Thin Blood (6 page)

The pillow on
the daybed where Brett had slept last night still held the indentation of his
head. She gathered up the quilt, hugging it to her chest as she closed her eyes
and inhaled Brett’s musky scent. Tears brimmed in her eyes, spilling down her
cheeks unchecked as she rocked back and forth on the end of the daybed.

The sound of
drawers and cupboards being opened and slammed shut from the far end of the
house quickly brought her back to her senses. Now was no time to be feeling
sorry for herself.

She entered the
bedroom just in time to see Brett throw the contents of his sock basket into
his suitcase.

“What are you
doing?”

“What does it
look like I’m doing?” Brett said, tossing a bundle of shirts on the haphazardly
heaped mountain of clothes on the bed.

“You can’t
leave. Not like this.”

“Why not? You do
as you damned well please, so why can’t I? No one dares get in the way of the
world-wise Jacinta Deller lest they get trampled, do they?”

Ouch!

Biting her
tongue, she swallowed hard, trying to rein in the welter of conflicting
emotions. Couldn’t he understand that she had only been trying to do her job as
a journalist? Besides, it was the information he had given her that had started
it all. Then it clicked. He wasn’t only angry with her, he was angry with
himself for telling her about the Edmonds case in the first place.

Still smarting
from his outburst, but now at least with a modicum of understanding as to why,
she tried reasoning with him. However, he wasn’t in the mood to be reasonable
and her very presence seemed to be more than enough to antagonise him.

Momentarily
defeated and with no energy left to continue the pointless battling, she left
Brett jamming clothes into the open suitcase on the bed.

A short time
later, she heard the front door close, followed soon after by the deep-throated
V8 rumble of Brett’s 1966 Chevrolet Impala as he backed out of the driveway.

The house felt
strangely empty, as if all the life had been sucked out of it, leaving her
sitting in a vacuum. In the heat of the moment they had both said things they
hadn’t meant but that, nevertheless, had cut deeply. Could they ever go back to
what they had before all this happened?

Jacinta shook
her head. Her world had come to an end, and the only person she could blame was
herself. She had been taking risks all her life but none had backfired as
spectacularly as this one. But life, she reassured herself, was full of
gambles. Where would she be if she had always played it safe?

The
picture-perfect scene of a husband and brood of kids standing in front of a
weatherboard cottage, complete with white picket fence, flashed through her
mind. She shuddered, the mere thought incomprehensible.

Later, perhaps;
but for now, she was in charge of her own life and regardless of the mistakes
she made along the way, she had to live it as she saw fit. Logic was all very
well, but logic couldn’t override her feelings for Brett. It had taken him
walking out on her to make her see what her single-mindedness had cost her.

She felt so
alone, and so very tired. Craving the respite sleep would bring, she lay down,
resting her head in the same hollow where Brett’s had once been, and pulled the
quilt up over her body.

For what seemed
like hours, she lay motionless with eyes closed, sleep evading her. Brett’s
words played over and over in her mind. Did she always put herself first,
regardless of the impact on others? She had always thought of herself as
ambitious, but was it possible she had crossed the threshold into mercenariness
without realising it?

Opening her
eyes, she threw the quilt off and sat upright.

No, damn it!
Brett was wrong. Hadn’t she made the decision to drop the story for the sake of
everyone involved? If only he had let her explain, instead of constantly
talking over the top of her.

She conceded she
was no angel, but everyone made mistakes, even him. At least she had made an effort
to understand when he confessed to having a one-night stand while in Sydney,
attending an IT conference. In her eyes, infidelity was a far greater
wrongdoing than passing on information that was on public record anyway. Of
course, that didn’t excuse her own behaviour.

Intent on taking
control rather than playing the poor, misjudged victim, she abandoned the
refuge of the daybed and headed for the bedroom to get changed. The oversized
men’s blue-and-white striped pyjama top she wore had to go.

She was standing
in the walk-in-robe, contemplating what to wear, when she heard her mobile
ringing. For a moment, she considered ignoring it and letting it divert to
voicemail. However, curiosity and the possibility that it might be Brett had
her sprinting for the dining room.

Without time to
check the caller display, she snatched the still-ringing phone from the table,
answering it with a breathless “hello”.

“I’m not
interrupting anything, am I?”

The voice was
familiar, yet unfamiliar. She clamped the phone to her ear, her breathing
slowly returning to normal. “Grace, is that you?”

“At your
service,” cackled Grace. “Had to thank you for that snippet of news…” She
laughed again. “Talking about news, read the newspaper today?”

Forget ghost;
think witch. “Grace, do you really think that was the wisest thing to do?”

“They deserve
everything that’s coming their way, and more,” Grace retorted, her voice
hardening. “You might like to know I also called on the newly-weds.”

Jacinta held her
breath, hoping she really hadn’t heard what she thought she had.

“For some
reason, they weren’t pleased to see me. Craig, the bastard, even threatened to
call the police. What a fucking hypocrite. Can you believe that?”

Yes, she could
believe that. The venom in Grace’s voice had Jacinta more than grateful that
the demented woman wasn’t there in person.

There were
mistakes, and then there were mistakes. If contacting Grace Kevron hadn’t been
bad enough, telling her about the wedding had been disastrous. Surely, if she
had been astute enough, she would have realised that Grace still hadn’t come to
terms with losing her best friend. Maybe Brett was right after all. Maybe her
zealousness was her undoing.

Her suggestion
to Grace that perhaps she should leave the Edmonds to the law was met with more
derision and contempt. Grace then started screaming about blood, bodies,
vengeance and the devil, scaring the hell out of Jacinta.

Could grief do
that to a person? The woman clearly needed psychiatric help of some kind.
Jacinta was way out of her depth and could do nothing except wait and hope that
the tirade would eventually stop.

At least Grace
didn’t know where she lived…

Narelle stared blankly at the
phone. Although she remembered writing down Jacinta Deller’s phone number, she
couldn’t remember where. Closing her eyes, she tried to picture the sequence of
events: answering the phone, scribbling the details of the dinner invitation on
the corner of her deskpad, hanging up, reaching into her…

Snapping her
fingers, she opened her eyes and went in search of her black handbag. Somewhere
in the depths of it was her seldom-used pocket diary, with all the information
from the deskpad neatly transcribed into it.

She had been
remiss in not thanking Jacinta and Brett for Saturday night sooner, but her
good intentions had been lost in the week’s dramas. Grace Kevron’s Sunday
morning visit had left both Craig and Narelle shell-shocked. What had suddenly
awakened the beast, as Narelle liked to think of Grace, after so many years?

The Edmonds
hadn’t recovered from that attack when another bomb exploded in their faces.
Somehow, the press had found out about their marriage, raking up what Narelle
thought was old and buried and mixing it with the new. She couldn’t understand
what anybody had to gain from the seemingly unprovoked attack. None of it made
any sense. How much longer would they have to live with the malicious
insinuations?

Wasn’t it enough
that she had lost her only sister? Wasn’t it enough that her parents had
disowned her because of her involvement with her sister’s husband? Wasn’t it
enough that she would always carry the guilt of the affair? Wasn’t it enough
that she had been implicated in her sister’s disappearance and murder?

Apparently not.

Narelle believed
in Craig. She couldn’t have married him if she hadn’t. She had no answers to
what had happened that fateful night. All she was certain of was that Craig
could not have killed Kirsty. Drunk and passed out on the bed, a full-scale
riot could have been happening in the house and he wouldn’t have known anything
about it. Anything could have happened.

She was sick of
living life as a social hermit, sick of looking over her shoulder.
Sick of
being sick
, she thought suddenly, as a new bout of nausea had her running
for the bathroom. Since Sunday, she had been battling an upset stomach,
spending more time with her head hung over the toilet bowl than not. Craig
hadn’t been sick and it didn’t feel like food poisoning, so she blamed it on
stress.

Some time later,
feeling drained and exhausted, she resurfaced from the bathroom. Like a little
girl lost, she stood in the doorway, looking left, then right. Was stress
playing havoc with her memory as well? What had she been doing? What day was
it?

She wandered
around the house, careful to avoid the windows. Most of the reporters and
photographers who had camped out on the front verge earlier in the week had
given up, but a few determined stragglers remained. She had no idea what they
expected to achieve, and didn’t much care.

Gazing at the
phone, she had a sudden sense of déjà vu, finally recalling that she had been
in the middle of looking for Jacinta’s phone number when her stomach had had
other ideas. With a quiet sigh, she picked up the phone and headed to the
bedroom.

Despite
overindulging, she had really enjoyed the dinner party. Both the food and the
company. Jacinta and she had clicked immediately, nattering away like old
girlfriends. Narelle would’ve relished the chance to get to know her better. As
it was, Jacinta must have thought it extremely rude of her not to have
contacted her already. Sure, she had a good excuse, but how was Jacinta to know
that?

Narelle dug out
her pocket diary from the bottom of her handbag, sat on the edge of the bed and
flicked through blank page after blank page until she came to last Saturday’s
date. Her round handwriting, detailing time, address and phone numbers, spilled
over into Sunday.

Mentally
rehearsing what she was going to say, she dialled Jacinta and Brett’s home
phone number. She forced a smile, hoping to portray a lightness she didn’t
feel. It felt strained and unnatural. The phone rang seven times, then she
heard a click, followed by Jacinta’s cheery tones asking her to leave a
message. Narelle hesitated, reluctant to talk to a machine.

“Umm… Jacinta,
it’s Narelle Cros—”

“Hold on a sec.”
After a series of clicks and squeals, all went quiet. “Sorry about that. I
wasn’t fast enough getting to the phone.”

Narelle
stammered out a few disjointed words, her carefully rehearsed little speech of
thanks in tatters.

“Narelle.”
Jacinta paused. “Is everything okay?”

If the concern
in Jacinta’s voice wasn’t enough, asking her that question was like turning on
a tap.

Narelle opened
her mouth to speak, but what came out sounded something like a cross between a
loud hiccup and a thwarted cough. Uncontrollable, choking sobs followed.

As mortified as
she was, there was nothing she could do to stop it. Struggling to regain her
composure, she dropped the phone onto the bed next to her, and picked up her
pillow. Like some never-ending battle, each time she thought she’d won and was
back in control, she would start bawling again. What was wrong with her? Over
the years she’d become an expert at keeping her emotions in check, so what had
changed?

After what
seemed like an eternity, her sobs weakened to a low snivel. The pillow she had
used to smother her blubbering was sodden. Releasing it into her lap, she took
a deep breath, holding it for a count of ten before slowly exhaling.

The sight of the
neglected phone face-down on the quilt almost set her off again. She swallowed
and picked up the phone, praying that all she would hear was a disconnected
tone. Before it reached her ear, she heard Jacinta’s anxious voice, frantically
calling her name.

Narelle bit down
on her lip, tasting blood. Somehow she managed to speak, blurting out a garbled
apology. Jacinta brushed aside the apology, clearly at that moment more
concerned with Narelle’s welfare than anything else. Before she knew it,
Narelle was giving Jacinta her address.

Knowing that
Jacinta would be there shortly at least gave Narelle the impetus she needed to
pull herself together. Breaking down over the phone had been bad enough. In
person, it could only be more humiliating.

She allowed
herself a few minutes for some yoga stretching and deep breathing, feeling the
benefits almost immediately. Cold water splashed on her face further revived
both body and soul.

Running her
fingers through her hair, she pushed and poked wayward curls into position. A
touch of lip-gloss added some colour to her otherwise washed-out face. She
tried smiling at the sad face in the mirror, but it didn’t reciprocate. She
tried again. The corners of the lips lifted slightly but the eyes remained
impassive.

Even though she
had been expecting it, she jumped when the doorbell rang. With more
purposefulness than she felt, she turned and strode to the front door.
Remembering at the last moment to smile, she flung the door open.