A Home Like Ours by Fiona Lowe (feel good books .txt) 📕

Old memories of nights in the car and the cold sweat of fear rushed back.

Don’t be ridiculous. She had no reason to feel unsafe. In all her years in Boolanga, nothing had ever happened here or anywhere else in town—not even a whiff of danger. The movement was probably just a possum out adventuring.

She reached the car and was juggling the esky while she opened the hatch when a loud crack sounded behind her. Just an animal snapping a twig.

But the thought didn’t reassure her enough not to glance around, seeking the dark outline of a human. Of a man. All she saw was suffocating dark.

Trembling, she slammed the hatch shut and locked herself into the car. Breathe.

She rested her hands lightly on the steering wheel and concentrated on long calm deep breaths, frustrated she’d allowed that time in her life to come back and haunt her. Worse still, when there was no reason.

I am safe. I am calm. I am safe.

With her heart no longer flinging itself against her ribs, she started the ignition and drove towards the road. Lights came on and followed her. She must have taken longer than she’d realised to pull herself together and Roxy was on her way to the RSL to nurse a drink until closing.

Helen pulled onto Riverfarm Road and the car followed. At the intersection, she flicked on her left indicator then held up her hand to the rear-view mirror and waved—the RSL was in the opposite direction.

She turned. The car followed, its headlights flicking to high beam and blinding her. A tingling rush of goosebumps prickled. She squinted. Was it Roxy’s car? She’d never been good at identifying vehicles and the bright lights made it impossible.

If it was Roxy, was she trying to tell Helen something? But surely she’d flash the headlights. Or call her. What if she was out of credit? Then she’d toot.

Helen sped up. The car kept pace. She slowed and it slowed, showing no signs of wanting to overtake. Agitation pummelled her, putting every cell on high alert. If she drove home, she’d be showing whoever it was where she lived. She gasped, as a streak of protection for Jade and Milo shocked her.

She couldn’t go home but where could she go? The police station was in the opposite direction and there was no guarantee it would be staffed at this time of night. Still, was driving past it a message?

Her navigational skills—never great in daylight—were now overlaid by the dark and blind panic. She took random left and right turns, not recognising the streets but trying to find her way to the police station. The car followed, sticking like glue.

After her eighth turn, she was halfway down a street when she passed a ute with a distinctive worm logo parked outside a Californian bungalow. Lachlan. Without thinking, she turned hard left and straight into a driveway.

Hitting the brakes, she grabbed her phone, her fingers reaching for 000.

The car didn’t slow. It kept driving.

Her phone fell into her lap and her body crumpled, unable to hold itself upright. What could she say to the police? A car followed me to a destination I had no intention of coming to and then kept driving? That wasn’t following. That was a coincidence. She couldn’t identify the car and she didn’t even have the registration to give them.

Even in her frazzled state, she recognised how flaky the story sounded. This was Boolanga! Population 7800, with fifty per cent of residents aged over sixty-five. The highbeam lights were probably a confused octogenarian.

Except she hadn’t seen any elderly people at the park. Then again, apart from the women, she hadn’t noticed anyone else at the park tonight.

There was a knock on the window. She screamed.

A figure jumped back. ‘Steady, Helen. It’s me. Lachlan.’

She recognised his voice and fumbled with her seatbelt. With a strength of will she didn’t know she had, she forced her wobbly legs to cooperate and heaved herself out of the car.

‘Sorry, Helen. I didn’t mean to give you a fright. It’s just when I heard the car and no one knocked, I came out to see who it was.’

‘Right,’ she managed to stammer.

‘It’s nice of you to pop in and check on Uncle Bob. Come in and I’ll put the kettle on.’

Daisy greeted Helen by nuzzling her hand, then shook her head as if to say ‘follow me’. Soon Helen was standing at the end of Bob’s bed, looking at a washed-out version of the man who was usually so full of energy.

‘Grey’s not your colour,’ she said.

‘No? I thought I could carry it off.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me you were sick?’

‘Didn’t want to worry you. Looks like that didn’t work.’ He winked at her.

The man was incorrigible. Even flattened by gastroenteritis he was still flirting. She opened her mouth to tell him her presence had nothing to do with being worried about him, but that opened her up to the real reason.

‘I’m only here because the women at park food missed you. I figured you didn’t need Cinta and her theories of deliberate water contamination visiting you.’

He pressed his hand to his heart. ‘Admit it. You do care.’

‘Lachlan, did you give him something more than Gastrolyte?’

Lachlan grinned. ‘He’s been pretty happy since I brought him home from hospital. I think they gave him a happy shot.’

‘Hospital?’ The evening’s agitation stirred again. ‘You went to hospital?’

‘He couldn’t keep anything inside him either end,’ Lachlan said. ‘When he—’

‘That’ll do, Lachie!’ Two spots of pink stained Bob’s sallow cheeks. ‘Helen doesn’t need to hear all about that, thanks very much.’

Helen stifled a smile, understanding completely. Age made no difference; dignity was everything.

‘Sounds like you’ve been through the wringer,’ she said. ‘I’ll make you some chicken soup for when you’re allowed more than Gastrolyte.’

‘You don’t have to do that.’

‘Of course I don’t, but I want to.’

‘Thanks.’

Bob smiled and something hard inside her softened.

CHAPTER

29

Sunshine streamed into the meeting room at the library where Jade and