Page 34 of Bait

I was only about five minutes away from home. Less if I went slightly faster. I couldn't rule out the possibility it was a police car behind me, hoping the woman in the fancy car would make a mistake and they could book me. Since that would suck, I stuck to the speed limit, but not a kilometre under.

I passed through the suburbs and into the more affluent part of Dusk Bay. Here, all the houses were enormous, and situated on several hectares of land. Most of the homes were set back from the road, so, apart from my headlights and the ones behind me, I travelled through the darkness.

I startled slightly as something darted across the road. It was just a possum, I told myself. They were everywhere around here. Them, kangaroos, and the occasional wombat. I didn't want to hit any of them, but especially the last two. They were a really good way of fucking up a perfectly good car. Not to mention I didn't want to kill any animals. All they were doing was trying to live their lives, like I was trying to live mine.

I swallowed in relief when I saw the big iron gates appear out of the darkness. I turned into the driveway and fumbled for the remote to open them.

Where the hell was it? It had to be somewhere in my bag. Please don't tell me it fell out somewhere.

I glanced out the window and saw the car was still there, but it had slowed down to almost a crawl.

Shit.

Trying as hard as I could to keep my panic at bay, I felt around in my bag until my fingers closed around the remote. Of course it was right at the bottom.

I pulled it out and aimed it at the gate before mashing the pad of my thumb against the button.

The gates never opened so slowly.

A finger.

Two fingers.

A hand.

An arm.

The car was still coming, its lights brighter now.

Just when I thought about getting out and running, the gate opened wide enough for me to gun the car and fly through.

One hand on the steering wheel, the other on the remote, I pressed the button to close the gate behind me.

In the rearview mirror and both side mirrors, I saw the car come to a stop just outside the gate. It stayed there for a minute, maybe two, then leapt forward and roared away into the darkness.

That wasn't fucking weird at all.

My heart in my throat, I drove the rest of the way up the driveway and waited again, this time for the garage door to slide open.

I slid the car in carefully and closed the door behind me. Only when I heard the clang of metal hitting concrete did I dare to kill the engine.

With my heart still racing, I reached for my bag and clutched it to my chest. I put my hand on the handle as the door opened.

I couldn't stop the shriek of fright that slipped out of my mouth.

Mannix leaned, looked into the car and grinned. His smile faded when he saw he hadn't startled me. I was genuinely scared.

"Hey," he said softly. "Didn't mean to scare you. You okay? You look like you saw a ghost."

I let him help me out of the car and close the door behind me, but it took me a moment to compose any kind of coherent words. When I finally managed to put more than one syllable together, I told him about the car.

"It was probably nothing," I said finally.

His expression was like a rock wall. Unreadable and unbreakable. "Stopping outside the gate as you come in isn't nothing. You should have called me."

"I didn't want to make a problem if there wasn't one," I argued.

"Next time, call me," he said firmly. "It doesn't matter if it's not a problem, but what if it was? What if the other car tried to drive you off the road? Or worse."