Almost Lost

He handed the phone back to the nurse. "If the police come, or call, can you tell them that one of their colleagues in Sydney leaked our patient's whereabouts to the bad guys?"

You could hardly call it walking, it was sort of between walking and running, but he raced down to me. "Right, you're well enough, get into these clothes, we're getting you out of here right now." He handed me a nurses uniform that fitted well enough.

"I suppose that there's a nurse running around naked."

"No such luck, I borrowed it from the laundry, the shoes you were wearing when you came here will do, now I want you to walk as if you belong here, can you do that?"

"For you anything."

He flashed me a disbelieving look.

"Where are we heading?"

"Down to the up country."

"You having a lend. Will I have to stand on my head or something?"

"No. Where we're going, many of the towns' names end in 'up', so it's known as the up country.

"Oh,"

"We'll just be passing through on our way to Margaret River, the waves there come all the way from Africa."

It was a two-hour drive to our destination, keeping to the speed limit to avoid the police. "The traffic cops love this road on Friday evenings, people hurrying to get to their destination tend to ignore the speed limits."

"Speaking from experience are we?"

"Who me? Never."

"I just thought of something, Will I have to wear this uniform the whole time I'm down here?"

"No, that's if you don't mind going naked."

"In your dreams."

"Don't worry, I've got some clothes that should fit."

"Really? And when did you have time to get them?"

"Who's to say that my last girlfriend didn't leave them there."

"Did she?"

"She did. She wasn't going to need them where she was going."

"And where was that?"

"Antarctica, she's down there for the next ten months at a research station."

"No plans for reconciliation then?"

"No, her new boyfriend is there as well."

"Ouch."

"Yeah, ouch."

"Another thing, the sleeping arrangements, what will they be?"

"You'll have two choices, with me or the floor. Nah, there are several beds, you can take your pick."

It was very pleasant, sitting on the verandah listening to the sound of the surf crashing on the sand below the house. "You wait until tomorrow evening when the sun is setting, it's spectacular."

"That's something that I'm not used to, where I come from the sun rises out of the sea not sets into it."

He went inside and came out with a bottle and two glasses. "I think we both need this, I know I do."

"Are you prescribing alcohol for your patient or is this part of your wicked scheme to get into my pants?"

"If memory serves, you're not wearing any."

"You're still not going there."

He handed me a glass of red. "That's your you-beaut Margaret River Cab Sav."

"I'll give it that, it is good." I took another sip. "I could get to like this."

By the time it came to go to bed I had decided that if he asked nicely I might join him. Following an eloquent invitation, I slid into bed beside him, having not found any suitable pyjamas I had knickers and tee shirt. "Very nice." He commented as I slipped into bed.

"Look but don't touch, them's the rules."

I know I made the rules and I wasn't going to let him break them, but that doesn't mean to say that I was not about to break them myself. We had spent the last thirty minutes talking about our lives up to now, when I reached for him, to be specific, that part of him that I very much wanted inside me. "Are you sure about this?"

"Don't tell me that you're having second thoughts? I remember that, not so very long ago, you couldn't wait to get into my pants."

PERTH

"Where is she?" A very angry Sergeant Thornton asked.

"She was here the last time we did her obs."

"Well, she's not there now. Has anyone been to see her?"

"No. We did have someone calling from Sydney asking after her."

"What did you tell this person?"

"I told him that we couldn't give out information on patients. He was rather insistent, so I handed the phone to Doctor Jarvis." She related the ensuing conversation.

"So, this person identified her as Chelsea Darling?"

"That was the name that he gave. Doctor Jarvis asked him where he got the information that she might be here and this person told him that the police had told him. Doctor Jarvis told him that we didn't have anyone by that name as a patient, which was sort of true, and even if we did, we would not give out any information to anyone other than the police or a close relative, such as a parent. I think the person told Doctor Jarvis that he was flying over because Doctor Jarvis told him that he would be wasting his time."

"This Doctor Jarvis, where can I find him?"

"I don't know. He has just finished a ten day cycle and has three days before he begins his next cycle."

"Where does he go when he's not working?"

"I don't know, all I know is that he's into surfing, so he could be anywhere on the coast."

"That narrows it down not a lot." She stormed out.

Police Station.

"Someone over there has informed one of the bad guys that our Jane Doe has survived". She was on the phone with Sydney. "He contacted the hospital to confirm the information and he told them that he was flying to Perth. Now, who have you spoken to?"

"We have spoken to several of Jimmy S's former associates, women that he knew, who might have had his child. No one admitted to this. We are in the process of running their names through BD&M records to see if any have had sons around the time of their association with him."

"One thing that we did get was that her name is apparently Chelsea Darling. Can you run that through your system to see what pops up? She may not have a record but may have had contact with someone who does, or a known associate of someone who does. She told me that she was working on something and was up at the Cross getting background when she was approached by a young guy, she doesn't remember anything after the second drink he gave her. Right now I have two missing persons to find."

"Two missing persons?" Constable Jennings asked.

"It would appear that, on hearing that a person in Sydney was taking an interest in his patient, that the good Doctor Jarvis has done a runner with said patient. The only clue we have to go on is that he's into surfing."

"It's going to take days, weeks even, to find him."

"Not if we go about it systematically. We get on the phone to real estate agents, particularly letting agents, to see if he either owns a beach house or rents one on a regular basis. Grab the Yellow Pages and start dialling."

MARGARET RIVER.

I was just surfacing when I felt a hand on my breast and a body pressed against my back. "You're a bastard, do you know that?" I told him.

"That's not what you told me last night." His fingertip was circling my nipple.

"I wasn't thinking straight last night. Years ago I promised myself that I would never again invite a man into my body, or into my heart. You made me go back on both promises."

"I didn't hear you complaining last night".

"Who's complaining? Did you hear me complain then, or now?" I rolled towards him and felt his hard cock on my leg. "I'll start to complain unless you do something with that monster." I stroked it to emphasise my words. Something he did.

"Are you saying that you have only had one lover before me? I find that hard to believe. So what went wrong?"

I was at a disadvantage, what with him on top of me and his cock still inside me. "I was blinded by his looks and reputation." I said in response to his question about my previous love life. "He was a great kisser and my friends urged me to let him get to the next base, to let him make love to me, something that I had no intention of doing at the time. It took me about five dates before I allowed him to put his hand between my legs, and another two to allow him to push his finger into my pussy. Weeks of him telling me that he loved me, and me telling him that I loved him, went by before I eventually relented and we made love."

"So what happened for you to give him the flick?"

"I had been led to believe that the first time would be all bells and whistles, a big deal, but it wasn't. Once he got inside me and filled his condom, he pulled out, leaving me unfulfilled. It wasn't like it was supposed to be, and my friends told me that it was my lack of experience that led to it not meeting my expectations, and that it would get better in time. It didn't. I came to realise that it was all about him getting his rocks off, and that I was just a convenient receptacle. That was it, I told him that my friend Julie really wanted him to fuck her, so he went to her. Three months later he had moved on, and she told me that she understood why I had left him. I had already made the decision to never allow any man inside my body."

"So what happened to make you change your mind?"

"You are not just 'any' man, are you?"

"Nah, in my daily role I'm a mild-mannered trauma doctor, but my alter ego is a superhero who spends his time fighting for truth, justice and whoever pays the most." His chuckle with his cock inside me sent shivers through my body.

Later, his visit inside my body over, he eased it out and kissed me. "Thank you for that." His lips said to mine. His mood changed. "Right, don't worry about having a shower, there's a swimsuit in that closet over there, put it on and we'll find a board for you, the surf's waiting for us."

I found the excuse for a swimsuit, in this case, an almost bikini that left little to the imagination. "Do you call this a swimsuit? I wouldn't be seen dead in this, it hides nothing."

"You exaggerate young Darling, anyway, there's no-one around just now and the best surf happens early."

We found a board for me and trudged down to the beach. He was right, the surf was great and, after a few wipe-outs until my skills kicked back in, I was soon matching him. After an hour my lack of fitness took its toll and I called a halt.

"You're good." He said as we walked back to the house. There was an outside shower that we used to wash the saltwater from our bodies. Drying off, we went inside and he filled an electric kettle for coffee. "You should get changed, I don't know how long I can resist ravishing you while I make breakfast for us."

With a wicked look on my face, I slipped out of the bikini and tossed it on the draining board. He lunged, I dodged the lunge and sprinted for the bedroom to emerge minutes later in a tee-shirt over a long skirt, to find him, naked, buttering toast. Licking his fingers, he put the knife down and gave me a hug. My face found his, and his hand slid down and under the fold of the wrap-around skirt to find that I was still knicker-less. Oh well, cold toast and tepid coffee tasted like a gourmet meal after lovemaking.

"Hey, Super-stud, I can't keep calling you that . . . "

"Why not?"

"I know that your name is Jarvis, it was on your white coat, but what is your Christian name?"

"Brian, I prefer Super-stud though."

"Do you now? You do realise that when we're old and grey that's going to sound completely ridiculous?"

"Getting ahead of yourself, who said that we're going to get married?"

Opening my legs and pointing to where he had just been, "If you want more of this," I didn't need to finish the threat.

"We'll think about it, okay?"

"That sounds better than, 'you've got to be joking', I guess it'll have to do for now."

Late morning we headed into town for supplies only to find, on our return, a car parked outside the house. The red and blue lights on the rear parcel shelf told us that it was a police car. "Good morning Doctor Jarvis and Chelsea, you were hard, but obviously not impossible, to find. You're lucky that we found you before the bad guys did."

"What bad guys?" I asked.

"The one that the good doctor here spoke to yesterday, the one that he absconded from the hospital to avoid, taking you with him."

"I was protecting my patient. Anyhow, I had some time off, so I thought that this would be a safe place."

"You should have contacted us and informed us that this guy was flying in to finish her off. As it was, we only just found out in time to apprehend him as he arrived at the airport. You will be pleased to know that we have charged a James Nicholas with rape, attempted murder and a couple of other charges."

"Fuck." They all looked at me, not because I swore, the reason that I swore was because the pieces of the jigsaw that I had been working on had finally fitted into place. "Nicholas, my Professor's name is Nicholas. One of the, to use IT speak, firewalls that I managed to breach revealed that Prof Nicholas had made several advantageous connections to the criminal gangs, one of which was through his wife. It would seem that she knew, in a biblical context, Jimmy S. Jimmy dumped her when he found out that she was pregnant, telling her that he denied parenthood and that she would get nothing from him. The Prof provided a shoulder for her to cry on, and, she gave him in return, a bed, marriage and in due course a son. I mentioned my findings of the case to him to judge his reaction. I guess what happened to me was his reaction. The guy that I met, and who, although I didn't know it, tried to kill me, was Jimmy S's son."

"Don't forget he raped you, it appears, several times while you were not capable of resisting."

"I prefer to forget that."

"You can't just yet, on Monday we'll want you in court when he makes his initial appearance. Sydney police will be there seeking his extradition but we will argue that we have to think of your best interests, and they will be best served by keeping you here."

"So, what happens now?" I asked.

"You are now in police protective custody. Now, this could be in Perth or, while we were waiting for you to come back, I was looking at the surf." Turning to Brian, "You wouldn't have a spare board, would you?"

"If we're going to get up close and personal with the cops we should at least know their names." I said.

"I'm Hilary Thornton, my friends call me 'Larry', and Constable Jennings is Dave."

"You're probably aware that I'm Chelsea Darling although I plan to change that soon, I want only one person to call me 'Darling'."

"You guys don't muck around, do you?"

"I think you'll find it's because we've been mucking around that we've reached this situation," Brian said. "I needed to get her out of the hospital to a safe place and to take her mind off her problems, that's why I decided to bring her here, and I was coming down here anyway."

"That was good, coming, here, you've certainly achieved that." I said.

"Will you two stop that. This is a serious matter, we're not just dealing with some small-time crooks. They must be really scared to want to kill you over what you managed to discover. We would like to read your report if that's possible."

"Anything is possible. Now that we've established that the police in Sydney can't be trusted, and we can almost guarantee that my phone will set off alarms when I activate it, we have to think outside the square. Can I borrow your phone?" I asked Larry.

"Sure, that's my private phone, not my work phone."

I dialled, (do we still say dialled when it was a matter of typing a number?) my flat mate's number. "Hi Georgie, yes it's me, I'm still alive," (My flat's been trashed,) "has anything been stolen, apart from my laptop, good, in my top drawer you'll find a jewellery box, in it is a locket, good, open it up. Under the photo of my Grandma, you'll find a micro SD card. What I want you to do is to open the file and attach it to an email addressed to Sergeant Hillary Thornton at, (address) I'll hold until you can confirm that it has been sent." We waited for a minute or two. "Great, thanks for that. No, I won't be coming back in the near future if ever. We'll talk later, bye."

"It looks as if you'll need to go back to Perth to get that email."

"Not necessary. Dave, there's a tablet in the car. Can you get it for me?"

"I can access my computer from here and download the email."

Several minutes later she paused. "Fuck. You don't happen to have a stray printer around here do you?" She asked Brian.

"No. but I can get one. They sell cheap printers at the local shop, I can go and get one."

"No, that can be a job for Dave, he can get a receipt so that I can get reimbursed." Dave left. "This is dangerous stuff you have here. It would seem as if the Prof's wife is not just an innocent victim of a brief liaison with Jimmy S. She sought revenge and, with the Prof's help, set up their own criminal network, the purpose of which was to not only bring Jimmy down but to acquire great wealth. The network included many high-ranking police officers, judges and politicians. This is one huge can of very nasty worms that you have kicked over young lady."

Dave arrived back with the printer and we hooked it to her tablet. While we waited for it to stop printing I busied myself, in a show of domesticity for my future husband, in making coffee for us all. I already knew that the reading of the report was going to take time.

We called a halt late in the afternoon and took to the surf. I felt sorry for Dave as the only one who had never surfed. He tried and gave up only to take to the waves to show off his body surfing skills.

The deep red sky of the setting sun halted proceedings and we showered and sat down to pizza and some more of the excellent red wine, this time a Shiraz.

"How many beds do we need to make makeup, two or three?" Brian asked, looking from Larry to Dave.

"Two will do," Larry said.

A pre-breakfast surf followed by coffee and toast, Larry went into town and came back with a pad and pens. She worked at writing a precis of the report that she would type up and use tomorrow in court. This included a list of police, pollies and judges to hand to the Sydney police. A copy would be sent to the anti-corruption branch to act on as they saw fit.

We tried to relax, but it wasn't working for any of us, not even dinner at the local pub helped. I don't know about any of the others, but I could not get my body to relax enough to get some sleep. Brian had the same problem so we just lay beside each other allowing our closeness to bring us as close as possible to a relaxed state.

We had to leave early in the morning to get into town to prepare for the court hearing. The trip took no time at all given our police escort, complete with lights and siren.

"Where have you been?" The Police Prosecutor asked as we arrived at the courthouse.

"We were looking after our witness, we could not risk a third attempt on her life."

"Third attempt?"

"The first was her drugging and her being left, in a coma on the Indian Pacific to die, because of a report that she had written as part of her university studies. The culprit arrived on Saturday morning with the sole purpose of finishing the job that he started. Having failed a second time we decided to keep her safe under police protection until this trial. If you read this report you'll understand why we took this step. I assume that the mob over there are Sydney police here to apply for extradition. If any of their names are on that list I would oppose extradition." She handed him the list that she had printed off.

The trial got underway with the Sydney police applying for extradition. "Your Honour, we have a warrant that requires the prisoner to be extradited in our custody face serious charges in connection with the attempt on the life of Chelsea Darling."

"Your Honour," the Perth prosecutor rose, "it is for that very reason that we cannot allow for that to happen. The victim of this crime, Chelsea Darling, is a Criminology student and, as part of her course requirements, she was set the task of investigating certain criminal matters. These involved not only the biological father of the accused but his birth mother and stepfather. She was assigned this for two reasons. The first was to gain evidence that would lead to, at best a motive for a rival to make him dead, at worst the conviction of the accused's biological father. The second was to test the effectiveness of the firewalls that his parents had put in place to insulate themselves from prosecution. When she managed to breach the firewalls, the accused was ordered to execute the death of Chelsea Darling in such a way as to appear to be a suicide. To use the vernacular, he stuffed up, he drugged her and took her onto the Indian Pacific. The plan was that he should leave her, heavily drugged, on the train, get off mid-journey and return to Sydney. He chose to rape her while she was in a drugged state and it was, as a result of that rape, that we, in Perth, managed to identify the accused as the perpetrator of this heinous crime.