Ex, The

by Moriarty, Nicola

  Georgia hit the palm of hand against the mattress again, signalling Cadence. Me. She mouthed at Cadence.

  ‘It was you?’ Cadence asked. ‘He sent the emails to you?’

  Georgia nodded.

  Cadence’s mouth dropped open.

  PART FOUR

  One Week Later

  CHAPTER FORTY

  Cadence

  It felt strange to be standing in Georgia’s apartment, looking at pieces of my own furniture that Luke had taken under the pretence of setting up our new home. I still wasn’t entirely sure why I was here. Of course, I’d visited Georgia while she’d been in hospital. When her throat was better, we’d discussed Sam at length and speculated about where he might be. The police hadn’t been able to track him down yet. He’d ditched his phone, so the Find My Friends app had been no help this time.

  But to be honest, I’d thought that that was where my relationship with Georgia would end. The only thing we had in common was the fact that we’d been targeted by a misogynistic arsehole who held both my mother and Georgia responsible for ruining his life. I do know that my mum made it very difficult for Sam to get another job after she fired him. She made sure it was spread throughout the industry that he would be a liability to anyone who hired him. And he just missed out on getting his ten-year bonus when he was fired, a package that included KB shares.

  It must have been the news that KB’s shares had skyrocketed when it merged with CarterCOM that triggered him into coming after us for revenge — and for my shares — all these years later. He couldn’t go after my mother, because she was already dead. So he targeted me instead. He obviously thought he deserved those shares he’d missed out on, that if Georgia hadn’t turned him in to my mother, he’d be sitting on a decent sum of money right now.

  I wondered if Georgia thought we ought to stay friends. But I really didn’t think I could. As much as I was tired of living my life in such a solitary way — I was keen to keep in touch with Michelle much more often now — Georgia would always be a reminder of this awful thing that happened, and I just didn’t think I could be her friend.

  For some reason, though, it felt wrong to decline outright when she sent me the message, so I’d agreed to the invite, telling myself I would explain once I was there that I couldn’t make this a long-term friendship.

  ‘Wine or beer?’ Georgia asked as I wandered over to my own dining setting and touched my fingers to the tabletop. ‘Or something else . . . Sorry, you don’t have to have a drink-drink, I just assumed . . .’

  I smiled at her. ‘I’d love a glass of wine.’

  Georgia moved slowly around the kitchen to pour our wines, still limping a bit from her injuries. I looked around, checking for other familiar ornaments or pieces of furniture. ‘Did Luke — sorry, Sam, I still can’t get used to calling him that. Did Sam bring the bedside table here? The one with the blue and green handles?’

  ‘Yes,’ Georgia called back. ‘It’s part of the reason I invited you tonight. I figured that a lot of the stuff he’d brought here might be yours. I’ll sort out a delivery truck or something to send the heavy stuff back to your place, but I thought I should also see if there are any small things he took that you might be missing right now.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said, ‘I really appreciate that.’

  I glanced around the apartment, looking more closely this time, and my eyes fell upon my collection of Transformers figures, sitting on one of Georgia’s shelves. I walked over and picked up one. Why would he even take these? They weren’t worth anything! They were cheap toys I started collecting as a joke after an old boyfriend gave me one that he’d found in the bottom of a cereal box. I’d grown fond of them though. So it was yet another kick in the gut that he’d gathered them up, pretending to be taking them to our new home, and instead had brought them here.

  Georgia came back with the two glasses of wine and saw me holding the toy. ‘Don’t tell me those are yours?’

  I gave an embarrassed shrug. ‘Yep. I know they’re silly but —’

  ‘They’re not silly. They’re cute. And he’s an absolute bastard.’

  ‘I don’t even get why I he took them.’

  ‘I do. Because he has no personality of his own and he was trying to make himself seem interesting . . . endearing. I’ll find a box so you can take them home tonight.’

  ‘Okay. Thank you.’

  Georgia handed me one of the glasses of wine. ‘The other reason I wanted you here is so that I could thank you. Not only did you and your friend Michelle come in that night at the exact right moment, you also spent all that time visiting me. You didn’t have to do that.’

  I smiled. ‘We had a lot to talk about.’

  ‘I hope you don’t mind, but there’s a few others coming tonight. My friends Rick and Amber, my brother Marcus, because he’s up from Melbourne at the moment, and his mate Grant.’

  ‘That’s fine, I don’t mind.’

  ‘Hey, can I ask you a really weird question?’ said Georgia.

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Did you used to make French toast for Luke all the time?’

  ‘French toast? No. Why?’

  Georgia nodded. ‘That’s what I thought you might say.’

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  Georgia

  Several pizza boxes with half-eaten pizzas sat open on the middle of the dining room table. Cadence was sitting on the couch, chatting with Rick, while Marcus, Grant and Georgia stood in a circle by the table. Georgia checked her watch.

  ‘We keeping you from something, Georgie?’ Marcus asked.

  ‘Sorry, no. I just thought Amber would be here by now.’

  As soon as she could after the accident, Georgia had contacted both Rick and Amber, wanting to apologise for freezing them out since the suspension at work. Amber had burst into tears over the phone once Georgia told her all about the car accident and about who Luke was, which was highly unusual for her — Georgia didn’t think she’d ever known Amber to cry. But only Rick had been able to visit while she’d been in hospital, so it felt like she hadn’t seen Amber in forever.

  Marcus and her parents had turned up at the hospital as soon as the police had finished talking with her. Apparently, he’d changed his flight home from Europe to fly into Sydney instead of Melbourne, because he was so worried about the fact that she kept messaging him saying that she needed to talk, but then ignored all of his replies. He’d called their parents, who’d said she wasn’t responding to any of their calls either, and they’d driven over to her apartment only to find it empty. They all started to think the worst — that she’d relapsed and tried to hurt herself — when the police phoned them to let them know what was going on.

  ‘I still can’t believe I chatted with that prick at the wedding,’ said Grant, taking a sip of his wine and shaking his head.

  ‘I let the guy stay at my house,’ said Marcus.

  ‘Can you two stop it?’ said Georgia. ‘I let the fucker move in. I win.’

  She was trying to come across as sort of cool and funny and tough about it, as though the whole thing was just sliding off her back. But in truth, she was working as hard as ever to battle off the darkness. This time she wasn’t doing it alone though. A counsellor had come to talk with her while she was in the hospital, and Georgia had also set up weekly appointments with her old psychologist. She was determined not to return to that place she’d been at four years ago. It wasn’t going to be easy though. The knowledge that she’d allowed the man who’d taunted and harassed her to the point of complete and utter self-destruction back into her life was keeping her up most nights. She would lie awake and replay moment after intimate moment in excruciating detail. The slow and sensual kisses. The nights spent snuggled together on the couch. The deep conversations about everything she’d been through. The sex! Oh God, the sex that she had enjoyed. It was impossible not to hate herself for having loved it. When Sam had been sending her those emails, she’d pictured him as a slimy old man, the type of guy she�
��d never fall for. A man who’d never get what he wanted from her. Yet somehow, he’d done it. He’d played the part of the perfect guy, right down to being her knight in shining armour, rescuing her in that bar on the night they first met. And she’d fallen for the entire act.

  Often, she would berate herself for being so clueless. For not somehow knowing him. For not somehow picking up on some sign, some hint that he wasn’t real. But then she’d recite the words the counsellor had said to her: It’s not your fault, it’s not your fault, it’s not your fault. And that would make her laugh because she was pretty sure the counsellor was just copying that scene from Good Will Hunting. And then she’d get mad. Because, yes, that was true, it wasn’t her fault. It was Sam’s fault. And it wasn’t fair! He had no right to get revenge on her because he was the one who’d done the wrong thing in the first goddamned place. How dare he! How dare he blame her for ruining his life, how dare he think she somehow owed him something. And then she would cycle round to replaying all those intimate moments over and over again.

  It was going to be a long road.

  ‘Still, though,’ said Grant, ‘you should have called me as soon as you knew something was up. I live just two suburbs over and it was always Marcus’s and my job to beat up any guys who weren’t treating you right.’

  ‘We’ve had this conversation — you two were terrible at that job. And also, this isn’t the 1950s and I’m not a fucking damsel who needs men to rescue her, thank you very much.’

  Act tough and you’ll feel tough, Georgia. Fake it ’til you make it . . . Ah, screw it, ask for help when you need it.

  ‘Fair point,’ said Grant, looking sheepish. ‘But listen, Georgia, I know I’m Marcus’s mate, and that you and I don’t exactly hang out, but you can call me if you ever need anything. Or you know, we could always just —’

  He was cut off as Rick called out from the couch, ‘Georgia, I think your phone is ringing.’

  She patted her pocket. ‘No, it’s not,’ she said. ‘My phone is right here.’

  ‘I’m sure I can hear a mobile phone.’

  Georgia strained her ears. ‘It’s coming from the bedroom,’ she said with a frown. ‘Did someone dump their stuff on the bed?’

  Her guests all shook their heads and Georgia headed to the bedroom to track down the source of the sound. It stopped ringing just as she walked in, but she was pretty sure it was coming from the other side of the bed. She skirted around and opened the drawers in Luke’s bedside cabinet. The top one was filled with underwear and socks, and as she saw the Bonds waistband on his boxers, she felt an odd sense of longing for the old Luke, the one she’d fallen for so easily . . . It was followed almost immediately by a rush of revulsion, both for him and for herself. How could there be any part of you that misses him, Georgia?

  She sifted through the clothes and found a stash of things: a phone, a small brown bottle, a zip-lock bag full of white tablets, and her missing happiness jar.

  She pulled them all out, amazed at how much effort he’d put into terrorising her by making her think Cadence had broken in and stolen this jar. Then she smiled. He must have been so frustrated when she didn’t notice it missing, when he had to carefully lead her to the conclusion that it was gone. The fucking idiot. Then she thought about the way he must have used the information inside this jar in order to get an insight into her mind, her fears, her insecurities. How he used all that to help control her.

  She stopped smiling and felt a wave of despair wash over her. He was never overweight as a child, was he? He never cut himself and he never went through any of the depression or anxiety that he’d described, he’d just used it as a way to get her to open up.

  She looked at the bottle and read the label: Syrup of Ipecac. She’d heard of this stuff. Years ago it was used to induce vomiting. She didn’t think it was supposed to even exist anymore.

  Then she realised why he had it. The night she’d been sick with food poisoning. It had nothing to do with the seafood on the pizza.

  She wondered what the tablets were. That night at the hospital he’d said he’d been drugging her on and off — small amounts to make her off-kilter. It was another reason to feel angry with herself. She was a nurse. Why hadn’t she noticed? She remembered all the times they’d gone out drinking together and she’d got so drunk so fast. She’d thought it was because she was mixing her spirits. Obviously, they were being mixed with other things as well. It made sense that she hadn’t been able to focus on the face of that woman in the bathroom that time, and had so easily believed it might have been Cadence. And that she’d completely lost it when they were at the Hillside.

  She put down the bottle and the small bag of pills and looked at the phone. It was a cheap brand and it showed one missed call on the screen. The phone was locked though, so she couldn’t see anything more.

  ‘Find it?’

  She looked up to see Cadence standing in the doorway.

  Georgia waved the phone at her. ‘Yep. Guess it makes sense, doesn’t it? The guy was leading a double life, he’d need an extra phone.’

  ‘Except that he used the same one to contact both of us. So what was that one for?’

  ‘No idea. I can’t get into it, it’s locked.’

  Cadence walked over closer. ‘Try spelling out the word PACMAN, that was his code on his other phone.’

  Georgia tapped in the code. ‘You were right!’

  She went into the messages and Cadence came and sat down on the carpet next to her. They looked at the last text:

  You fucking prick. I never would have stolen those drugs for you if I’d known what was going to happen. How did they get in her bag? Tell me what the hell is going on.

  ‘What does that mean?’ Cadence asked.

  ‘I think this is about me,’ said Georgia. ‘I think this is how I lost my job.’

  They walked out to the living room, Georgia holding the phone on an open palm as though it were a bomb that could explode at any moment. ‘We found it,’ she said. ‘Luke had a secret phone in his drawer.’

  ‘That fuckwit,’ said Marcus, shaking his head.

  ‘There’s a message on here,’ said Georgia, ‘about the drugs that were planted in my bag. I think he had someone helping him or something.’

  ‘Call it,’ said Marcus. ‘Find out who it is.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Rick, walking over from the couch. ‘Shouldn’t you let the police know before you do anything else? That phone is evidence, isn’t it?’

  ‘Probably . . . oh fuck it. I’m calling it.’ Georgia hit the call button. They all waited. It began to ring. At the same time, they heard the sound of a phone ringing on the other side of the front door. Panicked glances shot around the room.

  ‘Is that . . . is that this call?’ Cadence asked.

  ‘Or a coincidence?’ said Georgia.

  ‘Someone open the door!’ said Rick.

  Marcus and Grant were already moving towards it but Georgia pushed past them. She flung open the door. Standing in front of her, searching through her handbag for her ringing phone, was Amber.

  She looked up from her bag. ‘Oh, hi,’ she said. ‘I was just about to knock.’

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  Amber

  Amber saw right through his super smooth act. He was a player for sure. He was saying all the right things, playing the part of the guy who was out to meet his soul mate. Pretending to be interested in everything she had to say. Laughing at her jokes. She even made an absolutely awful joke just to test him out. He failed the test. He laughed when he really shouldn’t have given her anything more than a polite snicker. He kept the topic of conversation on her. Where do you work? What’s it like? Do you enjoy being a nurse? Was that what you always wanted to do? What else are you into?

  She let him do it. And she let him shift his body closer and closer. And when he placed one hand on her waist, she didn’t brush it away. And when he leaned in for a kiss, she kissed him back. She knew it wasn’t going to be any mor
e than a one-night thing, but that was fine, because that’s why she went out that night. She went out looking for some fun, looking for someone to fill the void.

  No Violet tonight.

  No Georgia or Rick — they were both on night shift.

  Sometimes she did fine with a night to herself, absolutely fine. But other times, the emptiness in her home made the voices in her head start screaming out for noise. For comfort. For companionship. She longed to ask David to reconsider the terms of their custody arrangement. Give me just a tiny bit more time with her, she wanted to say. Can’t you see I’m doing so well? Can’t you see how each time you pick her up and take her away, you snap off another piece of my heart and take it with you? But she knew it had been a push for him to agree to allowing her to have Violet one weekend a fortnight.

  She’d fallen for her daughter. Head over heels. In a way she’d never thought possible. Especially not in those early days lying in that bed in the maternity ward after the emergency caesarean. The nurses kept telling her it was normal. They kept trying to press Violet into her arms. But Amber would let her arms drop lifeless by her side and refuse to take hold of her baby. ‘Please,’ she’d say. ‘Just take her away. Just give her to her father.’

  If Amber had been her own patient, she would have picked it up in a second. The classic signs of post-natal depression. Veering dangerously close towards post-natal psychosis. And while the maternity nurses did pick up on the warning signs, while they did recommend that she see her GP, get a referral for a psychologist, maybe look at medication — Amber ignored them all. She thought she knew better. She wasn’t sick. She wasn’t suffering from PND. She’d just given birth to a child that she didn’t ask for and didn’t want, that’s all. To a man who was nothing more to her than a few dates and one broken condom. And she had no family support either, no one to convince her to try. She’d emigrated from the UK at eighteen. She never even let her parents know she was pregnant.