Chapter 1
Red and blue lights flashed in Brad’s rear-view mirror.
He swore under his breath and checked the time on the clock on the dashboard. This shouldn’t take long. He hadn’t been speeding, and the rental car shouldn’t have any defects. Probably just a random breathalyzer test.
The white pickup hadn’t exactly been his choice of vehicle, but it was all the rental company had available on such short notice. It was smaller than the pickups he was used to, even though it had a back seat. But he’d been lucky he could coordinate time off work, flights out here and any rental car at all to get all the way to Mungaloo.
He had plenty of time, he was early even. Not that the lawyer was going anywhere, and neither was his uncle’s house.
Despite all that, he couldn’t help feeling irritated. He wasn’t sure why.
It couldn’t be because he was secretly hoping to see her again. She’d dumped him. Made it quite clear she wasn’t interested.
That fact left a sour taste in his mouth as he pulled over and rolled down the window. He tried to convince himself he had no wish to see her again.
It wasn’t likely to happen anyway. It had been twelve months since his last visit. Since she’d only been staying with his uncle until she sorted out her own place, what were the chances she was still around?
“Is there a problem, officer?” he asked, as the police officer came up to his window.
The man looked at him suspiciously. “Can I see your driver’s licence, please?”
Brad bit his tongue to stop himself from asking why. The man would tell him what he was after quickly enough and then he could be on his way.
Another man appeared beside the police officer, dressed in ordinary clothes, holding a phone out in front of him. The way his beady little eyes stared at Brad suspiciously made him feel instantly defensive.
“He’s not the one we’re looking for,” the beady eyed man said, then glanced around, as though he expected someone else to be nearby.
Brad’s eyes narrowed. He’d only been in Australia a couple of times, but surely this was unusual, even for here. He evaluated the man as he pulled out his driver’s licence and handed it over.
There was a slightly wild look in his eyes that didn’t bode well.
The police officer studied Brad’s licence for a moment, then looked back to Brad. “Visiting from America, are you?” His voice was conversational, but the frown on his face wasn’t.
“Yeah, my uncle died a week ago and left me his house. I had to come out here and sort things out. I’m just on my way to the lawyers.”
The police officer’s suspicion didn’t dim. “How long have you been in Mungaloo?”
This was starting to get irritating. What were they after?
Brad made himself take a deep breath and keep his voice calm as he replied, “I literally just drove into town.”
The police officer frowned.
The other man with him held out his phone and moved it around a little, as though tracking something. Then he glanced into the back of the pickup.
“Hey.” He reached into the back and picked something up.
This time, Brad didn’t stay quiet. “What are you doing?”
He was pretty sure that taking something out of his car without a warrant wasn’t any more legal here than it would be in America.
Not that it stopped the strange man. He triumphantly held up a purple phone with bunny ears.
It was Brad’s turn to frown. Where had that come from? Had it been in there when he rented the pickup? Must have been, because it certainly wasn’t his.
The police officer turned to the man, a frown still on his face. “Is that the phone?”
The man nodded. He flicked the screen and pressed something, then held it out to the police officer. “See?”
Was it his phone?
A feeling of unease settled over Brad. What was going on?
How had this phone found its way into his car? Or the car he was driving anyway.
“Look,” he said. “I don’t know what is going on, but this isn’t even my vehicle. I just rented it. I’ve never seen that phone before in my life.”
Both of them turned back to him.
“Then how did it get in there?” the police officer asked.
“Do you know Lisa?” the beady eyed man demanded.
“Who’s Lisa?” Brad blurted out. “Look, the only people I’ve seen since I arrived in Australia, are the people who work at the airport and at the car rental booth. I’ve literally been in the country for a few hours, and I’ve spent all that time driving from the city to here.”
Something very strange was going on.
“Then how did this phone get in your car?” the strange man demanded.
Brad stared at him for a few moments. Who was he, and why did he get to ask questions? He decided to ignore him, and turned to the police officer. “What’s going on?”
The police officer’s lips pursed, then he sighed. “Is this phone yours?”
“No,” Brad said flatly. He glanced at the man. “I’m assuming it’s his?”
The police officer didn’t answer the question. Instead he said, “How did it get into your car? Did someone give it to you?”
“If someone gave it to me, do you think I would have thrown it in the back of the pickup?”
The police officer looked taken aback.
“Lisa must have thrown it in the back as she passed,” the beady eyed man said gloomily. “To put us off the scent. It worked, too. They could be anywhere by now.”
Despite knowing he shouldn’t ask, curiosity got the better of Brad. “Who’s Lisa?”
The police officer frowned, and Brad suspected he was about to be told it was none of his business.
The other man answered though. “My sister. She and her dragon buddy are trying to hide from us.”
If Brad thought the episode had started out weird, it just increased exponentially. “Dragon?”
Some weird nickname?
It made no sense at all. Brad shook his head in confusion.
The police officer frowned at the beady eyed man. “Go back to the car,” he said sharply. “This is police business.”
The man looked like he was going to object, then he shrugged, and walked off.
The police officer looked at Brad. For the first time, he didn’t seem so suspicious. “Since you say you’ve never seen the phone before, I suppose you won’t mind if we take it?”
Brad hesitated. The matter had intrigued him enough that he had a slight impulse to deny the request. To see if he could get more information. But a glance at the clock on the dashboard reminded him that the extra time he had was slipping away fast. He didn’t want to be late for his meeting with the lawyer.
He hated being late.
And every minute he spent here was a delay in finding out if he’d see Lyrian again. At that thought, the impatience he’d felt earlier returned.
Maybe it was time to give up on the pretence that he had no interest in seeing her again?
Either way, he didn’t have time to indulge his curiosity about what was going on here. He didn’t have long before he had to get back to the hospital. Any time he spent here was time he wasn’t spending convincing Lyrian she’d made a mistake dumping him.
If she was even there.
“No, of course not,” he said, waving his hand. “Go ahead.”
The police officer stepped back from the pickup, and nodded his head. “Thanks for your time,” he said.
Brad drove off, glancing in the rear-view mirror and shaking his head again.
He’d heard some strange stories in his life, but this one was right up there with the best of them.