The Parable of the Mustard Seed Read online

  No.

  John wasn’t ready to face that now, and it wasn’t hope that kept him on his feet. It was denial.

  “Caleb!”

  John burst back outside into the sunlight, Lockland at his side, running for the white van with the back door still swinging open.

  Nothing.

  “Fellas!” Lockland called, gesturing Raj and the Marburg copper over. “Check every outbuilding. If you don’t find him, check ’em again.”

  Later, John wanted to believe it was something inside him that was drawn to the smallest shed. Something in him that pulled him toward Caleb like a magnet toward true north, but he was too much of a pragmatist to fully believe it.

  Dry grass crunched under his boots as he ran for the small outbuilding. It was an old feed shed or something, maybe once part of a chook pen judging by the tangle of chicken wire hanging like netting off one side. The grass had grown through the wire and flattened it, and the shed itself leaned at a precarious angle, but—John’s heart hammered hard when he saw it—the padlock on the door was shiny and new.

  “Bolt cutters!” he yelled to anyone who’d listen. “Get me some fucking bolt cutters!” He pounded on the door. “Caleb? Caleb!”

  It was Liz who elbowed him out of the way to cut the padlock, grimacing with determination as she did it.

  John wrenched the door open, half-expecting the stench to hit him like it had eight years ago, except Caleb hadn’t been here for days this time. Hours, if that, but he wasn’t moving. He was lying curled in a ball on the filthy floor of the shed, and he wasn’t moving.

  John dropped to his knees beside him, his hand hovering above him, almost afraid to touch. “Caleb? Caleb?”

  He pressed his shaking fingers against Caleb’s throat, searching for a pulse.

  Caleb’s eyes flashed open and he flinched away.

  This kid’s a fighter, John had thought the first time, but this time Caleb didn’t try to attack him.

  “John?” His voice was a dry whisper. “John?”

  “Yeah,” John said. “Yeah, manamea, it’s me.”

  And Caleb pushed himself up off the ground and into John’s arms, shaking and crying.

  And maybe Caleb had to be an atheist, and maybe John could never thank God aloud for this, but as he held Caleb in his arms and cried with him, there was no doubt in his mind that this was a miracle. And it was one John would give thanks for every day for the rest of his life.

  Chapter Nineteen

  John reached up and gripped a handhold as the ambulance careened down the road, taking a corner at a hell of a speed. It wasn’t as though John was a stranger to fast driving with the wail of sirens in the background, but police cars sure as shit handled better than this top-heavy thing. Everything rattled and shifted, but the paramedic sitting next to him didn’t even flinch.

  The boy was strapped to the stretcher, eyes half closed. John wasn’t sure he was even aware of anything around him at this point.

  There was an ugly patina of bruises on the kid’s face, and his jaw was swollen to hell. The paramedics had cut his bloody shirt off him—it was shoved into an evidence bag back at the site for now—and he was bruised and swollen all over. His skin was also broken in more than a few places, the wounds caked over with dried blood and oozing fluid and pus. This beating was obviously more than a few days old, and nobody had made any attempt to treat his injuries.

  The ambulance took another corner, and John swayed.

  The kid’s eyes widened and he blinked up at John and the paramedic.

  “You’re in an ambulance,” John told him. “We’re taking you to the hospital. It’s going to be okay.”

  The kid’s slate-grey gaze fixed on him, and his mouth twisted a few times before he managed to push the words out: “Where’s Simon? What happened to Simon?”

  John didn’t have an answer for that. He shook his head helplessly.

  Who the fuck was Simon?

  John tried to argue to have Caleb not admitted to the Ipswich hospital once he was medically cleared, but the staff wasn’t having a bar of it.

  “I know he’s having a mental health episode,” John told the doctor more than once. “And if you let me get him out of here, I can take him to the mental health unit at the Gold Coast where they know him, or straight to his regular psychiatrist.”

  Caleb hadn’t stopped crying since the ambulance had brought him here. Even now, sedated, the tears still slid down his cheeks. His trembling had subsided, but he’d replaced it with small, repetitive movements: nodding, tapping, pushing his mouth into strange shapes.

  “Fuck these people, right?” John said, taking Caleb’s hand. “They’d be having episodes too if they got fucking abducted!”

  The doctor gave him a narrow look because his voice had carried. He’d meant it to. And okay, it was shitty of him, but John wasn’t in the mood to play nice. He wanted to get Caleb into the care of people he knew, not strangers. The last thing Caleb needed right now was strangers.

  Darren arrived within an hour of Caleb’s admittance, driven by Clare. Dr. Harper arrived an hour after that, and John took himself outside, found a garden bench that overlooked the car park, and sat down and buried his face in his hands.

  Caleb was safe now.

  John had found him, and Caleb was safe.

  It should have felt like a relief, but John was too fucking bone-weary to feel anything but that heaviness weighing him down. He had no idea how long he sat there until someone sat beside him.

  “Hey.”

  John straightened up and stared at David. “The fuck are you doing here?”

  “Liz called me,” David said. “You okay, bro?”

  John hadn’t cried in front of David since their dad died, but the tears came again today, and David wrapped his arms around him and patted him on the back until he could breathe again.

  They watched an ibis forage around a bin.

  “Liz said you got shot at,” David said at last.

  “Yeah. I mean, so did she though, so…” John shrugged.

  “That’s crazy,” David said, shaking his head. “Some crazy shit, John.” He nodded toward the hospital building. “How is he?”

  “Darren’s with him,” John said, because he never answered that question straight, did he? There was no way to answer it straight. “And his psychiatrist. He’s got some bumps and bruises, but mostly it’s…” He chewed his bottom lip. “Mostly it’s psychological.”

  David nodded.

  “People would get it, if he’d lost a limb or something,” John said. “But when it’s mental health, they think it’s imaginary, or something he should just get over, or whatever. But it can still be bad, you know?”

  “I know,” David said, with that same easy acceptance he’d always had. “Did you know Tee was anorexic in high school?”

  John jolted. “I didn’t know that.”

  “That’s because she’s been in recovery since before I met her,” David said. “And she’s mostly kicking its arse, because she’s the toughest woman I ever met, but sometimes it’s still rough, you know? Like her parents still get on her case about it sometimes, and sometimes when she comes with me to community events and a bunch of loud Samoans keep shoving food at her.”

  “Shit.”

  “She knows how we are,” David said with a smile. “And she knows I run interference for her when she needs me to. And that’s what you do with Caleb, isn’t it? You watch out for him on his bad days, and you make sure you’re right there when he needs someone to lean on for a while.”

  John nodded.

  “And people don’t always understand that,” David said. “You know Tee’s mum once said that I was a good guy for going out with her when she could be so difficult?”

  John’s jaw dropped.

  “Difficult,” David said with a snort, “as though she’s not the reason I wake up with a smile every morning.”

  “Jesus, I can’t believe her mum said that.”

  “Yeah,
there’s a reason she hangs out with Ma more than her parents,” David said. “But the point is, when you love someone like that, they’re not difficult, or a burden, or you don’t deserve brownie points for treating them how you’d like to be treated. You love ’em and you count your blessings, and that’s it.”

  John smiled slightly, something in his chest easing for the first time all day. “It’s that simple, huh?”

  “Course it is,” David said. “No offence, bro, but you’re not exactly a prize, you know? You work shitty hours, you get in shitty moods, and your face looks like a smashed crab—”

  “Fuck off!” John laughed.

  David grinned. “But Caleb works with all that, because he loves you, right? And you do the same for him, because that’s how it goes. Right?”

  “Yeah.” John elbowed him. “That’s how it goes.”

  David sat with John for more than an hour on the park bench outside the hospital, until John got a text from Darren asking him to come back inside.

  “You want me to hang around?” David asked. “Have you got a lift home?”

  John’s mind blanked for a moment. “I probably have to go to the station after this. I think Clare’s still here somewhere. If she’s not, Liz will send someone to get me.”

  Jesus. He really needed to call Liz. He’d left her dealing with the arrests, and a bunch of different crime scenes, and no doubt a shit load of questions from the boss about what the fuck had even happened today, and how their investigation into an eight-year-old crime had turned into a homicide, a suicide, and an abduction literally overnight. How long until she got the chance to take a breath, let alone head home to see Craig and Harry?

  This fucking job.

  What a mess.

  “John, go and see your boy,” David said, clapping him on the shoulder. “Fuck everything else.”

  That felt like a philosophy John could get behind.

  “And this weekend,” David said, “we’re not doing Ma’s roof. Let’s do a barbecue instead, huh? Our family, and Caleb and Darren.”

  “I don’t know if he’ll be out by the weekend,” John said. “I don’t know if I’ll be working.”

  “Fuck work,” David said. “Phone in sick. And if Caleb isn’t out, then I guess we’ll reschedule. But I’m locking you in on this, John. You need it. You work too much.”

  Hearing that from anyone else, and John might have taken it as criticism. From David though, he knew it was only concern.

  “I’ll text you,” he said. “I promise.”

  “If you don’t, I know where you live.” David gave him a hug, slapping his back soundly a few times, and then headed for the car park.

  John took a deep breath, straightened his shoulders, and walked back into the hospital.

  Caleb was in a private room now. John got the number from a nurse in A&E, and then followed the signs up to the next floor. Clare was sitting in a chair outside Caleb’s room, playing a game on her phone. John wondered if he should stop and ask her for an update, but Caleb was right behind that door. John didn’t know if there was a power in the universe that could have stopped him.

  Clare gave John a nod and a smile as he passed.

  John knocked quietly on the door and then pushed it open.

  Caleb was sitting up in his bed, his legs crossed, pillows jammed behind his back. He was still rocking a little, and Darren was sitting beside him, his fingers resting lightly over the canula on the back of Caleb’s hand. Caleb must’ve been fiddling with it, picking at it.

  “Hey,” John said softly.

  Caleb’s gaze slid over him.

  “He okay?” John asked.

  “He won’t settle,” Darren said. “They don’t want to dope him up anymore since he’s not fighting them, but he won’t settle. Dr. Harper’s trying to get him transferred to the Coast overnight and reassessed in the morning.”

  “Dad,” Caleb said suddenly. “Dad, why’s it so dark?”

  “It’s not dark, mate,” Darren said

  “Oh.” Caleb nodded, rocking back and forth again.

  John took a chair from the corner of the room and set it down beside Caleb’s bed, on the other side from Darren. “Hey, Caleb,” he said. “La’u manamea.”

  The corner of Caleb’s mouth twitched, and he slid his hand up his chest. His fingers twitched against his hospital gown. “Where…where…”

  “Your necklace?” Darren asked. He took his hand off Caleb’s for a moment, and reached into his pocket. “They took it off you, remember? I’ve got it right here.”

  He pressed the small boar’s tusk into Caleb’s pale hand, and Caleb closed his fingers around it.

  “Is it dark, John?” Caleb asked in a whisper, his eyes wide.

  “It’s still daytime,” John said. He reached for Caleb’s free hand and took it.

  “It feels like it’s dark out there,” Caleb murmured. He drew a breath and was silent for a long moment. “Don’t give up on me, John, please.”

  “That’s never going to happen.” John squeezed his hand, his gaze falling on the old scars that cut across his wrist and forearms.

  “I know. I bleed and you’re here.”

  “I’d be here anyway.”

  Caleb’s gaze dropped away again, and tears slid down his cheeks. His hand shook violently in John’s. “John. Cricket. She—she tried to bite him, and—”

  “I know,” John said. “I know.”

  Caleb pulled his hand free, a whine building in the back of his throat. He began to rock again.

  “Caleb,” Darren said softly.

  John stood up, and put his hands on Caleb’s shoulders. “Can you take a breath for me, Caleb?”

  Caleb wrenched out of his grasp.

  Darren hit the button for the nurse.

  “I love you,” John said, not because he thought those words could stop the storm from breaking, but he hoped they’d at least give Caleb something to hold onto when he came out the other side.

  Caleb screamed and thrashed, and John’s heart broke for him.

  It was almost 9 p.m. when John and Clare climbed the stairs to the office, and John didn’t care to do the maths on how long this day had already been. All the lights were still on and the place was still buzzing. Not only were the morning crew and the afternoon crew still here, but it appeared that the night work crew had been called in early too.

  John found Liz and Lockland in the incident room, surrounded by paperwork as well as boxes from that noodle place on Wembley Road.

  “What the hell are you doing here, John?” Liz asked, peering at him narrowly. The bags under her eyes had bags, and John figured he didn’t look any better.

  “We’re working an investigation, aren’t we?”

  “Don’t give me that crap,” Liz said, and Lockland snorted. “I need you to go home, get some sleep, and be back here bright and early in the morning so you can roll me under my desk and take over when I collapse.” She squinted at her watch. “Anyway, I’m just about to call it a night here. We’ve got those assholes in the watchhouse, and no magistrate is going to give them bail in the morning once they see the charges. Everything else can wait.”

  Not everything.

  John logged into a computer.

  “Go home, John,” Liz grumbled.

  “I will in a minute.”

  Liz trailed over to him and leaned on the desk. “Caleb okay?”

  “He’s alive,” John said. “Everything else is a work in progress, isn’t it?”

  “I guess so.” Liz squinted at the screen. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m looking up the crews from the Coast who attended Darren’s address. Are they on the occurrence yet?”

  “Them and six million other coppers,” Liz said, just as John made it to the correct tab and saw an incredibly long list of names. Liz pulled her notebook out of the pouch on her utility belt and flipped it open. “Sean French is the one you’re looking for, but I already called him. He took her to the Reedy Creek Animal Hospital
, and didn’t correct their erroneous assumption that the Service would be paying for her treatment. Do the guy a favour and call them with your credit card details, please. He’s shitting himself that they’re going to send the bill to his station and then he’ll get fired.”

  “She’s alive?”

  “They’re not going to try to bill the Service for a dead dog, John. She had surgery, and they’re going to keep her in for a while, but yeah, she’s alive.”

  John sagged in relief.

  “Tell them you want a copy of her report,” Liz said. “Animal cruelty should get another few months added to Harrison’s sentence, right?”

  “You gonna get all the traffic cameras too?” John asked. “In case he blew through a couple of red lights?”

  “Fuck yeah, I will.” Liz’s smile was a little feral. “And then I’m going to beat him over the head with a ticket book myself.”

  John couldn’t stop the laugh that bubbled out of him. It was relief more than anything, he thought, that they were actually having this conversation, and not a very different one in a world that had collapsed around him because Caleb was dead. It was relief, and combined with a lack of sleep, with the adrenaline dump he was trying to fight off, and with being shot at today, John’s laugh verged on the hysterical.

  “Come on,” Liz said. “Get the hell out of here.”

  “Just let me make this call first,” John said.

  Liz nodded, and turned back to her half-eaten box of noodles. She picked through them with a fork, digging out the prawns and eating them.

  “Reedy Creek Animal Hospital after hours,” a woman said. “Is this an emergency?”

  John ignored that question. “This is Senior Constable John Faimu, with the Logan CPIU. I’m calling about a dog that was brought in earlier today, after she was stabbed.”

  “Oh!” The woman’s tone changed. “She’s in recovery now. She had several deep puncture wounds, and the vet had to remove one of her kidneys, but she’s a young dog so the vet expects she’ll recover well.”

  “How long will she be in there?”

  “At least a few more days,” the woman said.