope from her bag and put it on the dashboard.

  “You don’t have to,” Mia said, but Rose could already hear the relief in her voice.

  “I know.”

  They didn’t talk as Mia drove. The radio played some terrible new pop song that Rose had heard one too many times, but she knew better than to mess with the stereo in Mia’s car. She stared out the window, looking forward to the oblivion of sleep. She slid her heels out of her shoes. Tomorrow, she decided, she wouldn’t wear shoes at all. The tavern was closed on Tuesdays, so maybe she wouldn’t even get out of bed.

  The car went past the fossickers. At first it was just a few tents set up in and around a gutted old cottage that had been there for forever. Now it was a real community. People lived in cars; structures were set up. Some people just slept under the stars. It was warm enough. They kept to themselves, so the cops didn’t seem to bother them, even though they all sported missing teeth and raging meth addictions. Rose hadn’t known why they were called the fossickers at first, but then found a couple of years back that they fossicked for opals and sold them on the black market. That was how they got by. Her stomach clenched with fear and she looked down at her hands. She would never end up there.

  “So, I heard some great gossip today.” Mia couldn’t stand to sit in silence for too long. No matter how miserable she was, Mia always seemed to feel better when she was talking. “Maybe you can write your next article about it? Working at a cop bar has got to be good for something.”

  Unlike Mia, Rose often craved solitude. She didn’t need to answer anyway. Mia usually seemed perfectly happy to just listen to the sound of her own voice chirping away.

  “Apparently someone has been leaving porcelain dolls on doorsteps of houses, and the dolls look like the little girls that live in the house. How freaky is that?”

  Rose snapped her head around.

  “The cops are worried it might mean something. Like maybe it’s a pedophile marking his victims.”

  Rose gaped at her.

  “What?” asked Mia.

  Rose scrambled through her bag, trying to find her cell phone, the image of Laura in her mind, sleeping cheek to cheek with her tiny porcelain twin.

  5

  “Help! Stop it!” the child wailed.

  Frank had tried asking nicely. Now he was prying the doll out of the little girl’s hands. When he’d imagined being a cop, he’d never thought fighting kids for their toys would be part of the job.

  “She’s mine!” Laura yelled, just as Frank gave the thing a proper tug, released it from the kid’s iron grip.

  Laura stared up at him, looking more angry than upset, and kicked him right in the shins.

  “Laura!” Rose yelled at the little shit as she ran out of the room and slammed her bedroom door.

  Frank rubbed his shin. She’d got him right on the bone. Truth was, it was throbbing.

  “Sorry,” said Rose, looking him up and down. He stopped rubbing his leg and grinned.

  “No stress,” he said. He should have guessed Rose’s sister would be like that. Cutest damn kid you ever saw but a real little fighter. When she grew up, she was going to break hearts. That was for sure.

  Frank could see the worry in Rose’s eyes, and if he were honest, he liked it. Rose had never looked at him like this before, like he had something to give, like he could protect her. Ben Riley’s mother and the arsonist felt a million miles away now.

  “What do you think?” she asked.

  “About what?” asked Bazza. Frank won the fight not to swear under his breath. That guy could be an absolute moron sometimes.

  He put a hand on Rose’s soft arm. Every part of him wanted to slide his hand up and down her arm, feel her warm unblemished skin. He wondered whether her whole body was that same pale honey, or whether the parts of her that didn’t see the sun were still the color of cream. He could feel his pants tighten ever so slightly.

  “I really don’t think it’s anything to worry about,” he said, letting go of her before it really got out of hand. He was here as a professional.

  “That’s not what you said at the station yesterday,” Bazza interjected from next to him.

  “Shut up, Baz,” he said out of the side of his mouth, his budding erection deflating instantly. He smiled apologetically at Rose. “You’ve told your mum about this, right?”

  “Yeah, but she’s doing a double today.”

  “We’ll let you know if there are any developments, but if you’re feeling at all worried, you can call me and I’ll be here in a flash.”

  * * *

  “What did we say about sharing police information?” Frank said to Bazza as they walked back to the car. The sky above them was overcast, but still it was hot and slimy. Half-moons of sweat hovered under each of his armpits.

  “Sorry,” mumbled Bazza.

  Usually that would be the end of it, but not this morning. “It’s not okay. You’ve been a cop long enough now, mate. You should know better.”

  The guy was taller than him, and much broader, but Frank had never once felt threatened by him. Right now, he was giving Frank the round-shouldered, hurt look like you’d get from a kid caught stealing from the biscuit tin. Frank stared back at him like he was just a piece of shit on his shoe. Bazza’s lip jutted out and he went to sit in the car to sulk. Good. Let him
stew and think about what it meant to wear the badge.

  Frank turned for one last look at the small white brick building. The lawn had not been cut for a long time. Around the side of the house were monstrous, spindly bushes growing around pieces of broken furniture and an old dog kennel.

  To other people the place probably looked like a bit of an eyesore. Not to Frank. This was Rose’s house, and he had been allowed inside. He could smell her everywhere. He’d thought that clean, spicy scent was unique just to her, but it must have been the detergent she used because her whole house had that same smell. It was heaven. Now he could imagine what her life was like when she wasn’t at work. Everything in that house, even the toaster, had a strange erotic quality. He only wished that he had got a look at her bedroom.

  God, he could do with a drink right now. Just to calm down. The day was only just starting and already it felt like too much. He was hungry for that look in Rose’s eyes. That look like he could protect her from the filth of this world. It made him feel taller, broader, and he could, if she let him. He would protect her from everything. She would never have to pull another beer again.

  Although his mouth was already watering, he banished the thought of beer from his mind and pulled the trunk open to grab an evidence bag. He flicked it to let the air in and then took the doll out from under his arm. God, the thing was freaky to look at. He had no idea why that kid had fought so hard to keep it. He was a grown man and it gave him the major willies. Its eyes were wide and glassy and its hair felt too soft. He hoped like hell it wasn’t real human hair. Frank was used to wife bashers and drug addicts; he was used to the guy with bloody knuckles being the one who threw the punch. These dolls were something else completely. More than anything, it was bizarre. It wasn’t only that he didn’t know who the pervert was. He had no idea what on earth he was doing, and even less of an understanding of why. Hell, right now he’d take the arsonist over this case. At least that was cut-and-dried police work. Leaving anonymous little gifts for children wasn’t something they’d ever covered in training.