Brittle Shadows (4 page)

Receiving 1
of 18…

She gulped down
the rest of her cold coffee, spluttering on the dregs at the bottom as she read
the arriving emails’ subject lines and sender names. Three diverted straight to
her Spam folder; no doubt someone trying to sell her Viagra or a penis enlarger
or something else equally appealing. She skipped over the IT newsletters and
the jokes, not in the mood to read either. That left one from Gail Lyndon, the
aunt who had raised the orphaned Jemma from a bratty 8-year-old through to
adulthood, and… she counted them: six from Ross, two of which were time-stamped
after her parting ‘have a good life’ retort the day before.

She groaned. If
nothing else, he was persistent. Yet, she couldn’t bring herself to open his
emails. Nor could she delete them. Instead, she shunted them unread into
another folder. Out of sight, out of mind.

Next, she
double-clicked the header-line of her aunt’s email, opening the message to full
screen. She skimmed over the first paragraph, feeling bad for not having
returned Gail’s phone messages. Jemma might be a grown woman, but that didn’t
stop her aunt from worrying about her every minute of the day. Still, with
everything that had happened, she should have at least let Gail know she had
arrived safely. She glanced at the bottom right of her screen:
6:26 AM
.
Too early to call, even without the time difference.

The next
paragraph brought her up short, her heart skipping a beat. An envelope from the
State Coroner's Office of Victoria had arrived for her. Gail was asking what
she wanted done with it. Jemma felt cold then hot. What did she have to fear?
After all, she was the one who had requested a copy of her sister’s autopsy
report.

She needed air.
Abandoning her laptop, she walked back through the apartment and outside onto
the balcony. It was just starting to get light, the breeze still pleasantly
cool. Looking down from the steel railing, she spotted a man in uniform
patrolling the cobbled thoroughfare below.

She watched him
for a few moments, wondering if it was the same security guard who had claimed
the surveillance tapes showed no one entering or leaving the building around
the time of her intruder. Grieving or not, she knew she hadn’t imagined it. As
if sensing her gaze, the man looked up. She shrank back.

“Hello again,” said a cultured male
voice from behind her.

Jemma turned
her head, coming face to face with the suited, dark-haired man from the
property manager’s office. Until then, she hadn’t realized how inky-blue his
eyes were.

“Good choice,”
he said.

She blinked.

He nodded at
the cappuccino and plated muffin on the counter in front of her.

“Oh.” Pocketing
her change, she collected her purchases and stepped aside. “Sorry…” She paused
a moment too long.

“Ethan,” he
said, extending his hand and then withdrawing it when he realized she had hers
full. “Ethan Kelly.”

“Sorry, Ethan,
I really wasn’t trying to be rude.” She attempted a smile. “Jemma Dalton… but
of course, you already know that.” In fact, he knew a great deal more about her
than she did him, having taken a copy of her driver’s license when she had
collected the apartment keys. “Actually, I was on my way to see you…”

One dark
eyebrow arched.

“…about the
apartment.”

The eyebrow
relaxed. “Not a problem,” he said as the cashier rang up a duplicate of Jemma’s
breakfast order.

Her eyes
scanned the busy café for a free table. The homey smells of bacon and toast
wafting from the kitchen at the rear were at odds with the décor’s bold colors
and square lines. Everything from the bright yellow tables and red chairs to
the bizarre light stands looked to have been constructed from a giant Lego set.

She felt a
touch at her elbow.

“If you don’t
mind sharing, come with me.” Not waiting for her response, Ethan walked around
her and down the side of the chilled drinks cabinet at the far end of the
counter.

She followed,
coming to a standstill when he disappeared. Seconds later, he reappeared,
beckoning to her. Shielded behind a white semi-opaque screen, two blue Lego
stools and a toy table were squeezed into an alcove barely large enough for one
person, let alone two.

“Staff table,”
he said.

Her turn to
raise an eyebrow.

He laughed and
tapped the side of his nose. “Insider knowledge. My sister part-owns this
place.”

“Oh.” That’s
all her sleep-deprived brain could manage.

They sat
opposite each other, their knees almost kissing.

“Thanks again
for coming to my rescue yesterday,” she said, tearing apart her muffin. “You
saved me from a cold night on the streets.”

He beamed.
“Anytime.”

She attacked
her muffin with gusto, not speaking again until she had demolished two-thirds
of it. “Do I have something stuck in my teeth?”

“No…” His gaze
dropped to his plate. “Not at all.”

Wiping her
mouth, she said, “Talk about famished. The last time I ate was on the plane and
that wasn’t anything to write home about.”

He laughed.

“What?”

He shook his
head. “Nothing.”

“Please forgive
me if I say or do anything stupid. Lack of sleep has left me slightly
delirious.”

The faint lines
at the corners of his eyes deepened. “A problem with the apartment?”

“Not the
apartment, no…”

Embarrassment
flushed his face. “God, I didn’t… I mean… I’m sorry, I didn’t—”

“It’s fine,
really,” she said, waving away his words. “Can I ask you a hypothetical
question?”

“Sure,” he
said, his facial muscles relaxing.

“Just say
someone wanted to get into the apartment complex. First, is there any way they
could get in without a swipe card, and second, is there a log of those
entries?”

“Hypothetical,
uh?” He stroked his chin, his eyes narrowing. “Well, hypothetically speaking,
you don’t need a security card to gain access through the basement garage.
Residents with car bays are supplied with a secure remote garage opener. But…”
Pausing, he supped his cappuccino. “And,” he said, setting his cup down again,
“it’s a big but: to get out of the car park, he or she would need a card. Of
course, someone could always buzz them in. Is there a log? There should be.
Does that answer your questions?”

Jemma licked
cinnamon sugar from her lips. “Sort of. What about the security cameras?”

“What about
them?”

“Could anyone get
in or out without being picked up by them?”

“What’s going
on? Has something happened that I should know about?” He glanced at his watch
and with a curse, jumped to his feet. “Sorry to cut this short, but I have to
go. My turn to open up. Don’t rush on my account,” he added as she moved to
join him. “Finish your breakfast and call in when you’re ready.” Brushing his
teal-blue tie with the back of his hand, he stepped away from the table. “See
you soon.”

Alone, she
picked at the crumbed remains of her muffin and mulled over Ethan’s words.
Could another resident on her floor have buzzed the intruder in? Possible but
not likely, she decided. Her intruder had used a key to let himself into the
apartment; ergo he also had a security card. That left her wondering how he
could have eluded the security cameras. One she could understand, but not all
of them.

And what about
the computer log data? She poked at the milk froth in the bottom of her cup
with a teaspoon. She knew more than enough about computer systems to know they
weren’t foolproof. The card reader could have malfunctioned or been offline
during the time in question. Or perhaps the security guard had misread the log.
That or he had lied.

She pushed her
cup and plate into the middle of the table and stood up. As much as she wanted
answers, her first priority had to be organizing for the apartment’s locks to
be changed. After that, she intended fronting up at the security office. Unless
the guard Chris spoke to in the wee small hours had pulled a double-shift, she
reckoned she stood a good chance at getting to the bottom of it. Because she
sure as hell hadn’t dreamt the shadowy figure. Nor did she believe in ghosts.

The wind had
come up while she had been having breakfast, a southerly by the feel of it.
Four seasons in one day: the locals weren’t wrong. She rubbed her arms, wishing
she had donned something warmer than the thin cotton top she was wearing. She
looked up the street. It would only take her a few minutes to return to the
apartment, the same time it would take her to get to the property manager’s
office in the opposite direction.

Dalton women
were bred tough. Ignoring the wind chill, she took off down the footpath to the
glass-fronted office she had called in at the day before.

A woman in her
early to mid thirties, her glossy black hair cut in a bob and her plump lips
painted a ruby red, smiled up from the front desk as Jemma barreled through the
door.

She didn’t
pause for breath. “Ethan Kelly, please.”

“I’m sorry, Mr
Kelly is out of the office. Can I help you?”

Jemma’s mouth
gaped. “But I was just speaking to him.”

The woman
glanced at her computer screen. “He’s not due in again until late this
afternoon.”

Now what?
Jemma stared at the woman. Ethan had been expecting her. Hadn’t he?
“Perhaps he left me a message,” she said, peering over the wide, raised
counter. “Jemma Dalton. Apartment 367,” she added as an afterthought.

The woman
didn’t even check. “I’m sorry, Mr Kelly left no messages. Could someone else
help?”

“I need to
arrange for the locks to be changed on apartment 367.”

Tapping her
keyboard, the woman said, “What did you say your name was?”

Jemma repeated
it.

“I can organize
that for you, but we’ll need written authorization from the lessee first.”

“I don’t think
there’s a mail service from the grave,” Jemma said, frustration driving her
sarcasm.

Black-lashed
eyes widened. More tapping. “Then we’ll need to contact the owner.”

“How long will
that take?”

“We’ll make
every effort to contact him as soon as possible.”

Today.
Tomorrow. Next week.
“The locks have to be changed
today. Is there someone else I could speak to?”

The woman gave
her a look of daggers and rose from the desk. “One moment, please.”

Seizing the
opportunity, Jemma leaned over the counter, almost rupturing herself as she
strained to reach the acrylic business card holders she had spotted at the end
of the desk. She snaffled Ethan’s card, palming it before the woman could
return.

From the
snippets of conversation filtering through from the back office, the person the
woman had gone to confer with wasn’t going to be of much help to Jemma either.
Glancing down at the card in her hand, she made a split-second decision not to
hang around any longer. Ethan owed her some answers.

She waited
until she was back in the apartment before trying the mobile number listed on
Ethan’s business card. Voicemail.

“Ethan, it’s
Jemma Dalton. Can you please phone me back on this number when you have a
minute?” She paused. “We had breakfast together this morning,” she added, in
case he needed reminding.

On the off
chance the login recovery service had processed her request earlier than the 48
hours stated on the website, she booted up her laptop and checked her emails.
No new emails of interest. Not even one from Ross.

She checked the
time. Still early in Perth, but she hoped not too early. If she thought her
aunt would be waiting by the phone for her call, she thought wrong: the phone
went unanswered.

Making a mental
note to try again later, she dragged her suitcase into the study, unzipped it
and spent the next hour unpacking her clothes, hanging what she could in the
narrow built-in-robe. To have utilized the space in the master bedroom’s
walk-in-robe would have felt too sacrilegious. She could deal with that later,
if need be.

When she had
finished, she slotted the suitcase, empty except for underwear and a couple of
T-shirts, into the bottom of the wardrobe next to her shoes, concealing it all
behind sliding mirrored doors. Pulling a face at the pallid, hollow-eyed
creature reflected back at her, she ran a hand through her long, tousled hair
and walked away.

She tried
phoning her aunt again. Still no answer.

Then she redialed
Ethan’s number. It rang twice then diverted to voicemail. If she hadn’t known
better, she would have thought he was avoiding her. Not that she and Ethan were
anything more than passing acquaintances, but it gave her some inkling to how
Ross must have felt. Except Ethan hadn’t told her he never wanted to see her
again. Quite the contrary, unless she had misread the signals. She waited until
the end of the recorded message and then not knowing what to say, hung up.