Sleight Malice (2 page)

“Not my place.”
That would be too cozy, too much like how it used to be. Or rather, used to be
before he decided he could do better with the floozy from the office. “Nina’s
should be open,” she said, referring to the café and bar three blocks away.

The corners of
his mouth twitched in the beginnings of a self-satisfied grin. “It’s a date,
then,” he said, angling his elbow in her direction. When she didn’t take it, he
simply shrugged his shoulders as if to say “your loss” and walked off in the
direction of Nina’s.

Keeping up with
his long-legged strides took two of hers to his every one. By the time they
reached the narrow, glass-fronted café, she was breathing hard and despite the
chilly morning, sweating under her layers of clothing.

Unwinding her
scarf, she followed Trent through Nina’s arched doorway. A large Aboriginal
Dreamtime painting in yellow and red ochres dominated one wall, providing the
cozy café’s color scheme. The superheated air inside felt like an oven after
the cold outdoors. She took a deep breath, filling her nostrils with the
tantalizing scent of freshly roasted coffee, and looked around for a vacant
table.

Nina’s was
surprisingly busy with only a couple of tables unoccupied. Desley spotted one
for four near the window looking out to the street. She had begun to wend her
way toward it when she realized Trent was making a beeline for a table she
hadn’t seen, tucked away in a low-lit recess at the rear of the café. With a
little sigh, she backtracked and followed him.

Even dressed
casually in olive-green corduroy trousers and a faded khaki canvas jacket,
Trent drew gazes from almost every woman in the place. No doubt about it, her
broad-shouldered, surfie-blond ex-husband was a good-looking man. And he knew
it.

She peeled off
her heavy wool jacket and slung it across the back of the chair closest to her,
all the while ignoring Trent’s attempts to get her to sit beside him on the
bench behind the glass-topped table.

Trent picked up
the menu. “Have you eaten?”

Closing her
eyes, Desley mentally counted to ten and opened them again. “Trent, this is not
a social outing. Please don’t play games with me. Not today. Order whatever you
want, but the only reason I’m here is so you can fill me in on what you know.”

“Not for my
company, then?”

“Trent!”

“You can’t
blame a man for trying,” he said, his attention wandering back to the menu.

She glared at
him, wishing just for once, he would take her seriously. Didn’t he realize how
grave the situation was? Her best friend’s home had burnt to the ground, she
was missing, her husband was en route somewhere between Sydney and Melbourne,
and an unknown male had been all but cremated.

Fortunately for
Trent, a gangly teenage waiter, dressed from head to toe in black, arrived at
their table. Desley ordered a double-espresso. She then had to bite her tongue,
holding her impatience in check while Trent gave the waiter the runaround.

“Hot chocolate,
please. With marshmallows. On second thoughts, make it a mocha – a mug, if you
have it.” He clasped his hands together on the table in front of him and
smiled. Then just as the waiter turned to walk away, he raised his index
finger. “And a bowl of marshmallows.”

Caffeine,
chocolate and more sugar. Standard fare for Trent perhaps, but she felt queasy
at the mere thought of it. She leaned forward, hung her fingers over the top of
the menu Trent had picked up again and pushed it down. “Okay, mister, no more
delaying tactics. Are you going to tell me what’s going on, or not?”

He looked at
her, but said nothing.

She pushed back
in her chair.

He held up his
hands in mock surrender. “I’ll talk. Just don’t hurt me. I’ll tell you whatever
you want to know.”

She stood up.

He stood up.
“Sorry, Des. You know me…”

Only too
well
, she thought, unhooking her jacket from the
chair. Once upon a time, she had found it beguiling, but she was so over it.
And
him
, she reminded herself.

“Please don’t
go. No more joking around, I promise,” he said, looking suitably contrite.

She looked
toward the door, then at Trent and then back at the door again. Although she
wanted him to think she was ready to walk, in reality she had no choice but to
stay. Who else was going to tell her what she needed to know? The firefighters,
police officers and anyone else who stopped long enough for her to grab their
attention the night before had been less than forthcoming, patronizing her as
if she were a distraught psychiatric patient in need of calming.

They sat down
in unison, he mirroring her movements. Perched on the edge of her seat, her
jacket draped across her knees, she waited for him to speak.

With his palms
pressed together, his fingers pointing in her direction, he looked as if he
were preparing to dive across the table and into her lap. Instead, propped on
his elbows, he leaned forward, crossing the invisible centerline and intruding
on her space.

“The police…”
In an added touch of the dramatic, he raised his head and scanned the room, his
exaggerated actions almost comical. More meerkat than secret agent.

Resisting the
urge to scream, she clenched her teeth together and gave him her
don’t-mess-with-me look. If she could’ve reached down his throat and wrenched
out the words, she would have.

He disregarded
her stern no-nonsense face, hunching even closer to her and dropping his voice
to a conspiratorial whisper. “The police are treating it as a suspicious death.
They’re pretty sure it was arson. Evidence of accelerant, apparently.”

Her jaw
dropped, his words ringing in her head. What conceivable reason could anyone
have to torch the home of two decent law-abiding citizens? Who would want to
harm them? Could it have been a case of mistaken identity or even the wrong
address? Had the man’s death been intentional? Perhaps the arsonist had left it
too late to flee the scene of his crime…

“But whose
death?” she finally managed, her voice little more than a strangled squeak.
“They must know who it is.”

Trent shook his
head. “Not yet as far as I know. From what they told me, identification isn’t
going to be easy. The body is badly charred.”

Desley
shuddered, squeezing her eyes shut, desperate to block the unbidden image of a
blackened, contorted corpse from her mind. “But what I don’t understand is why
the police would be talking to you about it. How did they even know you knew
Laura and Ryan?”

Before he could
reply, the waiter arrived with their order, including a dessert dish piled high
with fluffy pink and white marshmallows. Trent offered them to her first, only
popping two in his own mouth when she shook her head. Her double-espresso
remained untouched in front of her.

“You were about
to say?” she prompted.

He wiped icing
sugar from his fingers and picked up his steaming mug. “The guys at the office
must have told them.” He sipped his mocha.

“Told them
what, Trent?” She was getting nowhere fast. Her interrogation techniques
obviously needed work. “I’m not a mind-reader.”

For a long moment
he said nothing, more intent on loading his mug with as many marshmallows as he
could fit. She cleared her throat. His gaze flicked to her face and away again.

“Ryan had me
fired, Des.”

“Say that
again.”

“It’s true. I
didn’t want to believe it either, but Ryan somehow convinced the directors I
had become a liability. Sure, I had been having a couple of hard months, but I
would’ve come good.” He paused, adding under his breath, “Smarmy bastard.”

That explained
the casual dress and why he wasn’t at work, but not why his colleagues at Geary
and Associates, the advertising agency he worked for – or rather had worked for
– would have pointed the police in his direction. “So what aren’t you telling
me?”

“Nothing much. You
know how it is; we all say things in the heat of the moment that we don’t mean.
It’s only because all this has happened that some people now think I might have
been serious. Honestly, can you see me harming another person?”

That depends
if you’re talking physically or psychologically
,
she thought, remembering the mental pain his deceit had inflicted on her.
“Forget about Ryan for a minute. What about Laura? What’s happened with her?
Where is she?”

Trent started
to shrug, saw her expression and stopped. “Sorry, Des, I’m as much in the dark
as you are. The police weren’t exactly confiding in me.” He cocked his head to
the side, his attempt at an apologetic smile falling flat.

“That’s it?
That’s all you can tell me?” She jumped to her feet, wrapping her scarf around
her neck in a tight knot, almost strangling herself. “Laura and Ryan are
missing, could be in trouble or worse, and you want to play happy families over
coffee,” she shouted down at him, heedless to the curious stares she was
drawing from the café’s other patrons. “You haven’t changed one iota. It’s
always been about you.”

He cringed, red
blotches flaring on his cheeks as if she had physically slapped him.

She struggled
with her jacket, cursing when she couldn’t get her left arm into the sleeve. “I
can’t believe you got me here under false pretences. Damn you, Trent James.
Damn you—”

“Wait. Don’t
go.” He shuffled awkwardly along the bench, leaning to his left as his right
hand fumbled in his trouser pocket. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. It
wasn’t my intention. Here,” he said, presenting her with the business card he
had fished from his pocket. “Talk to this guy. He’s the detective in charge of
the investigation. If anyone knows anything, he will.”

She snatched
the buckled card from his fingers and without a backward glance stormed off.

“Does this mean
I’m forgiven?” he called after her.

Fergus Coleman smiled. Even from a
distance, he easily recognized the woman he had employed to design and build
his website. What Desley James lacked in stature, she more than made up for in
attitude; the shocking pink slashes of color in her short black hair testament
to that. Not to mention the dragonfly tattoo he had glimpsed when she’d bent
forward once, her shirt gaping.

He tooted,
giving her a cheery wave as he drove past and parked on the street outside her
terracotta-colored brick townhouse. Collecting his laptop and camera from the
passenger seat, he stepped out of his almost showroom-new Ford Falcon,
double-checking he had locked it before walking around the back to wait for Desley
on the footpath. In a feeble attempt to prevent what little body heat he had
escaping, he clutched his collar closed around his neck. The bright winter sun
gave only the illusion of warmth.

Desley strode
toward him, head down. He started in her direction, a smile and greeting at the
ready, but before he could do either, she did an abrupt right turn and walked
up her driveway.

He called to
her. “Desley!” he repeated, louder this time as he closed the gap between them.

She looked up,
stared at him, her eyes blank as if she was looking through him, not at him. He
waved a hand through her gaze, trying to break whatever spell she was under.

“Don’t tell me
I have the wrong day.” Although he wasn’t the best of record keepers, he tried
hard to keep his diary in order. “Wasn’t it today we were going to go over the
new templates and discuss what photos you wanted to incorporate?” he asked,
patting the strap of the Nikon camera bag slung over his shoulder.

Recognition
gradually dawned in her eyes. “Fergus!” Her hand flew to her chest. “Oh my God,
I’m so sorry. I didn’t see you there. Yes,” she said in answer to his question.
“Yes, it was today we were scheduled to meet, but something’s…” Her voice
trailed off, her face a conflict of emotions as she averted her gaze.

“Are you okay?”
On impulse he reached out his hand, whipping it back before she had a chance to
notice. What was he thinking? He took half a step back, giving her space, and
offered her an out. “If there’s a problem, we can make it another time. I’m
easy.”

Her head
remained bowed, as if she couldn’t bear to look at him.
I affect some people
that way
, he almost said out loud. Now was not the time for jokes. Feeling
distinctly ill at ease and at a loss to what to do, he stood scratching his jaw
and studied the pale rust-colored concrete at his feet.

He didn’t know
Desley James well enough to know how she would react if he were too forward. Or
for that matter what constituted too forward. But even if she had been a
complete stranger, he would have sensed something serious was amiss. Any sane
person with a trace of sensitivity would have.

Buying himself
thinking time and Desley more time to compose herself, he crouched down and
unzipped his laptop case, fishing in the inside front pocket for the CD of
images he had transferred from his hard drive. She had requested copies of any
photographs he had that might be suitable as a background or sidebar for his
new private investigator services website. Even though he had every electronic,
audio, video and forensic gadget a successful investigator could possibly need,
it had taken more than eight years in the business to convince him he needed a
web presence to remain competitive.