Du Rose Blaze

Chapter Two

Chapter Two

HalterEdin watched as Hana tried Logan’s mobile number and then the land line for his office. When she received no response from either, she cast her net wider.

“Detective Inspector Johal.” He picked up on the first ring, the cafe noises seeping around his greeting.

“Tama’s missing!” Hana spread the fingers of her other hand across her eyes to negate the glare of the sun’s rays. They heated her skin with merciless enjoyment, the gentle kisses changing to striped burns as she fidgeted in the deckchair.

“Right.” Bodie’s tone switched from pleasure at hearing his mother’s voice to disappointment. “Thanks, Mum. I’m doing well at my job and my wife and kids are fine. Nice of you to phone.”

Hana closed her eyes and forced herself to swallow. It prevented the stream of ready vitriol spilling from her lips. She’d called him at the weekend and enjoyed a long and lazy conversation about his life. It didn’t matter how much effort she put into her relationship with her eldest son, it never seemed enough.

Her fingers balled into a fist as she shielded her head with her forearm. “Sorry,” she breathed, the energy required to form another response failing her.

“Oopsie.” Edin’s exclamation followed a snap as the left arm of the sunglasses detached from the lenses. She raised the limp horse from beneath her armpit and glared at him. “Horsey done it.”

Hana exhaled and ended the futile call with her son, not investing more into the conversation. “There’s never a police officer when you need one,” she remarked to the child, unable to keep the irony from her tone.

Edin’s lips twisted and she shifted her lower jaw to the right, creating a guilty expression. “No smack horsey.”

“No, baby.” Hana held out her hand for the remains of her sunglasses. “We don’t smack anyone. Even though we might want to cause certain people actual bodily harm sometimes.” She blinked against the sun’s glare and marveled at the speed with which her afternoon had slid downhill. “It would help if you didn’t touch things that don’t belong to you, though.” She rose and turned her feet towards the house, holding her hand out for Edin to grip. Under her breath, she remarked, “But then, you wouldn’t be a Du Rose, would you?”

It took a moment for her eyes to adjust after the glare of outside, and she closed the door behind her and walked Edin to the kitchen. The whirring of her brain belied her outer calm. When her phone trilled in her hand, she jumped and dropped the main body of her sunglasses, hearing a muted c***k as Edin stepped on the lens.

“Ouch!” The child’s elfin face crumpled, and she looked up at Hana with an expression of disbelief, as though asking how such a terrible thing could happen to her. Ignoring the ruins of her favourite sunglasses, Hana bent at the knees and scooped the child into her arms. Edin’s wails deafened her as they settled at the kitchen table.

Hana laid her ringing phone on the table and accepted the call through the speaker. Logan’s steady baritone vied with Edin’s loud cries. “You after me?”

Hana imagined him jamming his index finger into his other ear and holding the phone away from him. “Sorry,” she called over the din. “It’s too hard to explain.” She reached for Edin’s bare foot and tilted the sole to inspect it. “It’s a bruise, baby. Sit here and I’ll get some ice.”

“Ice cream!” Edin’s face relaxed as though an artist had smudged out the original and redrawn it in situ. Tears glittered on her cheeks as she fixed her intense, grey-eyed gaze on the fridge.

“I’ll call you back in about an hour.” Tack clanked, and a horse blew out a long breath.

Her foot forgotten, Edin snatched up the phone and held it to her mouth.

“He missin’ now!” she yelled. “He missin’. Heaven and ice cream. Now!”

Hana returned with an ice pack and liberated her phone. Spit and greasy finger marks dotted the screen. “Hold this on your foot,” she instructed the child. “I need to speak to Uncle Logan.”

“Ice cream,” Edin complained. “Not ice cream.” She winced as Hana pressed the pack against the sole of her tiny foot. A blue line spread out from a point in her arch. It looked painful.

Logan’s continued silence exhibited his supernatural level of patience. He hadn’t wanted to give Edin a home, making a valid case for the efficacy of social services. Why, he’d argued, would he want to house the offspring of two people he’d hated with just cause?

Hana took a deep breath and steeled herself. Her husband didn’t respond well to hysteria. Mindful of that, she leveled her voice and delivered the news. “Tama didn’t show up to work yesterday or the day before. Nobody knows where he’s gone. He didn’t phone in sick and his station chief is worried about him. She got my mobile number from his personnel records.”

Logan swore, the expected response still causing Hana to take a sharp intake of breath.

“Bugger!” Edin growled, mimicking his rumbling tone. She lifted the ice pack away from her foot and wiped it across the knitted horse’s cream muzzle. “Bollocks!”

“Edin! No!” Hana exhaled in a rush and turned to face the window. The sea sparkled in the distance as though it contained a million tiny diamonds. Her craved five minutes of peace lost their lure against the backdrop of the phone call.

“Meet me at the office.” Logan rapped out the command with his usual authority. In his capable hands, the terrible issue became something manageable. Solvable. The sense of disaster lifted enough for Hana to search the counter tops for her car and house keys.

“Okay,” she agreed. “Give me fifteen minutes to round up Edin’s gear and get down there. Where are you now?”

“Bollocks. Heaven.” Edin dropped the ice pack onto the kitchen tiles and sat the horse on her head. Its legs dangled either side of her face, its tail giving her a ratty fringe. She blinked from beneath it and giggled up at Hana.

“I’m in the round pen trying out this new gelding.” He sighed and Hana sensed his disappointment stretch across the distance between them. She missed Sacha too, the feisty white mare they’d turned loose to retire on the mountain with her sire. They’d found no sign of her last time they checked, just tail hair on the top of a fence post where she’d jumped it and seized her own destiny.

“Any good?” Hana forced her mind away from Tama. It welcomed the momentary relief from the loop of scenarios as she gathered up her keys and pushed her feet into her shoes. Not wanting to fight Edin into the truck parked under the porch, she snatched up a packet of mint chocolate biscuits and jerked her head towards the front door. “We’ll take these for Nonie,” she whispered, and Edin’s eyes widened.

“And me?” Her brows knitted, and she lowered her head to observe Hana from beneath her eyelashes.

“Only for good girls,” Hana replied. She added a nonchalant shrug to her statement, hating herself for bribing the child. “Not bribing, rewarding good behaviour,” she muttered.

“What?” Metal clattered behind Logan’s word, and Hana heard the gentle slap of a palm against a solid, furry neck. “He’s okay, but he’s not the one. I’m heading back to the office now.”

“I’ll see you soon.” Worry and regret carved deep lines into Hana’s delicate forehead as she killed the call. Her auburn hair swam around her face in a cloud of curls and frizz caused by the humidity. She persuaded Edin into the car seat behind her driver’s chair and buckled her in, tying the knitted horse’s legs through the straps to distract the child’s busy fingers. Chucking the biscuits into the driver’s seat out of sight, she closed the door.

Her hair resisted as she pulled it into a loose plait and jogged along the hallway to her son’s bedroom, each step marking valuable seconds in time.

Mac snoozed over her shoulder as she slammed the front door behind her and yanked open the car. Edin grinned at her from her car seat, the red button still held fast and Horsey’s leg’s still knotted through the straps. “Got biccit.” Edin waved the melting chocolate circle in the air and smiled around brown stained teeth.

“So you have,” Hana breathed. Her shoulders slumped further beneath Mac’s sleeping weight, intensified by the black cloud encircling her head.