Brittle Shadows (30 page)

“It would help
if I knew what I’m supposedly not denying.”

“All the phone
calls to my mobile in the middle of the night, the hang ups, that’s what.”

“I still have
no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t play
games with me, Marcus. The police have traced them back to your home phone.”

Bewilderment
flashed across his face and then hardened into indignation. “Bullshit. Do you
really think I would waste my time making prank calls?”

“Well, someone
in your household is.”

Marcus’s eyes
narrowed, a deep V forming between his brows. “That can’t be. I know you and my
wife aren’t on the best of terms, but…” He shook his head. “If you’re talking
about the last couple of nights, there’s no way it could have been Danielle.
I’m a light sleeper. I would’ve known if she got up for any reason.”

“Are you sure about
that?”

“Of course I
am.” Marcus stood. “Now, if you’re quite finished with the wild accusations, I
have better things to do with my time. Take my advice, Jemma. Go home. You
might not care about your life, but your aunt does. Remember, you’re all the
family she has left.”

“Before you go,
will you answer one question for me?”

He peered down
his nose at her.

“Did you take
the DVD?”

He held her
gaze for a moment, his lips pressed together in a hard line. She had her
answer.

“And I’m
guessing you’re behind the erased files on Tanya’s laptop, too, right? Why go
to all that trouble? Even if there was information on it you didn’t want made
known, why not just take the whole thing?” Then she recalled the spare set of
cables. “Of course, you can get away with carrying one laptop. Two looks more
conspicuous, more likely to be remembered by anyone seeing you.”

He strode off
with neither a word nor a backward glance, crossing the tram lines just as a
clanging of bells announced the arrival of a tram. By the time it pulled away,
Marcus had disappeared from sight.

All along she
had been distrustful of Marcus and with good reason, but maybe not the right
reason. If he wasn’t the one behind the phone calls, then it had to be either
his wife or his son. Jemma’s thoughts took a sudden detour. How far would a
jealous wife go to protect her marriage? What had Ash said? The longer Danielle
stayed married to Marcus, the more she stood to gain? She had suspected Tanya
of having an affair with her husband, but how would she have reacted to her
husband’s infidelity with another man?

Jemma gave her
head a sharp shake. Crank calls were one thing, but murder was something else
altogether. Besides, it would have taken four of Danielle to overpower Sean,
and even then only after one hell of a struggle. Could she have hired someone
to do the job for her? Yes. Would she have hired someone? Jemma didn’t have an
answer.

And what about
Ash? Was his compassionate I’m-here-for-you stance just a charade? Was it all
part of some elaborate ploy to unbalance her? The calls had started the night
she had sought comfort in his arms, clung to him like a sniveling child. Nor
had Marcus leapt to his son’s defense, as he had his wife’s.

A chubby-faced
boy munching on a packet of potato crisps plonked down on the seat next to her,
startling her from her inertia. Hitching the strap of her bag over her
shoulder, she began the trek back to the apartment. Not even noon and it had
already been a long day.

When she spied
Ethan sitting alone in the café she had christened The Lego Place, she knew it
was about to get a lot longer. Before she could lose her nerve, she marched
right in and up to his table. “Is this seat taken?”

He started and
then nodded for her to sit. She did, her back rigid, her hands knotted together
in her lap. For a long moment, neither spoke.

Jemma broke the
silence. “What’s going on, Ethan? One minute, you’re sweeping me off my feet,
the next you’re avoiding me. If you wanted to confuse me, you’ve succeeded.”

“That makes two
of us.”

“What? Now,
you’ve really lost me.”

“Do you make it
a habit to date more than one man at a time?” Ethan asked, his tone accusatory.

She blinked.
“If you’re talking about Ash and Chris, they’re just good friends.”

He leaned back
in his chair, arms crossed. “So you’re not in a relationship?”

“I was, but
Ross and I had a parting of the ways. Anyway, I told you all about that the
other night.”

“And there’s no
one else?”

“No. What’s all
this about?”

“I had a call
from a man purporting to be your boyfriend. He warned me in no uncertain terms
to stay away from you.”

“Did he give a
name?”

“No, and I
didn’t ask. With everything that’s happening in Nic’s life, the last thing I
needed was any more aggro. I just assumed it was the Ross guy you told me
about.”

“I told you,
we’re no longer together.” Why was she explaining herself?

“I know,” Ethan
retorted, “but the thought crossed my mind that maybe that’s not how he saw
it.”

“Even if that
was so, Ross is stuck in a mining camp in the middle of the WA outback. He
doesn’t even know you exist.”

“Well, someone
has taken offence to you and me seeing each other.”

“Yeah, me.” She
thrust her chair back with such force that it teetered on the verge of
toppling. She didn’t care. “The part that really hurts is that you couldn’t
even be bothered to get my side of the story.” Her fingernails cut into her
clenched palms. “Not only that, I reported a break-in two days ago. What have
you done about it? Nothing. A woman died in that apartment, but so long as it’s
not causing you any
aggro
that doesn’t matter.”

His cheeks
flared, his mouth gaping as if she had physically slapped him.

“Don’t bother
getting up.” She stomped off, more angry with herself than anything. One, for
losing her cool and, two, for allowing herself to think there could be anything
beyond a physical attraction between the dishy property manager and herself.
Ash and Chris treated her with more respect than he did.

To find out the
man didn’t possess a backbone came as a shock, though better then than later.
Nevertheless, that didn’t answer the question of who had warned him off. Who
even knew she had been out on a date – date singular – with Ethan? As far as
she knew, only two people: Ash and Fen. Was it possible that Fen had been right
about Ash transferring his affections for Tanya to her?

The ‘Cross Now’
lights flashed. Where was her sister’s brother anyway? She hadn’t heard
anything from him or of him since his showdown with his father. Had anyone?

Jemma sagged against the doorway
and regarded the open-plan apartment, the rumpled sheets and blanket slung over
the back of the couch. How much longer could she camp out there?

With a sigh,
she pushed off from the door and crossed to the dining table. The anonymous
letter lay where she left it, facedown atop the envelope. Still unsure if it
had been a veiled threat or a well-meaning warning, she picked it up and reread
it. “Someone Who Cares,” she said aloud. She hadn’t received another one, nor
had she received any more flowers. Instead the phone calls had started.

She wasn’t one
for coincidences. They had to be somehow connected. Was the same person behind
them all? How did the building’s off-duty security guard stalking her tie in?
Was he working for someone? Who? Had someone paid him to alter the security
logs? Had someone paid or otherwise Ethan to turn a blind eye? With the locks
changed, she had thought she was safe, but now…

She dropped the
letter back onto the table and headed for the kitchen. Maybe she should check
into a hotel for the remainder of her stay in Melbourne. She had the means now.
She poured herself a tall glass of chilled water from the refrigerator, downed
it in three gulps and banged the empty glass down on the bench. Besides, she
didn’t want to be indebted to Marcus for anything. One phone call: that’s all
it would take to organize for the removalists to come in and clear out the
apartment.

Before she
could give it any more thought, the intercom sounded. Ash’s face, his
expression somber, materialized on the monitor. She watched him for a few
moments, her hand wavering over the handset. She had no choice, she had to
trust him. He was family, he was Tanya’s brother. She buzzed him in, darted
across to the door and unsnibbed the lock.

By the time Ash
entered, she was on the far side of the room, standing in front of the
balcony’s glass sliding doors. He shut the door from the corridor with a
backward kick, took two steps and stopped. His clothes looked as if he had
slept in them, his face unshaven.

He took another
faltering step. “Oh God, Jemma, I’m so sorry about my father. I swear I didn’t
know. If I had, I would’ve… I would’ve…” He chopped the air. “Bastards. Both of
them.”

“No argument
from me there,” she said.

Stood mute in
the middle of the floor, he looked so lost and forlorn that she couldn’t help
herself. Leaving her haven by the balcony door, she went to him. “You look like
shit.”

The expression
he had once used on her now raised a feeble smile from him. “Thanks. I feel
it.”

She tugged at
his arm. “Come and sit down.”

He shook his
head. “I can’t stay.”

“What I have to
tell you won’t take long, but I think you should be sitting down, all the
same.”

He dragged a
hand across his eyes and slumped in the nearest armchair, his usual cockiness
all but gone.

She gnawed her
lip, the words in her mouth drying up.

The silence
stretched.

Ash glanced up,
straightening his back as his gaze met hers, as if he were an inattentive
student and she the teacher.

She dropped
onto the couch. “There’s something I think you ought to know, but first I need
you to answer one question for me.”

His Adam’s
apple bobbed up and down, as though he knew what was coming.

“Did you ever
have sex with Tanya?” He opened his mouth, but she cut him off. “This is really
important.”

He frowned.
“No, but not through lack of trying.”

“So the two of
you were never intimate?”

“Only in my
dreams.”

Jemma exhaled
and sat back. “Thank Christ for that.”

His frown
deepened. “Are you going to tell me what this is all about?”

She bit her
already tender bottom lip. How did you tell a man that the woman he had lusted
after was his sister? “The connection you had with Tanya…”

He nodded.

She swallowed.
“There’s a good reason for it. She was your sister—”

Ash leapt to
his feet, his fatigue no longer evident. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

Like father,
like son. Marcus had uttered those same words when Jemma had questioned him
over the paternity of Tanya’s unborn child. “I should have said half-sister.
You have the same father.”

He pummeled his
temples. “No, that’s impossible. You’re lying.”

“I wish I were.
You weren’t the only one kept in the dark all these years.”

“Like a
mushroom you mean,” he muttered under his breath. He sunk back down into his
chair, his hands clamped vice-like on either side of his head. “And all this
time I thought my father wanted me out of the way so he could have Tanya for
himself. God, what sort of sick bastard fucks his own daughter’s fiancé?
Someone ought to castrate the prick.” He dropped his hands. “Excuse my French.
Are you sure? There couldn’t be a mistake?”

“As sure as I
can be without a DNA test.” She related her conversation with Gail to him.
“It’s quite likely that Tanya didn’t even know who her real father was.”

“Oh dear God,
why only now?” Ash’s whole demeanor, not just his face, drooped. “I always
wanted a brother or sister.”

“Do I count?”

He gave her a
hard stare. “Please don’t tell me…” His voice trailed off.

“Hell, no.
Tanya is my half-sister, like she’s yours. I don’t know what that makes us, but
rest assured we’re not genetically related in any way.”

“It’s not that,
it’s just…” He shook his head. “God knows how many other brothers and sisters I
have out there who I don’t know about.”

“Why don’t you
ask Marcus? What do you have to lose? The door to the skeleton cupboard has well
and truly been opened.”

He gave a
half-laugh-half-grunt. “You don’t say.”

“Did you post
that video on YouTube?”

“As much as I
would like to take the credit for that, I can’t. But I would like to shake the
hand of the person who did.”

“He’s still
your father.”

“Unfortunately.”

“At least you
have one.”

He grimaced.
“Sorry. Now taking foot out of mouth,” he said, miming the action.