were plenty of witnesses.” Bob was fascinated by the sight of Chloe looking like a porcelain doll in the Chief arms. He had to be dreaming all of it. “I can find you someone to speak to,” he offered.
McGuire laughed. “So there’s magic in you, Cavanagh.” Just holding her made him feel bedazzled. “Magic to move people. Catch them if you have to. That has to be the reason. It’s also quite possible you two screwballs dreamed the whole thing up.”
Bob looked shocked. “We’ve got too much respect for you, Chief, to waste your time.”
McGuire looked down at Chloe, noting every nuance of her expression. The scent of her was in his nostrils; honeysuckle, golden wattle, the fragrance of Spring.
“Chief,” she said, exasperated. She knew he could hear her unsteady breathing. Those smouldering black eyes zooming in on the telltale rise and fall of her breast.
“This is where it all falls apart, Bob. Cavanagh couldn’t possibly break the fall of a ten-year-old boy. You know it I know it.”
“What happened was a miracle,” Bob proclaimed like a convert.
“Nope. You’re just mad.” McGuire lowered Chloe to her feet, keeping his hand on her shoulder for a moment as though recognising she was very fluttery. “Sorry, you two. Got to run. You might like to be there when the jury returns a verdict on the Chandler case. I’ve just had a tip-off it could be late this afternoon.”
“Does this mean you still trust us?” Chloe challenged.
McGuire looked back over his shoulder, gave a twisted grin. “Sure, Cavanagh. What you obviously need is a good night’s sleep.”
“I guess you could call it mass hysteria,” Bob said later.
Chloe looked away from him. She could still feel McGuire’s strong muscular arms wrapping her body. She could still feel the shock waves, the chemistry as old as time, the brush of heat. It shamed her. “Let’s put it out of our minds,” she advised. We have to concentrate on the Chandler job. It has to be guilty.”
“There’s always a shock verdict, Chloe.” Bob sighed. “I’ve discovered that. Hang on a minute and I’ll get another tape. There must have been something wrong with the other one.”
CHAPTER TWO
BEFORE she left Friday, Chloe popped her head around the door of McGuire’s office. He was on the phone and he gave her a quick warning look: Don’t interrupt.
“Right, what is it?” he gritted when he finished what was clearly an aggravating call.
Unbelievable! Why had she accepted his offer to drive her to the party?
“I wasn’t sure if you knew where I lived.”
“Piece of cake, I’ve run past the house several times.”
“Whatever for?”
He looked back at her, a tight smile at the corner of his mouth. “Why not? I like to know all I can about the staff. Bit big for you, isn’t it?” It was a beautiful old Colonial, the family home, he had since been told, but it had to be a drain on her resources, physical and financial.
“I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else,” she said simply.
He was sympathetic to that. “So see you, then.”
“Fine. Wonderful.” She backed out quickly, muttering under her breath. Maybe he would be in a better mood tomorrow. If not she would simply call a cab.
Saturday morning found her shopping for the week’s supplies. Nothing much. She lived on fresh fruit and salads. She bought ham and cheese from the delicatessen, a roast chicken, a couple of loaves of bread she could pop into the freezer. There was no time to cook.
Mostly she didn’t have the inclination. Not after long hours on the job. Occasionally she and her friends went out to dinner when she made up for the slight deprivations. Early afternoon was spent in the garden trying to bring some semblance of order to the large grounds she was gradually turning to low-maintenance native plants. Her mother had adored her garden. So had her father when he had the time. Now they were both gone from this place.
A sense of loss beat down on Chloe but she tried to fight it back. In the early days after the double tragedy, she had experienced an overwhelming debilitating grief, a sense of futility and emptiness. How could she live without her father and mother? But when her mother had come out of the coma and into a waking dream state Chloe had started to fight back. She wanted to be around when her mother was returned to full life, even when the doctors told her day after day that was never going to happen.
Her skin glistening with tears, Chloe dug in a flowerbed overflowing with daisies, petunias, pink and white impatiens, double pelargoniums with a thick border of lobelia. A magnificent Iceberg rose climbed all over the brick wall that separated the house from their neigh-bour’s, spilling its radiance all over the garden. Her mother loved white in the garden, the snow white of azaleas, candytuft, the masses and masses of windflowers she used to plant. The azaleas continued to bloom prolifically in Spring but she couldn’t afford the time for all the rest. Eventually she supposed she would have to sell the house. McGuire was right. It was too big. Once they had been very comfortably placed. Not rich, but her father had been a well-established specialist physician. Now money was going out at a frightening rate. It worried her dreadfully she might have to shift her mother from her nursing home. “Jacaranda Hill” was one of the very best, a large converted mansion with beautiful grounds and a reputation for excellent care. Chloe couldn’t fault the way her mother was being looked after, but it was very expensive.
Mid-afternoon found her pushing her mother’s wheelchair across the nursing home’s lawn, finding a lovely shady spot under one of the many magnificent blossoming jacarandas that gave the nursing home its name. A man-made lake had been constructed some years back in a low-lying area of the garden, now its undulating edge was totally obscured by the lush planting of water iris, lilies, ferns and ornamental aquatic grasses. A small section of the large pool was taken up with beautiful cream waterlilies but the important thing for the patients was the sparkle and reflection of the water, the way the breeze rippled over its surface, marking the green with molten silver.
Chloe in jeans and a simple T-shirt sat on the grass beside her mother’s chair, holding lovingly to her mother’s quiet unresponsive hand. Strangely, despite all evidence to the contrary, Chloe never had the feeling her mother didn’t recognise her, though the blue eyes so like her own seemed to be looking into the next world already. Totally without fear, but inturned. Maybe she was seeing visions, Chloe thought. Maybe she was in spirit with her husband and son, or there could be dozens of responses trapped inside her head. Chloe never saw her intense dedication to her mother as a duty. Being there was simply a measure of her love. As always on her visits, Chloe told her mother what was happening in her life. She spoke as though her mother was fully present and as interested in what Chloe had to say as she had been in the old days when life was full of sparkle and neither had questioned the happiness and stability of their family life. She spoke about her ongoing dealings with McGuire, what she was doing around the house and garden, her various assignments and, of course, the extraordinary incident of the day before. The really odd thing was, Chloe’s own memory of it was beginning to blur. She had to really concentrate before it all faded.
“I don’t believe I was holding
