Blood Sport by J.D. Nixon Page A

grab my phone and spent the next five minutes assuring Dad yet again that Red hadn’t killed me and hopefully I would see him later in the day. He told me that the roof in the kitchen was leaking badly with all the rain we were having. I sighed heavily. I had no money to repair it. Our house was nothing but a money trap. It seemed that every cent I earned ended up being sucked into the black hole of property maintenance on a hundred-something-year-old timber home. I’d wanted to save for a rainy day, but that rainy day had arrived and I didn’t have five cents in my bank account to fix the leaky roof.
    “I’ll see what I can do about it when I get home, Dad. Is it really that bad? Maybe you should stay with Adele?”
    Dad’s long-time girlfriend, Adele, worked at the local supermarket and was a warm and loving woman. They’d been a couple for about ten years and Dad would have married her in a blink, I was sure. But after my mother was murdered by Bobby Bycraft when I was young, he’d made a promise to himself that he would never put another woman in that kind of danger again by making her his wife. I wasn’t the only Fuller woman who’d suffered from dangerously obsessive Bycraft attention.
    We rang off and I laid back on the bed, moping about the roof. Maybe Jake could help me fix it – he was a competent handyman.
    A sudden commotion in the hallway made me sit up in alarm.
    “Tess?” asked one of the two very capable officers who’d replaced Sarah and Jack, poking his head around the door. “There’s a man here saying he’s Jake Bycraft. We’ve searched him and I’ve checked his driver’s licence, but can you come and verify?”
    My heart pounded – surely Red wouldn’t try it on again? Not so blatantly? He was a risk-taking narcissist though and this would appeal to his warped sense of humour. Pushing my IV trolley to the door, I cautiously peered around. The two cops had their guns out covering Jake, who stood with a sullen, resentful expression on his face.
    “It’s okay, guys. It really is Jake,” I assured them and held out my hand to him. He took it, kissed it gently, glared at the two cops as they reholstered their weapons and followed me back into the room.
    He was fuming. I patted his arm and settled back onto the bed. He sat on the bed next to me and leaned over to kiss me properly.
    “Don’t be angry, Jakey,” I soothed, caressing his cheek. “They were only doing their job. The last two cops received such a reaming from the Super that everyone’s going to be ultra-careful from now on.”
    “That arsehole on the left knows me, Tessie. We’ve been to parties at his house.”
    “I know. I’m sorry,” I said and leaned up to kiss him again, taking his mind off the indignation of having to prove his identity to people who already knew him.
    “I came as soon as I could, baby doll,” he said, stroking my hair and calming down. “You look so pale.”
    “I’ve lost some blood. That’s what this,” and I shook the IV, “is for, I guess.”
    “Will you be okay?”
    I shrugged. “I haven’t seen a doctor yet. I don’t feel like I’m going to die or anything. But I’m just so tired of it all, Jakey.”
    He squeezed my hand, but didn’t know what to say. And what could anyone say to me in these circumstances? What could a Bycraft say? It was my fate in life to be tormented by the Bycraft family and there was nothing anyone could do to help me, particularly Jake. He hugged me tightly and we stayed like that until the Sarge came back in the room, carrying a tray.
    “Jake,” he acknowledged in an unfriendly voice.
    “Finn,” Jake matched him for frostiness.
    The Sarge set up the table for me again and deposited the tray, whipping the lid off the plate. He had brought me back a poached egg on toast with grilled tomatoes and mushrooms, as well as an orange juice and a coffee. He’d brought himself back a coffee as well.
    “Yum, yum, yum, yum, yum!” I enthused and tucked in.