Sleight Malice (8 page)

“Tell me,” he
demanded. “Tell me what’s happened.”

She shook him
off, rubbing her arms where his fingers had dug in as she stepped out of his
reach. Either he had honed his acting skills or he genuinely didn’t know. But
then again he had always been a convincing liar.

“I don’t know
how bad she is, Trent, but Selena’s in The Alfred with head injuries and
suspected concussion. We think someone hit her over the back of the head. You
should be with her—”

“Good news,”
Fergus said, walking in from the hall. “The scans were clear. Ms Papa is
conscious and out of immediate danger. They’ll be keeping her under observation
for a day or two, though.” He stopped beside Desley, nodding at Trent. “And
you’ll be happy to know, Trent Junior doesn’t seem to have suffered any ill
effects from the trauma.”

For a few long
seconds, Desley couldn’t breathe in or out. Looking at Trent, she watched his
Adam’s apple bob up and down, saw the torment in his eyes and immediately
understood. He bowed his head, averting his gaze.

“Oh God,
Trent,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry.” She knew how much he had wanted
children. After all, they had tried for over three years themselves without
success, only giving up when fertility tests showed Trent could never father a
child. The news had crushed him and he had never really fully recovered. It had
marked the beginning of the end of their marriage. No matter how hard she tried
to convince him it didn’t change how she felt about him, he wouldn’t believe her.
Perhaps womanizing had been his way of proving to himself that he was still a
man.

Fergus gave her
a strange look. Glad he was there but hoping he wouldn’t interfere, she
acknowledged his presence with a raised hand. He nodded and moved back.

She took a step
toward Trent, her hand outstretched. “Do you want to talk about it?”

He shook his
head, not looking up.

“Do you want to
see Selena?” she asked, not knowing what else to say. “Would you like me to
drive you to the hospital?”

Another
headshake, a flop of blond hair hiding his eyes.

“I need to make
a phone call,” Fergus said, his voice unnaturally loud. “I’ll just be outside
if you need me.”

Glancing over
her shoulder at him, she mouthed a thanks. With Fergus out of earshot, Trent
might be more inclined to open up.

“Wanker,” Trent
muttered.

“Pardon?” she
said, hoping she had misheard.

He lifted his
head, his dejected expression hardening into a bitter mask. “Your new playmate
trying to play the big man.”

She glared at
him, any compassion she might have felt for him dissolving. “Why do I bother?
Whenever someone tries to help, you lash out at them. You really are your own
worst enemy.”

His face
slackened, his eyes and mouth droopy in self-pity. Before she could stop him,
he grabbed her hands, clutching them to his chest. “Please, Des…”

She wrenched
her hands from his grip. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

He hung his
head without answering, the grain pattern in the wooden floorboards evidently
more compelling.

“What is it you
want from me, Trent? I gave you everything I had when we were married. I don’t
have anything left to give.”

“We all make
mistakes.”

She sighed. How
many times did they have to go through this charade? “Yes, but some of us learn
from ours.”

“I can change,
Des,” he said advancing toward her. “Let me prove it to you.”

She backed
away, her hands palm out in front of her. “No. You can’t come running to me
every time something goes wrong in your life.”

He scratched
his stubbly chin, surveying her face.

“Now,” she
said, “do you want that lift to the hospital or not?”

“She told me it
was mine, but you and I both know that’s impossible. She’s carrying another
man’s baby, Des.”

So neither
of them had been honest with the other
, Desley
thought. Trent had obviously neglected to mention the small matter of his
infertility when he asked Selena to marry him. She in return had cheated on him
and tried to pass off the resulting pregnancy as his. Like attracting like?

“Whose is it,
then, Trent?”

He blew out a
mouthful of air and wiped a hand across his mouth. “I need a drink.”

Following him
into the living room, she realized not only had he broken into her house, he
had helped himself to her liquor cabinet; not that a half bottle of Cointreau,
a liter of duty-free Bombay Sapphire gin and a bottle of Johnny Walker Black
Label – a gift from a client – constituted a bar. He upended what was left of
the whisky into his glass.

“Don’t worry,
I’ll replace it,” he said, waving a hand over the empty bottle.

She stayed
standing as he flopped down onto the red leather couch, slinging one arm across
the back.

“Who’s the
father of my fiancée’s baby, you ask? Well…” He paused, throwing back half the
contents of the glass in one gulp. “I have my suspicions. Bastard takes what he
wants, when he wants.”

Sounded vaguely
familiar.

“Don’t look at
me like that. I’m nothing like Ryan Moore.”

“…Laura’s Ryan…” Fergus heard
Desley say as he returned to the living room.

He loitered in
the doorway for a moment. Desley stood less than two meters away from him with
one foot and her body angled toward the door, her head turned to the right. Her
ex-husband lounged across her red couch as if he owned the place, his stocking
feet crossed at the ankles on the giant dice coffee table. Neither noticed him.

“Yep, one and the
sa—” Trent spotted him, his eyes narrowing.

Desley followed
his gaze. “How much did you hear?”

“Enough,”
Fergus said, his voice gruff, implying he knew more than he did. He really had
no idea what they had been talking about except it involved one of the missing
couple. “Didn’t you know obstructing a police investigation is a criminal
offence?”

Desley’s
eyebrows arched. “I’ve only just found out myself. Besides, you can’t seriously
think Trent has anything to do with what’s happened.”

“It doesn’t
matter what I think—”

“Hallelujah!”
Trent dropped his feet off the coffee table and sat up, flicking the air with
his hand. “Now be a good boy and run along home. Des and I have things to talk
about.”

Fergus snorted.
No more Mr Nice Guy
, he thought. “I bet.” Turning to Desley, he said,
“Ask him where he was the night of the fire.”

“She doesn't
need to. Des knows I was right here,” Trent said, patting the leather beside
him, “sleeping on this very couch.”

Desley’s face
blanched. She tried to conceal her surprise, but not before Fergus saw it. He
felt her tension, sensed the internal debate raging behind those dark-lashed
hazel eyes. Loyalty or truth?

“Like you were
earlier today.” Fergus couldn’t help himself. He had to make her see her ex for
what he really was. “Right, Trent?”

Trent rolled
his eyes.

“What’s going
on?” Desley asked, her voice barely above a whisper. “What haven’t you told
me?”

Trent propped
his feet back up on the coffee table, and crossed his arms. “As I said, get rid
of him and we’ll talk.”

“No, Trent.”
She shoved his feet onto the floor, the dismay on his face gratifying Fergus no
end. “Whatever you have to say, you can say in front of Fergus. I’ve had enough
of your games.”

Silence.

“I’m waiting.”

“All right, all
right. I told the cops I spent the night here. No harm done.”

“You expect me
to lie to the police?”

Trent scraped
his fingers through his tousled blond locks. “You have to understand, I had to
do something to get them off my back. They weren’t going to let up until they
either had a confession or an alibi.”

“And what about
the truth? Did that even cross your mind?” Desley tapped her forehead with such
ferocity Fergus feared she would leave a dent. “You’ve implicated me in
something I want no part in,” she continued. “How dare you.”

Fergus watched,
bemused as Desley continued to berate her insolent git of an ex-husband. He
half-expected claws to spring from the end of her fingertips. He didn’t feel
one iota of sympathy for the man. It had obviously been a long time coming.

“A man is dead,
Laura and Ryan are missing and all you’re worried about is copping a bit of
flak from the police. If you don’t tell them about Selena’s fling or whatever
it was with Ryan, I will.”

“What? And give
them more ammunition?”

Desley threw
her hands up in the air. “Tell him, Fergus…”

He started to
call him mate and stopped himself. Trent gave him a baleful stare. Regardless
of what he said, Fergus knew it wouldn’t make the slightest difference to
Trent. The man clearly resented what he perceived as nothing more than meddling
interference from Fergus. That and old-fashioned jealousy, of course.

“If you’ve done
nothing wrong, you have nothing to worry about,” Fergus said, giving him the
old dutiful line. “All false alibis and concealing information do is make you
look more suspicious in the eyes of the law. Come clean while you can.” He
might as well have been speaking to a mannequin for all the good it did. “If
Desley means anything to you at all,” he continued, “you wouldn’t do this to
her.”

Trent downed
what was left of his whisky and stood up. “Are you quite finished?”

“I have but you
haven’t. DI Grant Buchanan is on his way over now. You can stay and talk to him
like the responsible person you are or you could walk away, leaving Desley to
fight your battles. Your choice.”

Trent grimaced
at Fergus, his lips parting as if he were about to say something. Then, without
a word, he marched off in the opposite direction of the front door.

Desley gave a
gentle sigh. “Thanks, Fergus. Alcohol makes him belligerent.”

He raised an
eyebrow.

“But I’m not
making excuses for him,” she quickly added.

A toilet
flushed somewhere down the hall. Then Trent reappeared, still in the throes of
zipping up his fly. “Coffee, white with three, if I’m going to face the
interrogation squad,” he said to Desley. “Can’t have them accusing me of being
half-cut on top of everything else, can I?”

She glanced at
him as he flopped back on the couch, but said nothing, continuing to clear the
empty Johnny Walker bottle and dirty glass from the coffee table.

Fergus followed
her into the kitchen. “I’ll make it if you like.”

She switched
the espresso machine on to heat.

“I promise not
to put cyanide in it,” he added. “You can supervise.”

A tiny smile
tweaked the corners of her mouth. His heart lifted at the breakthrough, small
as it was. The disappearance of her best friend seemed to have sucked the life
out of the vivacious woman he’d first met. Not that it wasn’t perfectly
understandable. Having an ex-husband like Trent could only add to her burden.

She handed him
the tin of ground coffee, a mischievous glint lighting her eyes. “Cyanide.”

He laughed.
“One or two scoops?”

The doorbell
rang, wiping the smile from her face. “That’ll be the KGB,” she said in an
obvious reference to Trent’s ‘interrogation squad’ comment.

Perfect
timing as usual
, he thought as Desley left to
answer the door. Why was it that every time he felt he was finally starting to
get to know her, something or someone would intervene? Opening the dishwasher
to look for extra cups, he realized he knew his way around her kitchen a lot
better than he knew her. Having an ex-husband lurking in the background hadn’t
surprised him, the idea Trent still held so much power over her did.

Hearing Grant
Buchanan’s gravelly voice and Kim Mitchell’s more dulcet tones in the hall, he
was reminded of the way Desley had refused to be intimidated by the detectives.
Not that he would have ever said it to her face, but she came across as having
balls: a strong-willed woman who knew her own mind and stood up for her beliefs.
So what was it with her ex, then? Emotional blackmail of some sort?

He heard Desley
offer the detectives coffee.

“Thank you, but
we need a few words with Mr James first. Where is he?” Grant rounded the
corner, his eyes creasing in wry amusement. “You have your PI well-trained—”

“And I do party
tricks, too,” Fergus interjected. “White and strong? Like your men, if I
remember correctly.”

Incomprehension
fleeted across Desley’s face, followed by realization. She blushed, looking
everywhere but at Grant.

Fergus almost
laughed out loud. What was it about gay men that attracted women? In Grant’s
case, it certainly wasn’t his sensitive side. If the macho detective had one,
it wasn’t evident.