Because it had to. Because there was no other choice than to keep Daisy safe. Because my daughter was not going to pay for the mistakes I made all those years ago. For the mistakes both Rick and I made before we even knew Daisy was our future.
I sat in the Aquarium cafeteria, watching Daisy eat a burger and fries, listening to the non-stop excited chatter she made, and just breathed. For a small moment in time I just breathed. When we walked out of the doors into the sunshine the worry and fear would start all over again. For now I could believe we were safe. Just like we were safe yesterday and the day before. Just like we were safe this morning, before we were visited by a CIB cop.
My hand slipped into my bag and sought out his business card. Detective Sergeant Ryan Pierce, it said. Criminal Investigations Bureau, Auckland City Police Department. My thumb traced his direct dial number, his cellphone number and then I flipped the card over in my hand.
Sweet Seduction on High Street. Genevieve Cain.
I glanced up at Daisy who had finished her meal and wandered over to the nearby open fish tanks, watching one of the Aquarium workers do their feeding show for the viewers.
I had no idea where we would go after a night in a motel. How soon it would be before I could chance a revisit to the flat to pick up our passports. How easy it would be to book a flight and board it undetected. I had absolutely no idea.
What I did know, was that I couldn't trust a cop to keep us safe, this all happened because he turned up asking questions. Which meant I sure as hell couldn't trust a café on High Street to be secure. Roan McLaren knew that Detective Ryan Pierce had visited me this morning. Therefore he'd know, or soon would know, the connection this cop had with Genevieve Cain, whoever she was.
Nowhere was safe. Nowhere.
For a split second I contemplated unlocking Pandora's box. Giving McLaren what I had taken all those years ago. If I didn't still possess it, would he leave us alone? If he had it back in his evil hands would we be safe?
I watched Daisy squeal in delight as an Aquarium curator fed the giant stingrays in the open air tanks, a splash of water cascading over the side and nearly coating her as the stingray ducked to catch a morsel of food. She crouched down and watched the creature sink to the bottom of the clear sided tank, mesmerized by its size.
She looked so small next to that giant animal. So small and precious.
I crushed Pierce's card in my fist and threw it in a nearby rubbish bin, as I scooped up Daisy's hand.
"Come on, Daisy-girl. I know some King Penguins who are super keen to meet you."
"You do?" she asked all bright eyed and innocent.
Yeah, for my daughter I would find a way to keep us safe.
Even if I had no fucking idea how to achieve that.
Chapter 4
And For Mum?
The motel we were in was a dive. But at least they had accepted cash without raising an eyebrow. I'd done a very dangerous thing before we caught a bus to this part of the city. I'd visited a locker at the Salt Water Baths in Parnell. One I had kept for several years. The lockers in the changing rooms there could be secured with a padlock, they hadn't upgraded to the hourly coin operated style yet. It was a busy enough location to keep things safe, and the number of lockers meant the odd one left unattended for several weeks slipped by unnoticed. I made sure to change the padlock every other month though, so it wouldn't get busted open by staff.
It had been three weeks since I last checked it. The guy on the front counter recognised me though, indication that it was well past time I found a new hidey-hole for my mementoes. It might seem strange to some people that I keep a shoebox full of photos and letters in a locker at a public swimming pool. I could have buried it in the back garden. I could have left it in a drawer at work. Hell, I could have burned the bloody thing and moved on. But part of me wondered whether one day Daisy would ask those questions.
The ones I feared about her Daddy.
She hadn't yet. Five years old and everything else gets countless queries and inquisitive attention, but her father? Not yet. Thank God. Maybe she picked up on some sort of negative vibes from me. Maybe because I didn't openly talk about Rick or our time in Wellington, she didn't think to ask at all. But sooner or later a well meaning kid at school would ask her about her Dad, and she would come running to me.
Hence the shoebox full of paraphernalia I couldn't bear to have stored in the same place where I slept.
But now, as Daisy lay softly snoring in the bed next to mine, I sat frozen in position, staring at a box full of heartache on the bedspread before me.
Rick. Richard Albert Costello, only son of Greta and Marco Costello. Nineteen years old when I met him. Twenty-nine years old when I watched him die. He didn't know about Daisy. Neither of us did that night. If we'd known a baby was growing inside my belly would it have played out any differently? Would we, no... I have not done what I did?