Page 53 of Whispers of Sweetwater

‘Love you, darling,’ Nina called faintly in the background. ‘We’ll talk soon, okay?’

‘Love you both,’ Brianna said, the smile lingering as she ended the call.

It felt good, settling, to talk with her parents. And when she finally hung up, the ache in her chest didn’t feel quite so sharp. Still frustratingly there. But quieter.

* * *

The night before, when he’d got back from dropping Brianna off, Hayden had picked up the phone and called Sharon. He didn’t dance around it, just asked if she had time to talk, really talk. She’d paused for only a second before agreeing. Said she had the morning free, and a cuppa on a quiet verandah at his place sounded better than one more hour pretending not to overhear people’s secrets at the Rusty Rooster. And now, as the next morning arrived clear and dry, with the kind of light that made even the dust motes look golden, he rose early, restless and curious about what the township’s longest-standing barmaid might bring with her.

By nine, he’d checked on the horses, swept the verandah, rinsed out the matching mugs he kept for guests, and boiled the kettle. A breeze rustled the nearby gum trees, and Duchess let out a whinny from the lower paddock, as if reminding him she was there, always watching. Sharon arrived half an hour later, with her usual bold lipstick toned down to something softer. She wore jeans and a linen blouse, her fiery red hair twisted up in a clip. No tray in hand, no bar towel slung over her shoulder. Just Sharon. Woman to man.

‘I can’t believe I’ve never seen your place, Hayden. Didn’t expect this view to be so nice,’ she said as he led her onto the verandah. ‘Thought it’d be all dust and dogs.’

‘It’s both on a bad day,’ Hayden replied with a wry smile, handing her a mug of tea from the brewed pot. ‘Sit wherever you like.’

They settled into the camp chairs, steam rising between them from blue mugs.

‘So,’ he said, ‘you said you had something you wanted to talk about.’

Sharon sipped, eyes scanning the tree line for a moment before answering. ‘I didn’t mean to make a scene at the pub. I just, well, I sometimes forget to keep things zipped when there’s old pain involved.’

Hayden nodded slowly. ‘You and Jack?’

She smiled faintly. ‘Brief. Intense. Stupid. But he was charming, and I was bored. Didn’t end well. Not because of me, but because he made enemies, some of them closer to home than people realise.’

‘I see.’ Hayden didn’t want to say much, he just wanted to listen, nice and close.

She set her mug down and stared at it. ‘He told me things one night. Said he owed someone money, and more than he could keep up with. Not because he didn’t want to repay it, but because the deeper he got, the faster it snowballed. Every time he thought he was making ground he slipped further behind. They wanted him to pay, sure, but they also knew how to keep him tangled. Said it was more useful having him just desperate enough to owe, always just behind.’

Hayden’s jaw ticked as he looked out over the paddocks, then back at her. ‘That sounds exactly how low types would like it to be, you know, keeping you just hopeful enough to keep digging, just desperate enough to stay quiet.’ He shook his head slowly. ‘Did he name names?’

‘Not directly. But he said something once about a “generational bastard”. I gathered it was likely someone older than him, and smart enough to run things from the shadows, but then dumb enough to think the town would never notice.’

Hayden grunted, frowning into his mug. ‘That’s not exactly a narrow field. Half the town’s built on old blood and old grudges.’

‘Trust me, as a barmaid, I know,’ Sharon agreed. ‘But Jack was scared. Properly scared. Not just of the debt, but of what they’d do if he messed up again.’ She sighed. ‘I told all this to the cops, too, when Jack died. I know they put his death down to it being a dark road, dark night, inattention, maybe a bit of grog, yadda, yadda, big load of BS if you ask me, but hey …’ She shrugged. ‘Why would they listen to some barmaid that was sleeping around with the deceased?’

‘Bugger me, you think it wasn’t an accident?’ Hayden looked at her, his eyes wide and steady. ‘They should’ve bloody well listened. Doesn’t matter who you were to him, what matters is you knew him better than most. That should’ve counted for something.’

Sharon gave a dry laugh. ‘It didn’t. They took my statement, wrote it down like it was a shopping list, and never called back.’

‘Typical,’ Hayden muttered. ‘They were looking for clean answers, not messy truths.’

‘Or,’ she said, lowering her voice and glancing towards the paddocks as if someone might be listening, ‘maybe someone on the inside didn’t want it looked into. A bent copper, maybe. I wouldn’t be shocked if one of them knew it wasn’t an accident but kept it quiet.’

Hayden’s brow furrowed. ‘You really think there’s someone at the local cop station that’s involved in all of this?’

Sharon shrugged, but it was the kind of shrug that held weight. ‘Someone who owes money, maybe. Or someone who benefits from keeping their mouth shut.’ She paused, shook her head slowly. ‘I’ve seen stranger things in towns like this.’

Hayden leant back slowly, his mind turning over the possibilities. The net was wider than he’d thought, and maybe far more tangled. ‘Did he ever say where the money went? Why he was borrowing so much?’

Sharon shook her head. ‘He kept that part close. I asked once, and he just said it was too late to unravel. That every choice he made was the wrong one by then.’

They sat in silence for a moment, the wind lifting and settling like it, too, was listening.

‘Who do you reckon might know more?’ Hayden asked eventually. ‘Someone Jack talked to before you, maybe? Or after?’

‘Could’ve been Trev. They worked together a bit on the pub’s plumbing, used to have smoko out back, just the two of them. And Joe, the delivery driver, he came in more often than his route required back then. Always asking after Jack. I think they all went to school together, but I might be wrong.’