Long-Lost Son Read online

  A young woman appeared along the wide wooden boardwalk seconds after the helicopter had taken off, professionally smiling and perky, summoned by one of Andrew’s radio codes. Hospitality staff? He told her, ‘Help Mr Marshall and his son with everything they need to do to pack and check out and get the boat, would you, Lauren?’

  She nodded and introduced herself to Jason and Josh, then led them in the direction of their cabin, making shocked and soothing sounds when she heard their story.

  As soon as Lauren and the Marshalls had gone, Luke said quietly to Andrew, ‘Something needs to be done about the bird, and we’re hoping that doesn’t just mean a hunt and a bullet.’

  ‘I’ve been trying to contact Ben Chandler, the head ranger on Wallaby Island, to get his advice. There are only three rangers in North Queensland qualified to handle injured cassowaries, and fortunately he’s one of them. This is beyond the realm of our aviary staff. He’s supposed to be calling me back. Most of the island’s shut down over there because of cyclone damage, but I know he’s around, and he’s good.’

  ‘Working around the clock, I imagine.’

  ‘Aren’t we all? I’m sure he won’t want the bird killed if we can possibly avoid it, because they’re a protected species and numbers have dropped dangerously low in the wild. Let me get back to my office and see if we’ve heard from him yet. It’s around the corner of the building from the medical centre, if you want to check back in a little while. Or you can phone from the mainland later on and I’ll give you an update.’

  ‘Thanks, Andrew.’ After he’d gone, Luke turned to Janey. ‘Should we head back? That five o’clock boat we planned on taking is leaving soon.’ The dazzling heat and colour had just begun to fade, and the air felt cooler. There was a fresh breeze blowing. It would be lovely out on the water.

  She nodded. ‘I guess that makes sense.’

  But when they told Rowdy about the plan his little face went tight and pale, even though he only nodded. Janey couldn’t stand to see the defeat and resignation in his face. She bent to his level. ‘You don’t want to go back yet, do you? You want to wait and see if Elke is safe first.’

  He burst into tears. ‘She can’t die. I don’t want her to die.’

  ‘Oh, sweetheart…’ Suddenly Janey was crying too, aching for him.

  ‘Mum died…’

  ‘I know, and we’re all sad about it, and there hasn’t been—’ Her voice caught ‘—time to cry.’

  ‘I didn’t say goodbye to her.’

  To that, there were no words.

  The two of them hugged hard, and then Luke was there, too, crouching down with his arms hard and warm around both of them, his strong shoulders shuddering and his lips pressed tight together. Rowdy cried and cried and cried, and neither Janey nor Luke tried to stop him or tried to say anything of comfort, because the best thing seemed to be just this.

  Holding each other.

  Letting the tears come, for as along as they wanted.

  If they earned a few curious or concerned glances from people passing by, they didn’t care.

  When it was finally over, they all felt a little better. Rowdy said, ‘We can help them with Elke. I want to.’

  ‘What do you think we could do, sweetheart?’ Janey asked.

  ‘We could show them the place where she ran into the rainforest. We could follow her tracks.’

  ‘Let me talk about it with Luke.’ She straightened and stood, not knowing what to do, needing Luke’s input. ‘Want to have another look in the gift shop while we do that?’ she asked Rowdy.

  ‘OK.’

  They walked back to the sprawl of the main resort building and let him wander in the gift shop on his own, keeping an eye on him from where they stood on the deck just outside the gift-shop door.

  ‘It’s important to him,’ Luke said. ‘Pretty obvious why.’

  ‘Because he needs a happy ending. But if it ends badly, if they can’t find her or if they do have to destroy her, will it make things worse?’

  ‘Except maybe it’s not a happy ending he needs,’ he said slowly. ‘Maybe it’s just an ending, a clean, unequivocal one, the kind he never got with Alice.’

  ‘Even if it’s a bad ending?’ She searched his face. ‘If they decide to put Elke down? Are we prepared to take that risk?’

  ‘I don’t see that we have a choice. He’ll want to know the truth, whether he’s there to witness it or not. And I don’t think we should try to hide the truth from him.’

  ‘No, you’re right, we can’t do that.’

  ‘If those women at Mundarri—I know they meant well but if they’d been clearer to him about the truth of Alice’s death, he would have had an easier time. He would have been able to ask questions instead of believing he had to bottle them all up. Janey, I think we have to stay on here until we have an answer for him.’

  She nodded, and he took her hands and squeezed them, then bent his head to rest on her shoulder for a moment. His cheek brushed against hers, but he didn’t kiss her. Neither of them spoke. She didn’t know what the moment meant but valued it anyway just because, as always, connecting with him seemed to keep her feet on solid ground.

  They collected Rowdy from the gift shop and headed for the resort office to find Andrew. He met them halfway, striding at a rapid pace, with his walkie-talkie pressed to his ear. When he saw them, he said, ‘There’s been another sighting, and Ben is already on his way by boat from Wallaby Island. He has a vet with him. She’s been helping him with the injured wildlife, and she’s had experience with cassowaries, too.’

  ‘Where was Elke seen?’

  ‘There’s a birdwatching hide at the end of a walking loop that runs off the rainforest trail. Ben thinks she might be drawn to human contact because she was raised in captivity. She associates people with food. A couple of serious parrot botherers spotted her through their binoculars and saw that she was hurt.’

  ‘Parrot botherers?’

  ‘Amateur birdwatchers. But she disappeared into the rainforest again. Ben reckons it’ll be bloody hard to catch her if she doesn’t want to be found. We’ve closed all three trails now. We gave each of them a sweep by vehicle and got people to cut short their hikes and head back, but the birdwatchers had gone off the trail in search of a cross-eyed, red-belted fig-whistler—’

  ‘That’s not a real bird name!’ Rowdy whispered to Janey indignantly.

  ‘And we missed them. Let me show you on the map, and you can tell me how the location relates to where you saw her. Ben should be here very soon, and I’d like to have something concrete to tell him about where to start looking.’

  He led the way to the big, colourful map board that showed the whole resort, complete with stylised palm trees, pictures of cabins and boat-launching places, and even a mermaid splashing her tail in the water.

  ‘This can’t be drawn to scale,’ Luke said.

  ‘No, it isn’t. I hate these things. I like real maps, with a scale and contour lines and grid references. But those don’t make the resort look so pretty and interesting.’ He pointed on the map to something that looked like a grass hut. ‘Here’s the birdwatching hide. It has windows covering an outlook of 270 degrees, and the birdwatchers reckon they were looking in this direction.’ He made an angled line with his hand.

  ‘That’s back towards where we must have been on the mountain trail when Elke attacked Sam.’

  ‘Show me the spot.’

  ‘Here.’ Luke pointed. ‘Janey, Rowdy, do you reckon?’

  ‘We crossed a bridge over a little creek, with rocks,’ Rowdy said.

  ‘You’re right, we did, I’d forgotten. So if that’s accurate—’ he pointed to the stylised picture of a bridge, surrounded by tree ferns ‘—then we were a bit further than I said. About here.’

  Andrew circled his finger over the map. ‘And this is pretty thick rainforest, all through here, between the trail and the hide. So maybe she’s taken up residence somewhere in there.’

  ‘She might like the cree
k,’ Rowdy said.

  ‘She might. And Ben could use it for access, because it runs right through the centre of the rainforest and the vegetation gets dense in there.’

  ‘That’s great, Rowdy.’

  ‘Can we come, too?’ he asked.

  Janey and Luke exchanged looks. She pressed her lips together and gave an imperceptible shake of her head. Her memory of the cassowary kicking Sam so viciously with that razor-sharp claw, more than six inches long, was too fresh and real. She didn’t want to go back on that trail with a child, even with other adults around. Those little buggies didn’t offer much protection.

  ‘I think he needs to do this, Janey,’ Luke said quietly.

  She shook her head harder. ‘No.’

  ‘And he might be of real help. He’s observant, and he knows his birds.’

  ‘No, Luke, I—’

  He turned to Andrew. ‘How about if we take a ride to the bird hide in one of those buggies and watch from there? And if you had a spare walkie-talkie for us? She might get flushed back to that spot if she’s disturbed in the thicker forest.’ He dropped his voice. ‘Janey? Good compromise? We’ll all be safe in the hide, but he’ll be genuinely involved, too.’

  This time she nodded. ‘Thanks. I was over-reacting, I guess.’

  ‘Believe me, I knew what you were thinking.’

  ‘We’d appreciate the help,’ Andrew said. ‘I don’t want to create a panic through the whole resort by turning this into a major search, but we have to find her. If we don’t by morning then we’ll have to close the place down. Even with the trails off limits, the risk is too great now that we know that she can and will seek out human contact and then attack so viciously.’

  ‘You have somewhere to put her?’

  ‘Fred’s doing fine in his temporary cage. We have a crew starting tomorrow, getting the aviary back in operation.’ He looked out at the water, where an official-looking motor launch was speeding towards the dock. ‘That’s Ben and the vet. Let’s get this sorted.’

  It was quiet and still in the hide, and even now that it had been thinned in places by Cyclone Willie, the thickness of the surrounding vegetation meant that any sounds from the water or the resort could barely be heard. The hide smelt of new, treated wood and varnish.

  Rowdy stood on one of the raised benches that allowed small children to see through the unglassed windows that overlooked the rainforest clearing. Janey sat beside him, her body twisted so she could rest one elbow on the wooden sill. Littered on the ground was a pile of rainforest fruit. It had been placed there and in a couple of other spots where they’d have a good chance at capturing the wounded bird if the fruit lured her.

  ‘I can’t see anything,’ Rowdy said.

  The walkie-talkie in Luke’s hand crackled with voices occasionally. He couldn’t make out all of the exchanges. None of them were addressed to him.

  ‘Off the side of the trail, Ben,’ he heard.

  ‘At the creek? Over!’

  ‘Hearing something in the undergrowth, but they move so damned quietly.’

  ‘Tell us your position now, over.’

  One voice belonged to the vet, Julie Nguyen, and another to wildlife officer Ben Chandler. Luke also heard Andrew and another resort staffer.

  ‘Where is she?’ Rowdy said.

  ‘Might have to be pretty patient, love,’ Janey told him.

  She watched Rowdy more than she watched for the cassowary.

  And Luke watched her.

  She had sand and salt stuck to her legs and a mist of sweat on her back. The strap of Georgie’s scarlet swimsuit was twisted on one shoulder, and her denim shorts had dirt marks in several places. Her sandals were covered in dried mud. She looked hot and tired, but she didn’t complain or pace around, just sat and watched Rowdy, or occasionally the clearing, and waited for the clean-cut ending they were all hoping for.

  So different from Alice, and yet they did look alike sometimes. Thank goodness they weren’t alike! But there was something about Janey’s smile, her colouring and the way she walked. Something in her beauty now that she knew how to let it show.

  Was he looking for Alice, then? Was there still some stubborn ghost of Luke’s old attraction to his ex-wife lingering inside him? Was that why he wanted to keep watching this woman? Was that why he’d been so hungry to make love to her last night?

  Janey was grieving for her sister, and he’d grieved, too, because his son had lost a mother. But he’d had so much anger towards Alice over the past five years. He wanted to let all of it go—the memory of his shallow infatuation, the sense of bitter betrayal, the agony of losing his child.

  If his attraction to Janey came from a subconsious desire to find the best parts of Alice, then he didn’t want it, not at all.

  Let it go, he urged himself. Don’t think about it. Don’t feel it.

  But then, watching Janey lift her hot dark hair to cool the skin at the back of her neck, he suddenly remembered the party she’d talked about last night.

  Yes! That’s right! He could picture her now! She’d been wearing a glittering silver dress, shimmying her hips, closing her eyes, dancing with a champagne glass in her hand. The room had been dark, the music and laughter deafening.

  They’d all got hot and sweaty, and she’d lifted her hair up from her neck just like that, just the way she was doing now, and in his drunken state he’d had this hazy thought, Wow! She’s all right when she lets herself go. She’s beautiful. I knew she would be…

  He still didn’t remember the actual kiss. He’d been so exhausted that night he’d started seeing stars, but he remembered Janey, and what he’d thought about her.

  It hit him in a blinding flash of understanding that he had been totally wrong. He wasn’t looking for Alice in Janey. That wasn’t why he’d wanted her so much last night, and wanted her still.

  Never.

  It was—and always had been—the other way around.

  Eight years ago, when he’d first met Alice, the reason he’d fallen for her so hard and so fast and so disastrously had been because he’d subconsciously thought he was getting Janey’s mind and spirit, her work ethic, her good sense and her grounded soul, all packaged in the instant, charismatic appeal of Alice’s confidence and effervescence and beauty.

  He’d been looking for Janey in Alice, and he’d been so, so wrong about both of them.

  Oh, hell!

  And then he understood something else—that now, though he had no right to expect or ask for it, he might—just might—have earned a second chance at getting things right. The way she’d responded to him last night. The looks she gave him sometimes, full of trust. The love she showed for his son, every minute.

  ‘Behind you. She’s going the other way, over,’ he heard on the walkie-talkie. He hadn’t been paying attention for the past few minutes. He’d been miles away, learning the truth about his heart. Learning too late? How much had he hurt her by making love to her and then not remembering their kiss? Why had she made such a point about something so messy and so long ago?

  ‘I’ve got her, I can see her. No…She’s gone into the undergrowth. It’s so thick, I’m not keeping up, and I can’t hear her.’

  ‘Which direction? Over.’

  ‘Can’t tell.’

  ‘I can see her!’ Rowdy suddenly whispered. ‘I see her! I see her! She’s coming this way.’

  ‘Yes!’ Janey exclaimed. ‘I think that’s her. I saw a flash of blue.’

  Luke fumbled for the control button on the walkie-talkie. ‘This is Luke. Looks like we have her coming out into the clearing, over.’

  ‘She’s right here,’ Rowdy said.

  ‘Luke again.’ He had to fight to concentrate. He was still thinking about Janey.

  She’d stood up to watch the big, flightless bird picking its way into the open in search of the fruit it could smell. Her lithe, long-legged body was poised in electric concentration, with one foot on the ground and a knee resting on the bench. Her arm brushed Rowdy’s little s
houlder. The two of them were both riveted by what was happening, and Luke had a fresh understanding of how important this was.

  They could still lose the bird, and what would that do to his son?

  He spoke into the walkie-talkie. ‘She’s coming into the open, moving slowly. Limping. The leg looks nasty.’

  He heard a crackling, and then Ben Chandler’s voice. ‘Stay quiet, OK? Is she going for the fruit?’

  ‘Yes. She’s just found it.’

  ‘That gives us some time to get there.’

  The minutes passed, slow and tight with tension. Elke grazed greedily on the squashy, colourful fruit. It was almost gone. Would she stay there, looking for more, or limp back into the undergrowth? She’d begun to nudge the ground with her beak, her keel-shaped crest bobbing up and down. She was getting impatient. The feast looked to be over.

  Then they saw a flicker of movement, not the bright plumage of a rainforest bird but the more muted colours of Ben’s gear. He wore a chest protector, chainsaw chaps and groin protector, and carried a pole injector—more or less a syringe and needle at the end of a six-foot pole, Luke had seen. Ben stopped at the edge of the undergrowth. Elke had sensed his presence. What would she do? Which way would she run? Or would the remaining fruit keep her where she was long enough? Rowdy was holding his breath.

  Ben loped forward and pushed the pole into the bird, his movement so fast and quiet that Luke couldn’t see which bit of the creature he’d hit. But apparently he’d got the dose into her because she teetered on her feet, stumbled a few paces and then fell.

  ‘Is she OK?’ Rowdy asked.

  They’d told him about the sedating medication in the syringe, but Janey reassured him, ‘She’s gone to sleep, kind of. She’d be too scared and she wouldn’t be safe to handle if she was awake, remember?’

  ‘But she’ll wake up again, won’t she? She’s not dead?’

  ‘No, she’s not dead, sweetheart. She’s fine. She’ll wake up later on.’

  Ben came cautiously up to the bird, speaking into his walkie-talkie. ‘Bring the buggy around,’ they heard him say. Behind him petite, black-haired Julie Nguyen emerged with a tarpaulin and the two of them slid the limp bird onto it with a degree of effort. It must weigh fifty kilos or more, Luke thought.