The Mak Collection by Tara Moss Page A

a while.”
    She rolled her eyes. “Yes, Dad. I’ll call her. I promise.”
    “They’ve decided not to find out if it’s a boy or a girl.” He paused. “Such a shame Jane never got to see her daughters have children.”
    Makedde had become engaged to a local boy shortly after her mother was diagnosed with cancer, when Mak was twenty. However she soon realised that she’d only wanted to be Mrs Purdy in a desperate effort to make her family happy. It didn’t last long. She dumped George in a supermarket at the checkout counter, flipping his ring into a shopping bag full of milk cartons and cans of baked beans.
    Mak didn’t find Mr Right in time for her mother to meet him, and she certainly didn’t have children in time for her mother to be a grandparent. It was her sister who’d thrilled them with the white wedding and the pregnancy news. Her perfect sister.
    “Dad, I have some tragic news…” She told him about Catherine. As expected, he was horrified and saddened. He had watched her grow up, too.
    “I hope you’re getting on the next plane home. You don’t want to be around when some sicko like that decides he has a thing for models.”
    “Dad, I’ll be fine. I can protect myself. You know as well as I do that Catherine doesn’t have anyone else. I can’t leave until this is sorted out.”
    “You have to look out for yourself now, Makedde. God, that’s so horrible. Have her foster parents been contacted?”
    “Yes.” The thought of the Unwins made Mak angry. They had been neglectful guardians, and Catherine had spent most of her time trying to getaway from them. “I’m sure they’re secretly relieved they don’t have to look after her anymore. I wouldn’t expect much of a service.”
    “That’s an awful thing to say!”
    “You know it’s true.”
    “I’d like you to come home, Makedde.” He paused. “You can take some other classes, or maybe do some modelling here for a month or two. You can’t still be stubborn about your tuition after this has happened? I’ll pay for it.”
    “I don’t mean to hurt your pride, but I know you can’t afford it, Dad.” Her mother’s death had been protracted and painful, and the medical bills wouldn’t go away for a long time yet. Multiple Myloma was rare, and mostly found in fragile old men, so it wasn’t often treated. But Jane was still young, so they tried every imaginable form of alternative therapy and chemotherapy over the years, and when those methods had been exhausted, a bone marrow transplant was the only option. Jane died of pneumonia in the end, when living in a bubble wasn’t enough to protect her weakened immune system.
    “Besides,” Mak continued, shaking off the image of her bald mother hooked to machines, “I just got here. I don’t think I could hack the flight back so soon. And even if you could pay, you know I wouldn’t let you. Anyway, this isn’t about scraping upsome cash anymore. I can’t leave until Catherine’s killer is caught.”
    She heard him mumble, “Stubborn,” under his breath before he said more clearly, “Is there anything I can do at this end?”
    “Nothing. Please do nothing. I hate it when you meddle.”
    He ignored her reference. “Why don’t you model somewhere else for a while? New Zealand is close.”
    “Nice try. You know I have to be here. Catherine was always there for me, and there is no one here for her now.”
    A barely audible sigh told her that she had won the debate, for now. She had always been too strong-headed for him to control. Their battle of the wills went way back. Although he had revelled in the undivided attention she gave his cop stories, even as an eight year old her boundless interest in crime worried him, as it did the rest of the family. He was perversely relieved when she started modelling at fourteen. Perhaps he was baffled now at her desire to pursue forensic psychology. Women were homemakers and supermums to his generation, not career types with PhDs and a