The Doctor’s Proposal

CHAPTER NINE

TWO hours later Kirsty drove back to the castle in a borrowed hospital car, feeling as if maybe, just maybe things would be OK.

The electrocardiogram showed minor damage, as did the cardiac enzymes. Nothing that couldn’t repair itself. Angus was sleeping, recovering from the combined effects of painkillers and shock, but his breathing was deep and almost normal.

‘He’ll go to Sydney and get thorough cardiac assessment now,’ Jake growled. ‘I haven’t been able to get the stubborn old coot into this hospital before this, and I’m going to move so fast he won’t know what hit him.’ He hesitated. ‘Kirsty…’

‘You’d like me to go with him?’

His face cleared. ‘If you would. I’ll take care of Susie for you.’

‘Of course you will,’ she said softly, and then looked away.

Her job in a hospice at home was often heart-wrenching, but her heart had never been wrenched as it was now. What was it with this place, these people…this man?

She’d fallen in love with a whole community, she thought bleakly as she drove home, and she didn’t know what to do about it. Because although she’d fallen for this place, she knew she could never separate the two. Her love for Dolphin Bay and its people.

Her love for Jake.

Maybe a couple of days away would be good for her, she thought. Jake was arranging for air ambulance to transport Angus that afternoon and the plan was for her to accompany him. As his medical attendant-but also as his family.

Because that’s what I am, like it or not, she admitted to herself. Family. Somehow this whole place has wrapped itself around my heart, and I don’t know what to do about it.

Do what comes next and nothing more, she told herself fiercely. Go home. Reassure Susie and everyone else. Pack an overnight bag and go to Sydney. Stay there until you’re sure Angus is out of danger.

Get away from Jake.

Right.

But when she drove into the castle forecourt there was more drama. She couldn’t have time out just yet.

‘Spike’s dying.’

Kirsty was barely out of the car door before Susie appeared from the gate leading to the kitchen garden. Boris was by her side, looking as concerned as Kirsty.

‘Kirsty, Spike’s dying,’ Susie yelled again. ‘Angus must have been trying to tell us…’ She was balancing precariously on her crutches. As she saw her twin she took hasty steps forward-too hasty-and started to stagger. Kirsty reached her before she hit the ground.

‘Jake phoned,’ her sister said. ‘He said Angus would be OK and you were going to Sydney. Everyone left and then I came out to see. Kirsty, Spike-’

‘Susie, calm down.’

‘I’m calm, but-’

‘You’re not calm. Be sensible. Where’s everyone else?’

Susie took a deep breath. She closed her eyes, obviously fighting for composure. ‘Ben’s gone home to water his own vegetables. Margie says that’s the first place he goes when he’s upset. Then when Jake phoned and said he wanted you to go to Sydney, Margie said she’d shop now as she doesn’t want me to be alone for too long, and after you go I will be. So she and the twins have gone into town. But when they left…’ Her voice broke on a sob.

‘Hey, hush.’ Kirsty put her hand on her twin’s, trying to stem what sounded like rising hysteria. ‘It’s OK.’

‘But it’s not,’ Susie sobbed. ‘I know why Angus had his heart attack. He must have seen. When they left I went to check. Angus and I cleared all the leaves near the pumpkin, leaving the stem exposed. Someone’s pulled it. They’ve hauled the roots right out of the ground. I’ve replanted him, but it’ll take days for his roots to re-establish themselves. He’s wilting while I watch.’

The pumpkin was indeed poorly. Kirsty’s specialty was dying people, not pumpkins-but she knew a dying pumpkin when she saw one. If she’d been selecting pumpkins for a hospice, Spike might well have met her criteria.

He wasn’t totally limp. Some of the leaves closer to the roots were still stiff and healthy, but the leaves close to the pumpkin itself were visibly wilting. Susie had rigged up a sheet to give shade. She’d soaked the ground with water, so the patch was sodden, but obviously not enough water was getting through.

‘Someone’s wrenched him out of the ground,’ Susie whispered. ‘I guess we were lucky the whole plant didn’t break off, but as it is, Spike can’t get water and he’ll die.’

‘Won’t it ripen anyway?’ Kirsty said doubtfully-and received the look she’d used not so long ago on a junior intern who’d suggested using aspirin for renal colic.

‘It’s too soon. He’ll get bigger before he ripens. If he’s picked now he’ll never be any good. This must have been why Angus had his attack. He’ll have looked out the window and been rushing to help. Who can have done such a thing?’ Susie sank onto the wet ground and lifted the main stem into her hands. ‘This will break Angus’s heart. The damaged roots can’t supply enough water to get through.’

Kirsty opened her mouth to say something, and then she stopped.

No. What she was thinking had to be dumb.

‘What?’ Susie said. ‘Why is it dumb?’

‘You know, Jake does this to me, too, now,’ Kirsty complained. ‘Can’t a girl even think by herself?’

‘Jake loves you as much as I love you,’ Susie retorted. ‘He just doesn’t know it yet. What’s dumb?’

Ignore the Jake comment, Kirsty told herself. Concentrate on important matters. Like dying pumpkins.

She was a palliative-care physician. Her specialty was taking care of the dying. Not lifesaving. So far today she’d helped save Angus and now… Could she save a pumpkin? A medical step sideways.

‘I was thinking…’

‘I know you were thinking,’ Susie said, exasperated. ‘But you need to stop thinking and do something or the pumpkin’s cactus.’

‘You know, palliative-care doctors don’t use the word cactus,’ she said thoughtfully, her mind still racing. ‘It’s not a good image.’

‘Spike will die, then,’ Susie said, sounding even more exasperated. And fearful. She’d fallen for Angus in a big way, Kirsty thought. Angus was Rory’s uncle and he was therefore Susie’s family.

If Angus was Susie’s family then Angus was therefore her family. And his pumpkin was heading toward being…cactus.

‘Is it just water that’s flowing through the stem?’ she asked cautiously.

‘Yes.’

‘Ordinary water?’

‘There’ll be nutrients as well,’ Susie said. ‘From the soil. But that’s not as important as water.’

Kirsty knelt beside her twin and examined the pumpkin with care. Susie’s replanting had worked a little. The leaves closet to the ground were still firm. The wilting leaves were the furthest from the roots, and they were turning more limp by the minute.

‘I can’t bear it,’ Susie moaned. ‘How can we tell Angus?’

‘Shut up, Suze.’ She was examining the stem. It looked tough and prickly. Like a hairy forearm?

‘Let’s not bury him yet,’ she said softly. ‘Suze, if you cut off a flower and stick it in a vase it’ll suck up water. If you cut this stem and stuck it in water, would it suck it up?’

‘The pumpkin will draw water in,’ Susie told her. ‘But it’d never get enough. And the stem would disintegrate in two or three days, leaving us no better off.’

‘But if we could bleed water into the stem…’ Kirsty said cautiously. ‘Maybe via an IV line. Just until the roots recover.’

There was a moment’s silence. ‘Oh,’ said Susie on a note of discovery. And then, ‘Oh-h-h.’

‘I’m not sure if it’d work,’ Kirsty warned.

‘It’d be better than sitting watching him die.’

‘And he might get infection from the IV site.’

‘There’s stuff you put on pruned branches to stop infection.’ Susie’s despair had suddenly evaporated, transforming into excitement. ‘Do you have what you need to put in an intravenous line?’

‘Jake’s lent me a hospital car. It’s the one they take out to emergencies when they need back-up. There’s an emergency kit in the back. There has to be an IV kit.’

‘Then what are we waiting for?’

‘You’ve done what?’ On the end of the line Jake sounded incredulous. He’d rung to tell Kirsty the plane was due to take off at two, and he’d got a step-by-step account of their medical procedure from an excited Susie. But Susie had been too excited to make sense. She’d handed the phone over to Kirsty and gone back outside to continue supervision of their patient.

‘We’ve set up an IV line on Spike,’ Kirsty said, trying not to sound smug. ‘We used a tiny cannula and we’re running straight saline at the rate of 80 mil per hour. The leaves closest to Spike are already starting to stiffen. Believe it or not, it might just work.’

‘You’re kidding me.’

‘You’re not the only doctor who can be a generalist when the case requires it,’ she told him, giving up on the smug bit. She felt smug. Why not admit it?

‘No.’ There was a moment’s silence. ‘Kirsty, do you know how the pumpkin came to be pulled out?’

Kirsty’s smugness faded. ‘I can’t imagine,’ she said slowly. ‘Maybe…Boris digging?’

‘Does it look like Boris has been digging?’

‘No.’ And suddenly she knew what he was thinking. What she would have thought of if Susie hadn’t been so traumatised. Only someone wishing to do enormous ill to Angus would do such a thing.

‘Who’s there now?’ Jake was demanding.

‘Me and Susie.’

‘Go inside and lock the doors. I’m coming home.’

He was being paranoid, Kirsty thought. OK, Kenneth might well be responsible for an uprooted pumpkin. He’d know how much the pumpkin meant to Angus and it’d be an easy way to hurt him. But as for locking themselves in…

But then she remembered the way Kenneth had looked at Susie and suddenly she stopped thinking Jake was paranoid.

Susie had been inside having a drink when the phone had rung, but she hadn’t been able to stay in. She’d returned to the veggie patch, Boris beside her.

Kirsty made her way back there now. Jake was being over-cautious, she told herself. There was no danger.

She rounded the hedge and Kenneth was there. With Susie.

Kenneth was pointing a gun straight at her sister’s head.

From heat to icy cold, just like that. The world stilled.

In her nice safe hospice back in nice safe Manhattan Kirsty had an emergency beeper she carried in her pocket, linked to the security service for the main hospital. She’d never used it.

She ached for her beeper right now.

‘Kenneth,’ she said sharply to distract him, trying to haul that pointing arm away from Susie. Susie was leaning heavily on her crutches, looking ill.

‘You’re her,’ Kenneth said indistinctly, and those two words told Kirsty a lot. They told her that he was ill-his speech was slurred and wary. They told her he was desperate. And they told her that the twin thing was confusing him.

‘Who are you?’ he demanded.

‘I’m Susie,’ Kirsty said desperately into the stillness. His finger was around the trigger and she felt sick. ‘I’m Rory’s wife.’

‘No.’ He had that right at least. The gun firmed, levelled now at Susie’s belly. ‘She’s the one. She’s pregnant. And I’ve looked it up again. Everything’s entailed. The old man dies and the kid gets everything. The title, the land back in Scotland, even most of this place. I’m screwed.’ He focused again on Susie. ‘I came this morning to make you sorry. I saw the pumpkin and I knew how much the old man loved it and I was right, wasn’t I? The shock nearly killed him. They’ve carted him off with a heart attack and any minute now he’ll be dead and what’s his will be mine. I’ve just got to get rid of you.’

‘Angus isn’t dying,’ Kirsty said urgently, but she was ignored.

‘I thought when I killed Rory that it’d be easy.’

Dear God. Kirsty saw Susie’s face blench and she thought her twin might fall over. She took an involuntary step forward, but the gun waved in her direction and she stilled again.

‘That’s right,’ he snarled. ‘You thought it was an accident, didn’t you? You all did. It was too damned easy. I knew he was married and I had to move fast. But that place where you lived… All I had to do was fiddle with the steering. You know how easy it is to slice through steering rods? Bash it so it looks like it’s been damaged in the past. Cut it almost through and then wait. I hoped you’d both die, but when it was only Rory I didn’t care. But I might have known you’d be pregnant.’

‘You won’t get away with it this time, though,’ Kirsty said, trying frantically to keep her voice calm. Controlled. ‘You shoot Susie and you’ll have a nationwide manhunt starting right now. Kenneth, leave us be. Just go while you can.’

‘I’m not shooting you,’ he said. ‘You think I’m stupid?’

‘I think you’re pointing a gun at us.’

‘And I’ll shoot you if I have to,’ he told her. ‘I’d rather we were all dead than Rory’s kid gets the old man’s wealth. Rory’d still win that way. But I’ve set up a better way and you’re in it, too, regardless of who the hell you are.’

‘You’re not going to shoot us?’ Anything to keep the attention from Susie, she thought. How long would it take Jake to get there? Too long. She couldn’t keep him talking.

‘I’ve fixed it,’ he told her, almost triumphant. ‘I came here this morning and saw everyone and thought the only way to go was get her…’ the gun waved again to Susie ‘…on her own. Make it seem like an accident. So I rigged the boat and came back.’

‘The boat.’

‘Down the cliff,’ he told her. ‘Move.’

‘Susie can’t climb down the cliff. Susie can barely walk.’

‘That’s where you come in, then,’ he snarled. ‘You get her down the cliff or I take her to the steep bit and push her over. Move. Both of you. Now!’

What followed was a nightmare.

The castle was built high above the road. Across the road was the cliff, and a worn track leading down to the beach. Kirsty could scramble down the cliff easily, but for Susie, who’d only just learned to balance herself on her crutches, it was almost impossible.

Almost. If there hadn’t been a gun pointing at them it would indeed have been impossible, but he’d given them no choice. Get down to the beach under your own steam or die first.

He was mad enough to do it, Kirsty thought. He had some slivers of rational thought-one being that it would be better if bodies were found without bullet-holes-but little else. He was having trouble differentiating between Susie and Kirsty. Once he’d met Susie and she’d been like Kirsty. Now Kirsty was like Susie and Susie was different-scarred and pregnant. His muddled mind wasn’t too sure, but his crazed logic told him to kill them both.

So the gun pointed at them both. Kirsty struggled to hold her twin upright as they staggered slowly down the path, and she couldn’t find a way out.

‘Hurry!’ Kenneth screamed, but they could go no faster than a snail’s pace and even Kenneth had to concede that hurrying was impossible.

Boris loped along beside them, ready for adventure. Kenneth ignored him. The dog was racing back up, over and over again, as if saying, Hurry, hurry, there’s a great wet world down here-but Kirsty knew there was no such thing.

Would he kill them on the beach? He had some sort of plan.

How long would Jake take to get home? How long would it take him to know their absence wasn’t innocent? He’d know after that barked command to stay inside and lock the doors that she and Susie wouldn’t leave, and the cars were testament to that.

But he wouldn’t think of the beach. He’d never believe Susie would get that far, and he’d waste valuable time searching the castle, the grounds, the bushland to the rear…

‘I can’t,’ Susie whimpered, and Kirsty’s arm came round her, rock solid.

‘Yes, you can.’

‘Shut up,’ Kenneth snapped.

‘Kenneth, you’re ruining your life, doing this,’ she murmured, trying to keep her voice measured, fighting to make him see logic. ‘You’ll never get away with killing us. Let us go and we’ll forget this ever happened.’

‘I killed Rory,’ he told them, shoving Susie hard with the gun so she fell against Kirsty and Kirsty had to fight to keep her upright. ‘You think I’m going to kill my brother and then let some stupid kid take what belongs to me?’

‘It belongs to Angus,’ she said. One of Susie’s crutches had fallen aside. Kirsty was acting as her support on one side and Susie’s sole attention was keeping her remaining crutch in place so she wouldn’t crumple where she stood. Kirsty was aware that Susie was weeping, but she was weeping silently.

She wasn’t fighting, Kirsty thought in despair. It was as if Susie had always known that something like this would happen. Once Rory had died, why go on herself?

She had to fight for them both.

Kenneth’s gun jabbed Susie again. ‘Faster.’

How could she fight this? Should she drop Susie and launch herself at the gun?

What would James Bond do in a situation like this? she asked herself desperately, and then thought that James Bond didn’t have a pregnant, crippled sister to protect as he coped with the bad guy.

If it had just been her…

Even if it had just been her, she had no idea how to escape. How accurate was a gun like that? How fast would she have to run?

James Bond might have all the answers. She had none. All she could do was struggle to hold Susie up and pray.

Jake. Please, Jake.

Finally they reached the beach. They rounded the last rocky outcrop and Kirsty saw that Kenneth had been here before. This must have been what he’d done this morning. He’d come, he’d checked the castle, he’d hauled up his uncle’s pumpkin in fury. Then he’d gone away and coldly found what he’d needed.

There were two boats in the cove. A motorboat was anchored a few feet from shore and a dilapidated wooden dinghy was hauled up on the sand. A towrope connected the two.

‘Get into the dinghy,’ Kenneth snapped. ‘Now.’

‘What are you going to do?’ If it was just her, she could run, she thought desperately. She could take her chances. Dodge or something. Not calmly do as he demanded.

But Susie was immobile, a target who could no more dodge bullets than fly.

‘Just shut up and get in.’

They made it to the boat, with Kirsty half pulling Susie, half carrying her. The crutch was useless on the soft sand. Susie was clutching her sister, and Kirsty could feel her shaking.

And suddenly there was a part of Kirsty that stopped being terrified. Suddenly she was just plain angry. Coldly, calculatingly angry.

Would he take them out to sea and shoot them?

‘You know, bodies get washed up to shore,’ she told him, making her voice flat and emotionless. ‘If we’re washed up with bullet-holes you’ll still be in the frame for murder.’

‘You’ll not get bullet-holes unless you ask for them,’ he snarled. He was standing in the shallows, close to where the motorboat was moored. ‘Get into the dinghy.’

Kirsty looked at the scenario and knew what was happening. They’d get in the ancient dinghy, he’d get into the motor boat and he’d tow them out to sea. To what?

Where was Jake? Jake, hurry!

Susie was clutching the side of the dinghy. She fell to her knees and Kirsty dropped onto the sand beside her.

‘We have to get in,’ she told her. ‘Come on. We can both swim. We’ll take our chances.’

‘He’ll kill us.’

‘Get in,’ Kenneth yelled, and Kirsty started to rise.

‘We’re working on it.’

Boris was suddenly with them again. He’d been chasing a gull further down the beach but now he came flying along the sand, quivering his delight.

‘Get the dog out of it,’ Kenneth screamed, and levelled the gun at Boris.

‘If you kill the dog it’ll still be evidence that you’ve hurt us,’ Kirsty yelled, and the gun lowered.

‘Shove him away, then. I don’t want him in the boat.’

‘Go find Jake, Boris,’ Kirsty said-hopelessly. Stupid dog. She needed a Lassie. Lassie would have brought a whole army of rescue personnel by now, and she’d have had Kenneth handcuffed to her collar and helpless.

Lassie was away playing movie star. Boris was all she had.

Boris… Lassie…

Her hand fell to the sand. There was a thin strand of dried seaweed lying beside her.

‘Go home, Boris,’ she said, and she pushed the dog away. Via her neck. Via her collar.

A seagull descended not twenty feet away and Boris was off again, barking wildly as he hared down the beach. The strand of seaweed was dangling from his collar. It stayed put as he ran.

It was all she could do, Kirsty thought bleakly. As a letter for help it lacked a certain je ne sais quoi but she had nothing else.

Please, don’t let it fall out. Please, let Jake see it.

She could do no more. Two minutes later they were in the dinghy. Kenneth was in the motorboat. He’d towed the dinghy off the sand and they were heading for the open sea.

‘Where are they?’

Jake reached the castle just as Margie and the twins returned, and they weren’t out of the car before he barked the question. ‘Kirsty and Susie. Where are they?’

‘They’ll be out in the vegetable garden,’ Margie said placidly. ‘Penelope, you carry the bag with the ice cream. Alice, you’re in charge of the meat.’

‘Daddy’s frightened,’ Alice said with perspicacity, but Jake wasn’t listening. He was striding through the garden gate, wanting to see for himself.

They weren’t in the vegetable garden.

They’d been here, though. He stared at Spike, with his high-tech drip-stand and his IV drip. Despite his unease he felt his lips quirk with amusement. Kirsty was one amazing doctor, he thought. He looked at the neat bandage wrapping the needle to Spike’s stem and thought, Wow.

She was no palliative-care physician. She brought patients back from the dead.

They’d be inside. They must be.

They weren’t.

‘No one’s home, Daddy,’ Penelope told him as he burst through the kitchen door. ‘We went to see if Susie wanted ice cream. Aren’t they in the garden?’

‘Are you worried about Kenneth?’ Margie asked, her eyes clouding as she caught his fear. She was speaking lightly so as not to concern the girls, but Jake’s daughters were bright.

‘Is the nasty man here again?’ Alice asked.

‘I don’t think so,’ Jake said, but his hand was already reaching for his phone. He wanted the police. He wanted help. Now!

‘Here’s Boris,’ Alice said as Boris raced through the open back door. ‘Yuck. He’s all wet.’

‘And he’s got stuff stuck in his collar,’ Penelope said. ‘Seaweed.’

Kenneth was crazy, but not stupid.

Once they were in the boat Kirsty had had a vague idea that they could jump out and swim. The day was hot and calm, and even if Susie couldn’t swim far, she could float. If he simply dumped them at sea then they had a chance. But Kenneth had never intended that they simply be dumped. He was crazy but there still seemed logic in his plan.

He kept his gun trained on Susie. She was the one who couldn’t move with speed, and he must have known instinctively that Kirsty would never leave her. He trained the gun on them until their boat was wrenched off the beach and the motorboat hit full throttle. Kirsty’s small hope died. The water was so still that even if they jumped, all he had to do was take pot shots at them until they were dead.

Maybe he knew where there were sharks, Kirsty thought, and the idea made her even colder, made her heart almost stop.

The old wooden boat was hardly seaworthy. It was taking in water but that was the least of her terrors. Susie was crouched in the bow and Kirsty had her arms around her, taking comfort as much as giving it.

‘What’ll he do?’

‘I don’t know,’ Kirsty said.

And then she glanced ahead and suddenly she did know.

They were a mile-maybe two-offshore. Here the smoothness of the sea was broken by a line of ragged rocks, seemingly emerging from the ocean floor. Eight or so rocks. A tiny reef. Like a row of vicious teeth, with a couple broken off.

Kenneth was heading straight towards it, faster and faster. He’d put his gun down, and in the full sunlight Kirsty saw the flash of a knife.

She knew what he intended.

He’d take them in so they were headed straight for the rocks and then he’d slice the towrope, Kirsty thought in horror. They’d continue so fast that their boat would splinter on the reef. And afterwards…

She never got to afterwards. She was hauling Susie away from the bow of the boat, screaming to her, hauling her to the side, to the lowest point.

‘He’s going to smash us on the rocks,’ she screamed. Dear God…

If they jumped now they’d still be in calm water, she thought. He’d still be able to get near them. Their only hope was in waiting.

And Susie knew. Her twin’s hand held hers, steadying. When one twin was in danger, the other knew, and how much more so now when they were both in deadly peril.

Kenneth had turned away, watching the reef. He had to. He needed to steer until he was almost on the rocks, waiting until the last possible moment so they had maximum velocity…

Wait.

She didn’t have to say it. They’d hauled themselves hard up on the side of the boat and for a sickening moment the boat lurched and Kirsty thought it might go over.

Too soon. Too soon.

Kenneth’s boat was a hundred yards from the reef. Fifty. Thirty.

Now!

It happened so fast. The cable was sliced through, the boat lurched with their sideways motion, but kept going, kept going…and the women inside fell backwards out of the boat and slammed hard against the surface of the water.