This is basically a missing scene from Dead on Target...what was going through Joe’s mind when he was pacing around his room the night before the funeral?  You will probably need to have read Casefile #1 Dead on Target in order for it to make sense.

Funny, it’s so quiet now, just like any other normal night.

Everyone’s asleep….Mom, Dad, Frank.

Well, maybe Frank’s not asleep. I don’t know, really. He wanted to stay here with me tonight in my room. But I said no, told him to go away. I shouldn’t have really, I mean I think he’s just as upset as I am, but I can’t let him in, not just yet.

The phone’s stopped ringing too. Damned reporters. Why can’t they just leave it alone? They didn’t know you, did they? They don’t care. Not really. All they want is a story, a heart wrenching, true-life story that they can plaster all over the front pages of their newspapers.

“Is it true that Ms Morton was your son’s girlfriend, Mr. Hardy?”…  

“Is it true that the bomb was intended for him, and for your other son?”…

Question after question after question, the phone wouldn’t stop ringing until Mom took it off the hook; then they rang the doorbell over and over again, and shouted in through the letterbox and through the windows.

“Can we speak to your son, Mr. Hardy?”…

“Have you anything to say, Mrs Hardy? Frank, Joe?”…

Eventually we just closed all the curtains and locked the doors, and Dad rang Chief Collig, who managed to send most of them away, or at least keep them further back.

I think most of them got bored and went away, looking for some other juicy story. But they’ll be back. It’s too good a story for them to ignore. Even I know that.

God I hate them. I know it’s their job but I still do.

I can see the headlines now…. “Innocent teen killed in fatal bomb blast…..Intended targets survive uninjured.”

Uninjured. Unharmed, alive, breathing in and out, walking around and around this room. Not dead.

Uninjured. I guess I am. A couple of scratches maybe, a pretty sore neck from when Frank knocked me out, bruised knuckles from fighting against him to get to you.

To try and save you, Iola.

Uninjured. It doesn’t seem the right word to describe me, or Frank, or anyone else within twenty feet of that car. I can still see the smoke, the flames, the pieces of charred paper floating in the air all around the car, coming down on the other cars, on the other people.

What was I thinking anyway? Typical Joe-move, rushing towards the car like that, fighting Frank, fighting desperately to get away from him. What was I going to do, dive into the flames and pull you out? Get myself killed too?

Remember the time when we were kids and you fell in that nettle patch? And I plunged in the middle of them in shorts to get you out? You were perfectly capable of getting yourself out though, weren’t you, and I spent the rest of the morning covered in nettle stings and calamine lotion. I guess I never learnt, huh?

You know it’s weird how things happen. We spent all evening at the police station trying to understand why someone chose to put a bomb in our car, then trying to explain to Mr. and Mrs. Morton that their only daughter is dead, and when we eventually got home there was an envelope addressed to me with photos that your Mom had taken of me and you at Chet’s birthday party just a couple of weeks ago.

There’s one of the two of us pulling funny faces at the camera; you’re trying to touch your nose with the tip of your tongue and I’m attempting to wiggle my ears. We look so ludicrous; I know you would have loved that photo, it was a typical Joe and Iola moment wasn’t it?

Remember, we were meant to go for a drive that evening, just the two of us, and sit and watch the sunset. But in the end everyone wanted to come with us and we ended up playing football on the beach all evening, and you never sulked or complained; instead, you joined in and even scored a touchdown.

And there’s the photo that I took of you in your ‘Vote Walker’ t-shirt, look how proud you are, smiling at the camera.

Vote Walker!

I guess everyone will vote for him now. The guy is a shoo-in. He has the sympathy factor…and plenty more headlines.

And in the morning Iola, you’ll be famous for all the wrong reasons and then he’ll probably turn up at the funeral, and cry, tell everyone what a ‘wonderful person’ and a ‘True American’ Iola Morton really was.

I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be so hard on him; maybe he’s different from the rest. You thought so, didn’t you?

But there will be plenty of trashy headlines, more sensationalist rubbish…  

“Bomb victim’s last hours spent campaigning for Senator Philip Walker”…

………What about ‘Bomb victim’s last moments spent hating her boyfriend?’

I bet that won’t make any headlines; people aren’t that interested in broken hearts, I guess.

I think that maybe I broke yours, but you know what, you did the same thing right back to me, only I know that you didn’t mean it.

God, I can still see you standing in front of your house this morning, your arms full of boxes; you were so excited, so animated, like a child going to the zoo, and you talked non-stop about the campaign, and the difference that this guy was going to make. You talked and talked, as usual Iola Morton, all the way to the mall, and none of us could get a word in edgeways!

You’re like that…

…I mean you were….You were like that, the eternal optimist, always willing to see the good side of people, truly believing that this politician was different from all the rest.

That’s all you ever wanted, maybe that’s why you liked Frank and me, because we wanted to help people too. Or maybe you were just unlucky and picked the wrong guy, the one who flirted with some stupid girl in the mall, who got bored and wanted a diversion.

…I let you go, Iola Morton, and I never spoke a word.…

All the time when I was talking to that other girl, when I should have been helping you like I’d promised, instead of showing off, Joe Hardy, the dumb jock.

And when you came over looking for the keys to the car, I never spoke, never even offered to walk you back; I just dangled those stupid keys in front of you.

Frank kept telling me over and over that you knew that I loved you and that I was sorry for flirting with the stupid girl in the mall because I am…

…I am so sorry Iola, and I am so scared.

I keep thinking that my room door is going to open and that you’ll walk right in, hands on hips, and then we’ll have a blazing row about what happened at the mall, and I’ll eventually realise what an idiot i was and beg forgiveness and you’ll eventually give in, and then we’ll kiss, just once, and everything will be okay.

Every time that I picture that scene, all I want to do is go back, to turn away from that other girl, to take the keys and tell you that I’d get the rest of the stuff from the car.

And then I’d maybe kiss you dramatically, and you would get all embarrassed and start blushing. And then you would say something silly and make me laugh, and I would walk off and leave you standing there at the pillar beside Frank, alive. Happy.

But instead…the most wonderful girl in the whole world stood there beside me, your eyes full of tears….

…I let you go, Iola Morton, and I never spoke a word….

You know what, Iola, I’ve never seen a bomb go off before, and I’ve never been so close to a fire.

I never realised how quickly it all happens.

You know there was nothing extra-ordinary about the day; no dark clouds gathering in the sky, no portents of doom, no one walked under a ladder or spilled any salt.

The mall was packed and the sun was shining. You were wearing those jeans that you spent two hours picking out the previous weekend. Remember, Iola, you ended up being a half hour late for our date, but you looked so pretty that I forgot to be mad at you.

You looked really pretty today too, Iola.

When you look at the movies, there’s always a build-up to every explosion: first the background music starts, and then the camera pans around the scene; suddenly the music gets louder, or faster, building up the final moments, and then BAM! All of a sudden the car or the plane explodes into a ball of flames. But the good guy usually escapes.

There was no music, no ticking noises, no messages taped to the windscreen of the car, no coded messages from strange looking people in top coats and sunglasses. There was nothing.

The car was parked down in the parking lot, and there were loads of people around it all day; other cars driving in and out, people shopping, going to the rally, hanging out. It was all so ordinary, so normal.

I guess that in a way it was like a scene from a bad movie; I can still hear the explosion going off in my head, the people screaming, running everywhere, trying to get away, trying to get out of the car park.

Then the fuel tank must have blown, because suddenly flames started shooting up into the air, and all of a sudden security guards came running from nowhere, running towards Frank and me. They kept yelling “Get back, Get back,” but you know, I didn’t even realise how close I was to the flames until Frank came after me. He kept pulling me away from the car, yelling at me, saying there was nothing to be done, pleading almost.

Didn’t he understand though, that I just had to get to the car, just in case maybe you weren’t dead, I mean…maybe you were just injured, lying there beside the car…maybe you were lying there amidst the flames and the smoke, crying out for me to help you.

Maybe you were alive, Iola…

So I tried over and over again to get to you, and I shouted and raged at Frank because he was trying to stop me from saving you, he was letting you die.

Oh, I know he wasn’t; I know now what he realised the second that bomb went off.

That there was no one to save.

Remember those novels that your Mom used to read, Iola, the ones with the dashing young doctor or the handsome lawyer whose fiancée is killed tragically the night before they are due to be married?

And do you remember the day we picked one up and started acting out the lines? I would sweep you into my arms and you would collapse dramatically before me? After a while we had to stop because we couldn’t stop laughing at each other…

…Well anyhow, the hero or heroine always used to go on and on about ‘the moment when I could feel my heart breaking’…

…That’s not exactly true though, is it Iola? Real life is never that dramatic. It’s just a tired cliché. You can’t actually feel your heart breaking, or at least I couldn’t.

There was no sudden stab of pain, no dramatic collapsing; no screaming or wailing, just an overwhelming feeling that comes over me in waves; the feeling that all the good has been taken out of the world, out of my world, and that there’s absolutely no way of getting it back.

It’s like…it’s like all the happiness had been sucked out from inside of me, everything…just gone….All I can feel is a kind of stomach-churning, empty despair. Total and utter despair, like a hand reaching inside and twisting my insides; there is no way of stopping it.

And I could remember everything: your face, your hair, the clothes that you wore that day, the look in your eyes when you stood in front of me…

…I let you go, I let you walk away Iola, and I never spoke a word.…

…..Oh and then the questions, seemingly endless questions, from the paramedics, the fire-fighters, the police…question after question…

“Have you any idea who might want to harm you?”

“Can you remember seeing anyone suspicious around the car that day?”…

“How long were you and Ms Morton going out? Would you say that it was a serious relationship?”

I didn’t want to answer them, didn’t want to talk to anyone. Didn’t they understand that my girlfriend was dead? Why couldn’t they leave us alone? Frank answered most of them, to be fair; I think he was afraid of what I might say, or do.

Then Dad arrived; someone must have called him, maybe Frank? He was so pale, and when he hugged me, I could feel him shaking. He was sorry too, Iola, he loves you too.

It’s like looking back at a bad movie, except that I’m part of the plotline, Iola, you know?

I’m still waiting for the happy ending.

I wonder, is Frank still awake?

He kept telling me that it wasn’t my fault, that it wasn’t anyone’s fault, over and over again; in the mall, in the police car, at the station, in Dad’s car on the way home, over and over.

That’s not going to happen though, is it, no one can make this all right, not even Frank. Big brother can’t make it better this time, because he’s hurting too; he’s sorry that you are dead, and he’s angry at me for wanting to go too, for risking my own life to try and save you, and leaving him alone.

He hasn’t spoken a word since we came home, even though I know that he’s in his room right now, listening to me walking up and down. I need him, even though I haven’t told him, but I do.

I think Frank thought of you as his little sister. He always wanted a sister, and you were the perfect excuse. He would have done anything for you, anything. I can see the pain and the confusion so clearly in his eyes, and I know that he’s trying to be strong for me as usual.

There’s so much to face yet; the funeral, facing all our friends, facing Chet, knowing that maybe it’s my fault, that maybe I killed his sister.

Who’s going to be strong for him, I wonder? You and he never seemed that close, but I know differently; I know that Chet Morton is the best big brother a girl could ask for, I could see it in your eyes when he came into the room.

You adored him, Iola, didn’t you? And he adored you too.

If it were Frank, I don’t think I could carry on, although I guess I’d have to, like I have to now.

Chet always ends up being the brunt of our jokes, doesn’t he Iola, funny, happy-go-lucky Chet Morton. In a way it’s not fair, because now no one will know how to treat him, what to say to him, will they?

I haven’t seen him yet, I mean not since  it… happened… Dad and Mom were talking to your parents all right, and they were great, Iola; I mean they are devastated and they have every right to hate me, but the first thing your Mom said was that I wasn’t to blame myself or anything.

Huh, easier said than done, don’t you think?

This morning I was one half of a couple, this afternoon I acted like an idiot and my girlfriend walked away in anger; tonight, I’m alone.

And you are gone.

Chet’s birthday party, what a night that was, huh, Iola? The photos are amazing too; everyone’s in them, Callie, Frank, the guys, photos of all of us together. Hey, here’s that one of you and I after we had the food fight.

Remember, Iola, we were standing over the barbecue and you were taking ages to decide what to have, so I took some of the ketchup from my burger and put it on the end of your nose, and then you got the mayonnaise and put it all over my hair, and things went from bad to worse.

What a sight we are in that photo, Iola; you have coleslaw in your hair and I have tomato all over my t-shirt.

God, all I want to do is reach inside this photograph and pull you out. If I could just have you here in front of me, even just for five minutes so that I could tell you how much you meant to me, even if we were only teenagers, and no one took our relationship that seriously.

There was something there, Iola, I know there was, and now that it’s gone I can’t see how I’ll ever have that with anyone else. I just want to kiss you on the cheek, and maybe hold your hand for a while, and just tell you that no matter what idiotic things I may do or say, that just having you around made ordinary days better and bad days bearable.

If I could just see you one more time, then you’d have known that I loved you.

But now it’s nearly morning, Iola. I can hear the birds singing. Funny, I didn’t think that they would today. I have to keep on going though, don’t I? I have to talk to Frank, I have to face your parents and Chet, and I have to start believing that maybe it wasn’t my fault.

Because no matter how much I blame myself, you’re still gone; that little piece of you that only belonged to me.

But I have this photograph, Iola, and I have a purpose now; I have a terrorist to find and a new life to begin, and you will always be there, and I’ll still hear you laughing at my jokes...in my head.

And hey, maybe I’ll see you again some day, Iola Morton, and we will go for that drive and sit and watch the sunset together.

I’m looking forward to it already.

*Lyrics from ‘Fire Sign’ by David Berkeley, copyright 2003