Brittle Shadows

by Vicki Tyley

  Her ringing phone interrupted her musings. She glanced at the caller ID. Marcus. Her jaw clenched. Perhaps if she ignored him, he would go away. Not likely, though.

  She pressed the talk button. “Don’t you think you’ve done enough damage for one lifetime?”

  Silence then, “We should talk.”

  “I’m listening,” she said.

  “Not over the phone. In person.”

  Her breath escaped in a strangled laugh. “What do you take me for?”

  “I’m serious, Jemma. This is serious. Name the place. Somewhere public if you don’t trust me. Please.”

  She hesitated. Could what he have to tell her hold the key to her sister’s death? He was Tanya’s father after all. “Bourke Street Mall in one hour.” She didn’t wait for his response.

  Fifty minutes later, she entered the mall at the Swanston Street end. A precursor to the day ahead, the sun’s heat was already almost too hot for comfort. Abuzz with caffeine or adrenaline or both, she strode down one side of the shopping precinct and up the other, doing her utmost not to mow down any of the Saturday morning dawdlers.

  About to repeat the circuit, she spotted Marcus emerging from an arcade. Contrary to how she felt, he looked cool and relaxed in designer jeans and a grey-and-white shirt, the cuffs folded back. He acknowledged her with a wave that looked more like a salute. She stayed where she was, waiting for him to come to her.

  Up close, the tightness around his eyes showed the strain. He ran a hand through his damp silver hair and motioned her toward a row of steel benches with the other. About to refuse, she had second thoughts. Now that she had stopped, her leg muscles quivered, as if on the verge of imploding.

  She dropped down onto the closest seat, the metal cold against the back of her legs, her shoulder bag clutched to her chest like a shield. Marcus perched at the opposite end, his elbows splayed, his hands planted on his strong thighs.

  His chest rose and fell. “I understand that you feel betrayed,” he said, staring at the pavement beyond his feet, “but your mother did what she thought was best for you, for Tanya, for her family…”

  A tram trundled past, drowning his next words.

  He glanced sideways at her. “It was her choice,” he continued, “and though I didn’t agree with it, I had to abide by it.”

  “Even after Mum died?”

  He nodded. “In hindsight, probably not the wisest decision. Although at that stage, I think your Aunt Gail had more your interests at heart than anything. You had already lost both parents. She argued that finding out that your father wasn’t your sister’s father would have only done more harm than good, created a wedge between you.”

  “Yet, you gave Tanya a job, a job which meant you worked closely together. And in all that time, she didn’t have a clue? That’s what I don’t understand. Tell me, did Ash know Tanya was his half-sister?”

  Marcus shook his head. “No.”

  “And your conscience didn’t have anything to say about a potentially incestuous relationship developing between your son and daughter?”

  “Why do you think I did my damnedest to keep them apart?”

  “Why not just tell them the truth? What’s the worst that could’ve happened?”

  He twiddled with his wedding band. “I wanted to, but like I said, I promised Karen – your mother.”

  Jemma felt sick. Despite Marcus’s efforts had Tanya and Ash consummated their relationship? Could the child she had carried been fathered by Ash?

  Marcus read her mind. “I don’t know who Tanya was seeing, but I can assure you it wasn’t Ash. He was thousands of kilometers away on the other side of the world.”

  “How can you be so sure of that?” She fought to keep her voice in check. “You didn’t know he was back in Australia until I told you. Surely you owed it to both of them, to yourself, to tell them the truth about their parentage before it was too late?”

  “As I said: hindsight.” He rubbed his hands down his jeans. “If I could turn back time, I would.”

  “Wouldn’t we all. But Marcus, she might not have known you were her father, but you knew she was your daughter. What father in his right mind would screw his daughter’s fiancé?”

  He didn’t say anything for a few moments, then, “You’re right. It’s totally inexcusable.”

  “On that at least we agree. But that doesn’t explain what was so important that you had to see me. Or was it just so you could offload all the blame onto someone who’s no longer here to defend herself? In which case…” She started to rise.

  “It’s not.” He stretched out his arm. “Sit. Please.”

  She lowered herself back onto the bench.

  “For your own sake,” he said, pinching the bridge of his nose, “I think you should leave Melbourne. The sooner the better.”

  “Are you evicting me from the apartment?”

  He gave his head a weary shake. “No, it’s not like that. You know your aunt wants you home. And you would be out of harm’s way in Perth.”

  “While it’s obvious you and Gail are in cahoots, what makes you think I wouldn’t be safe staying here?”

  He grunted. “Just as stubborn as your mother always was. Okay, here it is plain and simple. If like me you’re convinced – and it’s a big if – Sean and your sister didn’t take their own lives, then someone else did. I don’t know who, how or why, but one thing’s for certain, if they were murdered, there’s nothing to stop their killer striking again. Call me selfish, but I would rather not have to explain to Gail why I wasn’t able to save either of her nieces.”

  “Are you sure there’s not more to it? Something that you’re not telling me?”

  Marcus hung his head. In guilt? In frustration? In what?

  Before she could voice her thoughts, her phone rang. She scrambled in the depths of her bag in a bid to silence it. When she saw it was Chris calling, she answered it.

  He opened with, “Do you want the good news or the bad news?”

  “Start with the good.”

  “I’ve traced those calls.”

  Her heart lurched. “And the bad news?”

  “The bad news is it’s a residential number registered to one Marcus Edward Bartlett of Toorak.”

  “Are you sure?” she asked, hunching her shoulder and angling her body to block Marcus’s view of her face.

  “Of the address, yes. That Bartlett senior is behind it, no.”

  CHAPTER 40

  Jemma waited until the two pert-breasted young girls, each swinging a Myer’s shopping bag, pranced past. She needed Marcus’s full attention.

  “You can stop with the late night calls now, Marcus.”

  One eyebrow arched. “Excuse me?”

  “Marcus Edward Bartlett, Toorak,” she said. “There’s no point in denying it.”

  “It would help if I knew what I’m supposedly not denying.”

  “All the phone calls to my mobile in the middle of the night, the hang ups, that’s what.”

  “I still have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Don’t play games with me, Marcus. The police have traced them back to your home phone.”

  Bewilderment flashed across his face and then hardened into indignation. “Bullshit. Do you really think I would waste my time making prank calls?”

  “Well, someone in your household is.”

  Marcus’s eyes narrowed, a deep V forming between his brows. “That can’t be. I know you and my wife aren’t on the best of terms, but…” He shook his head. “If you’re talking about the last couple of nights, there’s no way it could have been Danielle. I’m a light sleeper. I would’ve known if she got up for any reason.”

  “Are you sure about that?”

  “Of course I am.” Marcus stood. “Now, if you’re quite finished with the wild accusations, I have better things to do with my time. Take my advice, Jemma. Go home. You might not care about your life, but your aunt does. Remember, you’re all the family she has left.”

&
nbsp; “Before you go, will you answer one question for me?”

  He peered down his nose at her.

  “Did you take the DVD?”

  He held her gaze for a moment, his lips pressed together in a hard line. She had her answer.

  “And I’m guessing you’re behind the erased files on Tanya’s laptop, too, right? Why go to all that trouble? Even if there was information on it you didn’t want made known, why not just take the whole thing?” Then she recalled the spare set of cables. “Of course, you can get away with carrying one laptop. Two looks more conspicuous, more likely to be remembered by anyone seeing you.”

  He strode off with neither a word nor a backward glance, crossing the tram lines just as a clanging of bells announced the arrival of a tram. By the time it pulled away, Marcus had disappeared from sight.

  All along she had been distrustful of Marcus and with good reason, but maybe not the right reason. If he wasn’t the one behind the phone calls, then it had to be either his wife or his son. Jemma’s thoughts took a sudden detour. How far would a jealous wife go to protect her marriage? What had Ash said? The longer Danielle stayed married to Marcus, the more she stood to gain? She had suspected Tanya of having an affair with her husband, but how would she have reacted to her husband’s infidelity with another man?

  Jemma gave her head a sharp shake. Crank calls were one thing, but murder was something else altogether. Besides, it would have taken four of Danielle to overpower Sean, and even then only after one hell of a struggle. Could she have hired someone to do the job for her? Yes. Would she have hired someone? Jemma didn’t have an answer.

  And what about Ash? Was his compassionate I’m-here-for-you stance just a charade? Was it all part of some elaborate ploy to unbalance her? The calls had started the night she had sought comfort in his arms, clung to him like a sniveling child. Nor had Marcus leapt to his son’s defense, as he had his wife’s.

  A chubby-faced boy munching on a packet of potato crisps plonked down on the seat next to her, startling her from her inertia. Hitching the strap of her bag over her shoulder, she began the trek back to the apartment. Not even noon and it had already been a long day.

  When she spied Ethan sitting alone in the café she had christened The Lego Place, she knew it was about to get a lot longer. Before she could lose her nerve, she marched right in and up to his table. “Is this seat taken?”

  He started and then nodded for her to sit. She did, her back rigid, her hands knotted together in her lap. For a long moment, neither spoke.

  Jemma broke the silence. “What’s going on, Ethan? One minute, you’re sweeping me off my feet, the next you’re avoiding me. If you wanted to confuse me, you’ve succeeded.”

  “That makes two of us.”

  “What? Now, you’ve really lost me.”

  “Do you make it a habit to date more than one man at a time?” Ethan asked, his tone accusatory.

  She blinked. “If you’re talking about Ash and Chris, they’re just good friends.”

  He leaned back in his chair, arms crossed. “So you’re not in a relationship?”

  “I was, but Ross and I had a parting of the ways. Anyway, I told you all about that the other night.”

  “And there’s no one else?”

  “No. What’s all this about?”

  “I had a call from a man purporting to be your boyfriend. He warned me in no uncertain terms to stay away from you.”

  “Did he give a name?”

  “No, and I didn’t ask. With everything that’s happening in Nic’s life, the last thing I needed was any more aggro. I just assumed it was the Ross guy you told me about.”

  “I told you, we’re no longer together.” Why was she explaining herself?

  “I know,” Ethan retorted, “but the thought crossed my mind that maybe that’s not how he saw it.”

  “Even if that was so, Ross is stuck in a mining camp in the middle of the WA outback. He doesn’t even know you exist.”

  “Well, someone has taken offence to you and me seeing each other.”

  “Yeah, me.” She thrust her chair back with such force that it teetered on the verge of toppling. She didn’t care. “The part that really hurts is that you couldn’t even be bothered to get my side of the story.” Her fingernails cut into her clenched palms. “Not only that, I reported a break-in two days ago. What have you done about it? Nothing. A woman died in that apartment, but so long as it’s not causing you any aggro that doesn’t matter.”

  His cheeks flared, his mouth gaping as if she had physically slapped him.

  “Don’t bother getting up.” She stomped off, more angry with herself than anything. One, for losing her cool and, two, for allowing herself to think there could be anything beyond a physical attraction between the dishy property manager and herself. Ash and Chris treated her with more respect than he did.

  To find out the man didn’t possess a backbone came as a shock, though better then than later. Nevertheless, that didn’t answer the question of who had warned him off. Who even knew she had been out on a date – date singular – with Ethan? As far as she knew, only two people: Ash and Fen. Was it possible that Fen had been right about Ash transferring his affections for Tanya to her?

  The ‘Cross Now’ lights flashed. Where was her sister’s brother anyway? She hadn’t heard anything from him or of him since his showdown with his father. Had anyone?

  CHAPTER 41

  Jemma sagged against the doorway and regarded the open-plan apartment, the rumpled sheets and blanket slung over the back of the couch. How much longer could she camp out there?

  With a sigh, she pushed off from the door and crossed to the dining table. The anonymous letter lay where she left it, facedown atop the envelope. Still unsure if it had been a veiled threat or a well-meaning warning, she picked it up and reread it. “Someone Who Cares,” she said aloud. She hadn’t received another one, nor had she received any more flowers. Instead the phone calls had started.

  She wasn’t one for coincidences. They had to be somehow connected. Was the same person behind them all? How did the building’s off-duty security guard stalking her tie in? Was he working for someone? Who? Had someone paid him to alter the security logs? Had someone paid or otherwise Ethan to turn a blind eye? With the locks changed, she had thought she was safe, but now…

  She dropped the letter back onto the table and headed for the kitchen. Maybe she should check into a hotel for the remainder of her stay in Melbourne. She had the means now. She poured herself a tall glass of chilled water from the refrigerator, downed it in three gulps and banged the empty glass down on the bench. Besides, she didn’t want to be indebted to Marcus for anything. One phone call: that’s all it would take to organize for the removalists to come in and clear out the apartment.

  Before she could give it any more thought, the intercom sounded. Ash’s face, his expression somber, materialized on the monitor. She watched him for a few moments, her hand wavering over the handset. She had no choice, she had to trust him. He was family, he was Tanya’s brother. She buzzed him in, darted across to the door and unsnibbed the lock.

  By the time Ash entered, she was on the far side of the room, standing in front of the balcony’s glass sliding doors. He shut the door from the corridor with a backward kick, took two steps and stopped. His clothes looked as if he had slept in them, his face unshaven.

  He took another faltering step. “Oh God, Jemma, I’m so sorry about my father. I swear I didn’t know. If I had, I would’ve… I would’ve…” He chopped the air. “Bastards. Both of them.”

  “No argument from me there,” she said.

  Stood mute in the middle of the floor, he looked so lost and forlorn that she couldn’t help herself. Leaving her haven by the balcony door, she went to him. “You look like shit.”

  The expression he had once used on her now raised a feeble smile from him. “Thanks. I feel it.”

  She tugged at his arm. “Come and sit down.”

  He shook his he
ad. “I can’t stay.”

  “What I have to tell you won’t take long, but I think you should be sitting down, all the same.”

  He dragged a hand across his eyes and slumped in the nearest armchair, his usual cockiness all but gone.

  She gnawed her lip, the words in her mouth drying up.

  The silence stretched.

  Ash glanced up, straightening his back as his gaze met hers, as if he were an inattentive student and she the teacher.

  She dropped onto the couch. “There’s something I think you ought to know, but first I need you to answer one question for me.”

  His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down, as though he knew what was coming.

  “Did you ever have sex with Tanya?” He opened his mouth, but she cut him off. “This is really important.”

  He frowned. “No, but not through lack of trying.”

  “So the two of you were never intimate?”

  “Only in my dreams.”

  Jemma exhaled and sat back. “Thank Christ for that.”

  His frown deepened. “Are you going to tell me what this is all about?”

  She bit her already tender bottom lip. How did you tell a man that the woman he had lusted after was his sister? “The connection you had with Tanya…”

  He nodded.

  She swallowed. “There’s a good reason for it. She was your sister—”

  Ash leapt to his feet, his fatigue no longer evident. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  Like father, like son. Marcus had uttered those same words when Jemma had questioned him over the paternity of Tanya’s unborn child. “I should have said half-sister. You have the same father.”

  He pummeled his temples. “No, that’s impossible. You’re lying.”

  “I wish I were. You weren’t the only one kept in the dark all these years.”

  “Like a mushroom you mean,” he muttered under his breath. He sunk back down into his chair, his hands clamped vice-like on either side of his head. “And all this time I thought my father wanted me out of the way so he could have Tanya for himself. God, what sort of sick bastard fucks his own daughter’s fiancé? Someone ought to castrate the prick.” He dropped his hands. “Excuse my French. Are you sure? There couldn’t be a mistake?”