(She’s probably hoping Amanda runs.)
Jean nodded and stepped closer to Oliver, who gripped the phone tighter. Amanda picked up the carry case and walked back to the car. She popped the boot and laid the case flat, then opened it to view the contents. Oliver and Jean waited in silence. After what seemed like an age Amanda zipped the case up and brought it back to them.
‘Okay it’s the painting. Give me your bank account number.’
She held out her hand to take the phone back from Oliver.
‘Sure -,’ suddenly Jean elbowed Oliver hard in the side. As air exploded from his lungs she snatched the phone and sprinted off.
‘Hey!’ Amanda yelled, and took off after the girl. ‘Watch the case,’ she shouted over her shoulder.
Oliver slowly straightened up.
(Beaten by a girl half your size, Oliver.)
‘An elbow is an elbow,’ he muttered, bending down to pick up the case.
Something cannoned into him from behind and he went sprawling into the shallow, dirty water of the fountain. He struggled to his knees, coughing and spitting out brackish water, turning in time to see a shape sprinting off with the painting case. The person wore a dark sweatshirt, with the hood pulled up. Oliver staggered to his feet and vaulted out of the fountain, skidding awkwardly in wet shoes on the loose stones. By the time he recovered his balance the figure had disappeared behind the café. Tourists stood open-mouthed, some even taking pictures. One or two upstanding citizens pointed in the direction of the thief and yelled words of encouragement, although none made a move to join the pursuit.
When he rounded the café there was no sign of the thief and too many choices to know which way they could have gone. He trudged back to the car, T-shirt clinging to his chest, wet jeans making every step seem like it was through concrete.
Amanda was waiting. ‘What happened to you?’
He told her, then waited for the explosion, but it never came.
‘Jean got away with the phone,’ she admitted.
‘Oh my God, Amanda, all that money,’ Oliver said horrified.
‘I’m more disappointed about the phone. Relax, Oliver,’ she added in response to his expression. ‘The second I let her get away the phone locked up. I came back to the car and changed all the banking passwords. Even if she cracks the phone security she’s not getting the money.’
‘But the painting...’
She went around to the back of the car and popped the boot. ‘You mean this one?’
Oliver joined her to see Sunset over the Island lying face up on a carry case.
‘How…?’ he said in a stunned voice.
She zipped the painting into the case. ‘Plan for the unknown, Oliver. There was always a chance that something would go wrong, so I switched the painting when I examined it. That’s why I brought it back over and didn’t leave it in the back of the car. Now let’s go before Jean and her partner realise they’ve been tricked.’
‘What do they have then?’
‘Just a nice little message suggesting they try a different career,’ she smiled.
Questions buzzed through his mind like angry wasps. The huge relief that they finally had the painting was tempered by the feeling that once again Amanda hadn’t trusted him with the plan. And worse, he knew what the painting meant to Alice, so there was no way she was going to give it up to save him from Victor.
She must have sensed his frustration as they drove back onto the motorway.
‘I’m sorry, Oliver. I’m not used to having a partner and I guess I’m still working out how to trust you. My mum died when I was young, and my grandmother raised me, and for longer than I can remember it was just her and me. She always told me that the only one I could trust was myself. I guess it’s a hard habit to break.’
He felt something stir inside him, but sympathy was tinged with suspicion. ‘Is any of that true?’
‘It’s a good story, don’t you think?’ She laughed.
‘That doesn’t answer my question.’
‘No, it doesn’t.’
‘Your apologies suck.’
She laughed again and he felt his own lips tugging upwards.
(Hopefully she’ll do the right thing. Tomorrow you can hand over the painting, and we won’t have anything to do with her, and I can go back to being dead.)
Do you want to go back?
(This isn’t exactly alive – I’m just a passenger. I can’t touch or smell, or taste or talk. It’s like my whole body is paralysed but my brain still works.)
That sounds horrible.
(It mostly is, but I got to see Alice again, and now I know what happened to her, so I’m grateful for that. But I’m done.)
Oliver switched his attention back to the driver. ‘What happens now?’
‘Now you give the painting to Victor and he gives it back to Matthew Darcy and we all disappear from your life.’
‘What about your grandmother? She won’t get her inheritance.’
‘I’ll just have to think of something else I guess,’ she replied with a sigh.
(Do you believe her?)
Not for a second.
(Are you going to ask?)
If it gets her out of my life I don’t need to know the details.
But he wasn’t sure he believed his own words.
Amanda promised to call him in the morning to see how the hand over went. Oliver stored the carry case at the top of his walk-in wardrobe, then drove to pick the kids up. As he’d expected, not only were they not bothered about going to the after-school care programme, they were disappointed when he showed up.
Later that night, after the kids were asleep, he gave Jennifer a rundown of his day.
‘So it’s almost over,’ she said with relief. ‘But you don’t seem happy about it?’
‘I am. It’s just been a bizarre couple of weeks.’ He gave her a hug, hoping the familiar feeling of her body would quell the uneasy feeling that still dwelt inside.
‘You know, the kids are asleep, the cat’s outside and there’s nothing on television.’ Her hand strayed down to give his butt cheek a squeeze.
Oliver was completely torn. It went against every one of his male instincts to decline the offer of sex, but he was painfully conscious of Violet seeing and hearing everything. But on the third hand, he’d never turned down sex with Jennifer before and if he did it now she’d be suspicious.
(How many hands do you have? I promise I’ll hum to myself and won’t peek.)
Jennifer sensed his hesitation and tried to pull away, but he held on and kissed her, basic urges taking over.
It might have been his imagination, but as they lay together in the warm after glow, it seemed to him that based on vocal evidence Jennifer had enjoyed the act more than usual.
Was that you?
(Sorry? I was too busy not listening.)
Did he imagine the amusement in her voice? Jennifer snuggled further against him and Oliver decided it didn’t matter.
Thirty five
The next morning crawled slower than Rose when she didn’t want to go to bed. It was only when he was glancing out the front window for the tenth time that Oliver realised he didn’t actually know when Victor was showing up. He’d assumed since he had been given two more days that the man was going to arrive at eleven, but as the time approached his pacing became more erratic. The case was sitting ready by the front door and he had spent ten minutes that morning studying the painting. It was breathtakingly beautiful, but it scared the crap out of him to think something that valuable was in his house.
At precisely eleven o clock a car pulled up to the house and Victor emerged to stand by the letterbox. Oliver took a deep breath, picked up the case and walked out the front door.
The man didn’t smile but a mix of satisfaction and surprise lurked beneath his passive face.
Without a word Oliver handed over the case. Victor balanced it on top of the letterbox and unzipped it open. After examining the painting for a few moments, he
nodded and secured it in the bag before handing an envelope to Oliver.
‘This concludes our business Mr Atkinson. I’m sure we won’t need to interact again.’
There was no more emotion than if Oliver had just handed over a five-dollar coffee rather than an extremely valuable painting.
‘Make sure your boss knows that,’ Oliver said.
‘My employer is happy to put this mess behind him,’ Victor replied.
Oliver wanted to say something else, some strong words to show Victor how he felt about everything. Instead he watched as the man carefully placed the painting flat in the boot of the car, climbed back into the driver’s seat, and drove off.
(Is that it?)
‘I guess so.’
(So now do I go?)
‘I suppose,’ Oliver agreed.
(Only, there’s still a murderer out there. And I don’t seem to be leaving, so maybe it’s not over.)
Oliver walked back into the house, locking the front door behind him. In the kitchen he tore open the envelope and withdrew a bank cheque for ten thousand dollars.
(I’d forgotten about that.)
‘So had I. I guess that’s one good thing to come out of this.
He considered jumping straight into the car and rushing to the bank but needed a cup of coffee first to calm the nerves. He didn’t particularly want to crash the car and spend all his new wealth on repairing it. Oliver tucked the cheque into his pocket and went back into the lounge to fire the laptop up. With everything that had been going on he hadn’t managed to do much writing. He opened the file with his book and looked expectantly at the cursor, waiting for the words to tumble out. Only they didn’t.
(Oliver?)
‘Yes?’
(What if I can never leave?)
Oliver stood up abruptly. That thought had never occurred to him. He had just assumed that Violet would disappear at the end. He sat down again, then immediately stood up and began pacing the room.
(Sorry, Oliver, I don’t know what to do.)
‘Maybe there’s something that still needs doing.’ He warmed to the idea. ‘Yes, I’m sure that’s it. This thing just isn’t over yet, and when it is you’ll go back to wherever it is you need to go and I’ll go back to…’ He stopped in front of the laptop.
(What?)
‘What if..’ Sitting back down he paused his fingers above the keys, allowing a moment more for cohesion to work its magic. Just as he pressed the first letter the doorbell rang.
‘Typical,’ he muttered.
Afterwards he wondered why he didn’t peer through the side panel to see who was there. Normally he did that every time, but for some reason he was distracted – probably by the revelation in relation to his book.
He remembered opening the door, seeing a figure standing there pointing something – even remembered Violet shouting a warning. Then all he knew was intense pain.
Thirty six
Oliver’s eyes burned. He pawed at them hopelessly but nothing seemed to make it better. Violet was shouting but he couldn’t focus enough to hear the words. Hands roughly gripped him and he was half-dragged, half-carried through the house and dumped onto something soft. After a few minutes the pain subsided a little and he could make out blurry shapes. Two of them. They stood motionlessly watching him. He blinked and blinked endlessly and finally the shapes swam into focus. He realised he was on the couch.
Through red, stinging eyes, he stared in astonishment at Jean. ‘What the hell is going on?’
It was the other who answered. ‘You stole our painting and our money. Give it back.’
The voice was familiar but he still didn’t believe it until he looked at her.
‘Samantha!’
‘Of course,’ she scoffed. ‘God, you guys are so dumb.’
Oliver shook his head, then instantly regretted it. He closed his eyes and waited for the spinning to stop.
(Jesus Oliver, are you okay?)
‘I don’t know.’
‘Don’t know what?’ Jean demanded.
(Just breathe, Oliver. Don’t say anything until you’ve had a chance to think about it.)
Samantha took a step forward and kicked him hard in the shin. Fresh pain exploded and he grabbed his leg, but at least he wasn’t thinking about his eyes.
‘Where is the painting!’ Samantha yelled.
(Bitch.)
‘Gone,’ he gasped.
‘Check the house,’ Samantha ordered, and Jean left the room.
(I guess we know who’s in charge.)
Oliver continued to focus on his breathing, bringing it under control, and feeling the pain subside a fraction at a time. He frantically considered the implications of Samantha being there with Jean.
When he finally looked up, Samantha’s young face was twisted in an angry sneer. He said, ‘You and Jean know each other.’
She laughed at the obviousness of his statement.
‘Did you introduce your uncle to Jean?’
Samantha shrugged. ‘Of course.’
‘And you were splitting the money,’ Oliver guessed.
The girl shifted on her feet, and glanced over her shoulder to where there were sounds of Jean searching the house. She turned back to him and shrugged again.
‘It was a good racket. Jean’s always broke, and my uncle despised me, so she did all the work and I took my cut. It was working well until that bitch brought the painting into the shop.’
Oliver’s eyes casually moved around the room, considering the options for escape. He wasn’t a big man, but he was pretty sure he could take Samantha. Even with the bottle of pepper spray still tightly gripped in her right hand. He asked, ‘Why did that change anything?’
‘Because he got greedy,’ she snapped. ‘And so did Jean. He wanted to use the painting for one more big job, and then he was getting out. Jean agreed. But that’d leave me without a source of income.’
(She killed her uncle.)
He shifted uncomfortably, taking the opportunity to lean forward slightly and place some weight on his feet. Samantha backed up a few paces and snatched a large knife from the rack on the kitchen wall.
Realising the opportunity had passed, Oliver relaxed into his seat.
‘Do you drive a blue car?’
Samantha laughed. ‘I almost got you. Nosy bastard.’
Jean came back into the room, looked from the knife, to Samantha, then at Oliver, but didn’t comment.
‘It’s not here Sam – not unless he’s hidden it well.’
‘Where is it?’ Samantha asked Oliver.
‘I told you, it’s gone. You missed it by ten minutes.’
Jean placed her hand on Samantha’s arm. ‘The bitch must have it.’
‘Is that true?’ Samantha demanded, thrusting the knife closer to Oliver. He shrank back into the seat.
‘Yes,’ he agreed, his eyes fixed on the point of the knife.
(What are you doing?)
Look at her face. If I tell her the truth she might just kill me.
Samantha gestured to his phone which lay on the coffee table. ‘Call her. want her and the painting here now. And she can pay us everything in the bank account as well.’
‘I don’t have her number,’ Oliver said.
Samantha’s face went redder and she pushed the knife so close it nicked his cheek. Oliver felt a dribble of blood track down his skin.
(LEAVE HIM ALONE!)
‘I swear. Jean stole her phone and she didn’t give me the new number.’
‘Sam, I think he’s telling the truth,’ Jean said.
‘Bullshit! She’s his partner’
Oliver shook his head violently. ‘No, we were just working together to find the painting. That’s it.’
The two girls glanced at each other.
(RUN, OLIVER!)
The knife was still inches away from him and all he could think of was Jennifer and Reed and Rose.
‘He’s lying to protect that bitch,’ Samantha said.
‘I�
��m not,’ Oliver replied.
‘I should kill you.’
‘Like you killed your uncle,’ Oliver said.
Samantha thrust her chin out defiantly. ‘Did not.’
‘We thought the thief and the killer could have been different people. Jean’s in it for the money, and she had no reason to kill him. You on the other hand.’
Her grip on the knife tightened, knuckles white, but she maintained a bored expression. ‘Whatever.’
He switched his attention to Jean. ‘Did you know?’
She looked nervously at her friend. ‘What’s he talking about Sam?’
‘Nothing,’ she snapped. ‘Just shut up.’ The knife wavered closer to his face again and Oliver shrank back.
(Oliver! Stop talking.)
‘You told Jean about the painting and she stole it from the shop.’
‘I stole a spare key to the shop. It was easy to get the painting,’ Jean said.
‘Why only the painting. Why not anything else?’ Oliver asked.
‘He turned up. I barely got out without him knowing.’
Suddenly the doorbell rang.
‘Who’s that?’ Samantha demanded.
‘I don’t know,’ Oliver answered truthfully.
Samantha jerked her head for Jean to answer it. The girl disappeared from the room and they could hear sounds of the door opening, then closing. Jean was alone when she came back.
‘No one there,’ she said.
Samantha bounced out of her chair and waved the knife in his direction. ‘What’s going on?’
‘How am I supposed to know?’
The doorbell rang again. Samantha held the knife out to Jean who reluctantly took it. ‘Don’t let him move.’
‘You know I’m right,’ Oliver said after Samantha had left the room. ‘She killed her uncle, which means you could be next.’
‘That’s stupid,’ Jean replied.
‘Is it?’ He glanced towards the sound of the door opening. ‘Think about it. She told you to go and steal the painting didn’t she? And she was angry when she heard her uncle was planning to stop the secret sales, right?’ He stole another glance towards the hallway.
(Keep going, Oliver.)
‘Think about it, Jean. Who else could it be?’
Ghostly Hitchhiker Box Set Page 23