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Somewhere A Clock Is Ticking


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PART 6

Having abandoned their attempt to get through to their friend, Cassie and Ric huddled together on the lounge outside Lucas' room.

"Why won't she let us in?" Cassie asked Ric in a croaky voice, the half hour of talking loudly in attempt to try and get through to Matilda through the wooden door, had been quite the strain on her vocal chords.

Ric shrugged. "She's upset, she probably wants some time to herself. We can't force her to talk to us if she doesn't want to." He answered wisely.

"But she's in shock, she needs somebody with her. She shouldn't be by herself at a time like this." Cassie insisted.

"Maybe not but if that's what she wants…"

"I know." Cassie relented, looking down at her hands. "But I'm just worried you know, after everything she's been through, the burns, the bulimia. What if this makes her sick again or, even worse, what if she tries to hurt herself?"

"Look, Cass, all we can do now is be there for her, you know?" Ric rubbed a comforting hand across his girlfriends back. "Let her know that she's not alone."

Cassie looked at him admiringly. "You know, you remind me of Flynn so much right now. That sounds exactly like something he would say."

Ric smiled to himself, never in a million years did he think that anyone would be comparing him to a man he regarded so highly.

Both teenagers turned their heads to the sound of footsteps coming up the driveway.

"Beth, how are you?" Cassie greeted the older woman.

"In shock." Beth replied, looking around for her youngest daughter. "Where's Matilda?"

"She's, um…she's locked herself in Lucas' room. She ran out before we could stop her." Ric explained apologetically.

"We're really sorry, I know that you meant for us to take care of her." Cassie added.

Beth put a hand on each of the kids shoulders. "It's okay, you've all been through a lot today, thank you for looking after her."

"Are you kidding, it's the least we could do." Ric said and Beth was stricken by how mature the young man had become, he'd come a long way from the unrepentant bully who had victimized her son, that was for sure.

Beth smiled graciously. "Well thank you anyway, you two should be getting home, Sally might be worrying about you."

"No, we can stay…" Cassie offered, reluctant to leave her best friend under the circumstances.

"That's sweet of you to offer Cassie but I can handle it from here." Beth assured her.

The two teenagers sensed that any resistance would be futile and took their leave.

"What are we doing here?" Jack asked acerbically as they pulled up outside the Diner. "Let me guess, your big lead is Colleen right?"

Tracey looked back at him from the driver's seat, obviously unimpressed with his attitude. "This where our lead lives."

It took a moment for Jack to put the pieces together. "Macca? Macca's your lead? No way." He denied, Macca may have made a few awful mistakes but lately he'd been trying so hard to make up for them. Jack couldn’t believe that his brother in law could possibly be involved.

"Jack, go and guard the back entrance to the apartment, nobody get's in or out of there, understand?" Eve ordered impatiently.

Jack leaned forward between the two front seats. "Look, guys I think that you've got the wrong idea here, Macca's done some things he's not proud of but he's a good guy."

Eve shot Jack a look. "Funny, I don't remember asking for your opinion. Go do your job, Constable." She said flatly, getting out of the car.

"I'd do what she says if you want to stay on the case." Tracey warned him, before getting out and joining Eve.

Jack grumbled to himself for a moment before getting out of the car and heading to the back entrance to the flat above the Diner.

"Is there something in the water that turns everyone in this town into an idiot?" Eve asked Tracey as they made their way up the stairs from the Diner's storeroom to the flat up above.

"You've been here a while and you're alright." Tracey reminded her, an amused smile playing across her lips.

"I don't know, I'm sure I've felt my IQ dropping a couple of points."

"So, what? It's like two hundred and ten now instead of two twenty five?"

"Uh yeah, except it used to be more like two thirty two. Did you know it took me forty five minutes to do the crossword the other day? I felt like a complete retard." Eve remarked, knocking on Macca's door.

"Now you know what it's like for us mere mortals."

"Hi Macca." Eve cheerfully greeted the man who'd opened the door, while Tracey flashed her police badge. "Mind if we have a little chat?"

Macca tuned tail and tried to run but didn't get very far when Eve casually reached out and grabbed the back of his shirt's collar, the backwards motion of the top half of his body combining with the forwards motion of the bottom half sent his legs flying out from under him and he crashed to the ground.

"What the hell?" Macca grumbled from his position on the ground, rubbing a hand against his sure to be bruised elbow.

"Mattie, sweet? It's Mum." Beth said, gently knocking on the door to Lucas' room, trying to communicate with her distraught daughter. She waited for a few moments for a reply that never came. "Listen, I'm not going to force you to come out of there, I just want to know that you're alright."

"I'm fine." Matilda replied in a small voice.

"Mattie, I know that this is hard for you. I know what it's like to lose somebody you love, when your father died, I…I felt like the world had ended and that I was the only one who realized it." Beth pressed the side of her head against the smooth wood of the door and continued her emotional confession. "But you kids, you got me through it, just by being there for me and I want you to know that I'm here for you now, Mattie. So please, just open the door and let me in?"

Matilda swallowed hard, feeling guilty for making her mother worry, but she couldn't let her in. That room, that bed, those clothes were all that she had left of Lucas and the minute she let her mother in it would be contaminated, it would be the first step into it not being Lucas' room anymore. Her mother's perfume would blend with the smell of his deodorant, she would pick the clothes up that Luc had carelessly thrown on the floor and he'd never be able to put them back there again. She'd pull the chair away from the desk and he wouldn't be able to push it back and she'd draw the blinds that he'd never be able to close again. "No, please Mum, just go away." Matilda called out, finally finding her voice. "I just need to be alone."

Beth lowered her head, she knew that it would be a mistake to push her, especially after everything that she'd been through lately. "Alright," She agreed. "But if you need anything, I'm here." She said firmly, doing what she knew was right but feeling like it was so wrong.

While Eve had handcuffed a resisting Macca and forced him into a chair, Tracey went outside to inform Jack that no matter what he heard he was not to interrupt.

"I think I have a right to now what I'm being arrested for!" Macca said angrily, struggling against his restraints.

Eve raised an eyebrow quizzically. "Who said anything about you being under arrest?"

No sooner than Tracey had come back into the room did her phone start ringing. "It's crime scene." She informed Eve, after answering the call. "Do you want to take it?"

Eve shook her head. "Nah, you can handle it, I want to get to know our new friend better."

Tracey nodded and moved into another room to speak in private.

"You know," Eve remarked casually to Macca. "I really need to get a new phone, I lost mine in that stupid explosion. I think someone stole it. Who does that!" She exclaimed. "Anyway, I want one of those flippy ones, you know, like the ones they have on Alias, I love that show, do you watch it?"

Macca looked at her like he couldn't believe what he was hearing, here he was handcuffed to a chair and she was talking to him like they were friends. "You're crazy."

Eve looked at him blankly. "And your point is?"

Tracey returned to the room, clicking her phone off. "Eve?"

"Excuse me for a second, I have to talk business." She patted Macca's shoulder and went to talk to Tracey.

"Crime scene says that it looks like the hit and run wasn't an accident." Tracey explained. "There were no skid marks, nothing to indicate the driver even tried to stop."

Eve mulled it over. "Interesting."

"Hey!" Macca cried in irritation. "I hate to interrupt your cozy little chat but that the hell is all this about?"

Eve tilted her head and looked at him thoughtfully for a moment. She crouched down in front of Macca, reaching a hand inside the pocket of his shirt and withdrawing a small packet of white pills. "These are what this is all about." She informed him, shaking the tiny bag in front of his face.

"Oh, there you two are." Sally sighed in relief when Ric and Cassie came through the door. "How's Matilda?"

"Upset." Cassie said, flopping dejectedly on to the lounge. "She's locked herself in Lucas' room and won't come out."

Sally looked to Ric for confirmation, he nodded. "Yeah, she's taking it pretty hard."

"And how are you?" Sally asked, sitting down next to Cassie. "I know that you saw it happen, I can't even begin to imagine what it was like for you."

Cassie looked away, replaying the accident in her mind, she still couldn’t believe it had happened, that Lucas was dead. "It's weird, it feels like it hasn't happened, even though I know it has. It's different to what it was like with Gran…and Flynn."

Sally looked at Cassie sympathetically and pushed some hair back off the tanned girls face in a maternal gesture. "Well, I suppose it's all a bit of a shock. Nobody could have expected this." She moved closer to Cassie to make more room on the lounge, inviting Ric to join them.

"I know that when Flynn died." Sally said in a wavery voice once she had her arms around both of her foster children. "We all knew that it was going to happen, we knew that one day…" She paused for a moment to gather her scattered thoughts. "One day he wouldn't be here anymore. But Lucas had his whole life ahead of him and this was all so sudden, I just think that this is going to take some time to sink in."

Cassie looked at Sally with tears in her eyes. "I miss him Sally." They all knew that she wasn't talking about Lucas.

"I know." Sally whispered, tightening her arms around her kids.

A knock on the door interrupted the emotional family moment.

"Hi. Sorry to interrupt." Constable Fitzgerald said, taking off her hat and tucking it under her arm.

Sally stood up to greet the new arrival. "That's okay. Is everything alright?"

"Is anything ever alright around here?" Lara remarked. "I just need to get Ric and Cassie's statements about what happened today." She said putting her folder down on the dining table. "We really should've gotten them before you guys left."

"Right, yeah. What do you need to know?" Ric asked, standing up and wiping his hands down the front of his shorts.

"Them? They're just caffeine pills." Macca laughed nervously.

"While I'm sure that there is caffeine in them, you and I both know that they are not just caffeine pills. Don't insult my intelligence by lying about it." Eve warned, her friendly demeanor disappearing entirely. "Where did you get them from?"

Macca looked at her defiantly. "I'm not telling you a thing."

Eve shrugged and circled around behind him. "Fine." She said calmly, taking his left pinky finger in a firm grip and twisting it sharply, jerking the bottom joint right out of it's socket. Tracey grimaced at the loud popping sound it made.

"You can't do this." Macca growled once he'd stopped screaming from the pain. "I'll report you! This is police brutality!" He threatened, uselessly trying to break his metal bonds.

"Police brutality?" Eve repeated in a surprised tone. "I haven't seen any police brutality. Have you seen anything like that Detective Thompson?"

"If I had seen anything that could be constituted as police brutality, I'd have no choice but to report it." Tracey answered gravely, making Macca smile. "But…I didn't see anything." She finished with a smirk that wiped the smile right off Macca's face when he realized what an impossible situation he was in.

Eve circled around behind Macca again and put a hand on his shoulder. "Fact is Macca," She whispered dangerously. "you have nine fingers left and until you tell me what I need to know, I have all the time in the world to break them. So…" She took hold of Macca's left index finger. "Do you get where I'm going with all this?" She asked, tightening her grip threateningly.

"NO! WAIT!" He cried, seeing no other option than to tell them what they wanted to know. "I'll tell you…I'll tell you everything I know."

"That's what I like to hear." Eve chirped.

"I got the pills from a guy called Stuart. I call him and he brings them to me that's all I know, I swear." He panted, his finger throbbing with pain.

"This Stuart have a last name?" A less than impressed Tracey asked.

"Yeah…I-I, um, I just…It started with a W. Willi…Wilson…No! Wilkins! Stuart Wilkins."

"That everything you know?" Eve asked her tone suddenly turning cordial again. "Because if I find out that you're withholding information, I'm going to have to come back here and I don't think any of us want that.

Macca shook his head in response to her thinly veiled threat. "That's everything, I swear on my sister's life."

"Great." Eve replied happily, tugging sharply on Macca's dislocated finger to put it back into place, making him yelp at the unexpected pain.

"What the f*ck!?!" He roared.

"I was just setting your finger back into place. There's no need to yell." Eve said in hurt voice, taking the cuffs off him. "Now, you're going to want to splint that and then ice it on and off for a couple of hours, take some Panadol and you'll be fine."

Macca rubbed his wrist with his one good hand. "Thanks for the medical advice."

"Come on Trace, I think our work here is done." Eve said in satisfaction, taking Tracey by them arm. "Don't worry we can find our own way out." She called back to a fuming Macca as they made their way out the door. The door was shut for less than a second before Eve stuck her head back in, making Macca jump in surprise. "By the way, I probably wouldn't be mentioning this little incident to anyone, for your own safety." She added cheerfully. "Bye."

Next time on Somewhere A Clock Is Ticking: The Hunters get a blast from the past. And Eve and Tracey's investigation continues.

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  tasha7905 said:
Great Update. Poor Matilda. I wonder who the blast from the past could be. Cant wait for more.

^^ Ditto!

Please can we have some more, soon? :P

Posted

Okay when I said that the next part would be up in less than a week, I lied...I really should've said less than two days because here it is :P Enjoy!

PART 7

"I love my new phone." Eve sighed happily, spinning around in her chair in the office that had once belonged to Peter Baker as Tracey typed Stuart Wilkins' name into the computer. "Hey, smile." She ordered.

"Why?"

"Because I want a picture of you to use as my home screen." Eve explained in exasperation. On the way back from the Diner they'd stopped to pick up a new phone for Eve and to drop Jack off at the Hunter house.

Tracey smiled and posed for the picture which Eve happily snapped and turned back to her work. "Okay, here it is." She said when Stuart's police record appeared on the screen. It was disappointingly short. "One drunk and disorderly, four years ago. It hardly reads like the wrap sheet of a criminal mastermind." She remarked dryly.

"Doesn't mean he hasn’t done anything wrong, it just means he hasn't been caught. And considering the crack police force we have here that's not entirely surprising." Eve commented, snapping her phone shut. "Does this station not have it in their budget to buy a computer that was made this decade?" She asked casting a critical eye over the older model computer.

"Apparently."

"Hey, did you guys impound the laptop I had in the apartment?" Eve queried, the solution suddenly striking her.

Tracey frowned. "Yeah."

"So do you think it's still here?"

"I'll go and check the evidence room." Tracey smiled, finally catching on.

As the sun started it's decent towards the horizon, Jack and Martha set plates out on the Hunter's dinner table.

"Thanks for the help you two." Beth said gratefully, bringing the salad over.

"Are you kidding? It's the least we could do." Martha replied.

"Okay, um, the lasagna should be ready in a second. I'll just go and get Matilda." Beth said distractedly.

"I can get her." offered Martha.

"Thanks love but I think it would be better if I do it."

"Do you think she is going to be okay?" Martha asked her husband as they watched Beth approached the door to Lucas' room with trepidation.

"Beth or Matilda?" Jack asked, tugging Martha into his arms.

"Both. But I meant Matilda, she's taking this pretty hard."

"I don’t know. We'll just have to give it some time I guess."

"Mattie, sweetheart, it’s dinnertime." Beth said through the closed door.

"I'm not hungry." Came the grumbled reply.

"Matilda, you know what Rachel said, you need to be having regular meals at set times, even if you don't feel like eating. I know that you want to be alone right now but this is important." Beth sighed. "Mattie, please, you need to eat." She waited a few moments. She was about to speak again when she heard the lock click and the knob started to turn.

Matilda emerged, her eyes and nose rimmed red from crying, she gave her mother a sullen look and went into the main part of the house.

"Found it!" Tracey declared triumphantly, holding the silver laptop up as she entered the room.

Eve turned away from the old computer to grin at her. "Excellent. This one hardly has any games on it at all! I've already won four games-" She clicked the mouse. "Make that five, games of Minesweeper, in a row."

"Poor baby." Tracey said sarcastically, setting the laptop down on the desk in front of Eve. "I don't think that they've ever cleaned that room out." She remarked. "I swear that there's still stuff from the eighties left in there."

"They'd better not have wiped my Sims games." Eve grumbled, switching the computer on and waiting for it to boot up.

There was a knock on the door before Constable Fitzgerald entered. "I've got statements, on the hit and run, from Ric Dalby and Cassie Turner."

Tracey leaned back against the filing cabinet. "Let's hear it."

"Well they both say pretty much the same thing, the car was a white sedan, possibly an early model Holden."

"Gotta appreciate the irony in that." Tracey snarked.

"Let me guess, didn't get the rego?" Eve questioned. Lara checked the report and shook her head. "Great, because they're aren't a million cars fitting that description in the world."

"I think I might be able to narrow it down to just one." Constable Rice announced, entering in the room with a small piece of paper in hand. "We just got a report of a stolen car that fits the description perfectly."

Eve and Tracey exchanged amused looks. "That's lucky."

"I didn't tell you the best part!" Lara spoke up, annoyed at having her thunder stolen. "According to both Ric and Cassie, the driver of the car specifically aimed at Lucas, it even swerved to hit him."

"Do you like it?" Beth asked Matilda anxiously. "I know it's your favourite."

"It's fine." Matilda replied, pushing the food around on the plate with her fork.

Martha and Jack looked at each other uncomfortably. "Mattie, I saw this really great shirt the other day-" Martha spoke up. "I think it would look really pretty on you, if you want we could go into Yabbie Creek tomorrow and go shopping."

"No thanks." Matilda declined quietly.

"Maybe another time then."

"Mattie. Do you want to have some ice cream for dessert later?" Beth enquired, doing her best to cheer her up.

"Yeah, or we could go and get some cake or something from the Diner." Jack added.

"Stop it!" Matilda finally snapped, throwing her fork down onto her plate. "Stop acting like there's nothing wrong!"

"Matilda-"

"No Mum, I can't take this anymore." Matilda leapt up from her chair and stared at the others seated at the table in disgust. "You're all acting like everything is okay. Lucas is dead! And he's never coming back and nothing can ever be okay." She shouted emotionally.

"Oh, Mattie…" Beth said sympathetically, reaching out to her daughter.

"Don’t touch me!" Matilda flinched away from the touch, backing right away from the table. "I need to get out of here." She turned an ran out before anyone could stop her.

Sobbing, Matilda collapsed into the soft sand, she curled herself into a ball, trying to protect herself from the pain but it didn't make any difference.

"Mattie?" Her head shot up at the sound of a male voice speaking her name. "Are you okay?"

The figure was backlit by the setting sun, his features hidden by shadow. It was obviously male, tall with blond hair. "Lucas?" Matilda gasped, connecting the appearance of the boy to the name that was first and foremost in her mind.

The boy laughed. "What? Has it been so long you've forgotten your own brother?" He asked with a smile.

"Henry?" Matilda whispered in disbelief. "Henry!" She cried, jumping up and throwing herself into her twin brother's surprising strong arms. "Oh my God, I...what are you doing here?"

Next time on Somewhere A Clock Is Ticking: What is Henry doing back in the Bay?

Posted

Wickedly awesome update Rabsey! I love Eve and Tracey's cold-heartedness and sarcasm about the whole situation. Lucas has been run down and all Special Agent Jacobsen cares about is the Sims! :D

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