by K T Bowes
Chapter 28
“Rent it out?” Hana’s voice rose to a squeak at the end of her sentence.
“Yes dear,” replied the agent, flicking through his pages of notes and ending up back where he started after a minor reshuffle. “It’s the best solution for you at the moment. As you own the house outright, advertise it as a rental. Pay your new mortgage from the rent you get on this one, less upkeep. It’s the best way to get value for money in the short term. Nothing’s shifting in this area as you may have noticed.”
“No.” Hana slumped onto the sofa. “I hadn’t noticed. I’ve paid no attention to the housing market before last week.” Her face oozed frustration in a knitting of her brows and a valiant attempt to keep her trademark redheaded temper in check. The closest she’d come in eight years to leaving the past behind her and her courage seemed wasted.
The agent looked delicately boned, precise and careful in his movements as he closed his leather pad and placed it into his briefcase. His white fringe gave way to a darker grey at the back, making him appear fragile. “I’ll leave this contract and a brochure about our services.” He dropped the glitzy leaflets onto the table. “Come back with any questions. Or speak to Angus. We rent out his villa in Gordonton and offer a full managed property service. You can forget it’s there.”
The agent stopped on the threshold to hand Hana his card. A pretty female smiled out from a professional photo, shoulder to shoulder with this man. The card bore the words, ‘Eric and Ingrid Tanner–Real Estate and Letting Agents.’ Hana raised her eyebrows at the age difference, wondering if the five years between her and Logan looked so drastic on paper. “Call me or my wife, once you’ve decided what to do.”
Hana waved him off and then leaned against the inside of the closed door, sighing in disappointment. She turned the business card over in her fingers, considering cutting her losses and just selling. The thought of keeping the house comforted her, like leaving a security blanket at home but knowing it still occupied a space on the bed. Hana groaned and ran a hand over her face. “You’re avoiding the inevitable,” she whispered. “Stop being a wimp. That’s the road to ruined plans and another eight years holding your breath, instead of living life.”
Hana’s mind remained in turmoil the following day. She bounced between letting and selling and then back again. Logan offered encouragement as they cleaned Hana’s garage. “It’s releasing when you walk away from your past,” he said, examining Vik’s old golf clubs. “It worked for me.” He winked at her and Hana sighed.
“I suppose. I’ll concentrate on the garage sale for now and at least I’ll feel I’m achieving something.” Hana stuffed a pair of child’s shoes into a dustbin bag. “If I can get your truck in the garage, it will be a start.”
Logan stood up and jerked his head towards the bag in her hand. “Can’t you give those away?” he asked.
“No.” Hana shook her head and peered into the bag. “They’re Bodie’s. He walked through the soles. I don’t know how old they are.”
Logan lifted his arms above his head and stretched his back, his palms almost touching the ceiling. “The rest of your house is immaculate,” he said. “Why did you keep old stuff down here?”
Hana shrugged. “The garage and my wardrobe. I don’t know the answer to that question. I needed somewhere to put things that reminded me of what I lost. I’m looking at it now and it’s mainly crap. I don’t know what I was thinking.” She dropped a pile of rags into the bag on top of the shoes, cloths made from Vik’s old work shirts. Her eyes strayed to the tools hanging on the wall. “I don’t think I can face those. Nobody’s touched them since Vik last used them.”
“It’s okay.” Logan’s arms felt strong around her and Hana closed her eyes against his shirt. The night sounds continued beyond the screen of the metal door and Hana blocked them out, concentrating on the love she drew from Logan’s presence.
“Have I got enough worth selling?” she asked, her voice betraying tiredness and emotional strain.
“Maybe.” Logan stroked her back as she pulled away, settling his arm over her shoulder. “You can’t do a garage sale though.”
“Yeah, I can.” Hana furrowed her brow and poked his ribs. “It’s easy. You put a sign on the main road and open the garage door. People sift through and offer you cash for your trash.” She grinned at her poetic skill and looked at Logan for approval. She got none.
“It’s stupid.” His eyes narrowed. “You’ve been mugged, crashed into and threatened. It’s not the greatest idea to open your doors and let them walk in. Or am I missing something here?”
“I won’t let them in, will I?” Hana rolled her eyes and Logan spun her around, facing her with determination in his face.
“Do you think you can stop them?” He cocked his head to one side. “You’ve not had much luck with that so far.”
Hana pouted and waved an arm around the garage, taking in the boxes and rubbish bags. “What do I do with all this then?” She felt deflated, her efforts worthless and her plan reduced to foolishness.
Logan poked his tongue into the corner of his mouth and observed her through fathomless grey eyes. “I said I’d help and I will.” He jerked his head towards the items nearest the door. “I’ll load the truck tonight with the golf clubs and saleable stuff and you drive it to school tomorrow. I’ll deal with it. We’ll fit as much of the rubbish in as possible and I’ll drive the truck to the dump in my free period. Yeah?” His knuckles felt hard against the skin of her cheek and she twisted her face to kiss them.
“I promised myself I’d let go of my past, but how can I if you’re doing it all for me?”
Logan wrinkled his nose and gave her a lopsided smile. “Hana, you’ve done the worst bit. You chose what to trash and what to sell. Look at it.” He pointed around the room. “Apart from the tools and those shelves by the door, it’s clear.”
“Oh, yeah.” Hana looked around the empty garage, imagining it devoid of junk. Her smile looked coy and Logan laughed at her, tickling her until she shrieked.
He left when their game got too heated, pushing the bags and gear into the back of the truck with a serious face. Hana watched him straddle the motorbike with narrowed eyes. “You look hot on a bike,” she said, biting her lower lip. “Anyone ever tell you that?” She pushed her hands under his leather jacket, feeling a thrill at his cocooned heat.
He lifted his visor and braced his arms against the handlebars, revving the throttle. “Nobody I wanted to hear it from,” he replied, his eyes smiling.
Hana pressed her lips against his, turning her face sideways to reach under his visor. “You’ll keep,” she said with a smile and stepped back to let him go. Logan winked as he backed the bike up and turned on the driveway, easing onto the road behind a neighbour’s passing car. He gave a single wave and exited the street, not noticing the dark saloon which eased around the corner.
Hana’s heart thudded in her chest as she ran into the garage and depressed the switch, dropping the door with its usual slowness. She watched until the last gap disappeared and then relaxed, running upstairs to watch through the front window. Keeping the lights off, she observed the dark car settle across the street. The blonde driver got out and checked around him before ambling across in a casual walk. He climbed Hana’s driveway and nosed around the truck, using his hand to shield the light from the streetlamps. He kicked the rear tyre and then glanced up at the window as though he knew Hana watched him. She crouched on the floor, her forehead barely above the windowsill and a leaden sickness began in her chest.
The car left but the sickness didn’t. It took up permanent residence and stayed the night, ruining her sleep and destroying her sense of safety. She should’ve rung the cops or texted Logan but she did neither. The blonde man looked straight at her, covetousness and possession in his eyes. How could she communicate that to someone else?
Rushing into the special briefing, Hana seated herself amongst the other support staff only seconds before the
bell rang. Alan Dobbs droned on about litter and detention supervision and Hana grew bored, her attention turning to her colleagues. The staff turnover proved minimal from year to year. A great place to work, people came in their thirties and stayed till retirement, coveting the gold plated carriage clock which bore the school crest. Hana picked out the faces who began as colleagues and finished as friends. Sunita poked her tongue out and crossed her eyes, making Hana smirk and look away. She missed Anka and peered sideways at the receptionist whose thighs spilled over the seat of the hard chair. The woman gave her a pompous look and Hana averted her gaze.
Gwynne sat just in front of Logan, arty and unkempt against the English teacher’s pristine turnout. An expensive shirt fitted Logan like a glove, allowing for his strong chest and defined biceps. He leaned back in his chair and Hana detected boredom in his twinkling grey eyes. He noticed her looking and smiled a slight movement of the lips showing a dimple in his right cheek. She remembered the sensation of his lips on her neck the night before and fanned herself with a wad of bulletins, the unmistakable blush creeping up her neck and into her cheeks. “Hot flush,” she hissed to the receptionist when the woman tipped forward to give her a curious look.
“Well, you’re at that age,” the gravelly voice of Angus’ assistant growled from behind her. Hana resisted the urge to turn around, catching Logan’s smile and the one raised eyebrow. He knew what ailed her and she covered her grin with the papers.
The blush under control, Hana avoided looking at Logan. Directly in her eye line, she sensed his penetrating gaze reading her face. Instead, she focussed on Peter North for entertainment and distraction, rewarded by his loud yawn. Donald Watson leaned sideways to glare at Pete and then looked straight at her as though making her culpable. Hana gulped and looked down at her hands, trying to stay out of trouble.
The meeting drew to a close and Hana peeked across at Angus. He squirmed in his chair as though afflicted with piles, his silence uncharacteristic. Donald waited for Dobbs to sit down and then bounced to his feet, grasping the moment as he unleashed his latest diktat. “The board of trustees wishes to remind all staff that relationships between staff members are strictly forbidden. They are an unnecessary distraction from the quality teaching and administration expected by our parents and students.” He puffed himself up to his thickset height of not very much and issued his threat. “We are a Christian establishment. Fraternisation will not be tolerated.” He sat down with a thud, a fine layer of dust guffing from his chair cushion.
Angus sat like a statue as silence resonated its nothingness around the hushed audience. He stared at a point on the ceiling where the rain came in the previous winter. Hana hid behind the notices, pretending to read them while concentrating on her breathing. She couldn’t look at Logan, knowing this heralded the end of a beautiful thing. She couldn’t leave and neither would he. Over before it started.
Hana waited until everyone else got up to leave and then bolted to the office. Behind her retreating back, she overheard the mutterings of dissent.
“They can’t do that!”
“That’s ridiculous!”
“I’m talking to the union about this!”
“There is no union stupid, it’s a private school!”
“They can’t enforce it.”
“It’s in our contracts. Remember, that paper you signed without reading while you celebrated getting the job?”
Hana sped to her desk and sat down with a thump. Her heart pounded and a mixture of embarrassment and disappointment consumed her. “Dead in the water,” she said with a tearful sigh. “Shortest relationship since Alan Reeves in Year 2.”
As she struggled with the bitterness which threatened to overthrow her, Hana heard footsteps. Thinking it was Sheila returning, she hauled herself together and put her password into the computer. A gentle hand on her shoulder made her turn, biting the inside of her cheek to distract her from the misery. Peter North followed the squeeze with a pat, a little too hard, but filled with compassion. “That sucks!” he said with conviction.
Hana found she couldn’t answer. She excused herself and ran to the disabled toilet on the ground floor, spending the next hour watching herself cry into the mirror. Pitiful and not at all satisfying.
She emerged to a fire storm. Sheila’s vast sense of overreaction flared and she ranted and raved to anyone with the time to listen. “How can I not have a relationship with my own husband?” she demanded. “I have to fraternise with him, otherwise how will I make him do what I want?”
“I wish I didn’t have to fraternise with either of them,” Rory grumbled. An idea popped into his head and his chin lifted as he thought it through. He caught Hana’s gaze and grinned.
“It won’t work,” she said with a sigh, bursting his bubble. “Wrong sort of relationship.”
Sheila ranted to anyone who showed an interest, including a bank recruiter who came to see boys and suffered an hour of it. She made a long distance and very heated phone call to her mother on the office phone, conducting it in fluent Swedish. Hana wished she’d shut up. In every language.
Pete remained silent on the matter until a teacher aide suggested Henrietta might be out of bounds. “She’s a school recruitment officer,” the woman said, as though Pete didn’t know that. “Will it be allowed, or is that considered a ‘school relationship’?” The small woman with large breasts escaping from her tiny tee shirt used her fingers to make inverted commas in the air.
“It?” Pete stood up and Hana tensed, knowing the signs. “I’m not getting any of it, so I wouldn’t know!”
The woman ducked just in time and the paperweight missed her by a hair’s breadth. “Bloody hell!” she shrieked as it hit the wall where her face sniggered seconds before.
“Shut up about it!” Pete yelled, a purplish flush spreading up his neck and through his wispy hair. “Just shut up!”
“What did you do?” Sheila emerged from her office to examine the hole in the wall, the paperweight stuck at a jaunty angle in the plasterboard. Pete skittered from the room in a mixture of temper and fear.
The teacher aide bristled. “That guy needs the opposite to Viagra,” she stated and turned to leave. “Who needs a horny sports teacher?”
“Hana,” Sheila called after her. She jerked her head in Hana’s direction. “The toy-boy teaches sport sometimes.”
Hana felt like her life upended in a single sentence, robbing her of rational thought. They weighed on her, the house sale and her feelings for Logan, intensifying the sickness in her chest.
“I know what this is about,” Sheila stated, ramming the paper tray into the photocopier. “It’s Anka van Blerk’s fault. She started this.”
Hana blinked at her screen and ignored the comment, recognising an obvious attempt to play her. She tapped away on her keyboard and drowned out Sheila’s bile, maintaining a blank expression until she left for class. As soon as the door clicked closed, Hana jumped up to drop the catch and sat back down, letting her forehead sink onto the desk. “Why me?” she grumbled into the wooden surface, hearing the sound vibrate back to her.
“Is this a private desperate moment or can anyone join?” Logan’s fingers smoothed Hana’s hair aside and he kneaded her shoulders with a massage which drew a groan. He snorted. “If you make noises like that, you’ll get fired for sure.”
“I don’t care anymore,” she grumbled, her cheek against the table. “I’m going off this job.”
“Na, you’re not.” Logan tickled her ribs. “Keys, Ms McIntyre. I’m using my free period to visit the dump.”
“Do they accept dead bodies?” Hana reached into the drawer for her handbag. “I can think of a few candidates.”
“Na.” Logan held his hand out. “There are much better places for those.”
Hana dropped the keys into his palm and stood, her nose at the same level as his third shirt button. She looked at him from under long lashes. “I locked the door. Yet here you are.” She wagged her finger at him. “A
nd you got us out of the stockroom in seconds.” Hana cocked her head, her eyes demanding explanation.
Logan smirked and tapped the end of her nose with a scarred forefinger. “If I tell you that, Ms McIntyre, I’ll have to kill you.”
“Yeah, whatever!” Hana smiled at the door as he let himself out. All trace of happiness left with him.
Hana visited the post room after lunch. A bottleneck at the glass doors from the staffroom took ages to clear and the tiny space where staff collected mail and other important items such as their lunch, resembled a beehive. The pigeon-holes for careers and counselling sat together, one above the other. Hana couldn’t reach either. The room swarmed with bodies and she stood on tiptoes and stretched, blindly shoving her fingers in the slots. “There’s something there,” she groaned, looking for her chair to stand on. Bodies moved around her, pushing, shoving and complaining as they jostled each other.
“Yeah, this.” Gentle fingers closed around Hana’s and she looked up into Logan’s smile. He handed her two invoices from the back of the careers box and her heart sped up its rhythm. She swallowed, knowing he saw the conflict in her eyes. “It’s okay,” he whispered. “Nothing’s changed.”
Hana opened her mouth to contradict him. Her contract stated otherwise. She closed her eyes and remembered signing it fifteen years earlier, dismissing the tiny one-liner as irrelevant. Vik stood ready with a bottle of red wine to celebrate her new job and she dashed off a signature without thought. How could it ever relate to her?
Logan’s departure coincided with the entry of Alan Dobbs and Donald Watson, a festival of grumpiness descending on the busy room. “Stop that right now!” Donald screeched, pointing somewhere beyond Hana.
From the centre of the small space, cheering and clapping bubbled outwards. Hana whipped round in time to see Gwynne with his arms locked around the tiny Chinese lab assistant from the food technology department. Their kiss ended to a host of wolf whistles.
Paddy Chatfield from the physics department grinned at Hana like a serial killer. “That showed Watson.” He waggled his bushy eyebrows and Hana nodded, keeping her opinion to herself. She attempted to leave the room, Logan’s wake already healed over. She squeezed between the gawking teachers as Dobbs and Watson pushed through the throng towards the offending lovers. Glancing back, she saw a triumphant look on Gwynne’s face. Watson looked ready to bust a blood vessel and Dobbs like he already had.
Hana called in to see Angus on her way home, the rental contract clutched in her hand. She couldn’t get near his office. A line of staff snaked from his door to the cafeteria. She noticed established couples in the queue and her heart ached for them. She backtracked, her own dilemma sitting heavy on her shoulders.
A series of silent phone calls plagued her evening. When she picked up, she heard someone disconnect at the other end. On the fourth occasion, she lost her patience. “Are you enjoying yourself?” she demanded. She heard people in the background, laughing and talking.
After a pause, a voice came through the tired grey handset. “I can do this all year, baby. Unless you give it back, this will only get worse.” The click of disconnection made Hana jump and robbed her of reply. Her heart rate increased, knowing the blonde man meant business. She rushed to the front window and scoured the empty street.
Streetlights flicked on as dusk gave way to the darkness of night. Wrenching at the cords holding the blinds up, Hana dropped them to screen her from the road. They released a cloud of dust into the upstairs room. “Bloody hell!” she groaned. She hadn’t closed them for years and stamped her foot as one of the aged strings snapped under the pressure and sent strands of bamboo scattering across the carpet. The clean up took her until after midnight and she didn’t sleep, even after checking all doors and windows like a compulsive. At every little sound, her body filled with adrenaline, leaving her shaking and afraid as it receded. The night felt unreal and when she dozed, it seemed shallow and without rest.
Hana drove to work feeling uneasy. The school had cushioned and supported her after Vik’s death, giving her a focus to dull the emptiness. Now it threatened her first worthwhile relationship and she felt the burden of hard choices. She needed to speak to Logan.
The lab assistant’s car sat in the chapel car park and Hana spotted Gwynne’s truck poking out from behind the gym. She assumed they’d be disciplined but their continued presence gave her hope. Inside the building, the atmosphere seemed tense and a storm brewed beneath the surface. The staffroom hummed with whispers, patience proved in short supply and teachers issued a record number of re detention slips.
Even the boys seemed subdued at interval, not understanding why the adults growled like bears woken from hibernation. Hana busied herself with general tasks, arguing with a company claiming to have sold the school a complicated drill bit. She put the phone down, not realising someone else had entered the room until she heard the lock snap closed behind them.
Logan pulled her to her feet and nudged her alongside a filing cabinet out of view. Then he pressed warm lips to hers. Hana inhaled in horror. “You’ll get me sacked!”
Logan placed an index finger on her lips to silence her. “Will you come home with me at the weekend, to meet my parents?”
She hesitated, watching the hope die in his eyes. When he took a step backwards, she clutched the front of his shirt. “Only if they’re not a Māori version of Deepak and Indra,” she said. “Are you ready for that?”
“Indian parents?” Logan bowed his head and kissed her neck. “Sure, babe. Whatever you think.”
“No!” Hana shoved his shoulder. “For me to meet your parents.”
Logan narrowed his eyes and cupped her face in his palms. “Ms McIntyre, I never say things I don’t mean. Would you like a weekend away?”
“Yes please.” When he smiled, she raised her finger in warning. “But Watson is vengeful. You might think it’s not in your contract that we can’t date, but he’ll white it out and forge your signature or claim foul play. I don’t want you risking your job for me.”
Logan rested his hand on the wall above Hana’s head, screening her with his arm. He leaned down and touched his lips to hers. His grey eyes were serious. “You have no idea how much I’d give up for you.” His voice sounded hushed and sultry.
Hana’s eyes danced. “Not your job though.”
Logan’s lips felt soft on her cheek. “Definitely my job.”
She opened her mouth to protest and he placed his lips over hers, speaking into the tiny space between them. “I’m not giving you up now.”
“I should’ve called you last night,” Hana gushed, her green eyes wide. “But I got scared you might think it’s too complicated.”
Logan shook his head. “Don’t be scared, Hana. We’re good. Anyway, I went out of town on the bike. No phone signal.” He rained soft kisses on her face and worked his way along her jaw to her sensitive neck. He ran his fingers underneath the back of her long hair and it rebelled, breaking free from its clip and cascading down to caress Logan’s hand. Hana felt her stomach clunk into her shoes and she abandoned her usual reserve. She kissed him back, drinking in the proximity of her skin on his and the scent of his aftershave. Logan’s other hand pressed into the small of Hana’s back and she heard herself give a tiny moan.
“Who’s locked the bloody door?” The handle rattled with violence and someone jiggled a key in the lock. Logan winked at Hana and reached out his arm, releasing the dead bolt. Hana heard the sound of metal on metal and Pete burst into the room.
Logan plonked himself in Rory’s chair with casual ease, greeting Pete with his one-fingered salute. “Hey, bro’. How’s things?”
Pete stopped in the doorway and eyed them both, Logan sitting with his hands in his pockets and Hana wedged between the filing cabinet and the wall. “You’ll get fired,” he said, looking from one to the other.
“Do I look like I care?” Logan drew an envelope from his jacket pocket and lobbed it onto Hana’s desk. He
stood and sauntered towards the door, winking at Hana as he slipped behind Pete.
“Guy’s got a death wish,” Pete muttered to himself, dusting flaked skin off his chair before sitting down. “Place is a mausoleum at the moment with Dobbs and Watson hunting couples.”
Hana extracted herself from the tiny space and sat down at her computer. “Oh yeah, what happened to Gwynne?”
Pete grinned and licked his lips. “Tell ya if you do some reports for me.”
“No thanks. I don’t want to know anymore.” Hana turned her attention to a spreadsheet and heard Pete sigh behind her.
“Okay, I’ll tell you,” he grumbled. “They got married last weekend. But they got a warning for snogging in public.”
“Cool.” Hana smiled. “That’s awesome.”
“It’s what you should do.” Pete spun around in his chair, misjudged the swing and kept going until Hana saw the back of his head again.
“Get married? Or get married in secret?”
“Both.” Pete’s eyes widened with enthusiasm. “She didn’t get her hands on the wedding rings so Logan’s maybe still got them.”
Hana’s jaw dropped in horror. “That’s sick. Stop talking.” She reached for the envelope Logan left. It contained $500 in cash for the golf clubs and other garage stuff. Her brow furrowed. “He sorted that out fast.” She sifted through the notes. “Tell you a secret. I didn’t want to do a garage sale anyway.”
“Oh yeah, Logan Du Rose sorts things out real fast!” Pete’s comment sounded jaded, an edge of jealousy making Hana shoot a look at his bowed head. He sifted through his paperwork and then used the corner of a bulletin to wipe his nose.
Hana cringed and settled into her work with renewed energy. Worry kicked in not long afterwards. For every objection, a solution presented itself but the effort drove her crazy. Hana started a list of things to organise. The neighbour opposite would feed Tiger and often did. She’d tell Bodie and Izzie she wouldn’t be available for a few days. Her pen hovered over the page as other questions popped into her mind. One left her flushed and panicking. Hana turned to Pete, clearing her throat and waiting for him to turn around. “I’m going away with Logan for the weekend,” she whispered. “Do you think he’ll want separate rooms or to share?”
Pete squinted at her, one eyebrow raised. “What do you want?” he asked, the question loaded.
Hana swallowed. “Separate ones.”
Pete rolled his eyes. “Great! Another one!” he spat. “I’ve got one of those too.”
Hana turned back to her desk and swallowed. Like she always did, she spent the afternoon second guessing her decision. She ran through possible scenarios and then re-ran the tape with different answers, arguing with herself in her head until she went into a tailspin. She missed Anka’s common sense and wondered if it would ever stop hurting. “Oh, Hana, just go!” she imagined her friend saying. A new voice broke through the turmoil, telling her she shouldn’t anticipate trouble before it happened.
Pete’s snoring cut through her musing and highlighted the ridiculousness of her mental wanderings. He slept face down with an assessment paper stuck to the dribble leaking from one side of his face.
A telephone call destroyed her afternoon. “Sorry, Darrell can you repeat that?” Hana felt vacant as she asked the mechanic to say it for the third time.
“Yeah, look, I’m sorry. I don’t know how it happened.”
“Someone nicked my car from your compound? But it only needed a couple of dents fixing and a new bumper.”
Darrell’s voice held an uncharacteristic wobble as he talked through the problem. “Yeah, I know. The Serena’s bumper arrived, but we had other jobs on. You didn’t seem in any rush.”
Hana sighed. “Note to self not to be so complacent in the future.”
Darrell coughed, his breath wheezing down the phone. “I scheduled the repairs for this afternoon. My trainee technician wandered around the compound for ages. I got annoyed with him but I couldn’t find it either!”
“When did it go missing?” Hana asked, rubbing her eyes.
“Not sure.” Darrel sounded real guilty. “And I haven’t told Doug yet. He’s gonna go mental.”
Hana closed her eyes and imagined the scene. Doug would start up about Vik again. She suspected he felt more gutted about the immaculate Ford Mustang Vik wrecked than her husband, but she’d never been able to tell.
“I called the cops.” Darrell’s tone became defensive. “They walked around the garage and property, but they can’t file a stolen report until you call them yourself.”
“Hence the awkward phone call.” Hana heard the barb in her voice and shame washed over her. “It’s okay,” she said with a sigh. “I’ll call them.”
Hana replaced the handset, drew in a deep breath and then dialled the number for the friendly officer, whose extension number never picked up. Then she texted Bodie, who also didn’t reply. In frustration, she flicked an email to Donald explaining what happened and firing up Logan’s truck, set off for the police station in Bridge Street to file her complaint.
After wasting yet another afternoon making a statement, Hana went straight home instead of heading back to work. She spent the rest of the evening on the phone to her insurer, who promised to talk to Darrell. “It’s a complicated case, Mrs Johal,” the customer service operator said. “There’s an issue regarding responsibility at the time of the theft.”
“So who’s going to pay for a replacement?” she asked, receiving a blanket don’t-know. “I wanted to sell it. I can’t sell something I no longer have!”
After wine for dinner, Hana rummaged in her copious filing cabinet for the vehicle documents. She found everything but the original purchase agreement. The telephone sat on the floor next to her, its long grey cable trailing over the top of the cabinet like a strand of dirty spaghetti. Hana peered into the depths of the second drawer when the phone trilled. Remembering the odd phone calls, she hesitated before picking up the receiver then said nothing, waiting for the caller to speak first.
“Hana?” Logan’s soft tones soothed her. “Are you ok? Where’d you go?”
She sighed and filled him in on the day’s extraordinary turn of events. A weekend away became more attractive by the second as they contemplated each recent nasty surprise. “Hey, thanks for the money. Who did you sell the golf clubs and the garage stuff to?” Hana asked.
Logan seemed vague and non-committal, so she moved on to the announcement at staff briefing. “Donald made his point pretty clear.” She couched her unease with a hopeless impression of Donald Watson, but Logan laughed it off.
“Na, don’t worry. It’ll blow over. I’ll marry you and then it won’t matter. It worked for Jeffs.”
Logan couldn’t see Hana’s shocked expression and switched the conversation to the arrangements for the weekend, organising when they would leave.
Hana replaced the receiver again, realising she didn’t know where Logan’s parents lived. He’d ticked one thing off her worry list, anyway. “No babe, I promise we won’t go on the motorbike.”