by Sarah Bailey
Maybe they were going to see the lawyers together; perhaps they had mutually decided to call it quits. The twins must have been hard to manage when they were little, and Dean and Isabelle had busy, stressful jobs. It’s not unusual. And Dean wasn’t the perfect husband—Oli knows that first hand. But even if this is true, he’s still lying to her. Keeping things from her.
Returning upstairs, she does her hair and gets dressed. Checks the news. The police have now completely dismissed Melissa Warren’s scoop and confirmed there are no developments concerning the death of Alex Riboni. The ABC is reporting that her private funeral will be held on Wednesday.
Oli has eighty new emails, and a text from TJ: You in the office today? We should chat. She rolls her eyes—he still hasn’t mentioned the podcast, which feels deliberately obtuse.
She grabs a jacket from her wardrobe. It’s nestled next to one of Dean’s blazers, and his aftershave hits her nostrils as she pushes it aside. She’s dizzy, out of sorts, like it’s a new day rather than three in the afternoon. Her engagement ring glitters in the soft light. She should call Dean back, but she can’t, not yet. The tulips on Isabelle’s grave surface in her mind. Did he put them there? And what if he did? He is allowed to mourn his murdered wife. But when she pictures him visiting Isabelle’s grave in secret, the thought burns. Does he go there out of sadness? Or guilt?
Even if Dean and Isabelle were having problems, he didn’t want Isabelle gone. He didn’t want her dead. He didn’t know what was about to happen.
But Mary’s words push their way into Oli’s consciousness until she lets out a little cry of frustration. Groping for her wrist, she counts the beats as the panic surges then subsides.
A cool breeze swirls around her, and she flinches. Glances around the bedroom. A draft? She looks outside, but the trees are completely still. After shoving her feet in her shoes, she bolts down the stairs.
CHAPTER THIRTY
FAT MARSHMALLOW CLOUDS CHASE AWAY THE LAST OF THE AFTER - noon sun. Teenagers fill bus stops and shopping strips, stalking around in ripped jeans and puffy jackets with the brazen confidence of hardened media moguls. Oli stops at the traffic lights under a new billboard on the corner of Flinders and Elizabeth streets, advertising the launch of a television series: three girls in nurse outfits are draped over an older man with a stethoscope around his neck. Saving lives by day, turning tricks by night.
Oli massages her neck before stopping abruptly, fingers mid-prod. What if McCrae wasn’t there that night because of some pathetic crush on one of his students? What if he was there because he was pimping out the girls or selling their images online? Pia said that Diana McCrae was a photographer. Maybe the camera—the one that Alex was so protective of—was Diana’s; Julian might have given it to Alex at some point that year, then taken it home with him that night. Feeling energised by this theory, Oli takes the fire-escape stairs from the car park all the way to level five.
The studio is empty, a discarded juice bottle suggesting that Cooper has been here recently. And there’s a sticky note on her side of the table. Emailed you the new ep. We sound awesome! Followed by a smiley face.
Out of breath, Oli sinks into one of the seats. She finds the email and plays the recording while she reviews copy and replies to emails. Cooper’s right: the podcast does sound good. The edit is clever, mixing snippets of Alex’s phone call, the old press conferences and the one from earlier this week. The whole thing feels incredibly claustrophobic.
Oli smiles. Cooper must have got the paper’s legal rep to give the go-ahead on Alex’s audio. Good for him.
After a few more hours of work, she’s inexplicably restless. It’s six. Where’s Cooper?
She flips open Isabelle’s 2005 diary again, re-reads some of the passages. On one of the last pages, the detective wrote: Went to see them, not happy. Worth looking into background more and see if there’s a link to the internet site?
Oli shuts the book, gets up and stretches. The second hand on the cheap wall clock clicks clumsily. She calls Cooper and listens to his voicemail greeting: ‘Hi there. You’ve reached CNN central, aka Cooper Ng. Leave me a hot tip—or, failing that, a friendly personal message. Have a great day!’ She doesn’t bother leaving a message, just grabs her things and leaves.
In the elevator she jabs the ground-floor button with her fist. A chorus of ringing phones, office chatter and coughing greet her there. On the TV, the prime minister is wearing a hard hat and grinning like an idiot.
Oli nods a greeting to one of the weekend sports editors as they pass each other. He holds out a bright-green foil bag. ‘Chip?’
‘No, thanks.’ She waves and rolls her eyes, suggesting there’s a mountain of work she is about to get stuck into.
‘Good work on that podcast,’ he says, spraying chip crumbs in her direction. ‘Really felt like being there.’
‘Thanks.’
She plonks herself down at her desk and adjusts her chair so her knees don’t hit its underside. The coffee cup from earlier in the week is still there, congealed milk caking the base.
Loading the University of Melbourne website, she curses the terrible navigation. After several dead ends, she finds what she’s looking for. McCrae lectures twice a week, on Monday and Tuesday mornings.
Still no word from Cooper. Oli wonders if he’s gone rogue again. Did something else he read in Isabelle’s diaries give him a lead to pitch to Dawn? Surely not.
Clenching her teeth, Oli texts Dean, explaining she has a sore throat and will head to bed early in the hope of shaking it off, and that she’ll call tomorrow.
An email arrives in her inbox, the name catching her eye: Richard Mann from The Daily. Frowning, she clicks on it and reads the short message.
Dear Olive, I’ve heard you’re looking to move and I’d love to chat. Lots of exciting opportunities here in news, we’re making some big investments. I don’t want to get into too much detail over email but I suspect you could go a long way with a bit more autonomy. Give me a call. R
Oli throws her phone onto her desk, where it clatters noisily. TJ is really getting on her nerves now. He’s clearly been in Richard’s ear—she knows they’re mates.
She grabs her bag and pulls on her jacket before wrestling it off again and stalking into Dawn’s office. ‘Where’s TJ?’
‘Good evening to you too, Oli.’ Dawn arches an eyebrow. Over the course of the day her blusher has slid from her cheekbones, giving her a slightly clownish look.
‘Where is he?’
‘Working, I presume. He’s been putting in some serious hours on O’Brien in the background, among other things. When he checked in earlier, he said he was meeting with a source who made contact with him. I mean, who knows if it will amount to anything, but—’
‘What’s going on around here, Dawn?’ Oli interrupts.
‘I’m sorry?’
‘TJ said …’ Oli stops. Her thoughts are all jumbled.
‘TJ said what?’ Dawn’s freckles are almost completely hidden by her thick foundation. ‘Oli, what are you talking about?’
‘Have you seen Cooper?’ Oli says stiffly.
‘Cooper?’ Dawn shakes her head, exasperated. ‘I thought you wanted TJ?’
Oli glances back out at the newsroom. It’s virtually empty. ‘Have you seen him today?’
‘No.’ Dawn gestures for her to sit, looking concerned. ‘What’s gotten into you lately? Is everything alright at home?’
Oli wavers at the uncharacteristic kindness in Dawn’s voice. Her arms and legs feel heavy, and her knees start to give.
‘Don’t get me wrong,’ Dawn continues, ‘the podcast is shaping up well, but you seem a bit off. Do you need to take some personal time?’
Noise builds in Oli’s ears: a fine thread of sound, like the ground cracking before an earthquake. The memory of Mary’s pitying look flares in her mind’s eye.
‘If you want to have a break, that’s fine—we can cover it if we have to.’
Oli blinks. Her
eyes feel hot, and she shakes her head.
‘TJ’s worried about you too, Oli.’
‘I bet he bloody is.’
She stumbles out of Dawn’s office and calls Cooper again. Gets voicemail.
At her desk, she punches in Kylie’s extension without sitting down. It rings twice then clicks, diverting to her mobile. ‘Kylie, hi. Do you know where Cooper is?’
‘Who’s this?’ Kylie is somewhere noisy. ‘Hang on, gimme a tick.’ A series of sounds, like the phone is being thrown around in a wooden box.
‘It’s Oli.’
‘Oh! Hey, Oli. You’re after Cooper? Sorry, I left early today. I’m taking my mother-in-law out for her birthday. Honestly, I deserve all the medals.’
‘You have no idea where he is?’ Oli starts to feel hot and rolls up her sleeves. Lifts the edge of her jumper to fan her clammy stomach.
‘Nope. I really haven’t seen him much the past few days. He’s loving working with you. He’s in and out of the office like some kind of spy. Why? Is everything okay?’
‘Yes, yes, I’m sure it’s fine. We were supposed to meet, but maybe he got held up.’
‘He’s easily distracted! See you tomorrow.’
Oli pulls on her coat and heads outside. She has no particular destination in mind, but she needs to eat. The icy wind chills her teeth, making her jaw ache. Leaves and rubbish clog the gutters, haphazard obstacles for the rainwater to navigate. She falls into step alongside the throng of suit-clad workers, the beat of their steps matching the throb of her headache. A hearty roll of thunder erupts, and a few people look up and laugh nervously. Oli barely registers it. Faces merge into each other as she walks along Lonsdale Street. Smokers huddle in doorways, blocking lighters from the wind. She ducks into a tiny alcove outside a Commonwealth Bank and scans the street, spotting a wine bar on the other side. She darts across, sidestepping a lycra-clad man who flies past on a bike.
‘Ciao.’ An artificially suntanned barman greets her when she enters. ‘We have hairdryers in the bathroom,’ he says conspiratorially, after she orders a hot chocolate and apple pie.
The drink is on her table when she returns from the bathroom. She sips it slowly, the rosy glow of the restaurant washing over her. Her theory from earlier resurfaces, and she fumbles for her phone and calls Miles Wu. ‘Miles? It’s Oli Groves from Melbourne Today.’
‘Oh, hi,’ he stutters nervously.
‘We’re still piecing together our story, and I just wanted to ask whether you ever saw anything that made you think the girls might have been involved in creating or selling any kind of explicit content.’ She’s talking too quickly and tries to force herself to slow down.
‘No,’ stammers Miles. ‘I never saw anything like that. And honestly I just can’t see Alex doing that kind of stuff. She was quite a private person.’
‘And McCrae never did or said anything that made you think he was trying to coerce the girls into doing something?’
‘Like porn?’
‘Sure, porn or anything, really.’
‘I don’t think so. Nicole was the one closest to him, but it didn’t seem sexual. It was just weird.’
‘I’m also wondering if perhaps they had the internet disconnected because they were concerned about explicit content being traced back to the house.’
‘I think that’s a bit of a leap,’ Miles says doubtfully. ‘I really don’t think Alex could have been doing that without my knowledge. But Evelyn was really outgoing, and she was trying to crack into the acting scene, so maybe she would have been tempted.’
‘But you said it was Nicole and Alex who justified cancelling their home internet,’ Oli presses. ‘Not Evelyn.’
Miles doesn’t say anything for a few moments. ‘Yeah, I think it was. Honestly, it’s hard to remember, I just thought it was odd that they didn’t want it at home. Once you’ve had internet it’s not common to go backwards, right? But like I said, there were computers at the uni, and they had phones so it wasn’t like they cut themselves off from the world or anything.’ He pauses. ‘Is this for the same article your workmate called me about earlier?’
‘Cooper called you today?’
‘Yes.’ Miles sounds wary.
‘When?’
‘Around three, I think.’
‘Why?’
‘He was asking questions about that little kid who went missing around the time Evelyn died. He wanted to know whether the girls ever said anything about it.’
‘Right, of course,’ Oli says. ‘Cooper and I keep missing each other today.’
‘Okay.’ Miles sounds downright uncomfortable now.
He doesn’t say anything else, so Oli fills the silence. ‘And did the housemates ever say anything about the Carter girl?’
‘Not specifically,’ Miles says slowly. ‘Although Evelyn seemed quite upset about it. She was watching the news after it happened, and Nicole turned it off saying it was pointless seeing the same updates over and over, which seemed to really piss Evelyn off. I told Cooper this already.’
Oli ends the call, and the waiter clears the dishes.
A text flashes onto her phone. Cooper, she thinks. But it’s Dean.
Why are you lying to me?
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
OLI FRANTICALLY PAYS THE WAITER AND RACES BACK TOWARD THE office, heart galloping. She reads Dean’s message again, feeling an increasing sense of dread. It’s so blunt, so unlike Dean. He rarely shows anger—‘optics above emotion’ is his mantra at work, and it’s a philosophy he extends to his personal life. Hot chocolate sloshes in her stomach. You can just pretend you were asleep, she thinks, that you didn’t get the message until the morning. No need to do anything right now.
The moon hangs low over the city, white and bright. Feeling horribly alone, Oli falls into step behind a group of women waiting to cross Spencer Street. Dean no longer feels like her safety net. She thinks of the twins, and an icy fear clutches her heart. Surely they’re fine. Dean is their father; he adores them.
Oli triggers the sensors as she darts across the basement car park. Lights slam on in sequence, boom, boom, boom. Fumbling in her bag for her security pass, she takes the lift straight to level five again. It’s pitch-black, silent. Breathing hard, she reaches the studio and flicks the light on. Blinks. Scans the room. Were those papers there before? She’s not sure, but she thinks so.
Cooper never came back. What the hell is he up to?
She turns on the radio to break the silence and tries to steady her breathing. She needs to calm down and call Dean. Sort all this out. He’ll be her husband soon. If she can reassure him, she can buy some time to work out what the hell to do. To work out how she feels. A hopeful thought niggles: maybe it’s all a big misunderstanding. She turns down the radio volume and calls before she loses her nerve.
‘Hi.’ Dean’s voice is clipped.
‘Hi. Guess what? I got dragged back into work. I was literally in bed when I got the call but I did manage to get some sleep. I just drove back here. I feel terrible.’ She knows she is babbling but can’t seem to stop. ‘I took some Cold & Flu, which helped a bit.’
‘Are you at work now?’ Dean says slowly, as if he has to think about each word.
‘Yep, yep, I’m in the office.’
‘At this hour?’ His tone is unmistakable—he doesn’t believe her.
‘Developments on a story.’ She coughs several times. ‘I need to file something tonight. Dawn’s in a state about it.’
‘Really?
She laughs lightly. ‘Yes, of course.’
He makes a soft grunt.
‘Anyway, how are you? I was worried after you sent that message. How are the girls?’
‘We’re all fine,’ he says. ‘A few things have flared up with work, but I’m managing them.’
‘Sounds like we’re in the same boat.’
‘I just want to be able to trust you,’ he says finally. ‘It’s not easy, based on our history.’
She squeezes her eyes shut
. She’s suddenly angry, really angry. Is he trying to confuse things by making her feel guilty? How dare he use their past against her as if she’s the only one to blame. He was the one with a wife. He was the one that lost nothing when they split all those years ago. ‘Of course you can trust me.’
He sighs. ‘I better leave you to it. Don’t work too hard, okay?’
‘I won’t. Night.’
‘Night.’
Shaking, she hangs up. Looks at the papers on the desk. Cooper’s notes on the wall. Almost immediately, her phone rings. It’s Rusty. The sound blares through the silent space, strumming her nerves. She glances around. It feels like a test. She answers.
‘Oli!’ A buzzing distorts his voice.
‘Rusty?’
The buzz settles into a low hum. ‘Oli, where are you?’
She shifts forward. The balls of her feet press into the carpet. ‘At work.’
‘I’m calling about that kid you were with.’
Oli shakes her head in frustration. ‘What?’
‘The kid who was with you in Crystalbrook. He’s hurt, Oli. Bad. We’ve called his parents, but I thought you’d want to know.’ She slumps back against the chair. ‘Cooper.’
‘Yeah.’ Rusty’s voice sounds small, like it’s trapped in his throat. ‘He was attacked. He’s on the way to the Alfred. It’s not looking good.’
‘There, there, just pull up there.’ Oli points to the Emergency Department as the cab driver gives her a nervous sideways glance.
Random vignettes of Cooper’s quips and expressions fill her thoughts. Those stupid purple headphones around his skinny neck. His ridiculous shoes. He’s going to be okay. He has to be.
She tries to remember what Rusty said, but it’s like the conversation never made it to the storage part of her brain. That Cooper had been in an accident? Rusty definitely said he was badly hurt. Her face crumples, and she hastily wipes her eyes.
The taxi accelerates up the driveway then comes to an abrupt stop. Her fingers dig into the sides of her wrists. Two ambulances are parked near the entrance; one has its back doors open, and a pair of paramedics are easing out a stretcher. An oxygen mask is clasped over the face of an elderly woman, and a worried-looking young woman in pyjamas runs after the trio as they rush into the hospital. Oli throws a twenty-dollar note at the driver and yanks open the door. She stumbles as she runs.