Blood Secret Read Online Free PDF Page B

circling the island. ‘This is where it started,’ she told Pav.
    She took her time cresting the hill and heading down the other side before turning into their street, where Max’s grandmother’s old timber house came into view, the light on the porch glowing softly on the new charcoal-grey paint job. Relief was her first thought, then she couldn’t remember if they’d flicked it on before they left.
    James’s car was identical to Max’s and already in the driveway when she pulled into the carport. He was talking as he opened her door. ‘No sign of him on the way over. I took a bit of a look around the back while I was waiting but it’s pretty black out there.’
    Getting out, she eyed the house – the porch light was the only one she could see.
    â€˜Maybe he went to bed,’ Pav said.
    That’s what Rennie wanted. To go inside and find a Max-sized lump in the bed, put a hand to his forehead and feel him burning up. Sick. Sick enough to phone a cab or get a lift with another guest, too overwhelmed to find her or leave a message. Sick enough to deserve forgiveness for scaring her.
    She unlocked the front door, found the light switch and in the moment before the darkness vanished, she saw a body soaked in blood. Then it was gone, replaced by the incandescence flooding the corridor and cool, still silence.
    She didn’t call out in case he was in pain. In case there was someone waiting for her, too. It was Haven Bay but some things never left you.
    Pav and James walked around her, their height and bulk reassuring. Lights came on, the bathroom exhaust fan started up and went off again, the back door rolled open. Rennie moved quietly down the hall to their half-closed bedroom door and edged a shoulder inside. Pale squares of light spilled through the window across a rumpled doona and cast-aside clothes. Her paint-crusted overalls and a bra, his T-shirt and shorts – the remains of their impromptu passion before the party. No Max on the bed or on the floor or squeezed into the wardrobe.
    â€˜There’s no sign of him out the back,’ James said when she met him and Pav in the living room.
    â€˜Or anywhere inside,’ Pav said.
    â€˜It doesn’t look like anything’s been touched in the bedroom,’ Rennie told them.
    She glanced beyond the glass at the back of the house. The floodlights were on now, illuminating the deck and the yard and the converted garage. ‘I should check the studio.’
    â€˜It’s just your painting gear out there, isn’t it?’ James asked as he and Pav followed her out.
    â€˜Max keeps stuff in there, too. And we had a . . . tiff. Maybe . . .’
    â€˜He put himself in the doghouse,’ James finished.
    â€˜Yeah, maybe.’
    He hadn’t done it before. Max believed in never letting the sun go down on an argument, even if the sun had to go down and come back up before it was settled. It wasn’t a concept Rennie’s family would understand but his parents lived by it and they were still going strong. With a failed marriage behind him, Max liked to take advice from the experts.
    The pungent smell of paint wafted into the night as she pushed open the door. The single room had been her home for a year until Max convinced her to move in with him. Her old bed was still there, canvases leaned against the walls, paint tins and other detritus stacked in the corners. The centre was clear except for the easel and her current work. No Max.
    â€˜Did you look for a note?” she asked Pav when they were back in the living room.
    â€˜I couldn’t see one.’
    â€˜Okay.’ She nodded. ‘Right. Thanks. Shit .’ She squeezed her eyes shut for a second. It’s not what you’re thinking, Rennie. ‘Okay. We wait then.’
    Pav and James exchanged a glance and she realised what they’d thought. The ‘we’ was something else from her past,