She told the kids her plan and then she marked the trap with sticks with little pieces of fabric ripped from her T-shirt.
“No one’s allowed anywhere near the back of the bus!” she said, and she did a thorough scout of the hill to see if there were any more traps.
When that was done, Heather turned on the walkie-talkie again. Battery life was down to one bar.
“My name is Heather Baxter. We need the police. We are stranded on Dutch Island off the coast of Victoria…”
She repeated the message on every channel as the battery light faded.
Suddenly, on channel 2, a voice cut through the static.
“Heather, is that you?”
“It’s me. Who’s this?”
“Heather, it’s Matt. What the hell have you done?”
“What do you mean, Matt?”
“We are all sick, Heather. Diarrhea, and some people have been vomiting! Hans! My God, Heather! You poisoned the well!”
“I guess you won’t be chasing us today, then, will you?”
“You shot Blue! He was a good dog. Jesus. And the other dogs! And the bloody generator!”
“Tell you what, you just bring the ferry over and let us go back to the mainland, and your problems will be over.”
“Funny. Our problems won’t be over—you’ll go to the cops!”
“I’ll keep my mouth shut.”
“Shit, you don’t even know, do you?” Matt said.
“Know what?”
“We were trying to make a deal with bloody Tom when all hell broke loose last night.”
“What are you talking about?”
“What do you mean, what am I talking about?”
“You said you were trying to make a deal with Tom.”
“Jesus, you really don’t know, do you? Gillian’s a nurse, she…Christ Almighty. Hold on.”
Heather eyes closed. She swayed, then righted herself.
What was he…he must be…
She was cold all over. Deathly cold.
“Heather…I don’t understand this. You attacked the farm when I was trying to sort out a deal. What have you been doing?”
The voice on the radio. Holy shit. It was Tom.
42
Her old friend the crow with the yellow eye was staring at her as the world rotated back into view.
She must have fainted.
She had never fainted in her life.
Didn’t people only faint in novels with characters named Darcy and Rochester? Nobody fainted in the real world.
“Heather!”
What was happ—Oh. My. God. She picked up the walkie-talkie. “Tom? Is that you?”
“Heather?”
“I’m here.”
“I’m here too.”
“How?”
“They saved me. Gillian saved me…”
“How are you—”
“Gillian. She’s a nurse. Listen, Heather, it’s hard to talk. I think I’ve made a deal.”
“A deal? What? Tom…how can you trust them after all this?”
“We have to, Heather…only chance to get out alive…can’t talk…I’m giving the walkie-talkie back to Matt.”
“No!”
Static.
“Tom? Tom!”
“It’s Matt again. Heather, can you hear me?”
“I can hear you.”
“Tom’s in terrible shape. He can’t speak for long. He has a collapsed lung.”
“He’s alive? It’s impossible! I saw him stabbed!”
“You saw him take a knife to the side. But Gillian saved him. Every remote station in Australia has emergency medical supplies. Little Niamh found him still breathing. Gillian used to be a nurse. We patched him up as best we could. Real meatball surgery, Gillian called it. He has a collapsed lung and probably liver damage. He needs to be in a hospital, Heather. He’s in a bad way.”
Heather burst into tears. “The kids don’t know he’s alive. Let me go get them.”
“Let me talk to you first, Heather. We’ve made a deal. Despite everything you’ve done. Actually, I’ll let Tom explain,” Matt said.
More static before a weak-sounding Tom came back on. “Are the kids OK?”
“Yes.”
“Are you OK?”
“Yes, Tom, I’m fine!”
“Good…I think we have to…trust them. We can do this,” Tom said and broke off into a coughing fit.
Matt came back on. “He lost a lot of blood. He needs surgery and a blood transfusion. We need to get this done fast, Heather. You guys are going to have to come to the farm. You can go with me to a bank and we’ll get the cash, and then when we get back, we’ll let you all go. That’s the new deal. It’s sorted. Tom agreed.”