REGAN SHIFTED IN the driver’s seat. His wet clothes were sticking to the seat cover, the heat of his body fogging the windows. He had almost passed out in the darkness behind the service station as he sat binding the gunshot wounds in his shoulder and stomach, shoving wadded fabric he’d ripped from a blanket in the back of the car into the blood-soaked flesh. He’d tied pieces of the thin blanket awkwardly in a loop under his arm and around his neck, rolled it tight around his gut. The dizziness, the pain didn’t matter. He needed to keep ahead of the roadblocks before they came into place. He’d go to ground later and think about getting his wounds treated. One step at a time. He’d survive. He always survived.
Getting away from the officer in the water had been easier than Regan imagined. He’d felt the impact of the bullets and fallen into the waves, and in the confusion, the rushing people and the bouncing lights, he’d simply slipped away. Dived low, come up shallow, dived again. Let the sucking current take him.
The swirling panic he’d felt as he crawled out of the river on the opposite bank to the police had reminded him of that night long ago. The last time he saw Sam.
It had been a starless night. Low clouds slithering across the sky above the tops of the black pines, reflecting the dull orange glow of the power station. It was almost as though no time had passed at all. He’d been seventeen years old. Sam about the same. Two idiot teens walking in the dark together, talking over each other, trying to get through it all, everything that had passed in the time they’d been separated. There had been so much to say.
Regan had been careful about his words. He didn’t want to let slip words he’d never dare say in real life. I love you, Sam. I’ve needed you here.
Hours ago they had come down to the river, to their favourite spot. They’d gone to the hanging tree and swung off the old rotting rope there. Regan was so glad Sam was back, even if it was only for this night. Sam was being bounced through overnight care for stealing his last foster father’s car and joyriding through the city. He’d be put in a group home down in Nowra for a few weeks until they could see him through a rehabilitation program and rehome him.
Though Sam would be swiftly out of Regan’s life again, it wasn’t going to be like last time. They were going to keep in touch. Sam had a mobile phone now. They were going to be together. A year, and they’d be eighteen years old. Legally eligible to be released from state care. They could do what they wanted. Completely and utterly free. Regan had already started counting down the days.
It was Sam who spotted the light that evening. They’d been strolling back along Henry Lawson Drive, about to cut through a park into Revesby Heights. Back to Regan’s foster house, before his carers noticed he was gone. The light was at the back door of a small fibro house off the edge of a children’s park. The two boys sank onto the rubber seats of a pair of chain swings, twisting this way and that, letting the momentum spin them around.
‘Bit late for the vet to be open,’ Sam had commented, exhaling cigarette smoke.
‘Maybe it’s a rabbit with a stomach ache.’ Regan lit his own cigarette, squinting at the door. ‘A kangaroo with its pouch stuck shut.’
‘You’re weird,’ Sam had said, pushing off and swinging hard.
Regan snorted. ‘Lots of money, being a vet.’
The two boys swung back and forth, the iron frame squeaking above them. Regan put his feet down eventually and dragged himself to a stop.
‘Maybe we should go in,’ he grinned, watching Sam swing. He took a knife from his back pocket and slipped the blade open with a snap. ‘Gimme all your cash or the puppy gets it!’
Sam laughed.
‘I’m serious.’ Regan slapped his friend. ‘Come on. Let’s go have a look.’
‘No way.’ Sam dragged himself to a stop. ‘We’d get caught.’ ‘As if!’
‘They’ve probably got cameras. Security guards.’
‘Security guards?’ Regan laughed hard. ‘It’s a fucking vet! Who robs a vet?’
‘Exactly.’
‘ Exaaaactly.’ Regan grabbed Sam’s arm, felt his bicep beneath the shirt. He squeezed. ‘The dude won’t be expecting it. Let’s get what we can and go into the city. This is a great idea!’
‘This is a shitty, shitty idea.’ Sam got off the swing. ‘I’m not interested. I’ve got weed at home and it’s not gonna smoke itself.’
‘Come on. Don’t be a pussy.’
‘I’m not a pussy,’ Sam spat. His fury was surprisingly quick, rising from nowhere. ‘You’re the fucking pussy. Talkin’ about sticking up places like a fucking gangster. Who the hell do you think you are?’
‘I’ve stuck up places.’
‘No you haven’t.’
‘Yes, I have.’ Regan stood. Something inside him was stirring, turning in his chest. It felt like fingers creeping around his heart, threatening to squeeze. He’d said the wrong thing. He needed to fix it. But the words kept coming. The anger kept rising. He couldn’t lose Sam. Not now. ‘You don’t know me. You don’t know anything about me, man.’
‘Whatever.’ Sam started walking off. Regan was beginning to tremble. He squeezed the knife so hard his knuckles cracked.
‘Come back here!’ he cried. ‘Sam!’
Sam walked. Regan shook. He could almost feel something uncurling in his stomach, petal by petal or wing by leathery wing. Sam disappeared around the corner and into the night. The sound of his footsteps faded. Regan tried to swallow but found his throat was blocked.
Pussy.
Regan walked towards the door of the veterinary clinic. The light fell over him, glowed on his fingers as he wrenched the handle down.
Chapter 130
THE WOMAN INSIDE the veterinary clinic had been Doctor Rachel Howes, twenty-three years old. A newly registered practitioner in the medical treatment of animals. Beautiful chocolate hair, long and heavy. So much potential. Regan had entered the clinic in what the prosecutors later called a ‘psychotic state’. He’d taken mere seconds to kill her. A dozen dogs and cats watched. He’d retreated to the sound of their howling and barking, $62.75 retrieved from the cash register. Regan’s defence lawyer had told him that had it not been for an anonymous call to Crime Stoppers, police would have had little chance of solving the case.
The call had come in only fifteen minutes after Regan entered the clinic.
Sam. Gentle, big-hearted Sam. Of course he had called the police. Sam acted tough, but he didn’t want to see an innocent vet robbed of their day’s takings any more than the average person did. Sam couldn’t possibly have known what viciousness Regan would unleash on the poor, unsuspecting Doctor Howes. Sam had never seen the thing that lived in Regan, growing there behind his eyes, the darkness spreading, waiting for something to finally bring it to life.
Sam hadn’t known that Doctor Howes had died. Sam hadn’t known that his phone call had got Regan arrested. He hadn’t known that Regan went to jail just three months later. That year after year he’d thought of nothing but Sam.
He’d thought only of coming back and finding Sam there in his perfect life. Oh, his beautiful plans, spinning around and around like a fine spider’s web, surrounding Sam long before the man knew the invisible strands were there. Regan followed and waited until Sam breezed by one of his pretty-picture girls, and then he snatched them up. Sometimes he was so close, he was sure Sam would turn and see him. Hear the girl scream. The last one, Rosetta. He’d grabbed her out of the mouth of a side street just seconds after Sam passed. He’d been able to smell Sam’s cologne as the man moved behind him.