Little Girl Lost Read online

  A small sound near her feet dragged Sarah’s shocked eyes away from her father. A big ginger cat was rubbing himself enthusiastically against her legs.

  ‘Hi, Meggs,’ she whispered as she bent to pat him, her heart crying out against the unfairness that had seen the cat change not one whit, while her father had become an old man. Old and frail.

  How sick was he?

  In a heartbeat her grief was swamped by anger. She spun on her heel and walked back into the store. Her mother was still finishing up with her customer. Sarah waited impatiently until the front door had closed behind the woman, before turning on her mother.

  ‘What is it? Cancer?’

  Her mother nodded. ‘Lymphoma.’

  ‘You didn’t tell me that. You just said he was sick. Why didn’t you tell me it was cancer?’

  ‘Honey, he asked me not to.’

  ‘But if I’d known I would have come home earlier.’

  ‘Don’t you see? We didn’t want you to. We wanted you to finish your exams first, with nothing to distract you.’

  ‘He’s my father!’ Sarah had to fight to keep from shouting. ‘Nothing is more important to me than that. I would happily have walked away from college.’

  ‘Yes. I know you would.’ Gina Travers took a deep breath and crossed her arms. ‘That’s why I didn’t tell you. You had to finish—’

  ‘But—’

  ‘For HIS sake!’ Gina overrode her daughter’s objections. ‘He has worked hard all his life to give you a better chance than he had. Than we had. There was no way I was going to let you disappoint him by walking away before you graduated.’

  ‘That’s not fair. How could you not tell me that he’s dying?’

  ‘Don’t say that!’ Gina’s face contorted with anger and her words were like a slap in the face for Sarah. ‘Don’t say that. Ever. Not to me. And not to him. He’s not dying. I won’t let him.’

  Sarah was shocked by the outburst; she had so seldom seen her mother angry. Gina was shaking slightly and Sarah realised that her anger was stirred by fear. She stepped forward and wrapped her arms around her mother.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mum. I won’t say it again. I promise.’

  Gina leaned against her daughter for a few seconds. ‘Thank you,’ she murmured softly. Then with an obvious effort of great will, she pulled herself upright and took a deep breath. ‘It’s good that you are here. Your father has to go to Toowoomba for chemotherapy every month. He gets very tired, so it will be better if I can go with him.’

  ‘You drive all that way?’

  ‘No. Chris, the mine manager, lets your dad go on the FIFO plane. It’s very kind of him.’

  Sarah felt a moment of guilt. Other people had been more help to her parents than she had. Well, that was about to change. She looked closely at her mother, seeing for the first time the lines on her face, the shadows under her eyes. She had lost weight too. Gina had always been a slender woman. Now, like her husband, she looked frail.

  ‘Now that I’m here, Mum, do you want to take a break? I can look after the shop for you.’

  Gina smiled and shook her head. ‘You’ve just arrived. Take some time for yourself. Spend some time with your father. There’ll be plenty of other days for you to mind the shop for me.’

  Reluctantly, Sarah agreed. But she didn’t want to go back into the house. She needed a few minutes to herself to absorb all the terrible things she had learned. She left the shop by the rear door, turned left and walked to the water tank that sat behind the shop. In the wet season the huge tank collected enough water from the large shop roof to keep the family supplied throughout the dry months. The town had a proper water supply now, but the old-timers like the Travers family still used their rainwater tanks for drinking water. It had its own special taste that Sarah had never found anywhere else.

  As a kid, Sarah had liked to climb the water tank and on to the roof of the shop. In one corner the shade from the tall gum tree made the iron roof cool enough to sit on. She’d spent long hours up there, staring up and down the long highway that passed through the Creek, waiting for her knight in shining armour to come along and rescue her. She smiled a small fond smile. Her younger self had even found a knight in the form of a handsome young truck driver who delivered supplies to the store on a weekly run. She’d changed since then. Three years in the city had expanded her horizons. The girl who had always believed her future was here in the Creek now had thoughts of travelling and exploring the world. Maybe even finding a real knight out there somewhere.

  If ever she could use a knight, she thought, this was the time.

  All the possibilities of her future were on hold now. She was needed here. And here she would stay.

  Sarah turned and walked back into the house to sit by her father and wait for him to wake.

  Chapter Three

  ‘So, whadda you say? Can I buy you a beer?’

  ‘No, thanks.’ Tia kept walking.

  ‘But why not? What harm can it do? It’s just a drink. Between friends. Workmates, even.’

  ‘And that’s what you’ll tell your wife when you go home next week?’

  There was a smattering of laughter from the nearby men. The one walking next to her had the grace to look slightly abashed.

  ‘If not him, how about me? I’m not married,’ his companion offered.

  ‘No. Sorry.’

  Didn’t these guys ever get sick of asking? It was annoying.

  ‘Tia has the good sense to recognise a bunch of losers when she sees them,’ Blue stepped in, with a mock punch at Tia’s admirers. ‘Come on, the first one is on me.’

  There was a rumble of approval from the group. Blue caught Tia’s eye and she smiled her thanks.

  ‘Don’t worry, any day now these thickheads will get the message,’ Blue said to her as he led his team away.

  Tia hoped so. All these attempts to get her on a date were getting a bit annoying, although some small part of her that she kept hidden deep behind her rough exterior might be a little bit flattered. But accepting any of the offers was out of the question.

  ‘Have one for me,’ she said as she left them at the gates. Her refusal was as much for their sakes as it was for hers. They had no idea of what she had been and who she really was. If they knew the baggage she carried they’d avoid her like the plague, which would be the best thing for everyone. It was far too soon. She still didn’t know if she was truly free of her past. Getting close to her was dangerous for everyone.

  She walked slowly back to the residential compound. Dusk was falling, but that had little effect on the energy-sapping heat. Inside her trailer, she splashed some water over her face and grabbed the black and red motorcycle helmet that was sitting on her table.

  The Harley was parked next to her trailer. The FIFO workers didn’t have cars – they used mine vehicles when necessary. The hog had created as much of a stir as Tia herself the day she arrived, but the men had quickly learned the bike was as out of their reach as she was.

  She ran a hand over the black and red flames painted on the tank, feeling the thin layer of gritty dust that seemed to settle there within seconds of her cleaning the machine. She shrugged. There was nothing she could do about the dust. And it wasn’t as if she loved the bike. She didn’t. She loved what the hog represented. She’d spent too much time as a pillion passenger on this bike, forced to hold on for dear life to a man she hated as he broke every rule in the book. And not only the road rules. She was done with that now. Even though she might have preferred a car, riding the bike was a constant reminder that she was a new person now. In the front seat. In control. She never ever wanted to forget how she had turned her life around. It hadn’t been easy. It still wasn’t. But she was working on it.

  She slung her leg over the Harley and straightened it off its stand. She pulled her gloves o
n before pressing the starter on the handlebars. The engine roared instantly into life. She slipped the helmet over her head and twisted the throttle to set the big bike into motion.

  Tia paused where the mine road met the highway. North was the town. There were people there. Probably good people with whom she could be friends. But she wasn’t ready for that. That cop was in the town too. She needed to avoid him in case he got curious about her. Or the Harley. The last thing she needed was him sticking his nose into her life. Instead, she turned the bike south, away from the town. She hadn’t explored the Birdsville Road yet. It couldn’t hurt to know where that road led. In case she had to run again.

  There was something to be said for outback roads. They were long and straight and mostly empty. A girl on a motorcycle could really let her hair down. Tia opened the throttle. The big engine roared like the monster it was, as the bike gathered speed. The noise was almost loud enough to drown out her thoughts and her memories. The rushing wind was almost enough to make her forget the dark stuffy rooms and the stifling smell of lost souls. The feel of the powerful machine was almost enough for her to forget the feel of cruel hands reaching for her in the darkness, and the sound of harsh laughter. The rush of adrenaline was almost enough to make her forget the rush from the weed and the speed.

  Almost, but not quite.

  She twisted the throttle again, forcing the Harley to even greater speeds, right down the dotted white line in the centre of the road. Ahead of her, a truck suddenly appeared through the heat haze. A road train pulled by a huge blue and white Mercedes prime mover. Their combined speed was enough to make it appear that she was driving headlong into a wall and she was about to die in a terrible scream of twisted and torn metal.

  At what seemed the last second, she twisted the handlebar a fraction and raced past the huge truck on into the slowly gathering dusk.

  ‘Shit!’ Pete Rankin exclaimed at the blur disappearing in his rear-view mirrors. That biker was a nut job. He’d pushed that far too close for comfort. Didn’t he realise that road trains couldn’t stop or turn as quickly as a bike? Or a standard truck for that matter. He was driving nearly eighty tonnes at ninety kilometres an hour. If he’d hit the bike, there would have been nothing left of bike or rider but a thin smear along the bitumen.

  Pete shook his head. He was a professional driver. He knew the road and how to treat it with respect. He really hated amateurs. The people who thought the roads were a playground. He’d seen far too many accidents in the last ten years and seen too many people hurt or killed by the amateurs.

  He sighed and flexed his fingers on the steering wheel. He’d been driving steadily for several hours and would need to take a break soon. He looked forward to a chance to stretch his legs and relax his concentration. Maybe talk to someone. A lot of drivers had dogs. They wanted another living creature to share the long hours on the road. But he didn’t. It didn’t seem much of a life for a dog. But more than that, he enjoyed the solitude. He would occasionally turn on the radio, or listen to some music on his iPod, but mostly he drove accompanied by nothing more than the noise of the big powerful engine and the hum of eighteen tyres on the road surface.

  Pete liked to read. When he pulled over to sleep, there was always time to read a chapter, lying in the bed at the rear of the cab. He read almost anything and everything. He read fiction and non-fiction. He liked crime novels and books about nature. But most of all, he liked to read biographies. The stories of people who had done great things. Travelled and invented. People who made discoveries. He admired people like that because he would never be one of them. Not that it mattered; he was content with his life. He liked the solitude that allowed time for his mind to do the travelling for him, the feel of the steering wheel under his hands and the long straight line of bitumen.

  At least, that had been enough.

  He grimaced. Here it was again; that restlessness that had been pulling at him for weeks now. He blamed the wedding.

  A few weeks ago one of his fellow drivers had married his long-term girlfriend at a tiny wooden church on the outskirts of Mount Isa. All the drivers from the depot were there to celebrate. Pete had taken his girlfriend Linda to that wedding. For almost a year Linda had been a barmaid at the pub next to the transport depot. It was the drivers’ favourite watering hole and they all knew and liked her. Some had even made a pass at her, but she’d made it clear right from the start that Pete was her favourite. They dated, in a casual way, and it had seemed the right thing to take her with him to the wedding.

  The wedding was small but nice. The bride and groom looked very happy together and Pete was happy for them. He was a big believer in marriage. His parents had set him a wonderful example in their relationship, and he had always thought that one day he would like to settle down and maybe have some kids of his own. But not yet. He wasn’t ready for a house and a picket fence, kids and a dog. He liked his freedom. That’s why the relationship with Linda worked so well. When he was in town, they were together, but not once had she ever tried to tie him down. Nor had he hinted at any sort of commitment. He’d made it clear to her right from the start that he wasn’t that sort of a man. They didn’t have that sort of a relationship.

  But since the wedding, Linda had changed. Maybe marriage was contagious, and she had caught it. She was dropping hints. Talking about houses and families and not wanting to be a barmaid all her life. There was nothing wrong with that … but he couldn’t see himself in the picture she painted. He liked Linda. Cared about her. But he didn’t love her. Not the sort of love that led to marriage.

  Pete ran a hand through his close-cropped brown hair. It was this birthday thing. He knew it was. He was going to turn thirty in a few days, and it seemed everything was changing. He had no idea why. Thirty wasn’t old.

  A sign flashed past and he began slowing down. In a couple of minutes he was driving through Coorah Creek. It was a nice town. Small but friendly. He’d been delivering supplies to the shop since he was a trainee driver and in recent years he’d taken some really big loads to the mine, stopping occasionally for a meal at the pub.

  He saw a figure emerge from the town’s one big general store. A girl with long blonde hair. She was wearing shorts that showed off a pair of very nice legs. She waited on the footpath as the truck went past. Pete looked in his mirrors as she crossed the road behind him. She was really attractive, the sort of girl he’d like to meet.

  And there it was.

  If he loved Linda enough to consider marriage then he wouldn’t be checking out a blonde in his rear-view mirror.

  It was time to break if off. Linda deserved the chance to find someone who was right for her and could give her the things she dreamed of. Because he couldn’t do that. Last week, Linda had decided to throw him a birthday party. He wasn’t all that keen, but she was enthusiastic so he had agreed. It was set for this Friday at the pub. All his driver mates would be there. He wouldn’t break it off with her before then. That would be too cruel after she’d gone to so much trouble for him.

  But as soon as possible after that, he’d break it to her as gently as he could.

  He felt as if a weight was lifted from his shoulders. That was the right thing to do. As he drove past the northern edge of the town for the last stage of the run back to base, he turned on some music and the evening light began to fade into darkness.

  Chapter Four

  The little girl was running as she came through the door of the shop and collided with Tia.

  ‘Hey.’ Tia reached down to grab the girl by the shoulders. She crouched down in front of her. The little girl was clutching a carved wooden toy of some description. ‘Where are you off too?’

  A second later a young woman came hurrying out of the store, her eyes wide with anxiety. She saw Tia and the little girl, and immediately swung the youngster up into her arms.

  ‘Anna, you mustn’t do that,’ the yo
ung woman said. ‘You must never run away like that. You might get lost.’

  ‘Sorry, Mummy.’ The little girl looked crestfallen.

  The young mother turned to Tia. ‘Thank you for stopping her. I only turned my back for an instant and she was gone.’

  ‘I want Sergeant Max.’ The little girl waved the toy she was holding. ‘More animals. I wanna make a farm.’

  ‘Sergeant Delaney has more important things to do than make you more toys,’ her mother said. ‘Come on we have to go home and make dinner for your daddy.’ With another tentative smile at Tia, the woman carried her child away.

  That was interesting. The cop made toys for children. In her experience cops destroyed more than they made. Shrugging the thought aside, Tia entered the shop.

  ‘Can I help you?’ the girl behind the counter asked.

  Tia’s first instinct was to say no. She’d been to the store before and knew where to find the essentials she needed. But she bit the word back. The girl had done her no harm. She’d simply offered to help. It wasn’t her fault that she was so young and pretty, with her long blonde ponytail and sweet summer dress. It wasn’t her fault that she looked so innocent, or that she had a freshness about her that Tia had lost a long time ago. She felt a twinge of envy, but crushed it quickly. There was no point in envy or regret. She was who she was. Her life was what it was. She had started turning it around the day she left Brisbane. And she’d done all right. She had a job, and a place of her own to live. A place that had a kitchen and a door she could lock. That was the first step. She needed to feel a lot more secure before she took another. It would be so easy to fall, and falling would bring too much pain.