"You're the only danger to me."
Taj shook his head in disappointment, then stopped suddenly, his eyes widening in some sort of realization. "Unless...unless I'm the one who kills you."
"K--ills me?" I lowered my voice and stepped away from the cottage, checking over my shoulder again. "Taj according to you I'm already dead."
Taj let out a laugh, clearly finding that incredibly amusing. "You're clearly standing in front of me, living and breathing."
"Exactly," I hissed. "So what are you talking about? How could that have been me at the beach?"
Taj glanced over my shoulder. "Your housemate is watching."
"Darn it." Not the kind of conversation I wanted any rational person overhearing. "Let's go somewhere where we won't be seen or heard then."
***
"What is this place?" I coughed as the damp, pungent air filled my lungs.
"Somewhere no-one is going to look for us." Taj glanced up at the concrete roof. "And somewhere where we can't be heard."
There was an old abandoned airport out on the highway before you reach Tree Valley proper. Once upon a time you could fly from Tree Valley to Sydney commercially, and private aircraft used to be allowed to use the airport to travel any place they liked in Australia. But first the commercial part of the airport died, and private crafts were banned soon afterward. But still, for years after that, planes and other aircraft would be seen taking off and landing in the apparently "closed" airport.
Taj had been one of the people behind the movement to reveal The Truth. "They are conducting top secret military experiments," he tried to tell everyone, though he was only met with laughter. Well, laughter if people were being nice. Those that didn't think he was being funny, those that actually took him seriously...those were the people that pushed him to the brink...
"I can't believe you still come here," I said, shivering in the bunker. "Doesn't it freak you out after everything that happened five years ago?"
"Nothing happened five years ago." Right, so he was still sticking to that old line, was he? Even after what he'd told me the night before. There was no way I was ever going to go back to thinking of Taj Robinson as a sane, reasonable person. That horse had bolted the day I'd met him at university and he'd come up to me and asked me if I'd wanted to join his club of UFO and Other Paranormal Activity Detectives. He'd given me a brochure and everything while I just stared at him blankly, wondering what he had possibly seen in me that made him think that we were similar kin. "No thanks," I'd said rudely, pushing past him on my way to my philosophy class.
To be fair, I had actually gone to a few meetings.
And Taj and I had become friends, sort of. But then he'd become too weird, even for me.
"I don't blame you for abandoning me," Taj said now, underneath the algae-covered concrete of the bunker.
I didn't quite know what to say. "Abandoning you? You're the one who moved to the Railway Reserve...which is actually a lot nicer than this place," I said, holding the collar of my jacket up to cover my mouth and nose while I tried to cough the stench out of my lungs.
"That's why I chose it over this place," Taj murmured. "But some of us still meet here sometimes."
"Us?" I asked in shock.
"The other members of the club."
The club was still in existence? I let go of the collar of my jacket in shock. "I thought all those guys moved away after The Upgrade..."
"There is a lot you don't know about Tree Valley, Lana. There are still some of us who care about the truth, you know."
I didn't want to let Taj Robinson see that he was getting to me, but I couldn't help bristling in offence. I crossed my arms and took a step backward, banging my head into concrete. "Ow!" I called out.
"They didn't make this bunker with luxury in mind," Taj stated.
"I do care about the truth, by the way," I shot back. "I was the only one in town who actually cared about that girl who was found at the beach with the pink blood..."
Taj nodded and shoved his hands into the pockets of his khakis. "That girl?" he asked. "You mean you. You're not the only one who cares, Lana."
"If you care about helping her, stop this nonsense, Taj!" I snapped. "It was nonsense ten years ago when you started a UFO club, it was nonsense five years ago when you told everyone there was a top secret UFO base in Traralgon, and it's nonsense now!" I had to stop talking because my breath was coming so heavily. Was there even enough air in this bunker for the two of us?
"I think I need to get out," I said, scratching almost blindly in the dim of the bunker for the ladder we'd used to descend into the pit.
"Lana you said you wanted to talk," Taj said, pulling me back down onto the ground.
"Don't touch me!"
"Think about it, Lana. Was there ever an ID on that body they found?"
My breathing was still too fast. "No."
"And did you ever see her face?"
I kept shaking my head while my heart beat slowed down... just a fraction.
"And where is the body now?" Taj asked.
"I--I don't know. In a morgue..."
"They didn't even identify her on the news, Lana. They tried to bury the story completely. If it wasn't for that out of town journalist it would have been completely washed away..."
All I could think of was Louis getting rid of the evidence by washing it back into the fake sea. "That was only because Louis doesn't want the town getting shut down," I said. "You know what happens to towns that can't keep their near-utopia status."
Taj shook his head. "It was more than that."
"You said it yourself, Taj!" I shouted, my words bouncing heavily off the walls. "I'm standing here alive and breathing -- well, just. How could that have been me on the beach? Do I have a twin I don't know about?"
Taj shook his head. "I think it was a glimmer...a glimpse..." He lowered his voice. "Into the future," he finished with a whisper. "You saw something on the beach that you really weren't supposed to see." Then he let out a little laugh that seemed to surprise himself. "Or you were supposed to see it. I haven't quite figured that part of it out, yet."
"So I'm going to be killed in the future?" I asked Taj. "How does that even work? How do you even know it was me?" I shook my head. "I don't even own a glittery dress..." I said softly, recalling the dress the woman had worn. "Maybe if she'd been wearing a leather jacket I might believe you..."
Taj grabbed my hands between his again. What was up with this new habit of his?
"Can you please just trust me, Lana? Just..." He was struggling for the words. "I know a lot has happened. I know you have no reason to trust me. But I want to save your life."
I pulled my hands away.
"I can save my own life." And if that was me laying on the beach, I was darn well going to do just that. At the very least I wouldn't let whoever did it get away with it.
But Taj had always wanted to be a detective. It was why he'd started that club more than ten years earlier. So he could investigate paranormal activity. And even though I wasn't sure this crime was paranormal in nature, I was starting to feel sorry for him.
Maybe I could do with a little help.
"I can help you, Lana. Help you find out who is going to kill you in two weeks time. Friday night."
"How do you know it is going to be two weeks?" I asked.
"The less you know the better at this point," he said heavily.
I crossed my arms. "If you're going to work with me on this case you're going to have to tell me what you know."
"I will. I promise..." Something green dripped down on him from the concrete ceiling.
I shook my head. "What I should do is just get out of town..."
"Do you really think you'll be able to leave?" Taj asked with a tiny scoff.
I looked up at him and gulped. "If I wanted to leave, there is nothing they could do to stop me, Taj." But I didn't want to leave.
I wanted to bring whoever it was that killed me, to justice. Even if it, well, killed me.
"Come on," Taj said. "Let's find the ladder and at least get out of this cave."
"I guess I really am a detective now then," I said, following him up the dark chute into the light above. "And the first murder I'm solving...is my own."
Chapter Seven
Interview With a Non-Vampire
"So, Lana, tell me a little about your last position."
I just stared at my interviewer from across the desk. Cool air from the air conditioning vent blew rudely on my face, and a view of the now-open beach glimmered at me through the window. Waving me over. Pulling me over.
Was she kidding me? "You know what I was..."
May's hand was paused above the piece of paper on her desk, her hand gripped around the silver pen so tightly that her knuckles turned white.
Beside her was her firm's managing partner (though not name partner) Andrew Barn who was a forty-year-old ginger fella with very pale, almost translucent skin and freckles who usually deferred to May for important decisions. I'd asked May why he was even sitting in on my interview -- "I thought it was going to be just the two of us!" -- and May explained it was because she had to be seen to be fair and neutral.
So, so much for the job being mine if I wanted it. I still had to run the gauntlet of a corporate interview. I was wearing a skirt suit and everything, like a mini-may, except my hair was still long and wild, not short and cropped like hers.
My leather jacket was at home. I hoped it was okay all alone there.
"Your last position," May repeated patiently, though Andrew was tapping his pen. "Tell us about your role."
"Well, wasn't much of a role..." I said, folding my hands in front of me, trying quickly to think of ways to make 'gigging Jazz singer' sound more responsible than it was. "I mostly just sung at clubs and restaurants in town...whoever would pay my rates of three hundred bucks an hour, mostly."
"You were a singer?" May asked, as though she didn't already know. She scribbled something on the piece of paper in front of her. Probably writing down 'best singer I ever heard', I thought.
Andrew looked decidedly unimpressed. "And why did you leave this...job?" he asked, pronouncing 'job' like he thought it was anything but.
I cleared my throat out of habit and felt the calluses of the nodules burn the back. "Decided to take early retirement." I shot Andrew a smarmy grin. It was time to play the game -- or at least, his game. "I'm looking for a new challenge."
May shot me a little nod. Good girl, she was saying.
Andrew still didn't look impressed. "Well, I hope it wasn't the late nights that made you quit because you'll have plenty of those if you are awarded a job as our investigator."
I blinked at him a few times. "I love being out at night."
Andrew raised his eyebrows. "Even as a woman? The job is currently done by a man. Jyson. He's been with us for over five years and he has no problem getting the job done. As a man..."
May shot him a wary look out the side of her eye. Careful.
I only widened my smile at Andrew. "There's nothing to fear in Tree Valley though, is there? After all, this is a near-Utopia. With all that entails."
Andrew quickly looked away and also scribbled something on his own paper. Probably something about me not being a man. Oh well, it wasn't like he was in charge. At the end of the day, the decision would fall to May. My best friend. My only friend.
Would I call Taj a friend?
No, he was more like the nodules in my throat. An irritation that I had to put up with who was slowly ruining my life.
He's trying to save your life, Lana.
I had to push my own voice out of my head so I could focus on the interview in front of me. To be honest I really didn't want the job. Or, at least, I hadn't until I'd gotten down to my last thirty bucks in the bank and the hobo life with Taj started to call me. I doubt he paid rent or a mortgage on his tin shack.
"And you're not going back to singing, right?" May asked me, smiling. "You're all done with that now?" She asked it as though she already knew the answer to the question, and it was the one she wanted. She never liked me working as a singer, was always on my back about getting a real job with a regular paycheck every week. I'd never be able to work in an office, but taking an investigations job, where I could spend most of my time alone, trailing people in the dark, was...passable, at least, as far as jobs go. It was more the company I'd be working for that I had a problem with.
But almost-beggars can't be choosers.
You're not going back to singing, right? I quickly thought of the best way to answer that. May didn't know that I'd bumped into Gus, or that he'd re-opened the jazz club named after me, or that I was supposed to perform there in less than two week's time. And I had no intention of telling her.
"I'm done with that," I said quietly, hearing the hoarseness in my throat. "Time to grow up, isn't it? Get a real job."
May nodded her agreement. "And if you are successful in landing this job, are you willing to acquire your P.I's license? It's a requirement of the job."
I sighed heavily while Andrew narrowed his eyes, just looking for a reason not to give me the job. Hey, I could give him plenty. 1. I don't want it, 2. You work for a bunch of glorified criminals. 3. I'm only taking this because I am desperate. But I didn't want to give Andrew the satisfaction, the same way I rarely want to give any man the satisfaction. "Sure. I'll book into the course next week."
Hey, I might be dead by then. What did it matter?
Jyson exploded through the door with a baby strapped to the front of him, full of apologies.
"Sorry, don't mean to interrupt," he said. "Just grabbing a few things before I am officially thrown into baby exile." The tiny bomb strapped to the front of him started to scream. "Maybe I'm already there."
"She came early," May explained while Jyson walked to a cabinet and grabbed some files. "The surrogate gave birth over the weekend," she whispered.
So that explained why my interview had been pushed forward.
"Gonna finish up this last case at home," Jyson said, using one hand to brush his floppy hair out of his face while he tried to soothe the baby with the other one. He was clearly still getting used to the roll of being a dad. He was a young dad, as well, only in his late 20s, I think, and short in a way that made him look even younger.
"Cute baby," I said with a smile. I not that keen on babies, to be honest, I don't get what is so 'cute' about them. I think that is a Scorpio thing, to not really be that moved by "cuteness." But it seemed like the polite thing to say. And with her teeny little pink button cap on and the way that she was pressed into Jyson's chest, she did look rather cute, as far as these things go.
"Thanks," Jyson said. He looked exhausted in that way that new parents usually did, grey-faced from the tiredness.
"So this is my replacement?" he asked May, looking me up and down. I didn't look like my usual self, and I didn't like this being the first impression anyone had of me. Sitting there in a skirt suit, with my hair brushed. Entirely off-brand.
"We'll see," May said cheerfully, not giving much away. "She's gotta get past the interview stage first."
I just wanted to get back to Taj. Not in that way. In a paranormal detective way, not a romantic way.
Jyson grinned at me and wished me good luck. "I've gotta get this one home," he said, nodding to the bomb. "Don't think I've quite got the handle of being a dad in public yet."
Without a baby screaming at us all we could, unfortunately, return to the interview.
I need to get out of here. The clock is counting down to my death.
"And you don't have any criminal convictions that would prevent you from doing the job?" May asked. Now, this really was for the benefit of Andrew who dropped his pen and listened intently for my answer.
"None that would prevent me from doing this job," I said as flatly as I could, adding a smile to the end while Andrew's eyes bore through me. They were all underage convictions, and couldn't stop me from getting a P.I's license even if
I wanted them to, and I sort of did.
May was just about to wrap the interview up -- thank God -- when Andrew put his hand up. "Hang on. I think first of all you'd better answer one very important question." His voice was thick with irritation. "What actually qualifies you to be an investigator?"
"I'm investigating my own death buddy, how about that, for one thing?"
I didn't actually say that. I just leaned back in my chair and said. "I'm a Virgo moon. That makes me good with details."
"What the hell does that mean..." Andrew asked in disgust, looking to May for help decoding my statement.
"Thank you, Lana," May said, putting her pen down.
Andrew whispered something into May's ear while I did my jacket up in the corner, wondering if I could escape without saying goodbye. Probably not the best way to end an interview. I caught a snippet of his whispers. "This would be an insane decision."
Lucky you're not the one making it then, buddy.
May joined me in the corner with a wide smile while Andrew muttered to himself. He didn't even shake my hand or wish me goodbye. Working with him would be fun.
"So, are we going for coffee after this?" May asked, pulling on her red coat. "I feel like we haven't spent any real time together lately." Her eyelids were creased in concern as she looked me up and down and straightened my collar. "You can tell me what's been going on with you lately. I mean, what's really been going on with you," she said, emphasising the word really.
I looked over my shoulder as we stood in the lobby. "Umm..."
"Come on," May said. "We'll make it lunch. I'll pay."
"Oh, go on then."
***
"Surely you don't have anywhere else to be?" May asked as the waiter placed the plate of calamari down in front of her. "You keep looking at your phone." She frowned and dug her fork in. "You don't have a job, so what is it...a man?"
Why did people keep calling Taj that?
"I'm just..getting in some practice for the job," I said cryptically, munching on the pizza I'd ordered. We were seated al fresco, in a cafe in Tree Valley esplanade a block away from the beach. Sitting there with May, both of us in our suits, made me feel like we were two proper, busy working women on our lunch break.
Pink Blooded: A Lana Pink Mystery Page 6