Web of Deceit Read Online Free

of it, but she’s a good kid, and you’re a great dad. Those things win out in the long run.’
    ‘I hope so.’
    ‘I know so,’ she said. ‘David was a little shit between fifteen and seventeen, andthere was more than one night I lay awake terrified he’d end up in jail. Breanna was no angel either. Glenn wasn’t too bad, thank goodness. But they’re fine now. You just have to keep talking to her, keep those lines of communication open.’
    ‘That’s just the thing,’ Alex said. ‘She’s become so secretive. We used to be such a team, we used to share everything, but now she hardly speaks evenif I ask her a question.’ The traffic ahead began to move and he put the ambulance into gear. ‘I understand that a fourteen-year-old girl doesn’t want to tell her dad about every aspect of her life, but it’s like I’m the enemy and the tiniest scrap of information might get her killed.’
    Jane nodded. ‘I never told my parents a thing.’
    ‘So what can I do? How can I protect her when I don’tknow what’s going on in her life?’
    ‘You have to trust her a little,’ she said. ‘Give her some space. Keep talking to her as if she is answering. At least that way she knows that if she does have a problem you’re ready to listen.’
    Alex didn’t look like he believed her.
    She reached across the cabin to touch his arm. ‘I know the things you’ve seen, and I know how hard that makesit. But chances are, if you try to keep her locked off from the world, she’ll work even harder to bust out and away from you.’
    He didn’t answer.
    She hesitated. ‘You’ll be fine too. You did good today.’ It felt condescending to say that when she was in no position to lead or guide. He was the one who’d had to cope alone at that crash the night she’d chucked a sickie; he was always focusedon his patients while she often found her mind straying to the place she’d rather be. She kept seeing such doubt on his face though. If she didn’t support him, who would?
    He gave her a strange smile. ‘I guess the bigger question is whether I can keep it up.’
    ‘I think you’ll do great.’ Oh man, just shut up!
    They were coming into the city now and the evening was settling into thestreets. Drivers turned on headlights, and shopfronts cast a glow onto the crowds of pedestrians making their way home. They could be at the station in five minutes if they got all greens. With a tingle deep inside, Jane crossed her fingers that they’d sign off before another job came in.
    ‘Thirty-five,’ Control called.
    ‘Dammit.’ Jane grabbed the microphone. ‘Thirty-five’s on King Streetin the city.’
    ‘Thanks, Thirty-five. Sorry to do this to you but I need you to back up your nightshift at Town Hall train station. Patient’s code four under a train, but the officers require assistance there.’
    ‘Thirty-five’s on the case.’ She slammed the mike back on the dash. A body extrication could potentially takes ages. ‘Dammit!’
    Alex hit the lights and siren and hurtledright into George Street as Jane grabbed her phone and typed another quick text. I don’t believe it. Got a job, can’t say how long.
    The road ahead was choked with cars and beyond them Jane could see multiple flashing lights and the tops of fire engines. The earlier radio messages hadn’t given any insight into what was happening, just that multiple ambulances had been sent to the scene andmost of them had cleared off empty not long after. Now they were all obviously tied up on other cases and unable to return.
    Alex crossed to the wrong side of the road then swung into Druitt Street, flipped off the lights and siren and parked behind Thirty-six. Four fire engines and multiple police cars were lined up along the kerb. Further down two more ambulances sat with their back doorsopen, and Jane could see a couple of patients being treated inside. Pedestrians milled, cops trying to move them along. Despite all this, the air felt calm.
    ‘Whatever