Floored

by Paton, Ainslie

  He grinned and inclined his head towards Cait. The men laughed their approval.

  The fourth man spoke. “What’s her name?”

  “Abby.” His mum’s name and so much more fitting than Trinity.

  “Abby what?”

  He bit back, Gail. So tempting. Instead he shrugged and got another round of laughs, another clap on the back, but the fourth man persisted. “You don’t know her surname?”

  “Nah, man.” He gave the bloke a sour look.

  “You really don’t know her surname?”

  He stepped in to him. Got his face angled to see under the cap. Brown hair, brown eyes, classically handsome face, early thirties, well educated, woody aftershave. He was dressed down, but his clothing was designer label. “What’s it to you?”

  “Ease off, Fetch.” That from Wacker, from behind him.

  He stepped back, but grunted his annoyance. Who was this dude? Wacker was mildly respectful towards him, yet he wasn’t a gang member.

  The bloke addressed Wacker. “I want more information on the woman.”

  “She’s fluff, ain’t she, Fetch? Just a wallet.” That got a rumble of laughter but the man didn’t join in.

  He took the chance to glance at Cait, eyes still down, hair partly obscuring her face. Stud was now talking to the two cops at the car. He swung an empty dog leash in his hand. There was a lot going on for a park at midnight.

  “You can’t know what he told her.”

  “He doesn’t know anything that can hurt us.”

  The man pointed to the tin. “He had that. She saw it.”

  “He brought it back like the good little boy he is.” Wacker’s voice took on a serrated edge. So he was deferential but only to a point.

  The other man was cruising into aggravation. “That’s it. He takes off with eighty G and you let him walk back in without a word.”

  “Did I say it was going to be that easy?” Sean saw the hand signal and tensed. Grumble had him in a chokehold. Last thing he wanted was to lose consciousness. First thing he wanted was the attention pulled off Cait. He struggled but only for show, letting Grumble hold him fast. Now all he could see was trees, bats in the sky and colour haze as his breathing constricted. He heard the bloke say. “I want to talk to her.” He’d been worried he’d be defending Cait from Wacker, not this ring-in.

  He gasped, “Fuck off,” and Grumble wrenched him sideways to shut him up and then released him suddenly so he staggered, pain slicing through his neck. This was why he hadn’t wanted her here.

  “Bring her over, Fetch.”

  He stared at Wacker and the other man’s eye narrowed. He was too aggressive, out of character, giving things away. Wacker’s ugly mug split into a grin. “You like this slag eh, Fetch. Go get her.”

  “Leave her out, Wack. She’s done nothin’.” He needed to think of a way to stop this.

  “That’d be my place to say, eh.”

  The or else was implied by the way Grumble cracked his knuckles. Fetch had always been the team no-hoper, the one who existed for the sport of the others. He could use that. He charged Grumble, hitting him shoulder to thighs. Crashing him backwards. They hit the ground with a thud and the echoed sounds of laugher and cheers. He let Grumble roll him over; hurt him with his fists, with a headbutt. The others were close in on them, he saw boots: steelcap, army, but not the kind of footwear the new bloke would wear. He needed to see where he was. He took a punch to the stomach and broke free, scrambling to his feet, coughing.

  The bloke was halfway across the grass to the bike—to Cait, and her face registered shock, fear, and something else. Recognition. He bolted. She knew this bloke and he knew her. Stud moved away from the car, in position. Behind him Wacker roared for Fetch to stop. Too late, he was on the bloke, standing in front of him, shoving him backwards away from Cait. He could still save this.

  He towered over this guy. Got right up is face. “Fuck off away from her.” The guy’s eyes widened, but he pushed back. “I know her.”

  “You don’t fucking know her.”

  “I do.”

  Bearing down on the bloke, he couldn’t see Cait. “Keep the fuck away from her. She’s mine.”

  The bloke stepped back and Sean had a moment to think this was going to be all right, and then the bloke yelled her name. Her real name. And the night cracked in half and splashed them all with insanity.

  36: Trust

  There was a deafening noise in Caitlyn’s ears like fireworks and a vision of the world ending as Justin walked towards her, mouth open in anger, hands raised in retribution. The park ceased to exist, reality collapsed down into one tight moment of panic.

  Sean, the park, the bike, the other men, the green smell of the trees and the earth, everything else disappeared. There was only the two of them. Because she was reduced to eyes fixed on her destruction, and limbs heavy with doom, she could not move. She heard Justin bellow her name. And screech her crime.

  “Caitlyn!” Time crunched to one next breath.

  “Bitch!” Ice formed in her arteries, froze her joints.

  “Where’s my money?” Hope expired.

  Hands on her; she was grabbed from behind and other noises penetrated. Shouts and threats. Grunts and sounds of pain. Four reverberating cracks—lightning on a cloudless night. High pitched annoyed chattering overhead. An engine throbbing. None of it made any sense. She saw black wings fill the sky. There was running, more shouting and her name being said, then a siren, blue lights. So much movement: fast and efficient like becoming a thief, surgically precise like disappearing the evidence.

  She was being moved, surrounded, protected, bewildered. She only knew there was Justin and Sean in a collision of such rare force she was without a way to understand how it could happen.

  “Is she hurt?”

  “She’s in shock.”

  “Where’s Sean?” Her ears were ringing. Was that own voice? There was tingling in her fingers, the weight of an arm around her. Her awareness widening to take in the car and Stud beside her in the back seat.

  “What happened?”

  “You know that man. Who is he?”

  Which man? One she’d stolen money from, the other the truth. She lurched forward, no seatbelt, to look at the two men in the front. “Where’s Sean?”

  “You don’t need to worry about him.”

  Stud would answer her before anything else he wanted happened. “Where is he?”

  “He’s fine. Sit back. I don’t want to have to explain to him how we got you out of a fire fight but you got killed going through a windscreen.”

  A fire fight? Not lightning, not crackers then. “Who was shooting?”

  A man in front said, “Everyone who had a weapon.”

  She screwed around on the back seat to face Stud. “He didn’t have a weapon.”

  “He did. He’s safe. Sit back. Tell me right now who that man is.”

  “Not till I see Sean.”

  “You don’t get to set the rules, love. You do as I’m asking.”

  She sat back, as far away from Stud as she could, hugging the armrest on the door. He wasn’t her general and if she was a prisoner in his war she’d have to protect herself as best she could and the only weapon she had was knowledge and even that was a fuzzy, warped outline, the dots not connected.

  Stud grunted and turned his head back to face the front. “Not sure if he’ll want to see you. You will talk to me. You’ll tell me everything you know.”

  She breathed in and held it. Sean would see her, only if to spit on her. It was too soon to start hugging memories; she kept hold of the door. But her anchor was reefed out of her grip when they reached the curved facade of Police Headquarters. They took her to a meeting room; a table and a few chairs. A plain room fit for plain words. An interrogation room where no doubt mostly lies got told.

  She wouldn’t lie. The time for lies was over. Killed by the shouts of her enemy in the park, by the shots in the night, and the swarm of bats. If she’d known h
er lies would bring her here, that men might get hurt—Sean might get hurt, she’d never have held on to them like they were security. But she’d see Sean before she gave them up no matter how long they made her wait.

  They brought her coffee and water, safety pins to close Trinity’s shirt, escorted her to the bathroom. She waited. Surely Sean would be here by now. What was she going to do if he didn’t want to see her? Wait till they brought her cornflakes? Wait till she sprouted cobwebs? Wait till she understood how Justin came to be standing with a pack of bikies in a park in Perth and facing off against Sean?

  Because they’d be waiting an eon.

  This, the waiting, the room with its antiseptic smell, the uncertain outcome, this was her worst nightmare unfolding ever so slowly after the rush of the climax at the park. She’d done everything she could think of to avoid this.

  Everything except trusting, then falling for a cop.

  She’d known she wasn’t made for this, for being a thief and getting away with it, but tried it on anyway, like the boring clothing, like the chauffer’s job, like the love of a fine man who did nothing to warrant betrayal.

  She’d imagined this moment where it all came spectacularly undone many times. It had never looked like this. Never included the sensation of a broken heart. She could’ve been hysterical. She’d been the pivot point of a shootout. She should’ve been nervous, beyond comprehension. Her life was about to change in all the ways she’d tried to hide from since she’d filled her laptop bag with that filthy money and gone into hiding. But she felt oddly calm. There’d be no more running. There’d be consequences and every other unimagined outcome she deserved.

  When the door clicked she expected Stud. It was a relief to know the waiting would soon be over. But if he wanted her co-operation, she’d have his first. She summoned her bravery, lifted her eyes from the guilt on her hands and met the fury in Sean’s.

  “Who are you?”

  He stood with rage defining his taut muscles, arms crossed over his chest, chin tucked down. He had a bruise forming on one cheek, a cut at the corner of his mouth. He was brutally beautiful and righteous in his wrath. Part Sean, part Fetch; wholly saturated in an obsession for answers, a mania for understanding.

  “I’m exactly who you think I am.” She didn’t know where that calm steady voice came from or how she was able to hold her eyes up to watch him.

  “A liar and a thief sent to set me up.” He cocked his head to the side. “Maybe get me killed into the bargain.”

  She felt her eyes bulge in surprise and her stomach revolt. Did he truly think she’d somehow been behind this? “A liar and a thief, but I didn’t set you up. I would never want you hurt.”

  He gave a wry laugh, his lips curling into a sneer, his eyes going flat and dull like unpolished steel.

  “Sean, you know me. I would never have done that.”

  “I knew you were a liar. I’m not sure of anything else.”

  She dropped her head. Her eyes were gritty with tiredness, with defeat. “You’ll believe what you will. I can’t change that.” She’d never been any match for him and had no defence against him now.

  “You’re good. I’ll give you that. Had me completely fucking fooled and I don’t fool easy.” He came forward and leaned down on the edge of the table. His anger had a smell to it, like molten metal. “I was so close to believing you and me had something.” His voice dropped; his tone suddenly scornfully intimate, his eyes searching her face, burning her with a lens of disgust. “I even thought it might be real. I even thought I might love you.” He straightened up and turned away. “What a fucking idiot I am, right? How you must be laughing.”

  Could love die so quickly, so absolutely in one hot, hard instant of panic, betrayal and fear? “You do love me. You, you…did.” It could. It had. It was all over his face. The end of them. Not the soft, drifting separation she’d planned on, the eventual waning of deep hooked unhappiness. This was instant grief. No, worse. This was what was left when grief was wrung dry and memories desiccated. This was hollowed out sharpened death while living.

  “Who are you?” Stones in his voice to hit her with shame so weighty she overflowed with it.

  She might drown in remorse and he would not hold out a hand to save her. “You know me.”

  “That man was your fiancé, Justin Cumberland. When did you know he’d be there? What was the plan? Did you pick me up deliberately back in Sydney?”

  Too many questions and the threat he believed she’d done far more than lie and thieve. All the emotion Sean had shown when he walked in was now blanked away behind a cold, blunt professionalism.

  “Answer me, Driver.”

  Inside the hollowness a squeal let loose, but only stale air came out of her mouth. The shock of that word, that job description she’d worn as a name, like a slap on her face. She had to close her eyes.

  “I’m Caitlyn Mary Ann Murphy. I’m a hire car driver.” She forced herself to look at him. “I’d never seen you before that day you jumped in my car. I only drove you because I wanted the money you were throwing around. I thought you were a criminal and I’d be safe with you.”

  Between her sentences the silence shone, polished with his disbelief.

  “I ran a business with Justin Cumberland called Bidwell. I was engaged to him. I loved him once. I thought he used our business as a tax dodge, a get rich scheme. I guess it was more.” She appealed to him. “You already know all this.” He gave back nothing. “I didn’t know he’d be at the park. I don’t know what he has to do with the Black Pariahs. I didn’t set this up.”

  She took a breath of air flavoured with distrust and bitterness. “I’m Caitlyn Mary Ann Murphy and when I worked out you were a cop I was terrified you’d find out what I did. I stole four hundred thousand dollars from Justin and tried to disappear.” She lifted her eyes to find his narrowed with suspicion. “I never wanted you to know that until I fell in love with you and then I was too much of a coward to tell you in the time we had.”

  All she saw in the solid hardness of him was her own culpability. Her voice wobbled, but she would not cry. Crying was for innocent people and she couldn’t pretend to be innocent any longer. She dug her nails into the underside of the table.

  “I’m Caitlyn Mary Ann Murphy and I take responsibility for what I did. I’m ready to take whatever punishment is right, pay whatever penalty the law asks, and none of it, not one awful piece of it, will be worse than knowing what I did to you.”

  He hauled her to her feet with a suddenness that made her bite her tongue. He’d grown enormous in his rage, and shame made her small and shabby, barely able to stand.

  He shook her arm. “You can’t think I’m that stupid. You lead me along from the start. You set me up. You knew he’d be there. You knew and you saw your opportunity to watch.”

  “No. You can’t think that. No! I’m sorry, so sorry I lied to you. But I didn’t set you up.”

  “Hands off her.”

  She sagged against the table as Stud entered the room and Sean let go. Stud fired a look at Sean that made her gulp spittle and blood. It made Sean throw both hands up and leave the room without looking at her again. She shut her eyes against the vision of him leaving. She did not want it to sit in at the forefront of the stack of other gorgeous memories and poison them. But from the glimpse she had of the way he moved, stiffly, resolutely, relegating her to a mistake, a misjudgement, a black hole in his career, she knew the rigid line of his back and the tense set of his jaw would be the first memory to snap in place when she called for them, and haunt her by appearing unbidden when she didn’t.

  “Sit, Cait. Did he hurt you?”

  She shook her head. A cut tongue was the least of her worries.

  “We’re going to have a little talk now and you’re going to answer some questions for me.”

  “I told Sean everything I know.”

  “I heard.” Had their conversation been broadcast somehow, recorded? “But not everything we need to know.�
��

  “I don’t know what else to tell you.”

  “Where’s the money?”

  “I don’t have it.”

  “Where is it?”

  “In the car.”

  “My team went through the Statesman. There’s nothing in that car.”

  “Not in the car itself, in the licence to run the business. A hire car driver’s licence costs four hundred thousand dollars. I wanted a way to spend the money quickly without it being traced and I needed to earn a living. I used my own savings to buy the car, but I still needed a loan to pay it off.”

  “You thought you could steal four hundred thousand dollars and get away with it.”

  “I didn’t know it was that much money. I wanted to take back the seed funding I’d given Justin to start Bidwell, one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, the leftover from the sale of my mother’s assets. I had no idea what that amount of money looks like in rolls of cash. I took what was there. It was only later I realised how much it was. At first I thought it was money Justin should’ve banked. Later I realised that couldn’t be the truth. I took two of the ledgers I found as well and some software code on a USB. I don’t understand what any of it means. They’re hidden under a floorboard in my flat in Sydney still.”

  “You carried that much money around with you.”

  “For a week. I found someone who wanted to sell a licence privately and I told him I wanted a cash transaction. No questions asked.”

  Stud shook his head. “When you knew Sean was a cop, why didn’t you cut and run? You’d probably still be in the clear.”

  “I almost did.”

  She told Stud about Justin tracking her new phone number, about being frightened he would find her. Then about being worried about the gangs and how she’d decided to use Sean as cover to relocate to Perth and start again. Stud cracked a lopsided smile when she said how she’d figured out Sean was a cop but didn’t know if he could be trusted. Then she stopped. If Stud had heard her and Sean he knew the rest.

  “Go on.”

  “I don’t know what you want me to say? I’ll help you any way I can.”

  “Were you ever going to tell him?”