Sleight Malice (14 page)

He glanced back
at the townhouse, wondering how Trent came to be inside in the warm with
Desley, while he froze alone in his car. He started the Falcon, letting it idle
for a moment before switching on the heater.

Trent had
called him a dumb prick. Insensitive perhaps, but not dumb. Though annoyed with
himself for letting Trent get under his skin, the man had played straight into
his hands. How else could he have proved not only to himself, but to Desley,
that Trent’s ‘wouldn’t hurt a fly’ stance was all a charade? If Brandon hadn’t
stepped in when he had, Fergus had no doubt he would be nursing a bloodied nose
now.

Buckling
himself in, he smiled. Desley had invited him, and not her ex-husband, out for
a drink. Even with her brother there, it would be the closest to a date they
had come. Why hadn’t he been able to pluck up the courage to ask her out? After
all, what was the worst thing that could happen?

Desley eased herself into the
bath, the near scalding water bliss for her weary body. Reaching for the glass
of Shiraz on the edge, she lay back, closed her eyes and inhaled the humid
bergamot and lavender scented air. Peace at last; the heavy metal music Brandon
had on full volume downstairs more white noise than disturbance.

Men. She’d just
about had her fill of the males in her life, all of them vying for her
attention in one way or another.

Trent’s needy
and hard done by act was wearing thin. Sure, he had been subjected to intensive
police questioning, or interrogation as he insisted on putting it, but he
wasn’t the only one. Then his relationship with Selena had crumbled, but
expecting sympathy from the wife you left for her was a bit rich. And if he
thought he could just waltz back into her life and start where he’d left off,
he’d better think again. Yet, egotistical love-rat or not, she refused to
believe he could be in anyway implicated in the unknown man’s death or Laura
and Ryan’s disappearance.

But she wished
Fergus wouldn’t bait Trent so much.

An unbidden
image of the private investigator’s tongue-tied antics of the night before
sprung into her mind. She chuckled. Normally so self-assured, the poor guy had
been on tenterhooks all evening, on the verge, Desley guessed, of asking her
out, but never quite getting there. She had a knack for scaring off men.
Sometimes to her disadvantage, sometimes not. What was it about her they found
so intimidating? She didn’t bite. Much.

Her smile
turned to a sigh. The bigger question was would she have said yes if Fergus had
actually managed to get his words out in some sort of semblance of order? She
didn’t know. Another time perhaps. The antithesis of her ex-husband, she
couldn’t deny he had a certain charm, but until she found Laura, she could ill
afford to have love and sex – if she were lucky – complicating things.

Her real
dilemma, though, was whether she should tell Fergus about Laura’s visit to
Helen Escott. She had gone over and over it in her head, trying to decide what
significance, if any, it had on the case. Not only would passing on the
information be disloyal to Laura, it would also mean breaking her promise to
Helen.

The bathwater
cooled, the luxuriant layer of bubbles thinning, and still she didn’t have her
answer. Setting her empty wine glass on the tiled floor next to the bath, she
pulled out the plug and stood up.

A knock at the
bathroom door almost sent her into orbit. Until then she hadn’t been aware that
the music had stopped.

“You haven’t
been sucked down the plughole have you?” Brandon said through the door.

Her heartbeat
slowed to a gallop. “Not quite,” she called, the emptying soapy bathwater
dragging at her ankles. Careful not to slip on the damp tiles, she climbed out
of the bath and grabbed a towel. Ridiculous as it was, she couldn’t talk to her
brother naked and dripping wet. Too weird.

“I have to go
out for a while. Not sure how long I’ll be. Don’t wait up.”

She tucked the
edge of the towel in. “Out where?”

“Nowhere
special: just checking out an old car. Catch you later, Sis,” he said, his
footsteps already retreating. “Call my mobile if you need me.”

For a few
moments, she stared at the closed door. She didn’t begrudge him a night out,
but it wasn’t like her brother to be so cagey. But he’d been like that since
the day before, when she had arrived home unannounced and overheard him talking
on the phone.

She recalled
his exact words: “If you don’t tell her, I will.” The instant he spotted
Desley, he had hung up and started rabbiting on about his mate Pete who had
been two-timing his girlfriend, how he didn’t think it was right and how he
thought Pete should tell her. He hadn’t paused for breath once.

Desley still
wasn’t sure what to make of it. Somehow, she couldn’t see Brandon taking the
moral highroad against a friend. Mates stick together.
Unless, of course
,
she thought, drying herself off with the towel,
a woman is involved
.

Gathering up
the wet towels and her dirty clothes, she switched on the light, blew out the
six tealight candles dotted around the bathroom and padded back to her bedroom.

Minutes later,
she emerged wearing a pair of cozy but decidedly unsexy bright yellow with pink
elephants flannelette pajamas. The men’s thick mountain socks on her feet added
the final touch.

She bounced
down the stairs, looking forward to curling up in front of the television with
a bowl of reheated chili con carne and another glass of wine. As much as she
loved her brother, she still needed time to herself.
And food
, she
thought when she discovered the greasy fork and now empty bowl in the kitchen
sink. At least he’d had the decency to leave the bottle of Shiraz alone.
Deciding she wasn’t that hungry after all, she carried the wine and a fresh glass
through to the living room.

Flicking
through the channels trying to find something worth watching, her mind drifted
back to Brandon and the old car he told her he was on his way to check out.
Could ‘old car’ be code for ‘young woman’: his so-called mate’s wronged
girlfriend? Did Brandon have an ulterior motive for urging Pete to confess his
infidelity? Could it be that he fancied the lady for himself? Or was it all
just a story designed to keep his nosey sister at bay? Anyway, it was none of
her business who he did or didn’t see; he was a grown man.

She tossed the
remote on the coffee table, giving up on the idea of watching TV, and picked up
her wine glass. Something Brandon had said the other night about not knowing
people as well as we think we do had been playing on her mind.

How much did
she really know about Laura and Ryan? How well did any one person know another,
even those closest to them?
Only as much as that person wanted you to know
,
Desley decided. After all, she was guilty of it herself. She hadn’t discussed
her failed marriage in detail with Laura. Best friend or not, some things were
just too personal to share.

“No wait! Please hear me out. I
don’t care what happened between you and Trent or you and Ryan. My only concern
is finding my best friend. I know it’s probably a long shot, but I need you to
tell me everything you can about Ryan and Laura, no matter how trivial. Please.
I’m asking for your help.” Desley took a breath. “Don’t you owe me at least
that?”

Silence.

“Selena, are
you still there?”

A sigh. “I
wasn’t trying to steal him away. It just happened.”

Who was she
talking about? Trent or Ryan?
“Forget about it,”
Desley said, her tone sharper than she had intended. “It’s all in the past.”

“No really, I’m
so sorry…” Selena sniffed. “No one was supposed to get hurt.”

For a
split-second Desley almost felt pity for the forlorn woman. Could pregnancy
hormones be at the root of Selena’s uncharacteristic contriteness? Desley
hesitated a moment too long.

“Please forgive
me…”

Click.

Damn! So
close, yet so far.
Desley hit her phone’s redial
button, cursing when she heard it ring twice and then divert to voicemail. She
didn’t leave a message. She needed to talk with Selena face to face.

She called
Trent, who sounded happy to hear from her until she told him why she was
calling.

“How the hell
should I know?”

“Oh come off
it, Trent. Stop playing the victim here. Is what Selena did any worse than what
you did to me?” She didn’t wait for his answer. “If I mean as much to you as
you say I do, then you’ll help me out.” Two could play his game.

“Why do you
want to see her? Is it about us?”

“It’s not
always about you.”

“Not me – us.
You and me.”

She gave a long
drawn-out sigh. “Trent, how can I make you understand? There is no us. Not
anymore. You left, remember—”

“Is it because
of that poncy PI prick?”

She groaned.
“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that, shall I? The address, Trent, that’s all I
ask.”

“I could drive
you there and wait for you in the car.”

“Trent!”

“All right. All
right. It’s in the Dandenongs. If you hold on for a sec, I’ll hunt out the
address.”

She heard a
clonk, followed by a scraping noise then a rustling of paper.

“Found it. Are
you sure you don’t want me to come with you? What if she won’t see you?”

“I’ll take my
chances.”

“Don’t say I
didn’t offer.” With a huff, he read out the address of Selena’s parents.

Desley jotted
the details on a Post-it note, calculating it would take her at least an hour
to drive to Olinda. The sooner she left, the sooner she would get there.

She scribbled a
note for her sleepyhead brother and stuck it on the fridge door, the one place
she could guarantee he would see it. She had no idea what time Brandon had
arrived home, but his boots lay in an untidy heap just inside the front door.

Minutes later
with her leather gloves stuffed into the side pockets of her long wool coat she
was out the door, rugged up in so many layers of clothing including a scarf and
knitted hat that she felt like the Michelin Man about to embark on an
expedition to the Antarctic.

She headed east
toward the Dandenong Ranges, turning left off Burwood Highway onto the winding
but scenic Mount Dandenong Tourist Road.

Driving through
the towering Mountain Ash forest and lush fern gullies, the soft pinks, grays
and dusty greens darkened with the lightly falling rain, she wished she were
traveling the road under different circumstances. She lowered her window a
couple of centimeters, tasting the earthy eucalypt air, only closing it again
when the side of her face started to freeze. With a promise to herself that she
would return with her hiking boots and camera, she focused on the rain-slicked
road ahead.

She found the
address Trent had given her on the outskirts of Olinda. Smoke rose from the
dormer-roofed house’s chimney, reassuring her she hadn’t come all that way for
nothing. She parked the Peugeot as far off the road as was possible without
losing the left wheels down the drain and set off down the long
rhododendron-lined driveway. She walked quickly, blowing warm air into her
gloved hands cupped over her nose and cheeks.

No one answered
the door on her first knock. She knocked again and heard movement inside. She
waited, doing a little jig on the spot in an effort to ward off the bitter
wind.

The door
opened. Selena looked Desley up and down. “Why can’t you leave me alone?”

“Please,
Selena, I’m not here to cause you any trouble.”

Still holding
onto the door handle, Selena stuck her head out, looking past Desley to the
road.

“There’s no one
else. I came by myself.”

Selena stared
at her through puffy, red-rimmed eyes. “You’d better come in then,” she said,
opening the door wide. “Close the door behind you.”

Shedding layers
of clothing as she went, Desley followed Selena inside. An imposing bluestone
open fireplace dominated the spacious cathedral-ceiling room, the heat
generated by the fire enough for a house twice the size.

Selena shambled
across the room, her Ugg boots scuffing the polished floorboards. She turned
and made a sweeping gesture with her arm toward the sage-green loose-covered couch
opposite.

Seating herself
at the end farthest from the fire, Desley dumped her bag and outerwear in a
heap next to her.

Selena remained
standing, her oversized red-and-black sweatshirt hiding any pregnancy bump. “My
mother will be home soon. Please say what you came to say and leave.”

“I’m hoping
it’s more about what you have to say.” Desley shifted forward on her seat. “You
might not realize it, but you could hold the key to finding out what happened
to Ryan and Laura. Don’t you want to know where Ryan is? Isn’t that why you
were at the cottage?”