by Giulia Skye
There was nothing wrong with his mental health, and to prove it, he burst out laughing. “She’s got bounty hunters after me?” The plump middle-aged waitress looked over and he lowered his voice. “When did this happen?”
“News broke about an hour ago.”
He hadn’t checked in. He’d been too hungry after his shower, then too content with a full stomach to let the internet ruin his good mood. No wonder Howie had been calling nonstop this past half hour, not that Adam had contemplated for even a split second to answer. His phone had been on silent, as he’d been screening calls until he saw Shane’s name come up.
“You think it’s funny now,” Shane continued. “Wait until she catches up with you.”
“She won’t. It’s a stupid plan. She just wants to deflect the real issue away from her and keep up the hype of my disappearance. I walk out so I’m the one with the problem? Who gives a rat’s ass? I guarantee she’ll have every nutjob out there sending photos of people who look a bit like me. It’s another of her PR stunts, and besides, no one but you and Krista know I’m here.”
“Keep it that way, mate. If her lawyers find you and serve you papers, you’ll have to go back.”
“If they find me. I’m a traveler now enjoying my vacation.”
Adam sat back, glancing around the café. It was modestly decorated with polished wooden tables and chairs, and sepia photos of Broome in the olden days hanging on the cream-colored walls. Every other guy eating or sipping frothy cappuccinos was dressed just like him in shorts and T-shirt, their caps and sunglasses resting alongside napkins and plates. Adam was a tourist too, chilling out doing touristy things, and he could see that they had better things to do than read celebrity gossip. They strolled around town, took day trips and saw the sights, and—just like the middle-aged couple who sat nearest to him enjoying their stuffed bagel lunch—they read guidebooks. The couple’s table was filled with pamphlets and pocket-sized guides, not trashy magazines.
“Make sure you hang out with other travelers then,” Shane was saying. “Someone like you sticks out too much alone. If you’re planning to hide out—”
“I’m not hiding. I’m taking a vacation.” It sounded lame even to his own ears but a vacation was exactly what he wanted. Rest, think. Regroup. He needed this change of scene. Any mess back home could wait. No one’s damned life depended on his return.
Adam caught Shane’s sigh again, tinged with contained frustration, but this time it was mixed with something else—something far more personal. Adam slowly recognized it as concern. He considered the rumors.
“I promise you, Shane. This isn’t a nervous breakdown.”
He was suddenly overwhelmed with the urge to tell his friend how he’d felt his last morning in Vancouver, suffocating in the back of that car on the way to his live broadcast at the CTV Studios. But in order to defend his sanity, he’d have to first explain the very act of madness that had him boarding the first flight to Australia. An act of madness that had, ironically, made him see things sparkling-crystal clear for the first time in a long, long while.
But how best to put everything into words? And then speaking those words into a phone while a waitress clattered plates and cutlery behind him. He’d have to start at the beginning, though the beginning of his story was lost in the here and now and the simple belief that no one would ever truly understand.
“I’m okay, buddy, really I am.”
Adam heard Shane take in a breath in a way that suggested he was nodding. Okay, I believe you. His friend’s trust, exhaled in that one breath, was all he needed to relax again.
“You do realize Krista’s going to grill you when she sees you.”
“Thanks for the warning.” The tension began to ease away. Perhaps by the time he reached Darwin, he would have worked out not only the beginning of his story, but the middle and the end of it too. “So it’s still okay to visit?”
“Are you joking me? Krista can’t wait for you to meet Stefan.”
“How’s the little guy doing?” Adam leaned back. He had little interest in babies. They hadn’t ever fit into his old world, let alone his new one, but it was good to finally be talking about something else. Something normal.
“He’s doing great. We’ve started to wean him. You should see the mess he makes.”
Adam heard the immediate smile in Shane’s voice. He was pleased of course that Shane and Krista were so obviously happy, but a part of him squirmed uncomfortably in the face of all that joy and contentment. Like people who became priests, or preschool teachers, or enjoyed advance mathematics, he simply couldn’t comprehend it.
As soon as Shane exhausted the long list of baby Stefan’s cuteness, Adam jumped in. “Hey, thanks again for putting me in touch with Ted.” The truck wasn’t a patch on the Cadillac Escalade he had in his garage in Vancouver, but it was doing a pretty good job of getting him up the coast undetected.
“What did you make of Ted?”
Ted had been generous and discreet, but he was Shane’s cousin so Adam chose his words carefully. “He was … interesting.”
“He’s a bloody redneck but, yeah. Interesting. Did you get the truck checked over like I said?”
“I’ll do it today.”
“Mikey.”
“Give me a break, eh? I’ve just got here.”
“You were supposed to see to it in Perth.”
“I had to leave in a hurry, remember?” God, what was this hen-pecking? “And besides, it’s full of damn knives.”
“He’s a fruit farmer.”
“I’m driving around with a frickin’ arsenal in the trunk—and these, I assume, are just his spares. I’ll need to dump or hide them before I take it in somewhere, or else they’ll think I’m some kind of freak. And I keep finding panties too.”
Shane laughed. “Panties?”
“Women’s underwear. Frilly things, skimpy things, bright pink things. Jeez, does this guy not have a bed?”
Shane’s laughter was contagious, and Adam got the light relief he needed. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d actually laughed out of sheer enjoyment. He was still smiling when he hung up a few minutes later, but as soon as he placed his phone on the table, he looked at it again and his lips reverted to their grim flat line. The missed calls and messages were racking up and he knew he should log on.
He had to read for himself what Saskia had been up to and at the very least contact his lawyers for an update on the divorce proceedings. He would need to check out his stance on defamation too, ask them to start prepping a defense. Common sense begged that of Michael Adams, but Adam couldn’t muster the energy. He stared glumly out of the window instead, thinking about Shane and Krista.
With a pang of envy, he imagined their home life, the easy laughter and comfortable silences, all the adoration Stefan would receive from both his parents. A home life several worlds removed from his own. Living with Saskia had been like stepping barefoot over broken glass, awkward and prickly, and his childhood home with his father, though comfortable enough, had never been filled with bear hugs and sweet goodnight kisses.
When the waitress came to take away his empty plates, the couple reading pamphlets caught his attention again. Their legs touched under the table, entwined at the ankles. Adam ordered a black coffee and a slice of the same cake the couple were now sharing—one plate, two spoons—then reached reluctantly for his phone, doubting his cake would taste as good as theirs.
CHAPTER 4
In the little caravan, Evie placed her neatly folded clothes into her backpack. Eight months living out of this bag, and everything had a place of its own. Her trainers and sparkly flip-flops went in at the very bottom next to her sleeping bag. Her cooking ingredients—herbs and spices, salt and chili flakes, half a bag of dried milk and tea bags—slipped nicely into the side pockets, and her towel, nightie and washbag at the very top, guaranteeing eas
y access.
There. All that she owned in the Southern Hemisphere strapped and zipped into one bag.
She burst into tears.
Another country, another planet, and with no gravitational pull holding her in place, she felt weightless, drifting away from routine and familiarity, like when she’d first left England.
She pictured her flat back home. Not as it was now with an unknown tenant, but how it had been before when she’d shared the place with Zac. Before they’d changed. Before everything got taken off shelves and put into storage. She thought of their routines—leaving for work in the morning, returning home in the evenings—how could something that had felt so stagnant then seem so blissful now?
“We need a rest,” she’d said after they’d been trying for a baby for over a year. They’d gotten themselves into a stodgy rut. “Let’s jack in our jobs, explore the world!” They needed to relax; their careers were burning them out. They needed to see and do new and amazing things.
“Australia?” Zac had said. “What’s wrong with a few weeks in Italy, or Spain, or France?”
“It won’t be the same. I want an experience, not a package holiday.”
They’d argued—something that she and Zac never really did. Eventually, Zac had reluctantly agreed to go traveling, but the questions had been raised.
What are we doing?
Falling out of love.
Are we happy?
Yes, sort of, but …
They were more best friends than lovers. They’d been so focused on creating—and failing—to make a family that they hadn’t realized they were drifting apart. Zac then pulled out of traveling and Evie had decided to go it alone. Tally-ho and what larks! She was her mother’s daughter.
And Blake women weren’t put off doing things alone.
The tide had been sucked out to sea leaving shallow pools shimmering in the moonlight. Sand squelched between Adam’s toes as he trod carefully out to the water’s edge, dodging rocks, shells and sand slugs.
Others had gathered here too, in small groups littering the beach, their flashlights beaming into the shallow water to illuminate the remains of the gunned down flying boats that stuck out from the seabed at low tide. An older man, presumably George O’Sullivan from the bulletin board, talked as he pointed to the jagged, water-weathered corner of what could have once been a wing.
Adam kept away from the others, gazing across the blackened sea to where a ship’s light flickered like a candle’s flame on the dark, distant horizon. He’d read the latest on Michael Adams after his call to Shane and wished he hadn’t. One step forward, five steps back. Just when he thought he could start to enjoy himself, his old life pulled him under, sucking him out to sea.
TROUBLED EX-OLYMPIAN DISAPPEARS
EX-OLYMPIAN STILL MISSING
SASKIA FEARS FOR EX-OLYMPIAN HUSBAND
When he’d retired fourteen months ago, he hadn’t been an ex. He’d been a legend. A role model. And he wasn’t an ex when he’d been paid stupid amounts of money to endorse the latest underwater watches and designer swimwear. He wasn’t an ex when he’d pretended to date Canada’s hottest glamour model—nor when he married her. He wasn’t an ex when he played the game, lapping up all that celebrity bullshit as if it meant something.
Water washed over his feet, and he sank into the mud-like sand. Snippets of information from the wreck tour drifted toward him on the warm, midnight breeze.
“An armada of Catalina flying boats were attacked and sunk at anchor by the Imperial Japanese Army in 1942 … The mud of the bay does a great job of preserving the wrecks … Women and children were killed…”
Adam dropped his head, tales of death and war spelling out what he already knew—his problems meant nothing, were nothing. If only the people who dominated his life understood this too. Like he’d told Shane, they couldn’t put him in jail for leaving the way he did. In the end, it would all come down to money.
And he had plenty of that.
But how far would the news of Saskia’s bounty spread? And how quickly?
Hundreds of people had already posted photos of Michael Adams look-a-likes. Alleged sightings of him in Brisbane and Sydney, one even in Bali—places in which he hadn’t set foot in over a decade. There was no telling who was reading Saskia’s tweets and Instagrams or where in the world they were; but one thing was certain, Saskia’s people would make sure the news of the reward spread like some dirty worldwide plague, and Michael Adams would be hounded until he was found.
Adam waded farther along the coast, farther into the darkness and quiet. As he walked, he felt his phone in the side pocket of his shorts knocking against his leg like an intruder demanding to be let in. For a moment, he simply stood and frowned, but then became very angry with himself. He was ankle deep in the Indian Ocean, under a midnight sky packed with stars—what the hell did he need his phone out here for? Why the fuck had he even brought it with him?
He pulled the phone out, his lip curling in disgust at the way it slid into his palm, his thumb pre-positioned to swipe at the screen to make it come alive. He’d been content in the café earlier before he’d checked his phone, and now he was miserable. The phone could be a lifeline, but he saw it now as a noose around his neck.
How would it feel, he wondered, to rear back his arm and aim for that ship on the horizon? Would he hear the splash this far back?
He’d miss easy contact with Shane. He’d miss GPS and Google Maps, but wiser people before him had coped without all that. Mankind had survived millennia without it—and he could read a map, couldn’t he? He could use his own fucking brain for once.
That same constricting rage he’d had in that car on his last morning in Vancouver leached into him. That type of anger had nowhere to go. It had nowhere to run or strike out. Instead, it channeled through him until all he could see was white. He gripped the device and zeroed in on the ship’s light.
But then his grip relaxed.
The phone wasn’t the problem, and the problem, he knew, couldn’t be fixed by throwing it away. All he’d be doing was polluting the sea with an object that didn’t belong there, and no matter how many tides came and went, he knew it would still be there, sunk forever at the bottom of the sea like the aircraft shot down from the sky.
Evie instantly recognized the tall broad figure moonlit against the dark water. Maybe it was the night, or the fact he stood alone looking out to sea when everyone else had come to see the wrecks. Or maybe it was still simply the fact she’d seen him naked and he’d caught her enjoying the view, but there was no way she’d walk up to him now. No way would she find out if he were heading to Darwin, and no way would she ask if he’d mind her tagging along for the ride.
She’d be leaving on a night bus to Darwin tomorrow and that was that.
Evie made her way back to shore, shining her torch in front of her feet to avoid the boggiest looking pools, the largest rocks and the biggest pebbles that could, and often did, turn out to be crabs.
Halfway back, and the lights of the town no longer looked like dots on a black canvas but more like the streetlights and houses they actually were. She shone her torch into a large pool and caught something moving in its beam. She went over to investigate and saw a small speckled pufferfish fanning its tiny fins in the shallow water.
“Oh wow,” she said aloud, never having seen one in the wild before. She looked behind her and then to either side, wanting to share the experience but there was no one within earshot. With nowhere to go, her excitement waned, and she watched the creature by herself. Just her and the pufferfish. Until it flipped around and swam the other way.
Feeling oddly dismissed, Evie continued back to shore.
Dry sand stuck to her wet feet. She sat on the low wooden railing where the coarse red sand met the campground’s patchy grass and gazed up at the stars. It was a beautifully clear midnight sky, but the a
ir—warm and soft, smelling of ocean mud and mangroves—only brought to mind her desire for the crisp, fresh Octobers of England. A lump formed in her throat and the absence of home bore down like a weight on her chest.
What was wrong with her? And how many more days would she spend wishing she was back home?
“You’ll regret coming home early next time you’re sitting in an office and much too busy to enjoy the sunshine,” her mother had said when they’d last spoken. Mum was right, but the part of Evie who needed a hug wished she would just say, “Yes! Come home, darling. I’ve missed you!”
Evie kicked up sand with her toes. So the plan now was, once in Darwin, to book herself on a tour of Kakadu National Park and keep on traveling. She’d keep on reminding herself how hard she’d worked and saved for this trip, how she’d always wanted to travel through Australia, and how it had become the catalyst of her and Zac’s separation. If she didn’t start enjoying herself again, she’d be wasting her time and money.
Onwards and upwards.
She’d planned a year, so a year she’d stay.
CHAPTER 5
The next day when Adam walked the short distance through the center of Broome from where he’d parked the truck, he couldn’t shake off the feeling that he was being watched.
He’d just woken up paranoid, he told himself. And exhausted. He’d spent another awful night on Ted’s flimsy mattress, feeling every hard bump of the dry ground as he tossed and turned, caught halfway between sleep and consciousness only to come bursting out of his tent at dawn, desperate for cooler air.
The sky had been gray pink then, pale light from the rising sun burning its way through the nighttime haze. He didn’t mind the early mornings. For so many, many years, deep in training regimes, they’d been a fact of his life but so had the accompanying early nights and good quality sleep.
Paranoid, sleep-deprived, or both, all Adam could think about now was getting out of town. But first, he needed to buy a new mattress—he’d go nuts if he had to spend another night on Ted’s flimsy one. The crap night’s sleep had aggravated his bad shoulder and he didn’t care to be reminded of the rotator cuff injury that surrounded his reason for retirement. He dug his fingertips into the tight spot of muscle where it hurt most and marched off toward the store he’d just googled, a begrudging gratefulness that he hadn’t chucked his phone in the sea last night making him even more irritable.