Shivering, Ellie took the towel from him and wrapped it around her shoulders. While the wind had picked up and the air had cooled—as it so often did just before sun slipped into the Tasman Sea—Ellie was not cold. She was shaking for some other reason. A hot and dangerous energy began to cook in Lozza’s chest. She felt her jaw tighten.
“G’day, mate,” Lozza said as she hooked her towel around her neck.
“Who’s your friend, Ellie?” Martin said without acknowledging Lozza.
Angry. Dangerous.
“This is Lozza,” she said very quietly. “She’s a cop.”
Martin’s gaze snapped to Lozza. He regarded her for a moment, his features inscrutable.
“Lozza, this is Martin,” Ellie said.
Martin smiled. His canines were pointed. It was the coldest smile Lozza had ever seen.
“Lozza Bianchi.” She held out her hand. Martin glanced at Lozza’s hand but did not take it.
“Martin Cresswell-Smith,” he said. “I’m Ellie’s husband.”
And there it was, some sort of battle line drawn in the soft Jarrawarra dune sand between Lozza the cop and this dangerous-looking man who Lozza realized must be the developer of the Agnes Basin project. She’d seen that name on the signs.
She noticed his ring. While Ellie was not wearing a wedding band, Martin sported what looked like a platinum ring inset with a bloodred stone. A ruby, if the fancy bronze Rolex on the man’s wrist was anything to go by.
Lozza lowered her rejected hand, and a sinister taste crawled up her throat. She glanced at Ellie. But Ellie turned away, no longer willing to meet Lozza’s eyes.
Terrified. Doesn’t want to displease her husband.
A soft, steady drum began in Lozza’s heart. This woman was not in a safe place. Wind shifted and gusted hard. Lozza could smell smoke from a distant wildfire.
“You okay, Ellie?” she asked.
“Yeah, yeah, fine.”
She still wouldn’t meet Lozza’s eyes.
Lozza lingered. The man watched her.
“Come, Maya,” she said quietly.
Martin and Ellie remained silent as they took their leave.
As Lozza and Maya made their way up through the dunes, Maya said, “He’s scary. He’s a bad man.”
“Yeah. He is.”
THEN
LOZZA
As Lozza drove home with Maya, their boards strapped onto the roof, she chewed on her lip and turned over in her mind the enigma that was Ellie and Martin Cresswell-Smith. The woman’s bruises. How terrified she’d acted when she’d spotted her husband in the dunes. How he’d controlled her. The look in his eyes.
The woman was in trouble.
But where did Lozza’s cop boundaries lie between interfering without official reason and her own deep-down personal drivers around domestic abuse? Of all people, Lozza needed to walk the line carefully. The reason she’d been demoted was because she’d acted badly in response to violence. She’d used violence herself.
The reason the social workers had finally allowed her to adopt Maya was because Lozza had gone to great effort to demonstrate that her slate was clean and to show she could be a responsible and nurturing single mother to a child who herself had been orphaned by domestic violence.
Lozza had only to slip slightly and there were people who’d see to it she was stripped of her badge after what had happened on the murder squad.
She shot a glance at Maya, who was fiddling with the radio in search of a new tune. She owed it to her kid to keep her job, to keep her reputation sterling. She owed it to Maya to be a good example as a human being. And the one thing Lozza was realizing was that more than anything in this world, she wanted a happy home, a warm home for her daughter. She wanted Maya to live in a world where there was no violence. Where she didn’t have to hide under a bed and be scared.
Lozza turned her car onto the road that took them past the Puggo. The place was hopping, and through the open car windows came the mouthwatering scent of burgers cooking on the barbie. Her stomach grumbled—surfing always built up her appetite.
Lozz slowed, checking the cars parked outside to see who was there. She half expected to find her partner’s truck outside. The Puggo was Gregg’s second home. It was also ground zero for gossip. A thought struck Lozza.
If anyone would know anything about the Cresswell-Smiths, it would be Rabz.
“Hey, Maya, how about takeout burgers off the barbie and chips instead of warmed-up pizza?”
“Are you serious?”
“Yes.”
“Can we get extra chips?”
Lozza grinned. “You betcha.” She found a parking space along the curb farther down the road beneath a giant lilly pilly tree. The Puggo was a licensed establishment, not a place for minors, but while she waited at the bar for the takeaways, she could quiz Rabz, or whoever else was in there. “You okay to wait here?” she asked Maya.
“Are you kidding? For burgers and chips?”
Lozza left Maya in the car listening to an audiobook and hurried up the street. She passed a beat-up dirt bike parked a few vehicles behind hers. It didn’t look roadworthy, and she took note of the Queensland registration. Cop habits died hard. Her stomach grumbled audibly as she climbed the stairs to the Puggo veranda, and she reckoned she’d order extra chips for herself as well.
Lozza pushed through the PVC strip curtain and entered the pub. Her eyes adjusted and her spirits lifted with the boisterous atmosphere.
No sign of Rabz.
Instead, there was a new guy working the bar—young and tanned, with long dreads and a happy face. He was chatting and laughing with two women bellied up to the counter. Sue and Mitzi. Old-timers from the local board riders club. She went up to the bar, said hello to the women, and placed her order with the young barkeep. He called it into the kitchen.
“Rabz not working tonight?” she asked him.
“She’s away in Sydney,” said the bartender. “Won’t be back for another week or so.”
Mitzi and Sue were yabbering about the greenies in a booth in the
