She paced for a bit longer, talking to herself, going over everything out loud as she’d always done when there was too much inside her bursting to get out. She couldn’t go anywhere until it was back inside where it needed to be. She was Carter’s mum. She was the community’s doctor. She had responsibilities. She was going to live up to them. No man, no stupid bloody threatening caller, no bullying local, was going to make her give up what she had decided to do. She was good at deciding things and sticking to them. She’d decided to become a doctor and despite everything her teachers and family said, she’d become one, a good one. She’d decided to marry Chandra to help him out and allow her to escape her mother’s family’s incessant attempts to set her up with one family friend after another, and she’d done that. She’d set her sights on working for charities that needed doctors to go to the world’s dangerous and needy places, and she’d done that. Then she’d decided to become a mum to Carter, to create a home for them and set up her own business that she could run how she saw fit and wasn’t tied to any other person’s ideals of what she should concentrate on. And she was damn well going to do that.
She would apologise to Flynn and his family and make amends and do everything she could to get past this horrible night. This horrible last month. Goddamned birthdays. From now on, it didn’t matter what anyone said, she was ignoring hers ever existed.
She wiped her hands down her shorts. Right. She couldn’t go back to Nat and Reid’s tonight. She was still too upset. But tomorrow, when she went to pick Carter up, she would make her apologies, eat all the humble pie she needed to, and then she was just going to get on with things. That’s all she could do.
But first, she was going to go to the police and make her report. It would probably make no difference, but at least it was a step towards doing something positive, and she needed that right now.
She got back in the car and drove towards Wilson’s Bend and Rawson where the police station was. She was halfway down the main street of Wilson’s Bend when she realised there was a faint smell of smoke in the air. It thickened as she drove towards the end of town, where her house was.
She slowed down as she got close to the house. Light was flickering in the front of the house. What the hell? She slowed to a stop and sat there staring for a moment, not comprehending what she saw.
Fire.
Her office was on fire.
Before she could think about it, she jumped out of the car and raced down the side of the house to the back door, ringing 000 as she ran. ‘Fire. There’s a fire at my clinic. Wilson’s Bend Health Matters. Send a truck.’
She hung up as she rounded the corner of the house and ran up onto the back porch and stopped.
Something was lying on the mat at the back door. Something bloody and smelly and covered in blowflies. She might have thought it was another gift from Machiavelli except it was too big, the size of a possum and above the bloody, massacred body, someone had written in its blood on the glossy white paint of her back door, ‘You’re next, bitch!’
Oh god.
She needed to do something. Take photos or something, except, her office was on fire. She’d deal with this later. Her house was on fire. If she waited for the fire truck, it would be too late. She grabbed the hose beside the back door, turned it onto full, and went to pull her key out, her hand trembling as she tried to slot it into the keyhole.
The door swung open. It was then she noticed the doorframe was damaged and the glass beside the door was broken. She’d been too focused on the dead possum and the fire inside to notice the evidence of a break in.
‘No, no!’
She stepped inside, broken glass crunching under her sandals. Tears of rage burned in her eyes as she bent to pick up the broken photo frame, the one of her and Carter that Nat had snapped just after she’d told him she’d bought them a house. It hadn’t only been dropped on the floor, someone had stamped on the frame, busting it and damaging the photo within.
All the rage and hurt she’d just pushed down came roaring back to the surface. She was going to get this fucker. But first, she had to save her house. She put the photo frame down and, firming her grip on the hose, took a step forward.
Someone came barrelling out of the hallway and smacked into her, knocking her into the wall. Her scream cut off as the breath was punched from her lungs. She lurched forward, trying to catch the person before they ran out the door, but stars spun before her eyes and they disappeared into the darkness as she grabbed a hold of the doorframe, desperate to stay upright. ‘Bastard!’ she wheezed out.
She massaged her bruised stomach and diaphragm where his elbow had connected, trying to breathe, to get moving. She had to move, because when the hall door opened, smoke had billowed out and she could see the flames now, the orange glow of them, at the end of the hallway. If she didn’t try to put them out soon, it would be too late. There were oxygen tanks in the storeroom and if the fire reached them, they would explode.
Breathing past the pain, she picked up the hose she’d dropped on the floor when the bastard had smashed into her and ran up the hall, intent on saving her home.
Chapter 13
Flynn had lasted out almost forty-five minutes until he couldn’t stand it anymore. Despite Nat and his mum and
