Jake tried again. ‘When Evelyn told you that Ava was upset over what had happened to the girls at the home, you thought she was talking about you pulling their fingernails out.’

‘No.’

‘Ava had no idea that you were involved, you know that, right? O’Brien was clever about it—he kept the three of you separate to avoid issues just like this. He was smarter than he appeared to be.’

Kelly didn’t respond.

‘You didn’t know what Ava and Liam were doing to the girls, or what Campbell was doing either, did you?’

Jake tried to judge Evelyn’s state, predict what she might do when Jake took his next stab.

‘You knew something was off when you took that runaway girl back to the home, though. What did you and O’Brien agree to that day so he’d let you torture Ava’s girls? I guess you used something you had on him?’

Kelly’s death grip on Evelyn remained.

‘You killed Ava for nothing. You killed Liam and tried to frame him for her murder, all for nothing.’

Kelly double-blinked.

Was Jake on the right track?

‘You falsely arrested the Campbells to try and cover your tracks. But it amounted to nothing.’ Though God knows Mason Campbell should be hung, drawn and quartered for his abuses.

‘Now here you are, trying to frame and kill your own daughter to cover the rest, and you’ve fucked that up too. Let’s face it, Aiden, you’re a loser.’

Kelly’s face flushed.

Berating him was the key! ‘You’ve lost everything because you couldn’t hold your nerve.’

‘I can still get out of this.’

‘Impossible.’

‘I’m not a fucking loser! I run this town.’

‘You sound as stupid as Murphy right now.’

‘Listen you litt—’

Kelly removed one hand from Evelyn’s neck in order to point a finger at Jake.

In the space between two heartbeats Jake raised the angle of his weapon and shot at Kelly’s hand, hitting his target. Kelly dropped Evelyn and rolled on to his back clutching the bloodied mess and howling in pain. His daughter scrambled across the floor to Jake’s side.

Momentarily elated, Jake stood, circled to the right to train his gun on Kelly’s head, and gestured for his former boss to roll on to his stomach. ‘Put your hands behind your head,’ he growled.

Like so many cowards, once brought to ground, Kelly complied without question.

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Nineteen

Dunton, Tasmania

Friday, 8.35 a.m.

Jake bundled Senior Sergeant Kelly into the back of his cruiser in cuffs, having staunched the blood with a mound of extremely tight bandages. An ambulance was on its way to Dunton for the fifth time in a week. Dispatch had said a cheery hello when she recognised Jake’s voice. FSST, three back-up officers and a pair of CSIs were also—finally—on their way by helicopter.