by HC Michaels
She’d just have to work twice as hard when she returned next week to remind everyone how good she was at her job.
At least she was good at something. She was certainly making a mess out of the rest of her life.
“There’s a letter for you on the kitchen counter,” Paul called out to her. “I nearly forgot. It was in our letterbox.”
“We have a letterbox?” She poked her head out the bathroom door.
“Not here.” He shook his head. “When I went home to Melbourne. It looked interesting so I brought it up.”
“Interesting?” She padded through the bedroom and went to the kitchen. Mail was rarely interesting these days.
Sure enough, there was a yellow envelope on the counter addressed to Elvira in unfamiliar writing. The postmark seemed to indicate it had come from Greece.
“Tessa, did you send us a postcard?” she called out as she sliced it open.
Tessa appeared at her bedroom door, looking as fresh as only a twenty-five-year-old can first thing in the morning. “Postcards don’t come in envelopes.”
Elvira slid out the piece of paper inside to discover it was a photograph.
Of Tessa.
And Tino.
In what could only be described as a very intimate moment.
“What is it?” Tessa asked.
“Nothing,” Elvira snapped, shoving it back in the envelope. “Nothing that concerns you.”
“Are you sure?” asked Tessa. “You don’t look so good.”
“I’m sure.” Elvira gave her a tight-lipped smile, wondering who on earth would have sent her such a thing. And more importantly, why?
“Okay,” said Tessa, seeming unconvinced. “I’m going to take a shower then. Unless you need something?”
Elvira shook her head, trying to blink away the image she’d just seen. There’s only one person she could think of who would send her a photo like that. And it was the person in the photo himself. But what was he up to?
Whatever it was, she knew one thing for certain.
She was right not to trust him.
Tessa was down at the marina when she saw the police boat arrive.
Paul had taken Millie swimming, giving her some much-needed time to herself.
Millie had squealed in delight at her father’s suggestion while Tessa tried to tell Paul that Elvira had forbidden her to take Millie swimming.
“But she never said I couldn’t take her,” he’d laughed, winking.
Tessa was glad. Millie was only a little girl. It was cruel to keep her away from the water, no matter what Elvira’s reasons were.
Promising to be back at the apartment by lunch, Tessa had decided to take a closer look at some of the luxury yachts she’d seen docked in the marina.
Maybe one of the yachts would be owned by a good-looking billionaire who just so happened to be in need of a wife.
Yeah, right. She’d long ago worked out that the better-looking men in the world either already had a wife or had decided they didn’t want one. The more money they had, the more this theory held true.
For one crazy moment back in Mykonos she’d thought maybe Kosta—grrr, Tino—might be an exception to that rule, but that’d just been her hormones hijacking her brain, robbing her of her ability to think with her usually clear head.
She’d stood him up last night as she’d told him she would, and instead lay in bed with a huge grin on her face as she imagined him standing outside the apartment waiting for her, certain she wouldn’t be able to resist his charms.
Well, she had news for him. He wasn’t that charming.
She watched the police boat dock and half a dozen officers step onto the marina. A few plain clothes ones, too.
Interesting. Something big must have gone down.
She remembered the murder on Mykonos and realised she hadn’t given that poor woman a single thought since she’d heard about her.
Hopefully, whatever had happened here was nothing like that. Maybe the ice-cream shop had been held up. With the prices they charged and the quantities they sold, it wouldn’t have been a bad haul. As long as they didn’t steal the tub of bubble gum flavoured ice-cream. Millie would be devastated if that happened.
Maybe they’d come to check out that mysterious letter Elvira got from Greece. The suspicious way she’d acted had definitely been worthy of a full-scale police investigation. Not one to normally snoop, Tessa was sorely tempted to have a look in Elvira’s things for that letter when she got back to the apartment.
“Isn’t it terrible?” said a male voice behind her.
Tessa turned around to find a tall man standing directly behind her. She had to tilt her head to see him properly and still the sun was getting in the way of her view.
“Please don’t tell me the ice-cream shop was robbed,” she said, taking a step to the side so she could see him properly.
Oh, crap. He was gorgeous. Which as she’d already established also meant he was either married or a cad. He was also laughing at her attempt at a joke.
“You like your ice-cream, do you?” He ran his hand through his perfect quaff of blond hair, like he was some kind of calendar model. He looked a little like that celebrity vet she saw on television sometimes.
She was about to tell him that the little girl she nannied for was the ice-cream fan when she stopped herself. Why would he care about that? He was only making polite conversation.
Actually, why was he making polite conversation with her? She glanced down at his hand for any sign of a wedding ring, but it was bare. Jeepers, he had long fingers. What a man could do with fingers like that!
“Ice-cream’s great,” she said, aware he was staring at her. She cursed herself for her sudden loss of conversational skills. Even Millie could carry on a conversation better than this and she’d only just learned how to talk in sentences.
“It is great.” He grinned at her awkwardness.
The police officers walked directly past them, and her new companion dropped the smile from his face.
“What are they here for?” she asked quietly when they were a safe distance away.
“Didn’t you hear?” He grimaced. “There was a girl in the resort pool this morning.”
She furrowed her brow. That seemed like a fairly normal occurrence on an island like this.
“And?” she prompted.
“Oh. She was dead. Floating face down I think.” He shook his head. “Terrible.”
Tessa felt like someone had punched her. Here she was joking about ice-cream while some poor girl had lost her life. “Not again.”
“Again?” The guy tilted his head at her. “I hadn’t heard of anything else happening around here.”
“Not here,” she said. “It doesn’t matter. Just another place I went recently.”
“Oh.” He grimaced. “That’s unfortunate.”
“Was she very young?” Tessa asked, thinking of Millie. Maybe Elvira had a right to be overprotective when it came to the water. It was unbearable to think of anything like that happening to Millie.
“She wasn’t a kid,” said the man. “Sorry. When I said girl, I meant woman. I don’t know how old. Twenty-ish or something like that. I’m Logan, by the way.”
“Hello Logan-by-the-way.” She nodded. “I’m Tessa.”
The smile returned to his face. Was it okay to be chatting to a guy like this while nearby a girl—a woman—lay dead?
She returned his smile, deciding it was okay. They didn’t know the girl. And all they were doing was talking. He’d probably turn around any moment and walk off back to his wife and six kids.
“What brings you to the island?” he asked.
“Death,” she said, her face deadpan.
He made a strangled sound as he seemed to be working out how to respond to that.
“I’m a nanny for a little girl,” she explained. “Her grandmother died here last week so I’ve come up with the family while they organise things.”
“I have a confession.” He bit do
wn on his bottom lip in a tantalising kind of way.
“Well, the police are right there.” She pointed, wondering what he might be trying to tell her and if she even wanted to know. Is this where he told her about the wife and six kids? “I hear they’re pretty good with confessions.”
“I already knew who you were,” he said, looking sheepish. “I’m a friend of Roberto and Carina. Well, Roberto now. I saw you talking to Elvira with a little girl. I kind of figured you were the nanny I’d heard about.”
He shuffled his feet awkwardly.
“Oh, right.” She pushed down her disappointment. So, this wasn’t some hot guy hitting on her. He was just being polite. “It’s terrible what happened to Carina.”
He nodded, his eyes filling with what seemed to be genuine tears.
“I appear to be a little cursed at the moment,” she said, aware of her unfortunate habit of rambling to fill awkward silences. “Death, rape and pillaging are following me around.”
Logan’s eyes widened.
“Not to me personally,” she clarified. “Just to those around me.”
“Right.” He cleared his throat. “Good to know.”
Way to go, she told herself. Excellent way to get a guy to like you. Hang on a moment, why did she even want this guy to like her?
“Is it your day off?” Logan asked.
“Just the morning.” She crossed her arms, wondering why the timber jetty hadn’t swallowed her up just yet. “Millie’s swimming with her dad. In our apartment’s pool. Not the resort pool…obviously.”
She cringed, knowing she was making everything worse.
He nodded. “Obviously.”
“What about you?” she asked. “Do you work here on the island?”
“I don’t actually work here. I work there.” He pointed to a large yacht behind them.
“That’s your yacht?” she wondered if somehow, she’d managed to conjure this perfect man when she’d fantasised about finding a good-looking billionaire.
“I wish!” He laughed. “No, I’m part of the crew. Speaking of which, I have to get back to work. Any chance you’re free tonight for a drink?”
She blinked. He was asking her out? That’s taking politeness to a whole new level.
“S-sure,” she said, trying to compose herself. At least she wasn’t wearing a crinkled dress with her hair all over the place like she had been when she’d seen Tino. “Well, I think I’m sure. I’ll just need to check if Elvira needs me first.”
“I’ll be at the Tavern,” he said. “We’ve been heading there for a few drinks at night.”
She wondered who we was but couldn’t bring herself to ask. Maybe this wasn’t a date after all?
“If you can make it, just rock up,” he said. “If not, I’ll be there tomorrow night, too.”
She nodded. He seemed keen. She liked keen. It sure beat arsehole.
“It was nice to meet you, Tessa.” He took a few steps away. “I like your accent. Where are you from?”
“London,” she said.
He nodded like she’d passed some kind of test.
“See ya.” He waved over his shoulder while she watched his perfectly sculptured behind walk away.
Hopefully Elvira was planning a nice early night in and wouldn’t mind if she stepped out.
Or maybe Paul would want to take Elvira and Millie out for a meal as a family.
As long as he wasn’t planning to take Elvira out on a date while she babysat.
She had a date of her own to go on. Was it a date? And was it wrong to admit that she really, really hoped so?
Logan seemed to be exactly the antidote she needed for the poison Tino had injected into the pit of her stomach.
She felt better already.
Elvira sat by herself on the boat on the way back to Sunshine Island. The meeting at the funeral parlour had been difficult and she’d had enough of Tino. She’d had enough of her father, too.
She said she needed some fresh air and headed to an outdoor deck while her father and Tino ordered coffee inside. She hadn’t found an opportunity to ask Tino about the photo. It hadn’t felt right. Not given what they’d come here to do. It still sat burning a hole in her handbag, waiting for her to decide what to do with it. She hadn’t even told Paul about it just yet.
The sound of her father laughing from inside the cabin, floated up to the deck, and Elvira rolled her eyes.
The way her dad behaved around Tino was too much to take. As the baby of the family Tino had always been the favourite. The fact he had a penis might have something to do with it, too. When she went through photos of her childhood it was impossible not to compare the difference in the expression on her father’s face when he was holding Tino to when he was holding her.
With Elvira on his knee, he had a dazed look about him, like someone had handed him an alien to hold. But not with Tino. With his beloved son he looked like someone had presented him with a premiership cup, won by his beloved Carlton Football Club. He held Tino with a look of awe, as if he couldn’t quite believe he’d managed to create such a miracle. Shouldn’t he have been like that with his first born, even if she was a girl?
When Tino got sick as a teenager, it only got worse. Her father’s love for his son intensified beyond anything Elvira could’ve imagined. It wasn’t until years later when she became a mother herself that Elvira had a glimpse of an understanding as to what her parents must have been going through at the time. They would’ve been petrified at the thought of losing their son.
But at the time, the inequity of her father’s love for Tino had stung.
Their mother had never behaved like that. She’d loved her children equally. Not anymore, though. Her heart that had once held so much love had now stopped beating. Elvira wondered where all that love had gone. Had she taken it to heaven with her, or was it floating around ready to be plucked from the atmosphere by another mother when she first laid eyes on her child? It was impossible to believe it would just vanish. Almost as impossible to believe as the idea that her mother was gone.
Despite the cooling off of their relationship over the last few years, her love for her mother had never cooled. She liked to believe her mother felt the same. They were separated by kilometres, not feelings.
But what would she know? If she believed everything her father had said at the meeting, then she didn’t know her mother at all.
The arrangements he was insisting on were so far removed from what she ever expected her mother’s funeral would be like. She’d assumed her parents would one day like a big Catholic funeral at St Joseph’s followed by a burial at Fawkner Cemetery. She’d imagined being surrounded by weeping relatives and trays of lasagne while she pretended her whole world hadn’t just fallen apart.
Instead, her mother was to be cremated and the remains taken back to Sunshine Island where they were to hire a boat and throw her ashes into the water. It was to be a private affair with immediate family only.
And Logan.
Was this really what her mother had wanted? What other secrets had fallen down those stairs with her? Maybe Tino had been her favourite after all.
The funeral director had asked them if they wanted an open casket at the service before the cremation. Tino had said yes at the exact moment she said no.
She didn’t want to see her dead mother. She’d far prefer to remember what she looked like when she was alive. Plus, it might scare Amelia. She was too young to understand. It would give her nightmares.
It might give Elvira nightmares, too, and she’d had more than enough of those lately. Although, maybe dreams of her dead mother would be preferable to ones of losing her daughter.
In the end, the final decision about having an open casket was her father’s and thankfully he chose to keep it firmly closed.
The trip back to Sunshine Island took just under an hour. It was long enough to give Elvira the air she needed. Paul had said he wanted to take her out to dinner. She was looking forward to it. They hadn’t been out
just the two of them for such a long time. Her anger at him not accompanying her today had evaporated the moment she’d seen her father and Tino walking towards her at the marina. It wouldn’t have been right for Paul to be with them. It was something the three of them had needed to do alone.
Maybe if Tino had a wife it might be different. It was no surprise he’d never married. He’d never be able to settle down with only one woman. He was such a sleaze. Poor Tessa for getting caught up with him. Although she really had thought Tessa had better taste. Tino was good looking, in an Italian Stallion kind of way. He was blessed with a lean yet muscled frame, dark hair that showed no sign of ever thinning, and green eyes framed with the kind of thick lashes that didn’t seem fair on a man. But he oozed chauvinism. That was his let down and it was revolting.
As the boat pulled into the marina, she noticed several police officers on the dock. Her first thought was of Amelia. Maybe they were waiting for her so they could tell her something bad had happened.
Her pulse rose and she pulled her phone from her bag, quickly dialling Tessa.
She answered on the first ring as if she’d sensed it was important.
“Hi Elvira. How are you?”
“Is Amelia okay?” She had no time for small talk.
“Of course,” Tessa reassured. “We’re just doing some colouring and eating fruit.”
“Great.” She felt relief slide through her body. She really needed to stop panicking every time she saw a police officer. They weren’t always there for her.
“Oh, Elvira. Just wondering if you think you’ll need me to sit with Millie tonight or if…”
“Yes, we do.” Elvira did her best not to snap, but suspected she’d failed. “Paul is taking me out to dinner. I’ve had a difficult day.”
“Okay.”
She could hear the disappointment in Tessa’s voice. What on earth could she want to do by herself out here on the island?
“You weren’t planning to meet up with Tino were you?” Elvira asked. Better to tackle this issue head on.
“No!” Tessa practically shouted. “Of course not. It doesn’t matter. It’s not important.”
“My mother’s funeral is tomorrow,” Elvira said. “I’ll have Amelia with me all day. Can whatever you have to do wait until then?”