Artistic License (22 page)

A reluctant smile crossed Mick’s face.

“Well, it’s always useful to have a Plan B.”

They were crossing the driveway into the station when Mick heard his name called. He turned to see Sophy’s father getting out of the cab of a recent-model ute. Gregory caught up with them and shook hands with both men, acknowledging the introduction to Sean with a quick dip of the head before his gaze tracked back to Mick.

“Are you here to find out what you can about the piece of shit who put his hands on my daughter?” he asked bluntly.

Gone was the amiable, distracted man of their lunch at the winery. Vengeance, thy name is an outraged father.

“I’m here to make a statement to the lead detective,” Mick said, holding his gaze squarely. “He won’t get away with it, Gregory. I promise you that.”

“No, he bloody won’t.” Gregory’s eyes narrowed. “Obviously we can’t interfere in a police investigation.”

“Not if we want the case to go our way in court, no.”

“But I imagine there’s nothing to stop a couple of…interested citizens with the ways and means of doing a little background research to then pass that information on through the official channels.”

Sean was smiling.

“No,” said Mick evenly. “I don’t imagine that there is.”

“Right.” Gregory gestured toward the sliding glass doors. “Then lay on, Macduff.”

***

Sophy set her chisel and mallet down on the floor with infinite care and got slowly to her feet. Absently, she pulled off her gloves, shaking loose a shower of stone dust.

“Dale,” she said quietly. “Of course it’s okay. Come on in.”

Dale came further into the workroom, still moving almost hesitantly, nearly unrecognisable without his characteristic cockiness. He looked very tired as he shoved a restless hand through his hair, dishevelling it into further peaks and waves. Having mastered the initial greeting and made it over the threshold, he didn’t seem to know quite what to do or say next.

Equally at a loss, she watched him prowl the perimeter of the room, apparently finding immense interest in the smaller pieces of completed work and the merest scraps of extraneous materials.

Coming to a stop, his shoulders hunching with a deep breath, he seemed to notice the half-formed Hades for the first time. He had initially avoided looking that way, as if it was somehow impolite to examine an incomplete sculpture, like walking in on someone in the process of dressing. His eyes were fixed on the carved features, their unmistakable familiarity.

His attempt at speech died in his throat.

They stood in fraught silence for some minutes, Sophy feeling almost desperately uncomfortable.

“I just saw Melissa.” Dale spoke abruptly, a fraction too loudly. “She told me what happened last night. Are you – are you sure that you’re all right?”

“I’m fine,” said Sophy, more in deference to social norms than because it was true. She wasn’t entirely fine, not yet anyway, but it would be both irrelevant and perhaps cruel to go into the reasons with Dale. “We’re going to the police station to give a statement this afternoon.” She paused. “Um. I mentioned to the officer last night about the…the gifts that I’ve been receiving.”

She was still hoping, even then, that Dale would look genuinely perplexed by the reference.

Instead a mottled shade of crimson crept up under his skin. He didn’t bother to dissemble.

“God, I’m sorry, Sophy,” he said, and sounded genuinely embarrassed. He scuffed one foot hard against the wooden floorboards. “I didn’t mean to freak you out. I just – didn’t think. I had no idea.”

No. Sophy didn’t reply, torn between pity for his discomfort and exasperation. It wouldn’t occur to Dale that a stunt like that, however well-intentioned, might be a little unsettling, particularly given what had happened at the exhibition. He had always had a mind and tongue like a whip and a sensitivity tank running on empty.

“I don’t really get…” she began, and he reddened even further. He looked even more like a bashful schoolboy now. He had been a year behind Melissa at university; Sophy sometimes forgot how young he actually was.

“It started off as a joke,” he said. Then as her expression changed irately, he went on hastily, “Not the reason behind it.” He bit his lip. “I’ve had feelings for you for a while.”

Sophy’s fingers plucked frenetically at the sleeve of her light jumper. She found a spot of absorbing interest on the wall behind his ear and examined it in careful, attentive, minute detail.

“Not when I was with Melissa,” he said more firmly, sounding a little more his old self. He winced. “But that made it…a bit awkward,” he added, in a mastery of understatement. “To say the least. I didn’t know how to approach you about it or whether I even should.”

He shouldn’t have. End of story. Melissa was her cousin. They
lived
together, for God’s sake.

She still said nothing, not wanting to make the moment even worse for him.

“Then I got the idea to send you a few anonymous gifts, just sort of jokingly. It was after we watched that programme, remember?”

Sophy stared at him.

“No…”

“It was on TV not that long ago. This guy sent these, like, heart gifts. Anyway.” Dale sounded flustered. “I would never have done it if I’d thought they would scare you. And I didn’t mean for you to get one right after that messed up thing with the bomb. I’d actually put the vase in your office days before that. I guess you just didn’t notice.”

Sophy winced slightly. Maybe she needed to tidy up just a little.

“Did you follow me after work one night?” she asked suddenly.

Dale winced.

“I wasn’t –
following
you. Not exactly. I was meeting a client in town that night, and I saw you leaving work on my way home. I was going to stop and offer you a lift, but all of a sudden you bolted and were gone by the time I turned the car around.”

He looked so miserable that she kept a damper on the scathing retort that came to mind.

“Sophy, I’m sorry. About everything. About the gifts. I thought - I thought you’d like them.”

“I did like them,” she said eventually, some of her irritation with him dying away. The presents had been misguided and poorly timed, but undeniably thoughtful in their choosing. If he did…
like
her, and she was still having a hard time wrapping her head around that, he liked her for who she was. He knew what she would find useful and beautiful. It was difficult to be mad about that. “I couldn’t have chosen better things for myself.”

“But you wouldn’t have chosen to receive them from me,” he said, unemotional now in voice and expression. Only the restless movement of his fingers gave away his tension.

She couldn’t deny it.

“I’m sorry, Dale.”

And she was. To her, comparatively, the whole thing suddenly seemed so very…unimportant. The only part that hurt was the look he was trying to keep from his eyes. She suspected that he might have come here still hoping for the start of something; instead, she rather thought this was the end of a friendship of sorts. They were neither of them the sort who could blithely carry on. He was too proud, still had that core of arrogance, and she lacked the finesse to end the situation gracefully with everyone’s dignity still intact.

They both discovered exactly how graceless she could be when he nodded, just once, and made a move forward. Later, Sophy realised that he had been stepping to avoid her discarded tools. In the moment, her mind and reflexes suffered a flashback to the events of the night before and registered a potential incoming threat. She stumbled back and her heel caught on a jagged crack in the floor. She twisted, her ankle did not, and she went down hard. Dale automatically grabbed for her, but her instinctively flung arms caught hold of a heavier limb. Hades, in all his muscular glory and dead weight, was nevertheless a victim of momentum. The child of Olympus fell.

There were a few seconds of appalled silence after the enormous crash and then doors began to open and voices sounded in the hallway. Sophy lay winded, although thankfully not in the early grips of another asthma attack, despite the horrible similarities of gasping for breath amidst clouds of white dust. For a bizarre moment, she felt no physical sensations at all. She couldn’t even feel the floor beneath her hands. Her brain seemed to be absolutely convinced, however, that her right foot was gone. She would be prepared to swear that it had snapped clean off, as if she was made of detachable Lego bricks or something. She didn’t want to look.

Her eyes stared directly in front of her and into the sightless, broken gaze of Hades. She could vaguely hear the frantic voices of Dale and Don, the hum of interested onlookers in the hall. Raising a trembling hand, Sophy touched the remains of the face she had carved with such care and love, the hints still recognisable here and there of Mick’s features. The work was destroyed beyond repair.

“Sophy? Should we call the ambulance or would it be quicker if I carried you to my car?” Don was asking, and she finally registered the anxious queries.

Ambulance?

Well, yes. She would need to go to the hospital, wouldn’t she, if they had to reattach her foot. She turned at last, stretching her neck to view the leg in question and was vaguely astonished to see that all appendages were intact.

Not pointing in the right direction, but intact.

Oh.

The pain and the nausea hit simultaneously, as if the disgusting sight was all her brain needed to connect the missing wires to her nerves.

“The car,” she managed at last, through gritted teeth. “I’ll go in the car.”

This was
ridiculous
. She was
not
having emergency services summoned on her behalf for the third time in as many weeks. Her photo would end up in a staffroom somewhere.

And this was now officially the worst twenty-four hours of her entire life.

***

It was the same damn hospital room.

At least they’d let her keep her own skirt and blouse for the time being. Sophy lay on the bed with her foot splinted in a temporary cast. They were transferring her to Dunedin tomorrow to see an orthopaedic surgeon, so she was going to have to ride in the ambulance again after all. Unbelievable.

The nurse was plumping her pillows with one hand and holding a thermometer to her ear with the other. It clicked and he took it away to check the reading.

“All good,” he said, smiling at her. “How’s the pain on a scale of one to ten?”

“Five,” said Sophy.

It was at least a six, but she wasn’t ready to take her pain pills yet, not until she’d seen Mick. There were overdue things to be said and she didn’t want to be as high as a kite when she said them.

It had been a reasonably nasty break and a very long few hours. She’d finally managed to get rid of Don and Dale by faking a nap. They had fussed and clucked through every examination and unpleasant procedure. Dale had been particularly bad, apparently suffering severe and misplaced guilt as if he was responsible for her inability to remain safely upright.

“Someone will bring you something to eat soon,” went on the cheery nurse. “In the meantime, is there someone I can call for you?”

“No, that’s okay. Thanks.” Sophy reached for her phone on the bedside table. “I can do it.”

At last. It had been taken off her when she’d arrived and this was the first moment she’d had to herself.

Her thumb moved quickly and unhesitatingly over the screen. The text was brief and to the point.