Initiate Page 5

  They raced out to the main road where they’d parked their bikes. They jumped on, kickstarted their gleaming machines into a blood-racing roar, then screeched off, leaving smoking ribbons of rubber on tar. They hammered down the road, Kritta looking up and spotting Andi soaring the currents way above, rising in ever bigger circles, trying to find the truck.

  Angela drove two blocks and turned into the rear-lane exit of a cheap motel called Valley View. There was no valley, and no view either. She parked outside the reception office, under cover, and went to open the door to get out.

  Lily turned to her mother. ‘Mom, hold on. What are we doing here? What the hell is going on? You said you’d explain.’

  Angela opened her door and jumped out of the truck. She looked back in at her daughter. ‘No curse words, Lily. I’m just getting a room.’

  ‘Why? We could be home in half an hour . . .’

  Angela didn’t reply. She slammed the door shut and strode off quickly before Lily could ask any more questions. She sat fuming. What has Mom got herself into? she wondered. Does she owe money to loan sharks? Has she been gambling on the sly? Not drugs, no. That’s not Mom. She doesn’t even take aspirin. It’s got to be something else . . . What, though?

  She watched her mother walk out of the office with a room key and hop back into the truck.

  ‘Mom, this makes no sense,’ said Lily, turning to her. ‘Why check into a motel when the farm’s only half an hour away? Will you please tell me what’s going on?’

  ‘In a minute,’ Angela said, and drove off. They pulled up outside the room and Angela handed Lily the key. ‘Wait for me inside. I’ll go park the truck.’

  ‘What do you mean? You’ve already parked.’

  ‘I want to park under cover, Lils.’

  Lily looked out the window at skies that were cloudless. ‘What for? It’s not like it’s going to rain.’

  ‘Please, Lily, just go inside, lock the door, and I’ll be back in a minute, okay?’

  Lily hesitated. ‘Okay, but you owe me a massive explanation, Mom. Like, I mean massive. This is just crazy.’ She snatched the room key and got out of the truck.

  ‘I do, Lils. I’ll be back in a sec.’ She then drove off around the corner.

  Lily stood in front of room 17. She put the key in the lock, opened the door, and walked in. The smell of cheap cleaner hit her immediately – a smell that had become so much a part of her life since her father’s death. Every room in every backstreet motel they’d ever stayed in after they left Seattle smelt the same. And looked the same. Two beds side by side, with cheap coverings, most probably from WalMart. Mattresses that sagged. Pillows that were too small. TVs that had remotes with batteries that were always flat. No doubt in the bathroom there was a paper sash over the toilet seat that declared: I have been sanitised.

  On the wall were framed black-and-white photographs of Mill Valley in the ’30s and ’40s. On the ceiling were strip fluoros. On the wall above the door was an aircon with dirty vents. This had been Lily’s world after her father’s accident, staying in places like this during those years she and her mom had crisscrossed the states. That’s why she loved the farm. And that’s why she didn’t want to leave again. She just wanted to stay in one place long enough to call it home.

  She sat on a bed and waited for her mom to come back.

  But she didn’t come back.

  After five minutes Lily walked outside, walked around the corner to the carpark, but there was no sign of the truck. She glanced across at the motel office. The manager, an elderly sharp-featured lady, stared out at her suspiciously. Lily walked back to the room, trying her mother’s phone, but it went straight to voicemail. She walked in, closed the door and locked it.

  She tried to control her rising panic. She dialled her mom’s phone again. Again it shunted to voicemail. She sat on the bed and waited. Tried one more time. Again, voicemail. She got up, paced around the room, wondering what to do. She went to the windows, parted the curtains, looked out. No sign of her. No sign of the truck. After twenty-five minutes, Lily was just about to call the police when there was a knock on the door and her mom’s cheerful voice. ‘Lils, it’s me. Can you let me in?’

  Angela walked in carrying several grocery bags that she put on the counter by the TV.

  ‘I am so sorry, Lils, but I had to get some stuff to eat, and the markets were so crowded and I waited in line forever, but at least I got us some decent food for dinner, and also some toothbrushes.’

  She looked around the room as though seeing it for the first time. ‘And they charge a hundred and fifty bucks a night for this?’

  Lily felt like screaming.

  ‘Mom,’ she said, trying to control her anger, trying to sound calm, ‘do you have any idea how worried I was about you? I tried calling you I don’t know how many times but I just got voicemail . . .’

  ‘Oh yes, I turned it off. Sometimes you can be tracked through phone tower triangulation, I read that somewhere, so I thought it was best I switch it off. I’m probably being overly paranoid, aren’t I?’

  Lily felt there was a forced joviality in her mother’s voice; a false effervescence, as though she was trying to keep herself and Lily buoyed in the midst of something unspeakably dire.

  Angela sat down on one of the beds and began to take off her shoes. Lily sat down beside her. Her mother was scared, Lily knew that much, and that made her scared too.

  ‘Who would be trying to track you, Mom? Those women, at the market? Is that what this is all about?’

  ‘Well, they were frightening, didn’t you think? You felt their energies. I saw your fingers . . .’

  ‘Yes, they had bad vibes.’

  ‘Rank,’ Angela said. ‘Evil.’

  ‘But why would they want to come after you? Who were they? Do you know them?’

  ‘No. I don’t have a clue who they were, but they were putting out such a foul energy, I felt to be on the safe side we should leave.’

  Lily looked at her, expecting more. ‘Is that it?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘That’s your explanation? For leaving our stall and running out of the market and coming here to hide? You did that just because they had “foul energies”? You expect me to believe that?’

  ‘It’s the truth . . .’

  Lily jumped up off the bed, walked away, then turned back. ‘Mom, excuse the curse word, but that’s crap. Why would you bolt like that? Run off and leave all our produce, our stall, right when the market was going great? Okay sure, they looked really creepy but they weren’t doing anything wrong. It’s not like they were aggressive or hurting anyone or anything. They were just regular shoppers.’

  Except they weren’t just regular shoppers, Lily thought. They were obviously on the hunt for someone. Her mom? But why? What could they possibly want with her?

  ‘I spook easily, Lils, you know that,’ Angela said softly. ‘Ever since your father’s death. Maybe I ought to go see a shrink, like you say. You think that might help? It was a bit irrational, wasn’t it . . .’

  Lily saw in her mother’s eyes that she was hiding something. ‘I don’t accept that, Mom,’ she said flatly. ‘What is it you’re not telling me? Have you done something wrong? Have you crossed some bad people?’

  Angela smiled, years of weariness and sadness in that smile. ‘No, Lils. I haven’t. I’m not some drug mule or an undercover agent working for the CIA or anything. I just get a bit jumpy at times, that’s all. I get freaked out sometimes for no good reason, you know that, particularly when I sense any threat. And I sensed it with those women. You did too, right?’

  Lily hesitated. The three bikers did reek of menace, there was no doubt, but they’d done no harm to anyone or anything. They’d broken no laws. They just looked scary, that’s all.

  ‘Well, it’s just seriously weird,’ Lily said, ‘running off like that, leaving all our stuff there. You got to admit that.’

  ‘Yes. Anyway I called Dr Johnstone, told him you’d come
down sick and we were at the hospital. He said he’d store our stand at his place till next weekend.’

  ‘Mom, you didn’t! Kevin will think I’m such a baby!’

  ‘He’s the only one I really know here, Lils. And what else could I say? Tell him I’d got the jitters just because I saw three women wandering through the market? That sounds a bit odd, don’t you think?’

  ‘You bet it does,’ Lily said.

  She got up from the bed and walked over to the grocery bags. She found a plum, wiped it clean on her jeans, took a bite. The tangy juice gave her an immediate kick of acid and sugar. She turned and looked back at her mother. ‘Why won’t you tell me the truth?’

  Angela hesitated. Lily saw a momentary flicker in her eyes, as if she was deciding whether to tell. But then her gaze resolved, and the moment was gone. ‘There’s nothing to tell. Honestly. You just have a dumb ass of a mother at times, and all I can do is say I’m so sorry.’

  She held out her arms and Lily went to her. They hugged, and Lily wondered who she was, this woman holding her so tight like there’d be no tomorrow.

  They had a late lunch, sitting on their beds eating chopped chicken salad with plastic forks from plastic tubs. They told stories about the market, gossiped about some of the customers, and shared their remorse about Delmonico’s. And perhaps because of their early start, perhaps because of the released tension, perhaps because of the late-afternoon sunlight drifting in through the curtains, they soon fell asleep.

  Later, much later when Lily awoke, her mother was gone.

  Kritta roared into a scenic lookout with a view out to the valley and further south to the bay. Bess pulled in beside her. Kritta was getting edgy. Andi still hadn’t found them. Had the woman done one of her disappearing acts again?

  Kritta grabbed her binoculars, searched the roads below. Nothing. She then searched the sky, found Andi circling further north now, checking the roads that led to the farmhouse. Andi could spot a field mouse in an acre of corn at five thousand feet. If they were making a run for it, Andi would find them. But if they’d gone into hiding somewhere, if they were hunkered down in a building, or if they’d driven into an underground parking lot and were waiting till dark, then Andi would be of no use. That’s when Bess kicked in.

  ‘We’re going back to the market before it closes,’ Kritta said. ‘I want you to grab their scent.’

  Bess nodded, and the two bikers thundered off.

  Behind the toilet block at the back of the market, Kritta quickly turned Bess into her pit-bull form, then she led her around to the women’s stall and let the dog loose. Around them, growers were dismantling their stands and loading their unsold produce back into their trucks and vans.

  The pit bull sniffed over everything they’d left behind, quickly isolating the scents of the mother and daughter. The daughter was easier. It was a younger smell, not yet tainted with the patina of a difficult life. The dog finally looked up at Kritta, and nodded. She had them, both scents.

  ‘Okay, good girl,’ Kritta said. ‘We’re gonna need them later.’

  Kritta had trained Bess to be an elite hound, but trying to follow the scent of someone in a moving vehicle would be near impossible. Even so, it might be useful later for Bess to know who they were hunting. She pulled out her phone and opened up a map of the district. She stared at the streets and roads, trying to figure out which way the woman might have gone.

  ‘Cool dog.’

  She looked up. The boy from the berry stand was walking up, grinning, watching Bess as she prowled around the stall. He was tall, confident, arrogant even, his eyes a fierce blue and his arms already starting to bulge with man muscles. Kritta’s head rarely turned to men, but this boy had an innate darkness behind his dazzling smile that intrigued her.

  He walked over to Bess and put out his hand to pat her. ‘Careful,’ Kritta said, smiling disarmingly. ‘She’ll rip your hand off soon as look at you.’

  The boy laughed. ‘Sweet. No point having a dog without attitude.’ But he quickly withdrew his hand.

  She liked him straight up. I could gobble you up and lick your bones, she thought.

  ‘You looking for the Lennoxes?’ he asked, his steel blue eyes riveting hers.

  ‘Yeah, you know where they’ve gone?’

  ‘I think the girl came down sick. That’s what we heard. Must be bad because it’s not like them to just drop everything and leave. I’ve been doing their sales all day. They made a heap of money.’

  ‘What’s your name?’ Kritta asked, taking in his every detail.

  ‘Kevin Johnstone. They call me KJ.’

  ‘KJ. That’s a cool name.’ Their height difference required her to crane her neck. ‘I’m Kritta,’ she said, extending her hand. ‘I’m a friend of the family.’

  ‘Pleased to meet you.’ They shook hands. He looked down at her leathers appreciatively. ‘You ride a bike?’

  ‘Got it in one, sweet pea. Zero to a hundred in four point two.’

  ‘Wow.’ Kevin’s eyes lit up. His grin widened.

  Girl, you’re here to find the woman and her kid, Kritta thought, not to flirt with some hunky schoolboy. ‘If you like, later, I’ll take you for a ride. She can hit one-eighty if I stretch her out.’

  ‘No way! That would be awesome.’

  ‘Hi there!’

  Kritta turned to see the boy’s father walking up. Tall too, and lean for his age, with thinning silver hair and his son’s striking blue eyes. ‘Can I help you?’ he asked.

  ‘Just saying, I’m a family friend of the Lennoxes, and I was hoping to catch up with them today. Driven all the way from San Diego, but it seems they’ve up and left all of a sudden. Real shame because we were going to have lunch together after the market. You wouldn’t happen to know where they mighta gone, would you?’

  ‘I got a call from Angela not so long ago,’ the gentleman said. ‘Her daughter’s come down sick. Went to the hospital.’

  ‘Which hospital?’ Kritta was certain the girl wasn’t sick, but she had to play along.

  ‘Not sure. She didn’t say. But unless it’s something real serious they most probably went back home.’ The boy’s father looked her over, his eyes lingering on all her knives in their pouches. ‘You know where they live, I take it?’

  ‘Yeah I know where they live.’

  ‘Good. I hope you find her,’ he said, and turned and walk­ed back to his stall. Kevin hung back. He was curious about these biker chicks, especially the tiny one with the knives pouched around her waist. She reeked of trouble. He liked that.

  ‘So why are you after them?’ he asked, unleashing his devastating smile.

  Kritta was momentarily disarmed. Because behind his smile was a dangerous curiosity. ‘After them? What makes you think I’m after them?’ she asked, guardedly.

  ‘Come on. Family friend? There’s no way Lily and her mom would have family friends like you guys,’ he said, glancing at Andi and Bess, and laughing. ‘Not meaning any disrespect,’ he added. ‘So what have they done?’

  ‘You know the girl?’

  ‘Yeah, sure. We go to the same school.’

  ‘You got her number?’ Kritta’s eyes glittered. If she could get the girl’s number, she could track them.

  ‘I can get it,’ he said, then asked pointedly, ‘but what can you do for me?’

  The balls of this kid, she thought, trying to bargain with me. Doesn’t he realise I could slice him open faster than he could pop a can of beer?

  ‘What can I do for you?’ She considered the question, then smiled slyly. Her eyes darted up to his, challenging him. ‘I can take you into the dark so deep you won’t ever want to see the light again.’

  Kevin grinned. ‘Now you’re talking.’

  Kritta whisked a stiletto knife from out of a pouch, grabb­ed his arm and pulled up his shirt sleeve, then scratched her phone number into his forearm. Kevin didn’t flinch. In fact, he smiled as she sliced into his flesh, the pain intense.

  She wiped his blood
off the thin blade. ‘Get her number for me,’ she said, ‘and call me. Then maybe I’ll introduce you to the dark. The deep dark.’ She laughed. A high shrill sound, devoid of any semblance of joy or delight.

  Kevin nodded, gave her a blast of smile again, then turned and walked back to his stall, his arm throbbing with the pain of his wounds.

  He rolled down his sleeve to cover the cuts, and joined his father in packing up. Those three girls, he thought, were seriously scary dudes. Especially the tiny one. So why did they want Lily? What’s she done to make them come after her? It must be something really bad. Which was intriguing, because he’d never thought of Lily as a bad girl. In fact, he’d never thought much about her at all. But suddenly, she was all he could think about.

  When Lily woke, the room was dark, it was night outside, and she didn’t know where she was. Then she remembered. The three biker women, the rush from the market, the motel, the takeaway lunch, chatting with her mom, then falling asleep.

  She looked across the darkened room to her mom’s bed.

  It was empty.

  She jumped up, her heart racing.

  ‘Mom?’ she called out, hoping she might be in the bathroom, even though the light was off. No answer. She looked at her watch – it was 7.32 p.m. She frantically searched for her phone, found it on the bench near the grocery bags, and with shaking hands she called her number. The call went straight to voicemail. She listened to her mother’s cheery message, waited for the beep, then tried to sound casual, as if nothing was wrong.

  ‘Mom, hi, it’s me. Where are you? Call me, please. Love you.’ She hung up. Her breathing was fast, shallow.

  There’s no need to freak out, she thought. She’s probably just gone to get some more groceries for a late-night snack, that’s all. And she’s switched her phone off again because of her paranoia that she’ll be tracked. Maybe she’s gone back to the farm, to get some stuff.

  She turned on the overhead fluoro. Harsh bright light flooded the room. She turned it off, went to her bed, turned on the table lamp. She could feel her heart thumping in her chest. Her mouth was dry. There’s nothing to worry about, she thought. She’s just slipped off somewhere without waking me because she knew she’d only be out a short while.