Chapter 1

It had been a hectic day and Charlie was anticipating the end of her shift. For the last hour she had been looking at her wrist watch every couple of minutes; it seemed to drag for her, every minute felt like an eternity. She was trying to keep herself occupied with a tower of paperwork that had quickly accumulated on her desk in the space of her intense 8 hour early shift. Today had started bad enough with a hangover from last nights all girls outing to the Surf Club, she had planed a quiet night in, just like every single night for the past 3 and a ½ months, but had quickly escalated to some what of a crazy night out and now with the stress of today's happenings she just felt like escaping it all. Lately that's all she felt like doing; flee from her life, from her family problems, from work, from herself and the type of person she had become, and especially get away from her thoughts, but the more Charlie tried to evade her thoughts the more she pondered about everything, especially Joey. Joey she thought, whilst dropping a sheet of A4 size paper down on an open file on her desk, the same paper that she had held for the past 15 minutes and glanced at and tried to read but failed miserably.

A knock on the door brings her back to reality; she picks the paper up again and tries to read it, again. She clears her throat.

"Come in"

"Senior" says Angelo as he walks towards Charlie's desk holding a brown file in his right hand, "I have the papers you've requested".

Without even looking at him she indicates with a pen she's loosely holding to drop the file on the side of her desk next to the big mountain of papers and brown, yellow and red files filled with more papers inside.

He drops it without hesitation. As he turns around to leave he stops in his tracks and takes a good look at Charlie's stressed face. He compassionately looks at her for a moment while she focuses on her paper and notices that she might be probably be feeling a bit strained and over worked. Everybody felt over worked and tired lately no thanks to the amount of incidents that had recently happened in the usually quite towns of Summer Bay and Yabee Creek. Since he had come back there had been some major occurrences that had change the attitudes of the town's residents. Irene had been arrested for the murder of Lou DeBono and there was a shark on the loose that had already killed two grown men not that long ago and now a little ten year old girl; tourism in the area had dropped and the shops and business around the beaches were eerily quiet and panic and fear had swept over the local community who lately did not venture into the waters. And today's events hadn't helped; an early morning shoot-out between two gangs in one of the piers in Yabbe Creek had left three criminals and a female passer-by dead plus another two seriously injured. Later that afternoon they had answered a call to a deserted and derelict house where a couple of teenagers had found the stiff body of an overdosed heroin junkie. There was plenty going on in the town and police station, and everything was starting to get on top of everyone. Angelo knew Charlie was probably feeling the heat a bit more than anyone else in the station since she was in charge of the two main cases and people and her superiors wanted answers to questions that didn't have answers yet.

A moment passed before Charlie realised Angelo was still standing there beside her. She quickly lowers her arms without dropping the paper she's been holding for what it feels to her like an eternity.

"Is there anything else I can do for you Constable Rosetta?" She asks coldly.

He looks down at his wrist watch "Isn't it time you went home?" he lifts his head and smiles at her "You look like you could use an early night"

"Did I ask you for your opinion?" She replies, slightly raising her voice

After quickly realising that his friendly questions and chit chat had been thrown back in his face with a short and glacial response he swiftly turns on his feet and walks out of Charlie's office.

As soon as Angelo closes the door behind him Charlie drops the paper and leaning back into her chair she lets out a long and awaited sigh. She looks at her wrist watch and realises that her shift has finished a little while ago so decides it's time to call it a day.

She puts some files back inside the cabinet behind her desk, picks up her police uniform jacket from the back of the chair she's been sitting for the past four hours and switches off the lights and shuts the door behind her as she leaves.

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Charlie walks inside the Diner preoccupied with the conversation she's having into her mobile.

"So that's lasagne for VJ, Greek salad and spring rolls for Leah and you want spaghetti carbonatta."

Charlie listens carefully to Ruby's constantly changing food request while she leans on the counter and looks at the specials board to her right.

"Are you sure Rubs? You're not going to change your mind again for the zillionth time? Ok, ok, so you want …"

"Hello pet" Colleen cut's in as she walks out of the kitchen carrying a plate "you just finished your shift?" She places the plate on the table with a client in front of the counter and walks back behind the counter to serve Charlie.

"Ruby, I have to go. Colleen is ready to take my order now. I'll see you guys in a little bit". She puts the mobile back in her trouser pocket whilst still looking at the specials board, undecided on what to have for food herself.

"So you've finished your shift for the day?" repeats Colleen a little louder to get Charlie's attention.

"What?" she asks bringing herself back from her thoughts on what she'll have for dinner "oh yes. Just finished now"

"May I please have two lasagnes, one Greek salad, two spring rolls and…" takes a short pause to make her final decision "a goat's cheese salad for me"

"It's terrible the way this town is heading" declares the ever so opinionated Colleen "It's absolutely terrible, drugs, alcohol abuse, criminal gangs…"

"Can I also please have four portions of strawberry cheesecake?" Requests Charlie as she tries to keep to the subject of food.

"I remember when Lance was a toddler I could leave my door open and unlocked and I'd returned home to find everything still it's place but then…" she sighs and shakes her head in disappointment "the hippies came and…"

Charlie's mobile ring tone starts to go off. She quickly reaches into her deep pocket and pulls the noisy phone out. She looks at the screen and realises its work.

"Sorry Colleen, but I need to take this. How long is the food going to be?"

"About ten minutes pet"

She answers her phone as she starts to walk out of the Diner.

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Inside her car Charlie is franticly looking for her note pad everywhere with one hand whilst with the other she still keeps her mobile close to her ear.

"Hold on a sec Watson"

As she rummages through the dashboard she notices it on the floor partially hidden, underneath the passenger seat. She instantly picks it up, pulls out a pen from her blue shirt's breast pocket and proceeds to take note of what her work colleague has to say.

"Is the coroner sure he'll be able to make it by tomorrow evening?"

"Did he say exactly what time he'd be back?"

"I need to find out if that guy died of an overdose or not. By the sounds of things and the recent evidence that you guys just found on the scene it may point to someone forcefully injecting him with the drugs"

"Find out what time he's getting back and let me know. He's going to have a busy day tomorrow. There's several corpses waiting for him at the morgue and I need to know exactly what happened to each and every single one of them"

She hangs up the phone and drops it in the passenger seat. She reclines back against her seat, rests her right arm on the driver's window and her head on her hand. Slowly she starts to rub her face with her hand as if to wipe off the stress and the days occurrences but to no avail. She looks up to the entrance of the Diner and sees a group of people making their way into the small eatery whilst another group leave and make their way towards her, towards the small car park. She follows the laughing group with her eyes as they get into a parked car on her right. As they drive away she thinks to herself how liberating it would be to just turn on the ignition and drive off somewhere, anywhere. Anything is better than this hell hole she had been living in for the past three and a half months.

Suddenly a faint voice and laughter brings her back to reality, away from her tempting thoughts. She would know that voice anywhere amongst millions of voices. She recognised that laughter in a crowded and loud room. She looks to her left towards the beach where the sound came from. On that side she sees two parked cars next to hers and a lowering and breathtaking sunset. She eagerly searches around, rapidly moving her head from side to side. She notices a teenage couple making their way to the Surf Club. She looks around again but sees no one else and disappointedly leans back against her seat. Was she dreaming? Was she hearing voices? Was she going insane? The most constant thing she had been doing lately was think and dream of Joey. Nothing else had preoccupied her mind the most. With everything that had occurred lately Irene's murder charge, the shark attack, the sharp increase of the criminal activity and the murderous crime that came with it, Joey was still first and foremost in her thoughts. Charlie couldn't get rid of her even if she tried. Every time she closed her eyes she would relive the day at the wharf when Joey left her, needed to get away from her and the pain Charlie had caused her, or the day that Joey found out what a lying and deceitful cheat Charlie really was, or the memorable days they had spent together, on the boat, in her car, in her bed, or how she would still imagine sometimes Joey hadn't left and how beautiful it could have been, her kisses, her embrace, her smile, her laughter, her touch. She had become an obsession.

Suddenly Charlie notices a group of 5 men making their way to the Diner. They are loud and happy. Charlie takes a good look at them. She recognises one of them, but from where? Another one of the men stops just after passing through the small car park, turns around and looks back at the way he came from while the rest keep on making their way to the small eatery. Charlie still follows with her eyes the unnamed man who happily shares a joke with the rest of the men. As they enter the Diner she exclaims to herself.

"Oh my God!" at the sudden realization of the man's identity hits her.

"Come on Joey, I'm starving!" Shouts the man that's been left behind.

With a swift move and her jaw dropped Charlie turns her head to her left and sees the man smiling at someone. Suddenly as if out from nowhere, the person that she has so eagerly dreamt and thought of appears in front of the man who patiently waited for her. He gives her a gentle and friendly pat on the back and continue to make their way to the entrance of the Diner. Charlie can only gape in astonishment and mutter an "Oh my God!" to herself again as she sees her ex lover disappear through the doors of the Diner.