by Clare Kauter
“You mean you don’t trust me?”
“Really? After today you think it’s a good idea to pose that question?”
He had a point there.
“I’m sorry, Adam. I should have trusted you. I just wanted to help.”
“You think you can do my job better than me?”
“It’s not that, it’s just –”
“You’re fired.”
“What?”
“Go home.”
“You can’t fire me.”
“I think you’ll find I can, and after catching you searching the CEO’s computer illegally you’re lucky if I don’t bring criminal charges against you.”
“But – but – we’re friends,” I said lamely.
“Really? Because as I understand it, friends are meant to trust each other. Clearly,” he said, gesturing to the computer, “you don’t trust me, and after today I certainly don’t trust you.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Being sorry doesn’t fix anything.”
“No, I guess it doesn’t.” I took a breath. “I hope you find her.”
I walked towards Adam, who held the door open as I walked out of the office.
“Your phone,” he said, hand out towards me. Of course. It was a company phone.
I sighed and handed it over.
“Oh, and I’ll need the keys to your car.”
Low blow, Adam Baxter. Low blow.
Chapter Sixteen
The door was unlocked when I arrived home. I checked my watch. Even though it had taken me a long time to get home – on foot thanks to Adam repossessing my car – it was too early for Lea to be home from work yet. Maybe she’d accidentally forgotten to lock up when she’d left for work that morning, but I wasn’t taking any chances. I pushed the door open as slowly and quietly as I could, picking up an umbrella from inside the front door. Holding the umbrella out in front of me, ready to strike, I crept through the house towards the kitchen where I could hear someone rummaging around.
Who could it be? Gracie’s kidnapper? Unlikely, although it would be kind of handy if they came to me and I could stop searching for them. That hadn’t exactly been going well for me so far. So who? One of the many people who wanted me dead? That seemed more likely. I glanced at the umbrella. Not the most threatening of weapons. Then again, since I’d just been fired from the only place in the world that would hire me, I’d soon be dying of starvation anyway. Why not try to take on an intruder with an umbrella?
When I peeked around the corner from the hallway into the kitchen, I could see that the fridge was open and someone was looking inside. I decided to take this opportunity to sneak up on the intruder while they were mesmerised by all the delicious snacks available in my refrigerator. (Of course by ‘delicious snacks’ I mean ‘wilted asparagus, half a tub of Co-Yo and a carrot so old you could bend it almost in half’.) I tiptoed across the dining room and into the kitchen, umbrella in front of me. When I’d just about reached the fridge, the person who was going through it began to turn.
The next few things happened in quick succession.
I screamed. I opened the umbrella in the fridge burglar’s face. And I slipped on the kitchen tiles, falling hard on my arse.
There was a moment of silence, then: “Were you hoping if you opened the umbrella you could use it to float down gracefully when you fell?”
I groaned. That was no burglar. I peeked out from under the umbrella at James McKenzie.
“What are you doing here? Why are you holding my asparagus?”
“I wasn’t expecting you home yet. I was going to cook you dinner as a surprise, since I figured it’d be marginally more edible than whatever you’d cook for yourself.”
He had a point there. You know how with some people, everything they cook tastes awesome? I have the opposite of that. If I touch food while it’s cooking, the end result tastes of feet and armpits with a side of faecal matter. Still, it seemed a bit odd to me that James was hanging out in my house while I wasn’t home.
“I’m pretty sure there’s a law against landlords letting themselves into their tenants’ homes.”
He smiled at me, extending a hand to help me up. “I know, but I thought after the day you’re having, maybe you could do with having someone else feed you. Especially since Ellie kind of hogged the soup we took to her.”
He had a point there. My guess would be that Ellie was a stress eater. “She inhaled that soup,” I agreed.
“I tried calling you to let you know I’d be here but you didn’t pick up. I have to admit, I wasn’t expecting your cupboards to be quite so bare. I thought at least Lea would have some groceries in the fridge. Arnold was not impressed with the mushy banana I tried to feed her.”
“Where is she?”
“Dining room,” he said. “Having a nap. Took her ages to drift off. I think she missed you.”
“Of course she did, the poor baby,” I said. “Lea’s been too busy to do a real grocery shop lately and I have a strong aversion to entering any sort of supermarket, so we’ve been living off delivery pizza and Thai.” To tell you the truth, it was getting a little out of hand. We saw the delivery ladies so often that Lea sometimes ordered extra food so they could join us for dinner.
“OK, well, you do seem to have some pasta in the cupboard, as well as some tinned tomato and mixed herbs. I’m thinking if we add the asparagus in, we have a dinner of below average quality.”
“Below average is so much better than anything I’ve ever cooked.”
James smiled at me before taking out a knife and chopping board and cutting up the asparagus. I wanted to trust him – I really did – but ‘I broke into your house to cook you dinner’ was just not a good enough excuse. It sounded like the kind of lie you’d come up with if someone sprung you searching their house and you didn’t want to get arrested. Although to be honest it still sounded pretty creepy.
“I spoke to Joe,” James said.
Right, of course. The missing child. In all the suspicion, I’d almost forgotten.
“What did you find out?”
“Not a lot. The police know even less than we do. I tried looking up Gracie’s birth certificate to see if I could get her father’s name and maybe check up on him, but it just said ‘father unknown’. Don’t suppose you had better luck?”
“No,” I said, my stomach dropping when I remembered what had happened. “In fact, I’d say I had infinitely worse luck. I don’t suppose you found any alcohol while you were searching the cupboards?”
“I’m afraid not. Probably for the best, though – we still need to look for Gracie. Best to do that sort of thing sober. Why? What happened?”
“I got fired.”
James looked shocked. “Seriously?”
“Seriously. Adam caught me searching Harry’s computer and fired me on the spot. Took my phone.”
“That explains why you weren’t picking up.”
“Took my car, too.”
“Ouch,” he said, adding the asparagus, tomato and mixed herbs to a pot on the stove while the pasta bubbled away on another burner.
“Tell me about it.”
“And you didn’t find out anything?”
“Nothing other than the guys who beat Tim up have nothing to do with Gracie’s disappearance. They’re all under 24 hour surveillance.”
James nodded. “OK, so maybe they had their reasons to not look into those guys.”
“Apparently. So we’re still at square one. Actually, we’re at square zero because I now have no resources whatsoever.”
“He must have been really pissed.”
I glared at James.
“What?” he said.
“You know this is your fault, right?”
James stopped stirring the pasta sauce for a moment and pulled me into a hug. “I’m sorry, sweetie,” he said. He reached into his pocket and took out a phone. “Here. You can have my spare phone. I’ve got a new one now.”
I smiled a little as I took it,
although I couldn’t help but fleetingly wonder if it was bugged. That was dumb. James couldn’t have known I’d lose my phone. Unless he’d coaxed me out of the office as part of a scheme to get me fired. But why? So he could bug my phone? That didn’t even make sense. Jeez Louise, this paranoia was getting way out of hand.
James dished us up a bowl of pasta each and we sat in the dining room, talking quietly so we didn’t wake Arnold who was snoring away nearby.
“Shouldn’t we be doing something other than just, you know, having dinner?”
James shrugged. “What, though? The police have looked into all Grace’s friends and teachers, plus all the local weirdos, and they’ve got nothing. I don’t know. Maybe she did just run away.”
I shook my head. “No. No way. She was far too happy to just take off.”
“Charlie,” James said softly, “that’s pretty much what everyone said about Topher, too, and he still ran away.”
“What? That’s completely different. He was a teenager for starters, and he didn’t seem happy in the lead up. Not at all. Plus he left us notes, which Gracie did not do. She would have left a note.”
“Charlie, some of her clothes and toys were gone.”
“She would have left a note.”
James nodded. “OK, sweetie.”
I had a sudden brainwave. One of only, like, three in my lifetime.
“Did you say that the birth certificate said ‘father unknown’?”
He nodded.
“But Ellie told us that Grace’s father was back in America.”
He nodded again. “She did, but I can’t see why that’s so significant.”
“You don’t see why it’s significant that she lied on her daughter’s birth certificate even though she clearly knew who the father was?”
“Maybe she just didn’t want to tell two people she barely knows that she doesn’t know who the father of her child is.”
I paused, thinking. “Maybe, but I don’t think so. I’m pretty sure we caught her out.”
“Even if you’re right, that doesn’t mean anything.”
“But it adds someone to our list of suspects, right?”
“What, a father who’s never had anything to do with his daughter?”
“A father who has never had anything to do with his daughter because Ellie wouldn’t let him.”
James nodded slowly. I could see him thinking it over, wondering if I could be right. It was a good theory, and I could see that he was seriously considering it. Finally we had a viable suspect.
A loud thud from the front of the house interrupted our thoughts. We both whipped our heads around to face the direction of the sound. What the hell? Car doors slammed and an engine screeched as a car drove off. We looked back at each other and, after ordering Arnold (who was now awake and not at all impressed about it) to stay put, ran to the front door, wrenching it open to see what had caused the noise. James sprinted down the path to the road to try and get a look at the vehicle, but I’d stopped short at the door. I wasn’t great with dead bodies, and now there was one right here on my front step.
Chapter Seventeen
It wasn’t Gracie. It was a man wearing a bad suit and worse tie. His face was… well, it wasn’t. There was no face. Someone had taken it off with a shotgun. My stomach started to feel a little off and I began to gag. Dead bodies I was getting used to. Missing faces? Not so much.
James had made his way back to me by that point, apparently having lost track of the car. He took one look at me gagging (I was bent at the waist and swallowing hard by that point) and pushed me sideways into the garden by the door. Somewhere on the journey from the front steps to the garden bed, all the spaghetti I’d just eaten made its way back up. I landed facing up, which was fun because it meant I had a brief moment when I could see my own vomit raining down on me.
“What the fuck, James,” I said from the bushes.
“I couldn’t just let you vomit spaghetti all over the crime scene,” he said. “I’m sorry. I just meant to turn you towards the garden. I didn’t think you’d actually fall in.”
He extended his hand to me but quickly pulled it back when he took stock of the situation.
“Urgh,” he said. “Might just let you help yourself up.”
I rolled my eyes and began to try and extricate myself from the tangle of branches and leaves of the bush I’d landed in. I heard another car pull up, but seeing as James didn’t seem all that bothered by it, I guessed it was someone we knew.
“Any news on your end?” James called to whoever had stepped out of the car.
“Nothing as interesting as what’s happening here.” That voice sounded like Adam, and I was guessing he’d spotted the dead guy. I groaned. I wasn’t ready to face Adam Backstabber yet. I had things to do first. Like make a voodoo doll of him. And find out some deep dark secret about him so I could blackmail him into giving me my job back. And, you know, wash the vomit off my face. “What happened?”
Having Adam here was probably a good thing because it meant I now had two rational adults to deal with the dead body situation, plus extra hands should whoever had dumped the body show back up. But, y’know, Adam and James were basically supermodels and I was lying in a garden covered in my own vomit.
“Where’s Charlie?” asked Adam.
I saw James nod towards me. Great. My cover was blown. My ground cover? No, you’re right, this is not the time for puns.
Adam joined James on the front steps. He didn’t look surprised at what he found. “Charlie.”
I just glared at him.
While Adam phoned the police, James climbed down into the garden and helped disentangle me. He didn’t even flinch all that much at the scent of me, which was kind of impressive. If he was evil and working undercover to glean information from me, he deserved a raise for this.
Once I was out, James hosed me off (which sounds more fun than it was) and we both went inside to shower. Since he used to live in my house, he knew his way around and found one of the spare bathrooms without any direction. I walked into my ensuite trying not to drip on my bedroom carpet. Dumping my soggy clothes in the corner of the bathroom, I took my time to shower. Rinse. Lather. Rinse. Lather. Rinse. Lather. Rinse. Shampoo. Rinse. Shampoo. Rinse. Condition hair. Rinse. Exfoliate. Shave. Rinse. Lather again for good measure. Rinse.
I stepped out, dried myself and moisturised all over. (It seemed like a good idea after how many times I’d just scrubbed myself. I’d probably washed the top few layers of skin away.) I was going to blow dry my hair, but paused when I heard a noise from my bedroom. Wrapping a towel around myself, I pressed my ear against the bathroom door, trying to figure out if I was just being paranoid or if there was really someone there. I heard a drawer open and shut. Great. Someone was going through my shit, and I was going to have to confront them dressed only in a towel. At least it was a nice towel, I suppose.
Pushing through the door, I caught James McKenzie (who like me was dressed only in a towel) rifling through my drawers. He glanced up at me and smiled, not looking ruffled at all.
“What are you doing?” I asked, leaning against the doorframe. If I had just been caught searching someone’s house – for the second time today, no less – I would not have remained that calm.
“I thought you might have some of my clothes here,” he said. He gestured to the towel he had slung around his waist and I was momentarily incapacitated by the sight of his hip flexors. I think I gargled a little, but he didn’t appear to notice. “The clothes I was wearing are covered in your vomit and I can’t just wear a towel around the house. There are cops everywhere now.”
“And you thought our relationship was far enough along that I would have given you a drawer?”
He smirked. “Charlie Davies, are you flirting with me?”
No. Just trying to figure out if your reasons for searching my room are as innocent as you say.
“Who, me?”
His smile grew wider. Great. I was flirting. Nothing
like a good old-fashioned murder to bring out my playful side.
“Do I have clothes here or am I doomed to greet all of my workmates at a murder scene dressed only in a towel?”
I led him to my walk-in wardrobe, showing him the shelf with his clothes on it. I’d worn his clothes home a few times when I’d slept at his house and hadn’t had the chance to return them yet. It wasn’t like he couldn’t buy more if he needed them. (Yeah, OK, he had a shelf in my room, but that’s different from having a drawer, right? Right?) He took out a pair of shorts and a T-shirt, wisely choosing not to comment on the shelf, and left me alone to get dressed. I pulled on track pants and a T-shirt and retrieved my dirty clothes from the bathroom, dumping them in the washing machine where James had also left his. Then I went to the kitchen.
James and Adam were sitting at the table talking to a couple of police officers. James was holding Arnold, who was eating his bowl of spaghetti off the table. He was lost in conversation and didn’t appear to notice.
Two uniformed cops walked up to me. I recognised them both – Sarah Hollis and Joe Winton. We exchanged greetings.
“Gotta ask you a couple of questions, Charlie.”
“Like what happened?”
“Yeah, let’s start there.”
I recounted the story, right up until the part just before I vomited. They didn’t need to know the details. When I stopped, they both looked at me expectantly.
“What?”
“James already told us what happened, Charlie,” said Joe with a smirk. “There’s no point trying to hide it.”
I rolled my eyes. “Well, sorry! Sorry I’m not used to finding corpses at my front door! I really must work on that.”
“Please don’t,” said Sarah sincerely.
“I – I didn’t mean it, Sarah.”
She looked relieved. I frowned. What exactly did she think I was going to do?
“Hey, guys,” said a voice from behind me. James appeared next to me. “You all done with Charlie?”
Joe and Sarah nodded.