Chapter Seventeen
“So where to?” Lachlan asked a few minutes later when they were settled in his car. April clicked in her seatbelt and gave him directions out of town.
“Are we going anywhere in particular?”
“I figured since you’re here, you might want to see some of the local attractions.”
“Sightseeing? You’re taking me sightseeing?”
“Just one site actually. Magnetic Hill. It takes about half an hour to get there. It’s in the middle of nowhere, it’s usually deserted and it’s worth a look to say you’ve done it.” Her tone was conversational and she casually sipped her coffee when she was done, so it took a moment for her words to sink in.
“It’s usually deserted and in the middle of nowhere? Should I be worried for my safety?”
She grinned in response, and his heart lightened somewhat.
“So what’s so special about this place?”
“Nothing really, it was just the first place I could think of that wasn’t anywhere near the town.”
“Of course.” The levity in the air disappeared instantly and Lachlan felt as if he’d been kicked in the stomach. “You don’t want to be seen with me. How could I forget?”
“No, it’s not like that.” She pushed her palm hard against her forehead as if she felt a headache brewing.
“So what’s it like?”
Not surprisingly, she didn’t speak and Lachlan stared at the view in front of him. On either side of the road, rolling green hills interspersed with wide valleys, some with sheep, some with cattle, stretched out as far as the eye could see, a light mist shrouding them eerily in a winter haze. Every so often a stone ruin telling the story of a long-dead pioneer would appear and Lachlan had to resist the urge to pull over and explore. Anything to escape the tension in the car. Although she’d said it would only be half an hour, the drive seemed to drag on until finally April pointed to the turn-off and soon after they came to a hill with a giant magnet sign on it.
“Stop the car, turn the engine off, put it in neutral and slowly take your foot of the brake,” she said when they were halfway up the hill.
Lachlan followed her instructions, fully expecting the car to roll downhill. When the car began to move, he looked across to April and it was only when he looked past her to the roadside fence that he realised the car wasn’t rolling downhill. It was moving uphill.
“That’s incredible.” He swung his head around to look from the other side.
“I knew you’d like it.” April grinned in delight. “It’s a natural optical illusion, the surrounding landscape makes the hill look like its running downhill but it’s actually going slightly uphill. It’s still pretty cool though.”
Lachlan couldn’t help returning her grin. He felt like a little kid at a science museum. After admiring the phenomenon for a few moments, he pressed his foot on the brake, put the car in gear and pulled the handbrake. Then he reached out to take her hand.
“You were right.”
“Right about what?”
“This place is deserted and it’s in the middle of nowhere.”
The smile dropped off her face and she sucked in her lower lip causing havoc with his body. “Come on,” he said suddenly, reaching for the door lever. “Let’s take a walk.”
Standing on the hill, the icy wind bit into his skin and he grabbed his jacket from the back seat and put it on. April had also climbed out of the car and was rubbing the chill off her arms when he came around, so he wrapped Ben’s jacket across her shoulders and she quickly slipped her arms in, tossing him a grateful smile in the process. “Thanks,” she said.
He laced his fingers through hers and tucked her hand into his pocket as they walked a short distance up the hill. All around them, all they could see were green covered hills in every direction and some sheep grazing a short way off. Even Lachlan had to admit there was no point exploring any further and so, when they came to a large boulder at the side of the road, he sat down and drew April to sit between his legs, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her back against his chest. Willingly, she leaned into his embrace.
They sat in silence, watching the distant trees dancing in the wind, until he finally spoke up. “So, you got me here, what do you want to tell me?”
Her body tensed and she tried to pull away, but he held her firmly.
“Come on April, I saw your face in the kitchen when you suggested we come for a drive. I figured you didn’t want to talk in front of Marie.” He paused, but when it was clear she wasn’t going to say anything further, he plunged ahead with the only question that made sense. “Does this all have something to do with the death of your parents? Is that why you’re hiding in Peters Junction.”
By her sharp intake of breath and the stiffness in her back, Lachlan figured he’d hit on a nerve. “Please April, I want to understand. How did they die?”
“Murdered,” she whispered, barely loud enough for him to hear. Lachlan didn’t dare say anything, he didn’t even breathe for fear he would disturb her and she wouldn’t say anything else. But his worries were for nothing because she took a deep, steadying breath and began talking. Every word she spoke crept into him until his insides felt as icy as the air on his cheeks.
“It was the week after my sixteenth birthday and I was helping mum chop the carrots for dinner. Marie was washing the lettuce and splashing water all over the floor.” Her voice gained strength as she spoke. “We were laughing and Mum was telling me she had a surprise for me, but she wouldn’t tell me what it was until Dad came in from his workshop in the backyard and we were all sitting down for dinner. I kept begging her to tell me what the surprise was, but she refused. Then out of nowhere there was a loud banging on our front door and Barry, my dad’s best friend, was yelling for my mother to open the door. She grabbed my sister and shoved her into my arms, ordering me to lock myself in the bathroom.” April shifted in his arms and he tightened his grip around her, offering her strength and comfort. Taking another deep breath, she leaned back into his chest and continued.
“‘Look after your sister. Look after Marie,’” April continued, her voice breaking as the first tears began flowing down her cheeks. Lachlan kissed the top of her head but didn’t interrupt. “Those were the last word my mother ever said to me. I dragged Marie to the bathroom, locking the door behind us and then did my best to keep her quiet. She was crying, but she was so brave and she hardly made a sound. In the kitchen I could hear Mum and Barry arguing, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying. Still, I covered Marie’s ears so she wouldn’t have to listen. Then Mum screamed and Dad was shouting. He must have come in from the backyard. I heard some glass breaking and then everything went quiet. So quiet. Then the front door banged and I thought at any moment Mum or Dad would knock on the door and tell us it was okay to come out. But they never came.”
She broke down in sobs then, her body slamming back into his chest with every gut-wrenching cry. Still Lachlan held her, silently waiting for her to finish.
“He’d stabbed Mum twice in the chest with the knife I’d been using to chop the carrots,” April continued when she managed to regain control of herself. “She died quickly, they told me later. He’d hit her heart and it didn’t take long for her to bleed out. But Dad…” Her voice broke again but she continued and Lachlan had to struggle to understand her. “Dad was stabbed seventeen times, but none of them were immediately fatal and he slowly bled to death.
“Two hours I stayed in that bathroom.” She grunted as if the pain was physical. “Two hours it took for me to work up enough courage to open the door and by that time he was dead. He’d dragged himself over to my mother and died lying next to her on the kitchen floor. Holding her hand.”
She turned in his arms and cried into his chest. For a long time they just sat there, April crying, Lachlan rubbing her back and struggling to keep his own tears at bay. What she’d seen, the things she’d been through…he’d give anything to take away her pain.
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“If I’d come out sooner, I could have helped him,” she sobbed, pulling back slightly. “Or if I’d just taken the phone into the bathroom with me, I could have called for help. It was sitting right there on the kitchen bench, next to the chopping board. I should have just picked it up.”
“Shh, you can’t think like that,” Lachlan soothed kissing her forehead. “You did exactly what your Mum said, you took care of Marie. And you’ve never stopped.”
Lachlan couldn’t imagine the horrors she’d seen, the idea that she could lose both her parents in such a horrific manner and to witness the aftermath tore at his heart. Surprisingly his words made her pause and she managed to pull herself together a little bit so that Lachlan felt okay about asking he next question. “Did they catch him? Barry?”
“He was arrested two days later. He was passed out drunk in the back of his car on the Gold Coast. He said it was an accident, that he loved my mum, but she wouldn’t leave Dad and he just got angry. He said he couldn’t even remember stabbing my dad.” A hollow laugh escaped her. “To the rest of Australia the story was gold, a three-way love triangle that ended in tragedy. For weeks, I had reporters tracking me down, trying to get me to talk to them. Then when Barry was found hanging dead in his cell, it was like swimming with sharks during a feeding frenzy. It was the icing on the cake and they refused to leave us alone. Pigs,” she spat. “All of them.”
“So that’s why you don’t want anything to do with them,” he said, almost to himself. April stiffened in his arms but he tightened his embrace until she relaxed again.
He understood now why she’d run away to Peters Junction and why she took such pains to keep her name out of the media. She didn’t want any astute reporter who recognised their names to come looking into their lives. Even now, a murder that sensational would make headlines if she came forward with her story.
“Have you ever talked to anyone about this? To Marie?” he asked when she pulled away and scrubbed her cheeks.
April shook her head, her eyes unfocused and her breathing shallow, as if she was reliving every gory detail. Unable to face it, but equally unable to turn away. “By the time I came out of the bathroom, Marie had fallen asleep and I left her on the bathroom floor. I couldn’t let her see what I saw so after I’d called the police I went back to her and waited and when they took us away, it was out the laundry door at the back of the house. She still had nightmares though, every night for months, and I just couldn’t bring myself to add to her terror. The older she got, the harder it became to talk about.”
“So you’ve been carrying this around for ten years?”
Nodding, April straightened her spine and stood up, then held out her hand to him. “I’m starving, let’s see what Marie packed for lunch.”