Until Death - Sandy Curtis

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cat, its grey and white stripes perfectly symmetrical around its face and body. 'Oh,' she said, 'a porcelain cat. She's beautiful.'

      'He is Thomas,' Conor said. 'We have a gentlemen's agreement. I feed him, and he allows me to pat him when it suits hi...' Conor broke off in amazement as Thomas jumped up onto Libby's lap. He watched the tension dissolve from Libby's features as her arms wrapped around Thomas. The cat rubbed against her face and emitted a loud purr.

      'Had your parents divorced?' Conor nudged Libby back on the track he wanted. If he could keep her talking, she might reveal what she was so afraid of.

      'It's awful being a child, isn't it,' she countered. She stroked Thomas, and as her hand moved, the words began to flow. 'Mom and Dad met when she was on holiday out here from the States. They married, then found they were totally incompatible. My father was outgoing and openly affectionate, my mother was reserved to the point of being rigid. When they'd argue, Dad would yell and Mom would speak in a quiet voice that was so cold it could make me shiver.'

      'When my parents argued,' Conor reflected, 'my mother would throw crockery at my father, he'd duck, laugh, then make her laugh, and they'd disappear into the bedroom for ages.' Conor checked himself in surprise. Where had that come from? For years the only information he'd given out about his parents had been the carefully-rehearsed background he wanted to project.

      'The bedroom wasn't somewhere my parents met very often,' Libby said bitterly. 'They divorced when I was thirteen and Mom took me back to the States. She wouldn't let my father have any contact with me, and it was only when he died that she got an attack of conscience and handed over all the letters and Christmas and birthday cards he'd sent me. She'd given his gifts to the local children's home.'

      Conor felt his stomach knot. Sympathy for Libby's pain merged with another, deeper ache he hadn't felt for a long time.

      Thomas suddenly jumped off Libby's lap and walked out of the room. Libby watched him go, then turned to Conor. 'Could I use your telephone book to see if my grandfather's name is in there? He could live further down this street.'

      The phone book revealed no H. Daniels, and Libby wondered if her grandfather had moved away ... or died.

      'When did you last have contact with him, Libby?'

      'When I was fourteen. He rang the States to wish me Happy Birthday, and I answered the phone so I got to speak to him. Mom had the number changed, after that.'

      'How long have you been back in Australia?'

      'Almost six months. Dad left everything to me in his Will, so I came back to Australia to ...' she swallowed against the choking sensation in her throat, 'it sounds dumb, I know, but I felt I had to ... to touch his life in some way.' She spread her fingers across the phone book. 'I had once loved my father very much, then I spent years thinking that he had abandoned me.'

      'And now?'

      'Now?' She looked up at Conor. 'Now I wish I hadn't lost all those years trying to hate him.'

      Something sharp seized Conor's gut at the regret in her voice, and he swiftly changed tack. 'The deeds for this house are in my safety deposit box at the bank. We'll get them and find out if your grandfather was one of the previous owners. If he was, we might be able to find out what's happened to him.'

      Waiting wasn't something Wesley handled well. Especially not now, when he expected that any minute the police would knock on his door and want to question him. If Libby had seen her mother killed, it would be his word against hers, but without a body ...

      The trill of his mobile phone startled him, and he leapt from the embracing silk cushions of his lounge and grabbed it off the coffee table.

      'Mal, thank God. You've found her?'

      'No. My contact at the airport can't find out anything for me yet. The woman he's friendly with is off sick.'

      'But -'

      'We'll just have to wait. I don't like it either, but we still have a chance to salvage this. Just don't lose your nerve.'

      The connection severed. Lose his nerve? He wasn't likely to do that. He had too much at stake.

      CHAPTER FIVE

      Libby buttoned her blouse. In spite of careful washing and drying, the grass stain on the shoulder still remained, dark against the pale blue fabric. She looked down at her pants. They'd cleaned up well, but her sneakers looked incongruous against the elegant style. Not that it worried her. Fashion had never been something she cared about. She bit her lip. Another thing that had caused dissension between her and her mother.

      She usually didn't bother much about make-up, either, but the mirror above the old cedar chest of drawers told her it would help disguise the paleness of her cheeks, the dark shadows under her eyes, and the purple of the bruising. Not that she could do much about it at the moment.

      They caught a bus into the city. Libby sat at the window, looking out at older-styled homes overshadowed by high-rise apartment buildings, then shops spruced up with Christmas decorations. Carols jangled into the cacophony of constant traffic, and the crowds rushed and flowed in a never-ending stream.

      Christmas. She hadn't even thought about it. In the past five years she'd spent every alternate Christmas with her mother's family, suffering the rituals that had lost all spontaneity, the traditions that meant a dinner table piled with more food than was comfortable to eat, and attendance at a church service in order to be seen rather than pay homage to the child born in a stable. Her discontent with this way of life had led to her studying welfare at university and working for a charity group that helped Mexican immigrant workers. The latter had precipitated her big fight with her mother. A safe desk job that was seen to be 'doing the right thing' was fine in her mother's eyes, but getting 'down and dirty with the peasants' was a definite social error.

      Sharing Christmas with those workers had been an unexpected bonus for Libby. Generous in spite of their poverty, or perhaps because of it, she thought later, they had shared not only their food, but their love and laughter with her, and she'd felt the glow of unconditional acceptance that she used to know with her father.

      Conor's hand folding over hers and his sympathetic whisper 'It'll be all right, we'll find him' made her realise her melancholy thoughts must have shown on her face. She looked down at their hands, his long fingers covering her small ones, and felt a warmth and safety that eased the pain inside her, and created a startling awareness of how good his skin felt on hers. A week ago she would have pulled her hand away, but now she savoured the feeling, desperately in need of touch, of reassurance ... and something else she didn't want to acknowledge.

      The Title Deed to Conor's land was spotted with age, but Libby breathed a sigh of relief as she saw her grandfather's name listed. Finding him had become her focus; knowing she could trust him was the only sureness in her present confusion of half-remembered nightmares.

      'The previous owners purchased the house from him,' Conor said, 'so that will make it easier to trace. I'll phone the real estate agent they used and see if she knows where they were moving after they sold to me. Don't worry,' he reassured Libby, 'we'll find him. But in the meantime we'd better buy you some new clothes.'

      Libby's hand rose self-consciously to the stain on her blouse. 'It'll just be a loan, Conor, I'll pay you back as soon as I can.' As soon as this nightmare is over.

      They stepped from the coolness of the bank onto a crowded pavement. The heat hit them like a blow.

      'Up to the Queen Street Mall,' Conor said, taking her arm. 'I've heard some of my Asian students talk about buying their clothes there, and you're certainly the same size.'

      Although Conor urged her to buy more clothes, Libby insisted that she only needed a change of clothing, an extra top, and a pair of sandals. She purchased toiletries, and some aspirin for her headache that refused to go away. She was grateful it hadn't escalated into a migraine. But the constant noise bothered her, and it wasn't long before Conor noticed.

      'I'll find a phone book and call the real estate agent,' he said, 'and

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