47

On the highway to Dullstroom, Jade felt as if she was driving straight into a vast wall of cloud. Occasionally, lightning flickered eerily across the bulky piles of cumulus, or forked, hard and bright, to the ground. The trees swayed theatrically in the high wind, throwing leaves and small branches against the windscreen. When particularly strong gusts blew, the unmarked shuddered as if a hand were pushing it gently but insistently sideways.

The weather was as disturbed as Jade’s own thoughts as she considered what motives Salimovic, Tamsin, Naude, and the mysterious Xavier and Mathilde might have for their actions. They seemed to her like pieces placed randomly on a chessboard— but who was on which side? And why?

Jade was beginning to worry that they were missing at least one crucial piece of information. She wished she could call for police backup, but police backup could mean certain death for Kevin.

Better to arrive quietly.

She reached the town just before eleven p.m. and drove slowly along the main road. Dullstroom was situated in the highlands of Mpumalanga, and she remembered it well because her father had taken occasional fishing trips there in the past. It was typical highland country—forested slopes, rolling hills, and countless dams. These, her father had optimistically informed her, were filled with trout, although Jade couldn’t ever remember him having caught so much as one.

She was surprised to see that the town itself had tripled in size since she’d last been there. From the direction signs she passed, fly-fishing was still the main attraction, but now ranks of new-looking shops, restaurants and other businesses lined the main road, clamouring for customers’ attention.

She was now just a few kilometres away from her destination. There was the turnoff that would lead her to the country house. She left the main road, and after a couple more turns was soon driving through dark and empty countryside, down the long and rutted road that led directly to the smallholding.

A flash of sheet lightning illuminated the scene ahead. A winding sandtrack flanked by tall, dry grass; two or three animals grazing near a bushy copse. Jade had no idea what they were. Buck of some kind, with long, straight horns that looked almost silvery in the lightning.

They regarded the car with quiet curiosity.

“Headlights off,” Jade muttered, wishing for a moment that David was in the car with her. “Better not to let them know I’m coming.”

A twist of the knob, and her little car was careering into the pitch-black night at a speed that suddenly seemed far too fast.

She fumbled a gear change and the car veered off the track, hit a bump with a metallic scrape, and for one dizzying moment became completely airborne.

Jade clamped her lips together and braced her feet against the carpet. Her heart was pounding hard as the car slammed down again, bounced violently, and then she was back on course, braking hard and slowing to a crawl.

Another flash of lightning revealed a tall, solid gate ahead. It was set in a high palisade fence crested with vicious-looking coils of razor wire.

She stopped outside it and frowned into the darkness. She could just make out the lights of the farmhouse in the distance.

She had expected to find tight, Jo’burg-style security near the house, but the height of this perimeter fence meant that getting in was going to be more difficult than she’d thought.

Another pair of lights far to the left caught her eye, and she twisted round in her seat.

They seemed to be moving. An optical illusion? Or …

There it was again. The distant twinkle of approaching headlights, the beams bobbing and bouncing, intermittently swallowed by the undulating terrain.

Damn. Somebody was coming this way.

Jade reversed the car, then swerved off the sandy path and into the veld. Coarse grass scraped the undercarriage and she flinched as she hit a rock with a deafening bang.

She needed to find cover fast, but how could she tell where cover was? At least the strong wind would blow away the dust that had billowed out from under the tyres, so whoever was approaching would have no idea that another car had recently driven this way.

But all it would take would be one lightning-flash for her to stand out, as bright and visible as a beacon.

A hideous scraping sound told Jade that her poor little car would be due for a visit to the painters when she took it back to Rent-a-Runner, and quite possibly the panelbeaters too.

She’d driven right into the thorny embrace of a thick-looking bush.

The car rocked and bounced as she reversed and drove cautiously round the bush. She could see nothing now, and could only hope she’d done a good enough job of hiding herself.

Peering through the whipping leaves, Jade saw a dim glow. Then a moment later she was dazzled by a set of headlights on high beam. She blinked and instinctively ducked down in her seat.

Then the shadows swung away and she guessed it would be safe to look up again.

A big, dark vehicle was heading towards the gate, which Jade saw was starting to roll open.

This could be her only chance to get inside.

She swung her door open, and a gust of wind nearly ripped it off the car. It roared across the veld and whistled through the tree branches. Flying dust stung her eyes and made them water, but she could see the ruddy glow of brake lights disappearing as the car drove through the entrance and the gate started to close.

Jade set off at a run over the uneven ground. She bashed her shin against a rock, and felt her ankle turn as her foot slipped into a hole. She went sprawling and landed, face-down, in a shallow ditch.

As she scrabbled to her feet, she realised she’d reached the dirt track and that the ditch was actually a drainage channel. A smoother surface. Easier to run.

She didn’t think it was possible to go any faster, but she managed to increase her speed.

The gap was barely a metre wide. If she didn’t get there in the next few seconds …

Jade flung herself at the gate. Her shoulder crashed against its steel frame, slowing it down just enough to let her slip through the narrow gap before it closed. She spun round and grabbed the bars, gasping for breath, trying to jolt it out of its rhythm and force it to stay open, but the powerful motor didn’t skip a beat.

She’d got in, but now she was trapped.

She fumbled with the metal box that housed the gate motor, but wasn’t surprised to discover it was locked with a large and solid padlock.

Frustrated, Jade turned away from the gate.

As she crept cautiously up the long driveway, she thought back to when David had dropped her at the cottage. He’d wound down the driver’s window and called out to her, but the gathering wind had blown his words away.

Now, Jade realised he had said, “Be careful.”

Stolen Lives
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