Mosby talks for a little while. He seems just as shocked by everything as I am, so his voice offers some comfort. As their words start to fade, from what I assume is fatigue, I scurry across the floor on hands and knees, find my phone and search for a way out of Sydney. I want to go home to Queensland.
I can’t do this anymore. I glimpse the clock, it reads 1:03 a.m.
I’m quick to learn a bus service is offered throughout the night heading into Brisbane, so I decide I’ll take the 2:25 a.m. shuttle from Kempsey. Opening the door, I spy four collapsed bodies in a line asleep against the wall. Tiptoeing shoeless down the staircase, I’m startled when Grady steps out in front of me at the bottom.
“Where are you going, Miss McMillian?” he whispers, gently stroking my upper arm.
“Well, I was going home.”
“May I ask how you plan on getting there?”
“Bus. I’m going, Grady. You can’t stop me.” I glance at him with tenderness but also nervousness.
“Where’s this bus leaving from?”
“Kempsey,” I reply, sounding confident.
“Do you know where Kempsey is?” He cocks his eyebrow.
“Nope. Have no idea, but I’m sure I’ll figure it out.” I step to my left, putting some distance between us. I want to go. What if he tries to stop me? What if he calls for Marcus?
“After what happened last night, I can’t risk you going anywhere alone. Here, let me take you,” he offers, stepping to his left, taking the carry-on from my shoulder and putting it over his.
“Why would you help me?”
“It’s for the best.”
“Grady, did you—”
“I heard everything.” He shakes his head. His jaw tenses.
“Pretty fucked up, right?”
He says nothing.
“If I let you take me do you promise not to tell them until morning that I’ve gone?
“Done.” A fair result to a non-existent negotiation. “Let me do one better. Let me get you on a flight out of Sydney instead. I’m sure we both agree it would be safer for you, and it would most definitely make me feel better about the situation.”
“How? Why?”
He smiles kindly. “Marcus has a private plane on standby since last night, after what happened. I’m sure it’ll still be around. You see, as much as he wants you here with him, he also doesn’t want to hurt you. It will take me about an hour to get everything sorted, but I will.”
“Thank you, Grady. You’re my hero.” I step forward. I place my hand on his arm, showing my appreciation.
“No. I’m just your friend.” He smiles softly before walking to the front door. “Are you coming?”
“Yes,” I say hesitantly.
Get me the hell out of here.
***
Rain trickles over the windscreen. Bright lines zoom down the lanes on either side of us. We must be on a freeway. I’m glad I chose to sit in the front passenger seat rather than the back. Grady’s company is keeping a brewing panic at bay as my heart plummets in despair. Noticing Grady is in jeans and a T-shirt, it dawns on me this is the first time I’ve seen him in casual clothing, and it also has me wondering why he was waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs tonight. Did he always know I’d run from this? I guess he also knows me well.
The dimple in his chin is smaller than the tip of my pinkie finger. He’s smirking again.
“What’s with the look?” I ask, unsure.
“What look?” He keeps his vision planted to the road.
“You’re smirking.”
“Didn’t realise I was.”
“Alrighty then,” I sing. He chuckles.
“You have a big personality, just as Marcus described.”
“So I’ve never met you before.”
“No, ma’am, you haven’t. But I do know a lot about you.”
“That’s kind of creepy.”
He chuckles once more. “I guess it is. I’ve been Marcus’s sounding board for years, and since he offloaded so many memories of you, I’ve learnt a lot.”
“He talks about me?”
“Every day. I thought he’d move on from his heartbreak and the broken man I picked up from the lock-up in my taxi, but he never did. I assume talking about you, and frequently, kept you real to him, kept you alive.”
“Lock-up?”
He laughs. I jolt.
“How is this funny?”
“It’s not really.”
“Then why are you laughing?”
“Because you were the reason he was there.”
I gasp. What the hell?
“And I happened to be the person who drove the taxi that collected him the following morning. Drunk and disorderly is not a great look for an up-and-coming lawyer, but it’s one he took on the chin.”
“This is going to be a strange question, but I’ve no idea how old Marcus is.”
“He’s twenty-nine, Abigail.”
“Okay,” I whisper. “He’s very young to have such a position in a law firm, isn’t he?”
“If you mean partner, yes, he is. But he’s exceptional at what he does. He fights for those who really need to be fought for.”
“Was he already a lawyer when I met him?”
“No, ma’am, he was still studying at the university in Brisbane. I guess his career was made easier for him. His father was a partner in the law firm, so he got plenty of hands-on experience. Marcus was born to do this. His father and his grandfather were both lawyers. It’s in his blood.”
A sudden hush falls in the car as we pull down a small dirt road that leads past a tall concrete building. Four large spotlights come off the building, supplying light into the distance. Spying a single plane on a long stretch of bitumen makes my heart heavy. Why must it be this way?
“We’re here,” Grady says as the rain increases its force against the car. “They won’t have arrived yet, but they will soon. We’ve got clearance to fly, so it shouldn’t be much longer now.”
“The pilot?” I ask quietly.
“Yes. The pilot and air controller. The pilot’s a good friend of Marcus’s, and very experienced. Thirty years under his belt. You’re in safe hands.”
“Safe hands,” I repeat mechanically. “Can you tell me more about Marcus and the lock-up while we wait?”
“Sure. What do you want to know?” Grady removes his hands from the steering wheel and lays them on his lap.
“You said he was there because of me.”
“He was.” Grady shifts his body and faces me. His posture tells me he’s incredibly tired, as do his droopy eyes. “The night he said goodbye to you at the hospital after your fall, was the night he wrote himself off. And by write himself off, I mean drank himself into oblivion. Marcus was found trying to fight a man three times his size. He was fearless with all the drink under his belt, and still is, if he ever hits the bottle.” He gives a small shake of his head. “The police apprehended him, and he co-operated. Honestly, he was too drunk to resist. They never put him in cuffs. They just wanted to give him somewhere to sleep it off. Long story short, Marcus got in that fight and then urinated on the patrol car tyre, they weren’t overly happy, as you can imagine. He spent his night in the watch house and was released the next morning. They didn’t even end up charging him. That’s when we met. They called him a cab, and I was the driver.”