Runaway Lies Read online

  Runaway Lies

  SHANNON CURTIS

  www.harlequinbooks.com.au

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Shannon Curtis has worked as a copywriter, business consultant, admin manager, customer service rep, logistics coordinator, dangerous goods handler, event planner, switch bitch and betting agent, and decided to try writing a story like those she loved to read when she found herself at home after the birth of her first child. Her books have been nominated finalists for Favourite Romantic Suspense for 2011, 2012 and 2013, as well as Favourite Continuing Romance Series by the Australian Romance Readers Association. She loves reading, loves writing, and loves hearing from her readers, so visit her at www.shannoncurtis.com and say hi!

  Facebook: www.facebook.com/Shannon.Curtis.Writers.Ink Twitter: @2BShannonCurtis

  For Coleen Kwan, Deborah Tait, Jennifer Brassel, Kitty Bucholtz, Maggie Nash and Paula Roe

  – I wouldn’t be here without you fabulous ladies (and the Tim Tams)…

  CONTENTS

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Acknowledgements

  CHAPTER

  1

  She’d gotten so good at deceit, she almost fell for her own lies.

  Take this road trip, for instance. Darcy Montgomery could almost believe it was a holiday. Almost.

  She carelessly shooed some flies away from her face, then glanced briefly at the map lying beside her on the bench seat. Her VW Kombi van chugged along, finding every dip and pothole in the road. She gritted her teeth at a particularly jarring bump, and her fingers slid to her side. She could feel the raised skin beneath the thin fabric of her T-shirt. Sudden movements still pulled at the scar, and this van provided plenty of them. The map bounced and slid across the seat, and she slapped her hand down to prevent it from slipping to the floor, before returning her eyes to the road. By her reckoning, the next town was about forty minutes or so down the road. She checked the fuel gauge; she might make it, if she was lucky. It was a glorious day, though, so she would enjoy the trek if she ended up having to trudge into town carrying a jerry can. See? Another lie that’s almost convincing.

  Tall gum trees whizzed past, and she caught an occasional glimpse of the grey-brown of the Hawkesbury River as she drove along Wisemans Ferry Road. Sweat trickled down the side of her face and along her neck, and she blinked, momentarily catching sight of herself in the rear-vision mirror. Damn – she still started at her own reflection. The brown hair, the brown eyes: they were still a shock, especially in the middle of the night when she saw herself in the stained mirror of an amenities block at whatever caravan park she was camping in, only half awake.

  She blinked again. Her contacts were getting itchy. She had to force herself not to rub them. She might have to swap them out from the supply she kept in her duffel bag. She’d need to stick with the brown, though. Brown eyes. Brown hair. Brown blechitty brown. She’d paid a fortune for her new ID, and Doc, the scary-looking bouncer from Kings Cross who’d turned out to be quite sweet – and great at his second job – had insisted on giving her a new look. For the present, she was stuck with it. The sweat and the fact she was wearing the contacts longer and more often than was recommended was beginning to take its toll, though. Her eyes were red rimmed, and for once it wasn’t from crying.

  The weather had brought many of the native flora into bloom, including variegated lantana and the occasional jasmine, and the brilliant colours brought a smile to her face. Cicadas whined, and she turned her face so the hot breeze coming in from her window could brush the hair out of her eyes. The only issue with the vehicle was the air-conditioning – or rather, the lack of it. She inhaled, almost tasting the sunshine and cloying jasmine – the heat.

  She shifted gears, wincing at the grating noise as she wrestled with a gearstick older than she was. She hoped to hell it lasted the next two months. She couldn’t afford a trip to the mechanic. Hell, she couldn’t afford a hamburger. Her lips lifted in a wry smile. There was a time when she’d dined out every other night. Now she saved up for the day-old bread and the cheese on special. Thinking back to those restaurant nights, she could barely believe she’d been so frivolous.

  She checked her rear-vision mirror again. She hadn’t seen many cars, and definitely no cops – one of the reasons why she’d selected this longer, less-travelled route in the first place. New Year’s Eve, and the cops were out in force on all the major roads. Her ID should pass a rudimentary inspection – she’d paid enough for it – but she didn’t want to put it to the test with highway patrol if she could avoid it. Doc had set her up beautifully, giving her enough for a hundred-point ID reference, but his last words to her had become her mantra: Keep a low profile. That’s what she had to do. Be invisible.

  All those people getting out and about, driving down to Sydney for the New Year’s Eve fireworks, or to the local bays or wherever the local councils had organised their own firework display to ring in the new year, made her think of her family. Christmas had totally sucked. She’d never once considered what it must be like to spend the holiday alone. No exchanging of gifts, no squeals of delight at getting something you really, really wanted – or offering a polite smile to an aunt for a present you were sure you’d given to your cousin for her wedding, or unwrapping that bread maker you would never use, but for some reason your brother thought was the best thing since – well, since sliced bread.

  She sniffed. No stuffing yourself until you joined the rest of the family passed out on the lounge in their self-induced food comas. No stumbling over shredded wrapping paper or getting blinded by the Christmas tree lights, no tinsel shedding over the rest of the house. No smiling through a hangover wince as your niece and nephew made so much noise they could wake the dead.

  No. This year Christmas was spent in the back of the Kombi in a sporting field where there was a toilet block, a power point and no charge for parking overnight.

  Next year will be so much better, damn it.

  The narrow road twisted and turned, meandering alongside the river, brushing past small rural holdings, the occasional ramshackle cottage, and the sturdier riverside holiday homes of the area. The van was taking the turns well, and she still marvelled at her good fortune at finding such a bargain. Sure, it looked like a throwback from a 1960s Cliff Richard movie, and she wasn’t sure if the exterior colour – a repulsive shade reminiscent of a baby’s used nappy – was supposed to be yellow, green or brown, but the van was comfortable, and her home on the road. As long as it didn’t die on her.

  Her fingers beat a tattoo on the steering wheel in time to the INXS song playing on the radio as she passed a turnoff for the Dharug National Park. Driving along a scenic country road, the wind in her hair and no set time to be anywhere, she could almost pretend she was on holidays.

  She sighed. Two months, that’s all. Ju
st eight more weeks. Then maybe everything could return to normal. Well, except for the job. She’d still be unemployed. Her knuckles whitened as she clenched the steering wheel.

  No. She was going to focus on the positive. She had a chance to get out and travel, to see some of the country, experience new…experiences. Yeah. Fun.

  Her grip slowly relaxed. When was the last time she’d had some fun? She hummed along to the music and eased her foot off the accelerator as she approached a bend. Yeah. This was the life. Cruising the back roads, camping—

  A red car rounded the bend in front of her, coming towards her at high speed and veering across the middle of the narrow road.

  Darcy swerved, her foot stomping on the brake. Her van shuddered, the rear beginning to fishtail as the other car zipped past, narrowly avoiding a collision.

  The campervan jerked to a stop diagonally across the width of the road.

  ‘Freakin’ hell. Idiot!’

  She glared in the rear-vision mirror, eyes wide, trembling, waiting for the car to appear through the gap in the trees as it came out of the bend behind her. Leaves and branches flew up at the side of the road, and a couple of trees shook. One slowly fell.

  Where was the car? She turned around and looked out the back window of the van. She could see pockets of the road winding behind her, and she kept scanning, trying to calculate its speed and distance. She couldn’t see it. Just a bunch of disturbed leaves at the side of the road, slowly drifting back down to the ground.

  Oh, heck. She swallowed as suspicions rose in her mind. She revved the engine, jerking the gearstick into reverse and backing up the road. The van made a high-pitched whining sound and the rubber tyres screeched on the asphalt. Heck, heck, heck.

  There. Two furrows in the soft dirt on the side of the road. She slammed on the brakes, reefing up the handbrake as she jumped from the rocking campervan. She ran to the edge of the road. There was maybe a metre of shoulder before the terrain dropped away to the river. Trees and bushes between the road and the river were damaged, some lay on their sides, others were completely uprooted, as though something large and heavy had gone through there.

  She gasped. There it was. The red boot of the car was still visible above the water, but it was sinking fast.

  ‘Oh, hell.’ Darcy ran back to her van and reached in for her handbag. Rummaging through the contents, she finally found the mobile phone she kept for emergencies. This sure as hell qualified as an emergency.

  She punched the buttons on the phone and waited anxiously as she crossed back to the edge of the road.

  ‘Triple 0, please state your emergency: fire, police or ambulance?’

  ‘Hurry! A car’s gone off the road,’ she cried. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other.

  ‘Where are you, ma’am?’

  Oh, great, where the hell am I? ‘Uh, Wisemans Ferry Road,’ Darcy said. ‘About half an hour out of Wisemans Ferry, close to Gunderman.’ God, this was going to take too long. ‘Send the ambulance, send – oh, just send everyone.’

  Bubbles erupted around the car, as though an air pocket had dislodged.

  She dropped the phone back onto the driver’s seat and started slipping and sliding down the embankment, praying as she went. Please let them be okay. Please.

  But nobody had surfaced yet.

  Heart pounding, branches snatching at her hair, face and arms, she battled her way through the broken underbrush, gritting her teeth, her brief denim shorts providing no protection from the branches, until she reached the water’s edge.

  ‘Hang on,’ she cried out. ‘I’m coming.’ Could they hear her? She hoped they could, hoped they knew that help was on the way, and to hang on just a little longer. She didn’t even know how many people were in the car.

  Taking several deep breaths, she ran into the river, gasping as the cool water embraced first her sneaker-clad feet and shins, then crept higher to her hips. It was so hot outside the water felt almost ice cold by contrast. She struck out towards the sinking car. Now only part of the bumper was visible above the water.

  She inhaled, held her breath, then dived under the water. It was so dark and cloudy. She blinked, and her vision cleared, but only slightly. The car had stirred up a lot of sediment. She squinted through the dark water.

  She could vaguely see the bulk of the car. The driver’s door was open, the interior completely filled with water. The front of the car was sinking faster. She swam to the driver’s door, her pulse hammering in her ears. She tried to mentally prepare herself for what she might see. She leaned in.

  The seat was empty.

  The driver must have been thrown clear or been wrenched away by the current. She peered past the murky outline of the front seats.

  Two little figures sat suspended in the backseat, tethered by their seatbelts.

  Bubbles escaped Darcy’s nose and mouth as she gasped at the sight, taking in water. Her lungs burned. She needed air. She kicked up, using her arms to drag her up in great sweeping strokes. Her head broke the surface, and she opened her mouth, coughing and gasping for breath.

  Oh God, no. Please, no. She took a couple of deep, dragging breaths, conscious of time ticking away. They’d been under for a couple of minutes already.

  She dived beneath the water again, swimming desperately down to the dark shape of the car. She went through the driver’s door, manoeuvring herself between the two front seats. All the while she was conscious of the car still moving in the water, lowering to the bottom of the river, but shifting as the current tugged at it.

  She got one leg over the central console, then her hips and the other leg, twisting awkwardly. She turned to face the rear of the car.

  Two children, a boy and a girl, eyes closed and limbs lax, trapped in the rear seat. The girl’s hair hung like a cloud of dark seaweed around her face. The boy’s features were relaxed, pale. They were so little, so young.

  Using both hands simultaneously, she depressed the central buttons on their harnesses. The buttons released, but she had to struggle to get their arms and legs out. They both wore clothing that snagged and hindered her efforts.

  She finally freed one. The boy. He floated above her in the car as she fumbled with the girl’s seatbelt. Darcy’s lungs were on fire. She could hear her pulse again in her ears, feel it in her chest as it boomed, louder, more desperately. Her vision was getting grey around the edges. She needed air.

  No, not until she’s free. The girl’s dress caught on the belt, and Darcy tugged fiercely, a precious air bubble escaping her lips as she almost sobbed with relief when the little girl finally came free. She grabbed the collars of both, and dragged them back through the space between the front seats, and out through the driver’s door.

  Clutching the tiny bodies close to her chest, she kicked strongly to the surface again. God, she hoped she was going in the right direction. She was dizzy, and she desperately wanted to suck in a breath. Her chest was burning, struggling against her mental commands to not breathe.

  Her head broke the surface, and she leaned back, taking deep, dragging breaths as she pulled both children up onto her chest and shoulders, making sure their faces were above the water. Once she’d caught her breath, she took turns exhaling first into one child’s mouth then the other as she treaded water, drifting with the current.

  Breathe. Please, breathe.

  She shifted the kids, moving them over to her right side. Using her left arm in an exhausted sidestroke, she swam to shore, kicking as hard as her weak legs would allow. She tried to maintain the rescue breathing, but it was awkward and cumbersome. They’d been under water for a while, she wasn’t sure exactly how long. She knew she had to get them breathing as soon as possible.

  The current was insistent, trying to drag her further out into the river. She let it pull her along for a moment, angling herself across it so that she could finally grab at some of the mangrove limbs along the edge. She caught one, slipped, grabbed and held the next one. The sudden stop wrenched her arm,
and she cried out at the arrow of pain that pierced her shoulder and side.

  Her arm trembling, she bunched her bicep, and tried to pull herself in. Pain made tears well in her eyes, and she blinked furiously to clear her vision. She couldn’t let these kids down. They were depending on her. She wasn’t going to let anybody else down, not again.

  That thought scorched through her, fuelling her determination, and she kicked hard, gritting her teeth against the burn in her arm and side.

  The river bottom brushed her knees, mangrove roots and submerged branches scratching at her, and she sobbed in relief. Crawling out of the water, she pulled the children along with her. As soon as she could, she lowered the children onto the muddy bank.

  Pinching the boy’s nose closed, she breathed into his mouth. Paused. Breathed again. She rose up onto her knees, and tried to position her hands the way she’d been taught in that first aid course that her father had insisted she do a couple of years ago. Her left arm wouldn’t cooperate, sharp pain searing across her shoulder each time she tried to lift it. Counting under her breath, she rapidly pressed down on the little chest with just one hand, trying not to break any bones as she did so. She stopped compressions, pinched his nose and exhaled into his mouth.

  He spluttered. Started to cough. She turned his head to the side as mouthfuls of dirty river water expelled from his lungs.

  ‘You’re okay,’ she said, her voice raspy and relieved. ‘It’s okay, you’re safe.’

  She turned her attention to the girl as the boy heaved and retched alongside her.

  Oh God, please be okay. She repeated the process, pinching the nostrils together, breathing into the little mouth, and counting out compressions. Her arms were trembling, and each time she pressed it felt like she was being stabbed in her shoulder and lanced down her side.

  The girl wasn’t responding.

  ‘Come on, sweetie, open your eyes.’ She kept her voice calm, gentle.

  The boy was crying now, and still coughing up little spurts of water.