CHAPTER SEVEN

      ‘SHE can’t go.’

      ‘Excuse me?’ Max flicked his gaze up from where he was slotting the bassinette, stuffed full of baby clothes and nappies, into the back of his car.

      ‘Your sister,’ the motel manager said nervously. ‘The police might want to talk to her again. She’s their best witness.’

      ‘She’s already given them a statement. They can talk again later. Preferably tomorrow. We’re only going to be just down the road. I gave you my address on the registration form.’

      The manager looked bewildered. Things were happening in his establishment that were far more than he had any desire to cope with. Max took pity on him.

      ‘I know it’s a bit weird. She should have come home with me in the first place but she’s kind of independent is my sister. Extremely capable but she likes to manage things on her own.’ Not that she was putting up any kind of resistance to him having taken control for now. Ellie was sitting in the back seat of his car, with Mouse in the baby seat strapped in right beside her. She had to be listening to this exchange but she was sitting very still. Looking tense enough to snap at any moment.

      Max didn’t want any further delays. He smiled at the manager and lowered his voice. ‘She doesn’t really approve of me, you know? I like to ride motorbikes and have parties. Not the best environment for a new baby, is it?’

      ‘N-no, I guess not.’

      Max shut the back hatch of the SUV so that Ellie couldn’t hear him. ‘But this hasn’t turned out to be a very good environment either, has it? I can’t leave her somewhere where people get stabbed and thrown off balconies.’

      ‘Nothing like this has ever happened before.’ The manager was almost wringing his hands. ‘All the police here…all that blood…They’re putting up tape, did you see? In case that guy dies and it becomes a crime scene. What’s that going to do to my business?’

      Max had seen the tape. Luckily he’d moved so fast he’d got most of Ellie’s possessions out of the unit before it became impossible to access the door. Now he needed to get her away from here. The last thing Ellie needed was the police asking too many questions. They would be wanting to talk to him at some stage and he needed to think about what he was going to tell them concerning his relationship with their chief witness.

      Talk about weaving a tangled web of deception. The strands were winding themselves ever more tightly around him and it was getting hard to think straight. All Max could do was run on instinct and hope that it served him as well as it always had when it came to out-of-control situations. He wasn’t at all sure that it had worked particularly well over the last week but he had no choice other than to continue to go with it. No way could he leave Ellie here to fend for herself. She was in a fragile state anyway and this nasty incident must have shaken her up badly.

      Max ignored the manager’s anxious fluttering around the back of his vehicle as he climbed into the driver’s seat. He had to manoeuvre to get out through the extra police cars that had arrived on scene and a glance in his rear-view mirror showed the manager now talking animatedly to an officer, pointing at his departing car. He suppressed a sigh. How much time would they have before someone official came knocking at his door?

      For a wild moment, Max considered driving right past his own address. Finding somewhere else to put Ellie and Mouse. Somewhere nobody could find them. The police or Marcus Jones. But then what? They’d be totally dependent on him, wouldn’t they?

      And why on earth did that ridiculous scenario hold some kind of strange appeal? It was crazy. This whole week had been crazy and by the time Max had formed that inescapable conclusion, he was outside his apartment.

      ‘Here we are.’

      The statement, admittedly uttered with some resignation, fell into silence. Max turned his head to find huge eyes in a very pale face.

      ‘I’m really sorry, Max.’ The apology was a whisper. ‘I’m a lot of trouble, aren’t I?’

      Yes. She was. She and the mouse had turned his life completely upside down in the blink of an eye and the worst of it was that Max was still lying awake at night, haunted by what could have happened if he hadn’t become involved. She’d got under his skin. Maybe it had happened in that first moment, when she’d stumbled into his arms and growled at him to let her go.

      Or maybe it had been Mouse who’d really got under his skin. Seeped in, probably, which was hardly surprising when they’d spent so much time with their skins touching.

      Whatever. He was in this up to his neck. He couldn’t get out until that fierce Ellie appeared again. The one who would shove him away and growl at him in a brave stand for independence and autonomy. There wasn’t a hint of fierceness in her face right now. Max could see fear and uncertainty. But when his gaze slid down and he saw her hand resting on the edge of the baby seat, holding a tiny hand in her fingers, he could see the bond between a mother and child. The love.

      He could see the courage that came with that as a given.

      And it was a gentle kind of fierce.

      Max could only smile. A poignant tilt to his lips that felt nothing like any smile he’d ever produced in his life.

      ‘Hey…’ He moved his gaze back to Ellie’s face. ‘I like trouble. Keeps life interesting. They didn’t call us the “bad boys” at school for nothing.’

      He carried the baby seat into the apartment and then he ferried in the baby gear.

      ‘Uh-oh…where’s your bag, Ellie?’

      ‘I must have left it behind. I was only grabbing baby stuff.’

      ‘So you don’t have a change of clothes or anything?’

      ‘No.’

      They both looked at what Ellie was wearing. The horrible, shapeless sweatshirt and jeans that looked five sizes too big. And then Max frowned.

      ‘Your clothes are covered in blood.’

      ‘Oh, my God…’ Ellie stared down at her stained jeans. ‘They’re saturated. What if he had hepatitis? Or HIV?’

      ‘Get them off,’ Max said crisply. ‘Get into the shower. Have a really good scrub. I’ll throw these into the laundry and soak them in bleach. Check that you don’t have any open wounds…on your legs, in particular. Did you get any blood on your hands?’

      ‘No. Someone gave me plastic bags.’

      ‘That’s right. I wondered what you were using when I arrived. That’s good.’ Max stepped towards the baby seat where the mouse was beginning to squeak. ‘I’ll look after her. The bathroom’s just down the hall. First door on the left.’

      ‘But she sounds hungry.’

      ‘I’ll give her a bottle. She’s had them before, I don’t think she’ll mind.’ Max didn’t mind either, he realised. He had enjoyed those feeding times up in PICU. Missed them, almost.