Breaking Free (Thoroughbred Legacy #10) Read online

  The Thoroughbred set was closing ranks. Us versus them. And Megan was one of them.

  He pushed off the squad car and moved nearer the crowd, staying under the leafless boughs of the jacaranda trees that lined the road. He propped his shoulder against the trunk of a tree, watching from behind his mirrored shades, arms crossed over his chest.

  “Louisa Fairchild is a vital member of this country’s proud legacy of Thoroughbred racing and breeding,” Andrew Preston was saying into the mikes. “And here on the steps of Elias Memorial, at the very heart of Australia’s stud farm capital, I want to say publicly—” he nodded to Daniel and Megan “—that we all stand by and believe implicitly in Louisa Fairchild’s innocence.”

  What in hell? Dylan swore under his breath.

  Andrew was buying Louisa’s support. And he was using these hospital steps as a bloody photo op, just as Dylan himself had earlier. But this was for personal gain—his run for presidency of the International Thoroughbred Racing Federation.

  The election was in two months, and the suave American had been racing neck-and-neck with rough-around-the-edges Aussie media mogul ‘Jacko’ Bullock, whom Louisa had vocally supported. Louisa had been widely quoted in the press as saying she wasn’t interested in seeing some American “seppo” at the helm of the international federation.

  But this was a bizarre twist, thought Dylan, watching Andrew put his arm around Megan as he continued to speak. Dylan’s head began to pound.

  “I hereby pledge my full support for Louisa Fairchild and her family. They have been victims of police ineptitude and deprived of justice because of this current state of emergency.”

  Dylan pushed off from the tree, wire-tense.

  “I will personally be working with the Fairchild legal team to ensure that whoever has caused her this distress and suffering is held responsible for their actions.”

  So this was Andrew Preston’s way of bolstering his ITRF campaign? By attacking the NSW police force to get Louisa and her clan on his side? Dylan clenched his jaw. He’d bet his bottom dollar this was Marnie’s brainchild. She must have twisted Daniel’s arm to get him to stand there.

  And it hit Dylan suddenly. This homicide wasn’t just about Sam. It was about them.

  All of them.

  The Lochlain blaze and murder had to be somehow tied into the bigger Thoroughbred racing picture, perhaps even to this election battle itself.

  With all of them standing on the stairs he could suddenly see the links.

  Years ago Jacko, a close friend of Weston Parnell, had been instrumental in having Tyler Preston’s television program pulled from the air because of Tyler’s intimate relationship with a then very young Darci Parnell. There had to be a lot of animosity still lingering there.

  Jacko himself was rumored to have done business with associates linked to an organized crime syndicate that ran betting and doping scams in the racing industry country-wide. Andrew Preston, on the other hand, had vowed to “clean up” the industry of such scams. The syndicate would see Preston’s win as a personal threat.

  Jacko would be the man the powerful crime syndicate needed at the helm—not Preston.

  Dylan’s pulse quickened as he turned these thoughts over.

  Andrew had also recently held his big campaign party at Lochlain Racing, which could have made Lochlain and the Aussie Prestons a direct syndicate target themselves.

  Dylan knew, too, that Sam Whittleson had had gambling problems. It was why he’d become so desperate in his fight with Louisa to save what little he had left of Whittleson Stud.

  And it wasn’t uncommon for people with massive horse-racing debts to become beholden to the crime syndicate.

  Could this have happened to Sam?

  Could the syndicate have wanted Sam out of the way for some reason? Might they have killed him at Lochlain and then torched the place, striking two birds with one stone and sending a clear message to the heart of Preston’s campaign?

  Louisa, because she’d shot Sam before, would have been positioned as the perfect scapegoat, throwing police off any syndicate scent.

  Dylan had also learned from his Melbourne contact that Sandy Sanford had been investigated for betting fraud, but nothing had stuck. When he’d gone to question Sanford yesterday evening, Whittleson Stud employees had said Sandy had left the valley suddenly. That was when Dylan had learned Sanford had initially arrived in the Hunter with a dark-blue Holden. According to one of the laborers, that truck hadn’t been seen for a while.

  It was possible, thought Dylan, given the light from the flames and the general chaos on the night of the Lochlain blaze, that witnesses confused a slate-gray truck with a dark-blue one.

  Sanford could well have been planted by the syndicate at Whittleson Stud to keep an eye on Sam and do the dirty deed of taking him out if necessary.

  Or Reynard and Marie Lafayette could have fulfilled the same function.

  All had access to Louisa’s gun cabinet and Lochlain Racing. And Dylan had seen Reynard and Sanford together at the Crook Scale.

  Jesus! Why had he not seen the possibility of a syndicate link before? That’s why the NSW police must have received that anonymous call when it looked like they might not have enough to put Louisa away.

  That call had come from the damn syndicate itself!

  It had to be.

  Dylan swore to himself. Never mind a full NSW homicide squad, they should have had the feds in on this.

  Now the real killer and the masterminds were still lurking out there somewhere, possibly even standing among the gathering crowd of onlookers on these very steps. He really needed to talk to Louisa, and fast—

  Megan’s eyes suddenly found his, and she tensed visibly on the stairs, wind blowing her flaxen hair over her face.

  Dylan’s heart raced soft and fast and angry.

  He didn’t want to hear another word of Andrew Preston’s crap.

  He didn’t want to see her. Not with that crowd. It couldn’t be more stark that she and he were from different sides of the racetrack.

  And the last thing Dylan needed was to present a photo op of himself having a personal showdown with the entire Preston clan, and then seeing his mug splashed over the papers tomorrow alongside a story of Andrew Preston alleging police ineptitude.

  Blood running cold, Dylan stalked angrily round the side of the hospital, aiming for the service entrance at the back.

  But as he was about to enter, his mobile buzzed.

  It was the Pepper Flats High principal—Heidi was not at school. She’d done this sort of thing before, and Dylan had asked the school to call him direct if she didn’t show.

  He quickly dialled home.

  His mother said Heidi had left for school as usual that morning.

  His kid was missing.

  Tension whipped tight.

  He stormed into the hospital, ran up the service stairs, and into the ward corridor.

  The chair where his police guard had been stationed was empty.

  Dylan pushed through the door to Louisa’s room and stalled.

  It was empty. Flowers removed. Bed made. As if no one had ever lain there. His prisoner was gone.

  “She was taken home last night. I’m sorry, Sergeant. They got a court injunction.”

  Dylan spun round to face a police officer from the Muswellbrook station.

  “What?” Last night? While Megan was sitting with him in his garden, when he’d pretty much proposed she spend the rest of her life with him? Had she known this was going down while she sat there holding his hand?

  His head began to pound. “Where the hell is my constable?”

  The officer came forward, looking embarrassed. “I’m sorry, Sergeant, Peebles had to leave. It was basically a cease and desist, and you’re to have no contact with any member of the Fairchild family.” He held out a piece of paper apologetically as he spoke. “They’re listed here by name.” He cleared his throat, avoiding Dylan’s eyes. “You’re also banned by court order from goi
ng within one hundred meters of Fairchild Acres.”

  He glared at the cop. His own force knew about this? And no one had told him? That was when his stomach really turned cold.

  His phone started buzzing, and he snapped it open.

  “Hastings,” he barked, tension strangling his throat.

  “You’re off the case, Sergeant—”

  “What the blazes is going on here, Matt? On what bloody grounds can he get a court order like this?”

  The Hunter LAC commander cleared his throat. “They’re alleging police brutality, illegal procedure, lack of due care of a sensitive prisoner causing—”

  “Why in hell am I the last one to find out about this?” Dylan demanded. “Why is my super only calling me now!”

  “I’m sorry, Hastings. It came out of left field and we’re still trying to work out where the force stands with this. It’s a precedent-setting injunction. D’Angelo and Associates wound a pretty convincing deal around this one—”

  “It’s not freaking true.”

  “He has valid points. We are short-staffed.”

  “And you’re going to hang me out to dry on this, Matt?” Dylan’s voice turned deadly calm, cool, because he was beyond furious now. With his superior, with the law firm, with Megan, but mostly with himself, because he’d seen this coming down the pipe the minute Matt Caruthers had told him to arrest Louisa Fairchild solo, without sufficient evidence to bolster him.

  “We’ll deal with it—”

  “You mean internal will deal with it.”

  “We don’t have a choice right now. We obey the injunction, and that comes straight from the Commissioner.” He hesitated, cleared his throat. “And I want you to come in, Dylan.”

  The use of his first name hit hard. Not once in his career had Matt Caruthers called him that. And Dylan got a very bad feeling about what was coming next. “You suspending me?”

  “Pending the outcome of an internal investigation. I’ll need your weapon and your badge. And you’ll need to bring the vehicle and your phone and radio in.”

  Cold nausea washed through him. “Look, Matt, there are angles that haven’t been played yet. If Louisa really was set up, as she claims, there could still be a homicide suspect out there. And if she is innocent—”

  “Which is the last thing we need you saying, Hastings. It’ll play right into D’Angelo’s hands if you show an ounce of belief she could be innocent of the crime you are allegedly harassing her for. And came close to killing her for.”

  He fisted his hand around the phone. “That’s bull.”

  “Go home, Hastings.”

  “There could be a killer—”

  “Sergeant, you’re off the case.” The commander’s words brooked no argument. “The state of emergency is lifting tonight, and we’ll have a full homicide team back in Pepper Flats first thing tomorrow morning. Make sure your desk is clear, and that the Lochlain files are available.”

  Dylan hung up, limbs literally vibrating, mouth dust-dry. He swore viciously.

  Screw them all.

  They could have his gun, his badge, his phone, whatever the hell they liked. He’d done his best. Solo. And he’d done it honestly, in the name of justice. Yeah, there’d been a niggle of doubt in him about his personal animosity to Louisa, and that was all probably going to come out in a Supreme Court circus down the road now, dragging him, his family history, his mother, right back into media spotlight after thirty goddamn years.

  But right now, he had to find his kid.

  That was the most important thing in his life. They could take the rest.

  Without his family, he had nothing.

  By early Tuesday afternoon the storm broke violently in the north, stirring hard downdraft winds into the valley, and filling the Hunter skies with wadded purple clouds. The pressure cell was heading this way now, lighting spot fires along the route, heavy rain vying with flames in a race for supremacy through the Koongorra wildlands. Worst-case scenario, fire would crest over the ridge and jump the Hunter River, already low from drought, sweeping into the farms.

  And Dylan couldn’t find Heidi anywhere.

  He told himself to relax, that she’d probably show when school was out, pretending she’d been there all the time.

  After dropping his weapon, badge, squad car and other accoutrements of his job off at the station, he’d been humiliated to have to call Mitch for a ride home.

  It fed his rage, and it torqued his worry over his daughter. But he could do little until school was out. In an effort to eliminate the cortisol building in his body from the constant rush of adrenaline, Dylan went for a hard, long run along the ridge across the fields from his house.

  Trees were beginning to bow and creak as the hot wind increased, redolent with imminent rain and smoke. A branch from a massive river red gum cracked like a gunshot, splintering down to the ground at Dylan’s feet. He dodged as another came crashing down, moving quickly out from under the massive trees known ominously as widow makers because of the way they shed limbs up to half the diameter of their trunk size without warning. He ran until sweat drenched his torso, and his lungs burned raw.

  He bent over, hands on his knees, sweat dripping as he tried to catch his breath. The sky lowered sullenly over him, darkening his world.

  He’d been locked out.

  He’d lost his woman through his own idiocy, and was now on the verge of losing his daughter. Even if he found her.

  And a cold unspecified fear fingered him. The same kind of fear that had taunted him when he and Liam and Henry Luddy had been lured into the Koongorra wildlands all those years ago.

  Dylan cursed viciously.

  It was irrational, he knew, because Heidi had not been abducted. She had not been lured into Koongorra bush by a psychopath.

  She’d simply fought with him and run off to spite him for letting Megan out of their lives at a time when she really needed a mother.

  Damn. She might even be at Fairchild, with Megan and Anthem. And now he was legally barred from going anywhere near the estate. Or calling the house.

  The injunction had specifically named Megan Stafford.

  Dylan swore again and kicked at a stump. Injunction be damned.

  It was getting late. He needed to find his child before night fell.

  He began to run back to his house as the first fat plops of rain bombed to the ground, rolling in the dry dust like small mercurial marbles, water releasing the scent of sand and gum trees.

  By the time he neared home, the wind was close to gale force, cracking drought-ridden trees and bringing them down across properties, roads and power lines.

  He entered his house to find it dark, his mother hunched over the battery-operated radio, listening to the storm report by the light of a candle.

  “The power is out,” she said in a thin voice. “Timmy won’t find his way home. I’m so worried about Timmy.”

  Dylan placed his hand on her shoulder. “It’ll be okay, Mum. Have you got your emergency bags packed? Like we practiced in the fire drill?”

  She nodded, eyes huge.

  He picked up the phone, and tensed—no dial tone. He depressed the cradle. Still nothing.

  The phone lines were down.

  He tried using his personal mobile to call Fairchild. Nothing. Of course there wouldn’t be. If the landline to Fairchild was down, he wasn’t going to get through via cell phone. And he didn’t have a mobile number for Megan.

  She’d only ever called him from Louisa’s car phone.

  He glanced out the windows. It was getting really dark now, the rain coming down in glistening sheets. Be damned—his own force could arrest him if they wanted, but he was going to drive there himself.

  He grabbed his oilskin coat and cattleman’s hat. “I’m going to get Heidi,” he called to his mother.

  “Where is she?”

  “Safe,” he lied, shrugging into his coat. “And I’m going to call Mitch on his mobile, tell him to come and get you if there’s an eva
cuation alert. You be ready with Muttley and your bags like we practiced, okay?”

  She nodded. “Be careful. And…bring Timmy home safe.”

  His throat choked up. “I will, Mum. Don’t you worry.”

  Dylan screeched to a stop outside the Fairchild Manor house and flung open his door. Rain and wind pummeled him as he ran toward the sweeping stairs that led to the entrance.

  But before he got to the doors, they flung open and Megan came racing down the stairs into the rain, dressed only in a thin T-shirt and jeans, no shoes.