Medea's Curse Read Online Free Page B

the brogue thicken when he was spinning a line?
    ‘So take me back to the beginning.’
    Liam cut his steak and it bled on the plate. ‘Travis and Amber broke up straight
after the plea hearing. Poor hard-done-by man: tries to stand by the bitch who murdered
his daughter, but in the end he has to put the love of his surviving child first.’
    Natalie tried picturing Travis in the role of hero. Some women found him cute. But
the poor-me attitude that appeared by the second interview had alienated her long
before Amber had started to reveal the level of domestic abuse. Which was more psychological
than physical, but every bit as effective. Travis had been a clear factor in Amber’s
depression. Had he been supportive, their daughter would probably still be alive.
Which was the primary reason for Natalie’s avenging-angel moment on the Supreme Court
steps.
    The memory of putting Liam on his backside was still sweet. She suppressed a grin.
    ‘What’s she like?’ she said. ‘Travis’s new woman?’
    ‘Tiphanie Murchison. First name spelt T.I.P.H.A.N.I.E.’ His look suggested that the
quirky spelling said it all.
    ‘Let me guess. Small, vulnerable and a bit plain. Maybe an abusive background, if
not at home then in the schoolyard.’
    Liam looked impressed. ‘Why doesn’t he go for the pretty ones? He’s not a bad looking
bloke.’
    ‘Because he needs to dominate and doesn’t want to share the limelight. Pretty girls
have too much self-esteem.’ She thought about Amber: ordinary looking, eyes too small, facial features a bit asymmetrical. In the first police video she had been flushed
and flustered. Subsequently she had looked bewildered, disappearing into clothes
too big for her, hiding behind long, lank brown hair that fell over her eyes. Her
family had been supportive but anxious and overprotective.
    Liam rested his cutlery against the plate. ‘Tiphanie looks average in the photo I
saw but she’s only nineteen. Police describe her as timid. Not bright, I guess, given
who she ended up with. A little dumpy.’ Liam looked directly at her. ‘But then I
like my women petite.’
    Natalie stopped herself responding, but couldn’t prevent a flutter rippling through
her stomach. Damn it.
    ‘Family?’ So far Tiphanie fitted the profile Natalie had constructed.
    ‘Prior to hooking up with Travis she lived with her parents. Not known to police.’
    Natalie wondered what it was about Tiphanie’s home life that made Travis a better
option. ‘Job?’
    ‘She was working on the checkout at the supermarket where Travis was doing some building
work.’
    She would have known who he was, that he was married, that his wife had murdered
their baby. Welbury wasn’t that big. Had Tiphanie felt sorry for him? Was it a celebrity
thing?
    ‘So all seems to be going well,’ Liam continued after another mouthful of steak.
‘Maternal health centre nurse reports she was an exemplary mother.’
    Was. The child would be dead, of course. Missing just sounded better.
    ‘Chloe was nearly one when she disappeared. Eleven and a half months. The nurse hadn’t
seen her for a while. Tiphanie and her mother had had a falling out, so her parents
hadn’t seen them for a couple of months either. Travis’s father left when he was
a kid and his mother was in Melbourne.’
    ‘Neighbours? Friends? Was Chloe in childcare?’
    Liam shook his head. ‘Tiphanie was unemployed. She didn’t go back to the supermarket
after the birth. The last sighting of the child—other than by Travis and Tiphanie—was
earlier the day before. By a neighbour. She only heard her playing in the backyard,
she didn’t actually see her.’
    ‘What’s Tiphanie’s story?’
    ‘That she’d got the child breakfast and left her watching cartoons, then went back
to bed.’
    ‘As exemplary mothers do.’ Natalie remembered a home visit she’d done in another
satellite town, closer to Melbourne. The mother ordered groceries online and never
left the house. Her child