I'd already seen him. I was just hoping that maybe I'd imagined it.
This was a mistake. How many warnings was it going to take before I just backed off and allowed myself to be killed?
"Just stay calm," Jyson told me. His tone was reasonable, friendly, but I couldn't help feeling patronized.
"We have to follow him," I said, turning on the ignition.
"What do you think you're doing!" Jyson leaned over and put his hand over mine to turn the engine back off and I had to fight the urge to punch him. "We have to wait for him to go first--"
I pushed Jyson off me and as he fell backward the worms fell onto the ground. "I'm doing my job," I said simply. "What I've been hired for, Jyson. Either come along for the ride or I'll drop you back to your newborn baby." I raised an eyebrow and Jyson sighed.
"Hurry up then, he's leaving." Jyson popped his seatbelt in.
I checked the time on the dash as I pulled the car out into the road. 3.30. That was early for work unless you were a radio DJ. And thankfully, in near-utopia Tree Valley, we didn't have any of those, so he couldn't be headed towards the local radio station.
"Stay behind," Jyson said. He sure was bossy for a guy who was a year younger than me. "Stay in the shadows."
"I can't see his car!" I whispered, even though there was no way Harris could have heard me. I may as well have been screaming at the top of my lungs. I drove the car through the winding roads of the Melrose Hill till we entered town and I saw the lights of his car up ahead.
I sighed with relief. "Thank goodness."
"Okay, just take it easy," Jyson said, still being friendly. I could tell he was loving being back on the road, if even only for the night. His eyes lit up as we took gentle chase, in a way that I knew mine weren't, from a glance in the rearview mirror. I looked terrified. Jyson was thriving on it.
Which kind of annoyed me.
I pressed my foot down on the accelerator just to teach him a lesson. What particular lesson, I'm not entirely sure. Not to enjoy things that make me nervous, I suppose.
"What are you doing?"
"We're going to lose him again if we drive as slow as you want to, Jyson."
There were no other cars on the road and I could feel Jyson tense up as we drove through town, passing the empty esplanade and May's firm -- "Is he going to stop here?" -- and then passed the beach.
After that, we were headed out of town again. "He's not headed to work then, is he?"
Jyson sighed and huddled down in his seat as though doing that would offer him some degree of safety as my foot pressed down harder and harder. "He's the mayor -- just because he isn't going to his office doesn't mean that he isn't working."
I looked at the dark road ahead of us. "Well, he is about to leave the boundaries of Tree Valley. That's not within his purview."
"Slow the car down," Jyson said while I watched Harris's BMW swerve out of town, heading North.
"He's heading to the Railway Reserve," I said, my heart beating faster.
"That's crazy," Jyson said. "No one ever goes there."
It turned out Jyson was right. Or at least, by default he was, because Harris never made it to wherever he was going that night. Because I had my car so far up his car's arse that when Harris slammed the brakes on I went crashing right into the back of his.
Jyson let an expletive rip -- very un-religious -- and grabbed his neck, still cursing while I stared straight ahead through my front window, into Harris' car. Our eyes locked in his rearview mirror.
Harris stared right through me like he was staring into my soul.
I never got Grace's car back to her in the morning. She reported it stolen.
Chapter Ten
The Ex-Factor.
"Here you go, double cheeseburger, no beetroot, extra pickles, extra sauce..."
"And extra sesame seeds on the bun?" I asked, cutting in.
The young waiter looked nervous. "Well, no, the buns are already baked when we get them, so that's not possible."
I had a mind to tell this young chap about what was and wasn't possible in Tree Valley but I just thanked him and took the burger off him. Could hardly complain when May was footing the bill. Again.
My phone buzzed and I quickly checked it while May cut into her beetroot salad.
Taj.
My heart beat faster as I fumbled to open the message.
"I'm back."
The was all he wrote. I supposed that was enough. But back where? The mud pit, I assumed. I kind of wanted a little more information than that though, after three days of not hearing from him.
"I'm not supposed to be talking to you," I started to type, then erased it. Sent nothing for the moment.
"He was cute," May commented, straightening the napkin on her lap.
"Huh?"
"The waiter," she said, nodding in his direction. He was pouring water rather unconfidently into the glasses of two elderly but well-dressed women three tables over. "Maybe you should think about going for a younger guy after what happened with Louis."
"Please, I have enough men in my life at the moment," I said, taking a sip of my strawberry milkshake. The pink milk rose up the straw and as I looked at it, my stomach started to turn. I put down the glass.
May's eyebrows rose high above her shades. "Is that so?"
I shrugged. "So to speak."
"You're always so secretive about your love life," May said, shaking her head. "I still feel ripped off that I never got to wear my matron of honor dress -- couldn't return it either, three days before the ceremony."
I ate my burger and ignored the guilt trip. May knew very well that calling off my wedding to Louis was the best thing I'd ever done, but that didn't stop her from giving me a hard time about the hot pink bridesmaid dress still hanging in her closet in plastic wrap. She was right, though, there'd never be another occasion to wear that.
"So, how'd it go last night?"
I stopped eating my burger. "You really want to talk about this, right here?" I asked, glancing around the full cafe in the esplanade.
"Better to have this sort of conversation in full sight," May said. "Better with witnesses around as well."
If she said so. I'd have preferred the privacy of the bunker, away from all these people who were having a good time. Even with the weird UFOs flying about. Well, maybe not with those. I still felt a sick feeling in my stomach when I thought about the lights, and had to push the memory away so that I could think about finishing my burger.
But I wasn't exactly excited to tell May it had gone completely terribly. Like, as bad as a surveillance mission could possibly have gone.
"Did you follow him from his house?" May asked.
I nodded and took another bite of burger so that my mouth was conveniently too full to speak.
"And did he go anywhere unusual? If he is doing something with the money he'd be doing it outside of business hours."
"Umm..."
May shoved another spoonful of beetroot salad into her mouth and chomped on it, swallowing heavily. "I just can't believe he did this to me, Lana," she said, shaking her head. "I feel so stupid. The way he charmed me, worked his way into my life." She stabbed her fork into a slice of beetroot causing it to bleed. "He even asked me if...if..." May trailed off and cleared her throat. "This is so embarrassing to talk about now," she said, shaking her head.
"What is?" I asked. "What did he ask you, May?"
She stared off over my shoulder as she spoke in a low voice. "He asked me if I would consider having children with him...trying for a baby..." she whispered.
My eyes widened so much that I was glad I was wearing sunglasses and she could only see the rest of my face full of shock.
"I know what you're thinking. At my age," May said, shaking her head. "It was an absurd idea, and he must have known it even as he was trying to weasel his way into my life. Like I said...I just feel stupid now."
Wow. What a piece of work Harris was.
I wondered if May had ac
tually considered the baby thing, for real. Surely not.
"You don't know for sure that he did it..." I said meekly.
May shook her head. "Sure. Then tell me, why, as soon as the money was drained from the company accounts, Harris suddenly stopped taking my calls?"
I thought about his giant house. "Did Harris ever tell you where he grew up?" I asked.
"Sure. Morwell," May said, taking a giant sip of wine as she pushed her salad aside.
"Only I couldn't find any evidence of that."
May frowned and pulled her sunglasses up onto the top of her head. "What do you mean?"
"I can't find any evidence of Harris Whitemoore even existing. Until five years ago."
***
May gave the waiter a generous tip and handed him my number.
"Thanks for that," I said sarcastically, pulling on my leather jacket as we exited the esplanade and headed back to the wasteland that was her office. Gun Employment and its bright blue signs waved to us from the other side of the road as I pretended not to see.
I wondered if I was still getting paid for the night before.
"That night you came for dinner at my house, you said that Harris had been waiting for you for a long time. No one else was home, Grace was at work...so there was really no way to be sure, was there?" I asked.
"Well, no, but...he was hardly siphoning money from my company bank account during that time, was he?" May asked, confused.
"No. But he might have been up to something else."
I considered telling her about the pink milk in my fridge. It still wasn't the right time, though. She was already going to be mad enough when she found out that I'd blown the Harris op; she didn't need to know about the other thing I was keeping from her before that little fact exploded and blew our friendship apart.
May glanced up at her office that loomed over us and groaned. "I can't bear to go inside right now and look at those bloody boxes." I don't think she was being literal but blood was on my mind these days and I had to wonder if someone had been murdered up there as a result of the liquidation. I hoped it was Andrew. "Let's just stay out here for a little while," she said, shrugging. "Take a walk in nature," she concluded before promptly finding a park bench in front of the botanical gardens and bringing her very brief walk in nature to an end. Things really were bad if May was avoiding the office and sitting in nature.
"So where did he go?" May asked after I swatted away a bee. I almost always prefer to be indoors myself. I'm not sure if I'm allergic to the New Bees in Tree Valley...they are supposed to have less venom in them than the old ones, but I didn't want to take my chances.
It took me a second to realize that she was talking about Harris and not the bee.
"May..." I started to say. "I need to tell you something..."
Slow footsteps approached. Saved by the bell....or, rather, saved by one of the last people on Earth I wanted to see right then.
"Hey there, kiddo."
Right, I was kiddo.
Gus was so large that he almost blocked the light like the moon going in front of the sun during an eclipse.
Shoot. Not this convo. Not with May here. Why did we have to go sitting in nature? Big mistake, like staying outdoors for too long always was.
"Good to see you resting up for next week," Gus said, voice deep as a cement mixer, only a lot smoother.
"What's next week?" May asked, looking between me and Gus. "Oh, is THIS the guy you've been seeing, Lana?"
Ummm...
I caught the look on Gus's face while I desperately decided whether it was better to lie or tell the truth. "Yes," I said.
Gus blinked a few times in confusion. "Lana is singing at the Pink Bird on Friday."
"She's doing WHAT?" May asked, snatching her shades off her face. "Lana is this true?" She was fuming as she switched between outrage and confusion and then back again. "Forget true, how is this even possible with your throat..."
I quickly coughed to stop her giving the game away to Gus. As far as he knew I was still Billy Holiday.
The coughing made my throat burn more and a thundercloud came over Gus's moon-like face. "Lana...what's wrong with your throat?"
Well, when you're cornered between a rock and a hard place you've just got to make a decision about who you can afford to offend and disappoint less. May always had my back, she could forgive me for this one little indiscretion.
"Nothing," I said confidently, shooting Gus a grin. "It's better than it's ever been. I feel like I've practically got a brand new throat in here." There were heat rays emanating from May's body.
"Lana. Tell me now if you are going to flake out on me. You aren't the only former X Factor contestant in town, you know?"
I wasn't?
"I'll be there, I promise. My voice is better than ever," I said, grabbing my phone out of my pocket. I couldn't let this other X Factor contestant, whoever she was, usurp me. "Look," I said, showing my screen to Gus. "It's in my calendar. 10pm on Friday."
Gus heaved a heavy sigh.
"Much as I want you to perform Lana, my club relaunch doesn't live or die on whether you perform or not. I'm only giving you this one chance. You blow it, I won't hire you again."
Hmm. Maybe he wasn't as in love with me as I'd always assumed he was. He did name his club after me though...but that was a long time ago.
"Wow," May said. "What kind of ridiculous stunt are you trying to pull here, Lana?"
"May, I can..."
The phone on my lap lit up with a new text message.
Taj.
"Are you okay? Can you meet me tonight at the Railway Reserve?"
I almost stopped breathing. It was too late, May had already seen it.
"You...who..." She was having trouble picking her statement as she stood up unsteadily, backing away from the park bench like she'd had more than just the one glass of red at lunch. More like twenty.
"It's a different Taj, May," I said feebly. "He also lives at the Railway Reserve..." She didn't buy it. Hey, my IQ's about forty points below May's and even I wouldn't have bought that.
"Can you meet me tonight?" May whispered, repeating Taj's words like they were poison in her mouth.
I stood up and yelled as a bee landed on my torso and got trapped under my arm, stabbing its stinger into the soft underside of my arm. Blinding pain entered my body and I doubled over as the allegedly not-so-bad-now venom entered my blood stream.
I only had seconds before my throat swelled up and choked me.
"Oh stop being so dramatic," May said. That's a Capricorn for you. You can be standing there in front of them dying and they will tell you to stop being so dramatic.
"I need to get the stinger out!" I screamed. "I'm allergic, May!" Or at least, I had been allergic to the bees of yore. These new ones, I wasn't so sure about. I gripped my throat, trying to feel if it had swollen up, while May just stood there, emotionless.
I never thought May would actually want to see me die.
Being back in contact with Taj Robison was the one single thing that could cause that reaction in her. Her love for me had turned to hate in an instant.
Wincing in pain, I found the stinger in my arm and pulled it out with my fingernails.
"You're not supposed to do it like that," May said cooly. "You're supposed to get something flat like a credit card and scrape it out so that you don't squeeze any further venom into your body."
"Thanks for your help," I spluttered back, my hands still around my throat.
May's chest was heaving. "I don't have a credit card anymore, they were all cut up by the bank. Anyway, looks like you survived, Lana. You can stop the dramatics and take your hands away from your throat."
I straightened up and realised that she was right, that I could, in fact, breathe. The new bees really were less potent. Still, I took it easy, sucking in breath like a nervous newborn who'd never breathed the atmosphere before.
"How could you do this to me, Lana?" May said. For the first time, her da
m finally broke, and there were tears, real icy tears streaming down her face.
"May. Please. Let me explain." I tried to chase after her as she turned on her heels and began to race down the side of the gardens. I dodged bees as I followed her, still not able to believe I was invincible. "There are things you don't know..."
May spun around and for a second I thought she was going to slap me.
"Nothing could ever excuse you being friends with Taj Robinson again, Lana. Nothing," she spat.
May stormed off, pulling her shades over her eyes so that I wouldn't be able to see the tears falling from them. But it was too late. I had seen them and it would never be the same. But she shot one last thing at me over her shoulder before she left.
"Oh, and Lana, this might be obvious. But, you're fired."
***
"Hey, sorry I was so harsh on you earlier." The voice on the other end of the line was as smooth as honey, while in my kitchen, I iced my wound. The sting may not have killed me, but it had caused a large red abscess on my arm and a rash that extended from underneath my elbow to my bruised wrists.
"Don't worry about it," I said, though to be honest I was still pretty offended.
"It's just that I want Friday night to be perfect," Gus said before pausing for a long moment. "Tell me now if you're not up to it, Lana."
I looked down at the bench, past the bruises on my arm to where the electric bill, $2000 in the red, was sitting on the bench.
"Lana?" Gus asked, still waiting on my answer.
But the bruises on my wrist and the red blister under my elbow were nothing compared to the welts in my throat that burned even as I said, "I'm up to it."
I still had six days.
Miracles can happen in six days, right?
"Oh, and Lana?" Gus asked before he hung up the phone. "Wear something nice."
I laughed lightly. "Not my leather jacket, I assume is what you mean."
"Like a sparkling dress or something. Something nice and glittery. Make it special for the big night."
Pink Blooded: A Lana Pink Mystery Page 9