by Clare Kauter
“So you’re not sleeping together?”
“No. Well, apart from last night, but I literally just slept next to him. That’s all.”
“Right. He let you sleep in his bed because he totally hates you?”
“I think he was just too tired to argue, to tell you the truth.”
“Totally platonic, then?”
“Yeah.”
“Like when you share a bed with James.”
I felt my face getting hot. “Yes.”
She grinned. “Are you going to tell me what’s going on there?”
“Nothing’s going on there.”
“And why not?”
I was about to speak, but she cut me off.
“And don’t tell me it’s because you two hate each other, because I know without a doubt that isn’t true.”
“He’s your ex-boyfriend, C,” I said. “I’m not going in for sloppy seconds.”
“OK, firstly, ‘sloppy seconds’ is a disgusting concept and shame on you for even using that term,” she said. “And secondly, I don’t think it really counts in this case.”
“What do you mean? Of course it counts.” Why wouldn’t it?
“Well, it’s not like it was a real relationship.”
I crossed my arms. “Just because you were in high school, that doesn’t mean it’s not real.”
“That’s not what I mean and you know it.”
What?
“Um, I’m not exactly following you, C.”
She crossed her arms. “Surely James told you.”
“Told me what?”
Her eyes grew wide. “Seriously? He didn’t?”
“What?”
“I figured that would have been the only way you would have spoken to me – you know, if you knew.”
“If I knew what?” I demanded.
“It – we – we were never really together.”
“What?” I asked, confused. I was getting kind of sick of asking that same question.
“James and I. The whole thing, it was – we just pretended.”
“What are you talking about? Who pretends to be together?”
What now? Was she going to tell me she was some sort of school-age spy and that dating James was her cover story?
“James kept getting mobbed by our friends, so I offered to step in and pretend to be his girlfriend. I thought maybe they’d back off and, you know, stop being so unhealthily obsessed with him if he was dating someone.”
“I suppose that’s not the worst idea I’ve ever heard.”
“Yeah, and since I wasn’t really interested in any of the guys at our school, I offered to pretend to be with him.”
“Kind of like a bodyguard.”
“Yeah, exactly. Except then, you know, things kind of backfired.”
I’ll say. Considering she was trying to do something nice, things really came back to bite her.
“Sorry about that,” I said lamely. “I guess that was kind of my fault.”
“It’s OK. Like, I get it. You were in love with him. I overstepped the boundary.”
“I wasn’t in love with him.”
“Sure, whatever.”
I rolled my eyes dramatically, then asked in what I hoped was a casual tone: “So you and him never really – like, you know, did couple things?”
“You could not have made that sound any creepier if you tried.”
I grimaced. She was right. Did couple things? Gross.
“And no, of course we didn’t,” she continued.
“What do you mean ‘of course’? You guys are, like, best friends. You’re both attractive people. It must have crossed your mind.”
She wrinkled her nose. “He has, you know, certain pieces of anatomy that I’m not that attracted to.”
“What, like an extra toe?”
I didn’t remember him having any weird growths when we kids. I totally would have remembered, too – that would have been awesome.
“Are you serious?” she asked.
I looked back at her blankly. He’d had the right number of fingers, his face was obviously fine – maybe his second toe was longer than his first? Nah, Celia didn’t seem the type to get bent up over that. The only bit of anatomy that James had that was any different from mine was his –
“Oh!” I said loudly, with realisation. “Right. Gotcha.”
She rolled her eyes. “Sometimes you’re a bit thick.”
I shrugged. That was fair.
“Why didn’t you just tell me this at the time?” I asked. “I probably would have understood better if you’d explained it.”
“Firstly, you wouldn’t listen to anything I said, so even if I’d tried to tell you it wouldn’t have worked,” she said. “And secondly, I don’t think it would have changed anything.”
“It totally would have!”
She raised her eyebrows. “Oh, really?”
“Yes, really.”
She smiled a slow, evil smile. Had I just walked into a trap?
“And why does that change things?”
“Um, because if I knew you were just pretending…”
This was definitely a trap. Abort! Abort!
“Because if I wasn’t really dating James, then you’d have nothing to be jealous about,” she finished.
“What? No!”
“The reason you said you were angry was because I’d befriended the enemy, right?”
“Right,” I answered slowly.
“So if that were true, then you wouldn’t have cared if we were really dating or not. I was still friends with James McKenzie.”
“Um…”
What had I just walked into?
“The only reason this information would have changed anything would be if you had a crush on James, because knowing that I wasn’t really interested in him meant you wouldn’t be jealous of me!”
“I – um –”
No comment. I’m not saying anything until I speak to my lawyer.
“You did have a crush on him! I knew it!” she screamed.
I shushed and gestured for her to shut up. What if someone overheard? I’d been sprung. I’d walked right on into the trap she laid. Dammit.
“Tell no one,” I hissed.
“And you still like him!” she hissed back.
“No one can ever know,” I whispered. “You saw what our friends did to you over this. If they found out that I liked him, they’d murder me.”
Celia nodded. “I’m not an idiot. I won’t tell anyone.”
We were silent for a moment, me trying to cool down my beet-red face and Celia dancing around with glee.
“OooOOOOooohh,” she said, not able to contain herself any longer. “Charlie’s got a crush on Jaaaaames. She’s in luuurve.”
“Shut up,” I said, mortified. This had been the best-kept secret of my life up until about thirty seconds ago. The embarrassment I was experiencing might actually kill me.
“So tell me all about it,” she said. “What’s he like?”
“You tell me,” I snapped. “You pretend-dated him for three years.”
“Don’t get snarky,” she teased. “Have you kissed him yet?”
“Yes, actually,” I said, trying to shut her up. It did not work though.
Her jaw dropped. “Seriously?” she asked. “When?”
Well, there was that time we ‘got married’ as kids, but that probably didn’t really count.
“Um, about two hours before you started dating him, actually.”
It looked like her eyes might pop out of her head.
“Everything makes sense now.”
I shrugged. Yeah, OK, I’d been jealous. Big reveal.
Luckily my phone rang at that moment, saving me from the embarrassment of continuing that conversation. The caller ID told me it was Joe Winton.
“I found Celia all by myself,” I said by way of greeting. “Plus we saved Os as a bonus.”
“I don’t know who that is, and that’s a good start, but what about the other
s?”
“Jo’s husband.”
“I don’t have a husband.”
“No, Joanna’s husband.”
“She’s married?”
“Yes.”
“Wow. She got over James?”
“Yeah. Totally.” Kind of. Most days. At least some of the time. “Anyway, we’re on it. You don’t need to worry.”
He sighed. “OK, well did you at least figure out why the guy took Celia?”
“Um…”
Shit. Of course, I’d totally overlooked that. To be honest, it was no surprise that I’d neglected to question Celia. The fact that Harry hadn’t asked her anything worried me. Maybe he thought Volkov had targeted her because she was a friend of James or because they worked together. Still, I would have expected him to try and find out more. Maybe he was more panicked than he was letting on.
“Charlie, please let me help.”
“I’ll call you if we need backup,” I told him, hanging up although I could hear that he was still talking on the other end of the line. I turned to Celia. “Um, so what actually happened? Who took you?”
She shook her head. “I don’t really know. I didn’t recognise them. One giant guy with a tiny head who had a huge black eye, and a shorter guy.”
Tiny head? Coconut Head! But wait, he had a black eye? Did the black eye mean that he was the guy last night? The one I’d attacked in the pool and hit in the eye with my shoe? The person who had killed the man with the moustache?
I called Joe back.
“The guy who got stabbed last night. Who was he?”
Joe was silent for a moment. “I’m really not meant to tell you that.”
“If you tell me that, I’ll tell you the name of the guy who has James.”
He paused. “It was a private investigator called Hector Bainbridge.”
Another private investigator? Interesting. I felt like that was something Harry Baxter should know, so I decided to call him.
“OK, thanks. Bye!” I said.
“Wait! You said you’d tell me who has James!”
“I will,” I said. “After I rescue him. Bye!”
Next I called Harry.
“Yes, Charlie?”
“Firstly, you’ll be glad to know that I went through Adam’s drawers and paired up a bunch of odd socks.”
Harry laughed softly.
“Secondly,” I continued. “The guy who got murdered last night – the one who spoke to me at the club before I got drugged – he was a private investigator.”
“Hector Bainbridge?”
“You knew already?”
“I suspected.”
“I think I know who killed him.”
“Volkov?”
“One of his goons. I call him Coconut Head. He was one of the guys who took Celia, and he had a black eye.”
“The black eye is significant?”
“Yes,” I said. “I stabbed the guy who murdered Bainbridge in the eye with my shoe.”
“Ouch.”
“Yeah. I guess my self-defence skills are getting there.”
“It does sound like it,” Harry answered, with what could have been a whisper of a laugh. That couldn’t be right, though – there was nothing funny about stabbing someone with a shoe. I was vicious.
“Anyway, that’s all. Just thought I should pass it on.”
“Thanks for letting me know. I’ll call you as soon as I know something.”
Somehow I doubted it. Unless by ‘know something’ he meant ‘have already rescued them so there’s no chance of you rocking up and getting in the way’.
After I hung up, Os emerged from the shower and came to join C and I on the couch. I hoped that would mean the end of the teasing about James. I didn’t have time for that.
“Any news?” Os asked.
“The guy who got stabbed last night was a private investigator. We think the guy who stabbed him was one of the guys who grabbed C, but we haven’t really established why they took her.”
“Right. Anything else?”
Why was he suddenly so interested? He barely knew Adam, and he hated James. Maybe he was concerned about Stacey,
“Harry is on it. They’ll be safe soon.” A thought occurred to me. “Um, maybe you should call Jo and tell her to go somewhere safe. Her parents’ or something. It’s probably fine, but just in case. We don’t want her to get caught up in all of this.”
He nodded and pulled out his phone, speaking to Jo for a couple of minutes before hanging up.
“Apparently she’s already had a call from Joe Winton. He’s got Lea with him at the police station and they’re on their way to pick her up.”
Of course. I wondered if he was looking after them out of the good of his heart or if he was hoping to question them. Probably a combination of the two.
“Anyway,” said Os, “Now that we know Jo is safe, was there anything else you wanted to tell me?”
Sirens began to go off in my head.
“No…”
A panic attack was approaching. What was he getting at? He couldn’t have overheard our conversation when he was in the shower, could he?
“Nothing at all?” he asked, arms crossed and brows raised.
Shit. Joanna’s husband couldn’t know about this. What if she found out? Wait, why would Jo and Os be talking about McKenzie? Maybe I was safe. Maybe.
“Ask the question you want to ask,” I said, with more confidence than I felt.
“James McKenzie?”
I sighed, shrugging.
“Really? You too?” Os asked, decidedly unimpressed.
“Oh god, I’ve known him my whole life! He probably imprinted on me at birth or something! It’s not my fault. I’ve done everything I could to fight it.”
“What, so your defence is that you were the first to fall in love with him?”
“Don’t be so hard on her,” said Celia. “He’s quite a nice guy, really.”
Sure, I thought. Just ask Joanna.
Luckily, though, I managed to keep that thought to myself.
“He’s an arsehole,” I said. “But I can’t help it. I wasn’t born with Celia’s natural immunity.”
“What are you talking about? Didn’t Celia date him?”
She shrugged. “It’s a long story. Point is, out of everyone, Charlie is the only one who ever voices an opinion in front of James, therefore she’s the only one who could ever be in a proper relationship with him.”
“But that is never going to happen,” I said.
“Why not?” Os asked.
Um, because Joanna would murder me?
“It would never work out. We’d just argue all the time. Anyway, he’s probably dead already, so it doesn’t even matter.”
“They even took your backup option,” said Celia, shocking herself with her own insensitivity. “I’m so sorry. I’m just really tired and I’m kind of having a hard time believing that any of this is really happening.”
Me too. That was probably a good thing, though, because the second my brain acknowledged that James and Adam were really missing and actually in incredible danger, I was going to have another breakdown like the one I didn’t have in the shower.
Maybe I was cursed. Maybe this is what sharing a bed with me did to people. Celia and I had eaten snacks in her bed, which is probably why we’d been able to save her – she hadn’t had enough exposure to my bed curse. James and Adam, on the other hand…
Was I seriously thinking that I was cursed? Dear lord. I was going crazy. Time for a distraction.
“OK, Celia,” I said. “You need to think back over what’s happened over the past couple of weeks and figure out why Lionel wanted you dead.”
“Um, OK,” she answered, presumably confused by my abrupt change of topic.
“Os, you and I are going to read through some files. I’m going to find Adam’s computer.”
I stood and began searching the apartment for the kinds of weird hidey-holes he’d used at the hotel.
“S
ure,” he said. “Better than trying to figure out what’s up with Lionel’s finances all day.”
That caught my attention. I hadn’t really thought about it before, but now I wondered whether there would be anything in Lionel’s records.
“On second thoughts,” I said, “Do you have a copy of his financial documents here?”
“I have them stored on a cloud. I can access them from here if I need to.”
Excellent.
After twenty minutes of searching, I found Adam’s computer on the desk on his study. Well done, Charlie. Trying so hard to be clever, you made yourself look like an idiot. Always look in the obvious places first, then get sneaky.
Os set up a little station at the dining table with Adam’s computer and downloaded the files he needed. (Conveniently, Adam hadn’t changed his Wi-Fi password from the factory standard one printed on the side of his modem, so we all made good use of his NBN-speed internet connection.)
Celia lay on the couch, eyes closed, as if she were in therapy, remembering every detail of her interactions with Lionel/Volkov over the past few weeks, noting points on a pad of paper I’d found in Adam’s desk.
I had my phone out and was scrolling through the files Panther had sent me again. I didn’t know what I was looking for, but I was hoping for another lucky break like I’d had looking for Celia. Things weren’t going as well as I’d hoped, though. It was time-consuming work, and nothing was jumping out at me. The words were swimming in front of my eyes and I could barely concentrate.
Time for a change of tactic.
Chapter Seventeen
Why was there another PI looking into Lionel? That seemed like a good place to start. I called Baxter & Co. and had them send through Bainbridge’s file. There wasn’t much here, either. He was a PI – had been for thirty years and seemed to be pretty good at it. Based in Canberra. Well, OK, I guess that did stick out a little. Who lives in Canberra? Only people who work for the government, really. Or people who really like Questacon.
So maybe that meant something? Not necessarily, I know – there were probably still cheating spouses and misbehaving kids in Canberra – but there was the chance that he’d done work for politicians, government officials, diplomats…