Decipher (Declan Reede: The Untold Story #3) (10 page)

I drew a deep breath, and forced away the negative thoughts. The positives were growing. Day by day they were gaining strength. I needed to focus on them, that was all. It was easier with Alyssa at my side, but it wasn’t impossible to do it alone. After all, I’d done what I’d set out to do: I’d regained her trust. I’d earned it back despite the odds and the shit we’d faced since.

For a moment, I debated giving Alyssa the ring over the weekend, but it didn’t feel right. The process was supposed to be about getting everything out into the open. Even if there was a positive outcome, the admissions I would make weren’t the sort of things I wanted to associate with the day I asked her to be mine forever.

With one more glance at the ring, I put it back in its box. One day, when the time was right, I would offer it to her. In the meantime, all I could offer was my love. That would be enough; it had to be. It was all she’d asked for, after all.

As the positives that could come from the weekend solidified in my mind, I felt the stress rush from my body. Alyssa trusted me. She loved me. Those truths were all I needed. All I ever would need. I thought back to the moment Ruth had told me she’d left and wanted to laugh at myself for thinking she could be going anywhere but back to my side. How could I ever have doubted her? How could I have thought she’d leave over something as stupid as a few photos and a bunch of bullshit?

I slid the drawer shut and tried to think of something else I could do to distract myself until she came back to me.

CHAPTER ELEVEN: ON TRACK

SUNDAY, I WOKE up to an empty bed and a nightmare that everything I’d experienced had been nothing more than a dream. The thought left me hollow. Empty. My heart raced and my head throbbed as the possibility bounced around my body.

No! Fuck that.

It had to be real. It was too perfect and at the same time too fucked-up for it not to be.

I went to roll over to where Alyssa had slept, to see if the pillow still smelled like the lingering scent of her coconut skin cream, but stopped short. I couldn’t move. It hurt too much. At first, it was the proof my mind needed that it’d all been a fantasy. Maybe I was really in a hospital bed in a coma after the last time I’d hit a wall in my V8.

Then it occurred to me that it was the wrong type of pain for that to be true. It wasn’t the sharp agony of broken bone and torn tissue, but rather a slow, rolling ache. My whole body was stiff and sore. It ached from being overused after too many days of not enough use. I was out of shape. Sure, my muscles were as defined as ever, but clearly I hadn’t used them enough. The more I woke, the more I understood the pain was proof of everything that I’d shared with Phoebe and Alyssa. It was my arms and shoulders that hurt the most, the ache of holding the roller for too long the day before.

The painting hadn’t felt particularly difficult at the time, but it had obviously worked muscles I hadn’t used in a while. It fuelled my desire to spend the day working out in my gym. Maybe I wasn’t driving anymore, but that didn’t mean I shouldn’t keep myself fit, and other than the heavy bedroom sessions Alyssa and I had shared, I’d hardly been keeping up my fitness.

With nothing better to do, I climbed out of bed and headed to the treadmill. Hopefully a workout on that would loosen up my stiff muscles. There was only one way I would have preferred to work myself out, but Alysa was too far away for that.

After I’d completely exhausted myself on the gym equipment, I headed back downstairs to watch the last race in Bahrain.

It was strange watching the sport, and the team I’d been such a big part of for so long, as nothing more than a spectator again. With each lap, I shifted closer to the edge of the couch, until I was barely resting more than an arse-cheek on the suede as I watched Morgan and Hunter race practically door-to-door around most of the track. Red and blue dancing over the track, the way the fans loved it. The rivalry between them was as strong as ever.

“Are you fucking blind?” I shouted at the track officials as Hunter dived in front of Morgan, cutting him off in a barely legal move. He braked late, cut the corners too hard, and rode the chicanes. They were the actions of a lunatic, someone who gave less than zero shits about the car, the team, or the other drivers.

Along the next straight, Morgan caught him again. Sinclair had the power, even if Hunter had the crazy. My heart was in my throat as I said a thousand silent prayers for Morgan to get up. The championship was so fucking close; a win for Hunter could put him in the lead. My DNF at Bathurst had set Morgan back, but thankfully because I’d taken Hunter out too, he hadn’t gained any ground. Instead, Andersen, the driver in third, had crept up on both of them. Despite everything, I wanted Morgan and Sinclair Racing to win that championship. I felt like Sinclair retaining the championship would in some small way keep me connected to the team—even if I wasn’t part of that team anymore.

The rest of the race was nail-bitingly close and I watched most of it from the edge of the couch. Each time it looked like Hunter was sure to gain a position on Morgan, Morgan managed to pull out a minor miracle. When an incident further back on the track caused a safety car and the leaders came in for their final pit stop, the Sinclair team showed why they were the best on the track, beating every other team’s time by a good half second. The flurry of activity around the car in the seconds Morgan was in the pits made me miss the race almost as much as watching him loop around the track did.

I counted the seconds while they were filling the fuel and worked out roughly how many litres they must have put in. It didn’t seem quite enough, which meant Morgan must have had a little in reserve already. I could only hope he’d make it. Strategies that they might be running ran through my mind. The sport was part of me. The thrum of the engines echoed in the beat of my heart. Fuck, I missed being out there. How had I sat and passively watched it for so many years? How could I sit on my arse and
not
be in a V8 for the rest of my life?

I missed every aspect of racing; the camaraderie at the track, the feeling of being a part of something greater than myself. It was all stuff I’d taken for granted, stuff I’d ignored, but now I could see it all from the outside and knew just how much I’d lost. Alyssa had told me to check out some job search websites, but that wasn’t what I needed in the end. All it took was a day watching what I loved to know that the job I wanted was there. I didn’t care
what
I was doing, but I wanted to do something on a team. Something important. Something that meant something bigger than me. Just like I had for the last four years. 

After watching Morgan claim the chequered flag, I turned off the TV and flicked Eden a text to congratulate her. Because of the time difference between Bahrain and Australia, the race wasn’t broadcast live, so I figured she would probably already be half-tanked celebrating, but it didn’t matter. At least she’d know I watched the race. Know I was happy for her, for Morgan, and even for Danny, despite what happened.

Five minutes later, my phone rang.

“I didn’t think you’d watch us,” Eden slurred down the line. She was more than half-cut. In fact, she was probably well on her way to shitfaced. The team must have retreated to one of the hotel rooms because drinking in public wasn’t exactly allowed. Especially not for an unmarried woman out with a bunch of blokes.

“Of course I watched it, Edie. I wanted to see Morg wipe the floor with that fucker, Hunter.”

“Except next year, that arsehole Hunter Blake will be a Sinclair man and they’ll be teammates.” Eden held nothing back when it came to showing her distaste for the bloke who would be driving what should have been my car.

I scoffed. “Maybe he’ll have the Sinclair colours on his car, but he’ll never be a Sinclair man. And Morg will still wipe the floor with his arse.”

“I know. I wish it was you still on the track. You may have been a manwhore and an arse, but at least you weren’t a lunatic.”

I laughed. Eden always had an eloquent way of speaking the unfettered truth. “Thanks for the compliment.”

“How are you going, anyway?” she asked. It was clear she meant without Alyssa.

“Well, I haven’t started twisting the noose just yet.”

“That’s not funny, Declan. I’m worried about you.”

“I know, Edie. I’m worried about me too. I have no idea what to do with myself now. I mean, ‘disgraced V8 driver’ hardly makes a winning resume when it’s the only thing on there.”

“Maybe you should take Wood’s offer?”

“I don’t even know if it’s still on the table. Even if it is though, I told you I don’t want to race for her.”

“Maybe another team will want you after the shuffle Hunter’s move will cause has settled down.”

“Maybe.” I wasn’t sure if she could hear the doubt in my voice, but I didn’t know that I wanted to race for another team. If I did, I’d always have the shit that went down with Danny hanging over my head. “I already know the team I really want to be with doesn’t want me though.”

“Well, if you’re not going to drive you should at least try to get into something around the track.” Alyssa had been right about Eden knowing what I could do. Not that I hadn’t already thought of it, but it was nice knowing that I was at least on the right track and someone else had faith I could slip into another role.

“Maybe.” But what? “Why don’t you keep your ear to the ground? I know you know about these things long before they become public. Perhaps you can point me in the direction of someone willing to take a chance on someone who used to matter.”

“You still matter, Dec.”

“You know what I mean.” I wanted to move the conversation on. Move it away from the uncomfortable topic of what I’d lost. “How’s Morg? He must be pretty stoked to have those extra championship points under his belt.”

The statement was enough to draw the conversation away from me, just like I knew it would. For the next twenty minutes, I heard everything about every corner of the race and had a pit-side play-by-play of the session. There was so much that I’d missed only being able to watch it on TV. One day, I’d get trackside again, even if I had to beg for Eden to issue me a pit pass for the day out of pity.

CHAPTER TWELVE: CLEAN OUT

MONDAY CAME AND went in a blur. First I had my next face-to-face appointment with Dr. Henrikson, where we started to delve into greater depths of why I had been crashing, and he offered his own version of career advice. It didn’t clear anything up, but left me feeling like I could actually do anything I put my mind to. Near the end of the session, I told him about Alyssa’s planned weekend, and he was supportive of her suggestion.

A weekend where no question was off limits and where we would confront our past—our demons—with no one else around to interrupt. It was going to be hard, and with each minute that drew it closer, the realisation of what we’d really be doing struck me with more intensity than ever. We’d agreed to ask anything that was on our mind and in return we would tell each other
exactly
what we felt. I braced myself for a weekend of agony. The bittersweet agony that only Alyssa could deliver to me. I just hoped that nothing I admitted was bad enough for her to change her mind about our life together.

“You need to work these things out together,” the doc told me. “To plan a way to deal with issues as they arise. Ideally, I’d still like you to consider couples’ therapy, but for now keeping open and clear lines of communication will only help.”

Despite being put out by his continued push for couples’ counselling, it was the confirmation I needed that the weekend might not be a bad idea. After confirming my next appointment date—we’d decided to maximise my visits before the end of the year to get the most benefit out of the Medicare arrangements—I headed back to my car, flipping the bird to the now-familiar faces of the paparazzi as I went. I might have been trying to keep my nose clean, but that didn’t mean I needed to be a goddamned saint. 

In a wave of vigour after I got home, I dismantled my whole study and rearranged it according to some article I found online about
feng shui
. Apparently the whole area was set up in a way that made wealth and prosperity flow out of the door.

Even though it had occurred to me that there were probably better things to spend my time on, my fear of what I could expect from the weekend struck me motionless.

While I tried to keep positive, I tried to prepare myself too. It was possible that once everything was laid bare, Alyssa might choose not to move in with me. She might decide I was just too fucked-up, that I’d screwed up too often. Regardless, I owed it to her to get everything out on the table. The thoughts that spun around my head were too confusing. Too reckless and dangerous. They risked rendering me totally immobile.

It was far better to distract myself with busy work and try to keep my mind off everything until it came time to pick her up. I couldn’t face the daily grind as worries about what questions Alyssa might have lurking danced around my head. What would she want to know? Would I be able to be completely honest?

Would she kick me out the instant she learned the truths buried in my past?

Fuck.

Turning back to my tasks and away from the deadly thoughts, I swung my desk around to face the door. Once more I debated whether maybe it was worthwhile to take the ring, but I talked myself out of it. Did I really want our engagement tainted with my past if she said yes? Worse, what if she said no? What if the things I said turned a yes into a no? How would I be able to pretend everything was hunky-fucking-dory if that happened?

When I finished the office, I decided I might try to redo the whole house. It was only after I’d emptied out half the contents of the linen closet that I’d decided that maybe, just maybe, I’d gone stark raving mad purely because I was alone and had nothing better to do. I shoved everything back into the cupboard and moved back to my gym to do a couple of hours on the bike.

Around three in the afternoon, my mobile phone rang. The display showed a Brisbane number, but not one I was familiar with.

“Hello?”

“Hello, son.”

My teeth clenched and my lips curled up into a snarl at the sound of Dad’s voice. “What do you want?”

“Is that any way to speak to your father?”

“Father?” I snorted. “You haven’t been my fucking father since you decided it was more important to get your dick wet than look after your family. Your wife.”

“Declan, that’s not fair. You don’t understand what it’s like to have your dreams snatched away from you. To live with the festering regret over decisions you made.”

His words turned my stomach. That was me he was talking about. I’d snatched his dreams away. Sure, he might have blamed Mum, but I was the cause of the regret that had festered until he believed he had no other choice but to cheat again and again. That thought made it hard to feel even remotely charitable toward him.

“Fuck off,” I said. “I know exactly how that feels. That’s been my life for the last four fucking years because of the doubt you forced into my fucking head. If you hadn’t had your own fucking head up your own fucking arse so much, you might have seen how much I suffered being away from Alyssa. How good we were together. You would have fucking tried to help us find a solution to our issues and told me about the twins. You would have been a fucking parent. I’ve lost my fucking racing career, and I’ll give you the hot tip: even though it sucks, it doesn’t suck half as much as having to say goodbye to Lys did.”

“I’m not going to get into an argument about this.” He sounded tired, but that didn’t make me feel sorry for him. 

“Good, because there is no argument. There’s no way I’m willing to bend. Get to your point, ’cause I’ve got shit to do.”

“I need to know where your mother moved the money she stole from our bank account.”

I scoffed. “Good luck with that.”

“You’ll tell me, or I’ll get the police involved.”

If he wasn’t so pathetic, I would have laughed at the pointless threat. Mum was an authorised signatory on the account so she hadn’t legally done anything wrong. “What does it matter? It’s not like you don’t have other money.”

“That’s not the point.”

“Of course it is. You’ve spent years donating all your money to your little whore, buying her houses and financing whatever fucking lifestyle the two of you have been living, and Mum’s been at home managing the rest of the finances. Anything she saved up in that account is rightfully hers.” 

“I need that money.”

“Why? It’s not like you don’t earn enough at the bank.”

There was silence on the other end that said more than his words ever could.

“Unless you lost your job, of course,” I taunted. A smile danced on my lips at the thought that he’d been served his just desserts.

Again the silence was deafening.

“Let me guess . . . your bosses found out you were porking your secretary and weren’t impressed?”

“That article you inspired has caused me nothing but grief.”

“Yeah, well, that’s the price you pay for letting your little whore open her mouth to try to ruin me, isn’t it?” The justice in the situation settled over me like a comfortable blanket.

“If you’d just stopped and listened to me, she wouldn’t have been forced to resort to those measures. I would never have allowed her to speak to that reporter.”

“Allowed?” I scoffed. “I knew Hayley in school and I doubt she would have stopped just because you asked her to. She saw her chance at her fifteen minutes of fame and took it. I doubt you could have talked her out of it.”

“If you hadn’t attacked us, she never would have—”

“Are you fucking kidding?” I snapped to shut him up. “Stop blaming everyone else for your fuck-ups.” It was something I’d done for so long, and now I could see I’d learned it from the best. Only, I was trying to get better where he just wanted to keep on fucking up. “You have to own them or you’ll never be able to move on.”

“Don’t you dare try to give me advice! You’re nothing more than a boy!”

“Yeah, well, I’m a boy who’s hanging up on your arse. Don’t call me again, or
I’ll
get the police involved.”

My hands shook as I pressed the End Call button. For so many years, I’d idolised my father. I’d looked up to him and wanted to fulfil my dream of racing so that he could live his dream too, albeit vicariously through me. Now I could see I’d lived in the shadow of his regret all my life, and the bastard had let me. In fact, he’d revelled it in, letting me worship him as a fucking hero.

Fuck him.

Fuck him and fuck his mistress. They could have each other. They fucking deserved each other. They could live in their twisted world where everything was everyone else’s fault. Their eventual self-destruction seemed almost inevitable.

If only there was some way I could truly make them pay. Them and everyone else who was involved in the article that had cost me so much. That had stolen my job, and could have easily cost me Alyssa and Phoebe as well. At least karma was coming to get Dad and Hayley. I’d just have to give it a helping hand with Blake and Darcy Cooper, Paige Wood, and T—whoever the fuck she was.

Driven by the need to do something, I booted up my computer and loaded up the
Gossip Weekly Online
website. Thankfully, because I’d stayed locked away, I’d given the paps out the front of my house nothing to use, so I was no longer on the home page. Now, the top story was about Australia’s soapie princess, Katie Medler, shacking up with some fucking Yank singer. Why the public needed to know the details of her sex life was fucking beyond me. Ignoring the current stories, I searched for my name on the site.

In addition to the articles I’d expected: the one with Christina, the “attack” from the beach, the teaser to the eight-page scandal in the printed magazine, and details of the almost-threesome in the nightclub with Tillie and her girlfriend, there were at least thirty other articles. Many were from days and nights I’d rather forget. Times I’d have to tell Alyssa about on our weekend.

Forcing the memories from my mind, I focused on the latest scandals, trying to get any information I could about the elusive T who was making my life hell. The last three articles on me, from the nightclub onward, all had the same byline credit:
By: Miss M. (Photos by W.T. Entertainment)
.

Following the lead, I searched W.T. Entertainment, but when I got to their website it was just bare bones. There were no details about who T might be, just a series of photos of various celebrities they’d hunted. Photos of me from the beginning of my career right up to date were splashed around the page together with some of Morgan, Hunter Blake, and a few of the other drivers. Intermixed with the ProV8 drivers were a number of traditional TV and radio celebrities.

One thing was clear: this W.T. Entertainment seemed to have a heavier focus on the ProV8 series than any normal paparazzi group would. There was a connection there, somewhere just out of my grasp. Once I found that connection, I’d know why T was in league with Paige Wood and how to deal with them both for trying to ruin me.

My heart leapt into my throat as a potential lead crossed my mind. There
was
a woman with a name starting with T who popped up far too regularly to be a mere coincidence.

My mind wandered back to the night in the club, and the magazine cover that followed. My face was clear in all of the photos, but the faces of my two female accomplices had been obscured. At the time, I’d thought nothing of it because, although they were in the VIP room, I hadn’t recognised them. I’d assumed that, unlike me, their faces weren’t going to sell any magazines. It had never once crossed my mind that they’d been blurred because of who they were.

Could Tillie from the club be T?

My mouth went dry at the thought. I had no idea how to even start looking to confirm my suspicion or where I could turn for more information. Hadn’t she told Alyssa she was in publishing?

I was focused on the computer, scrolling through a number of websites trying to get ownership or employee information for W.T. Entertainment, when my phone rang. It yanked me from my search and sent my heart racing for a second until I placed the noise.

When Alyssa’s voice greeted me, I couldn’t help myself.

The possibility of T’s identity came flooding from me. Before I’d thought the words through, everything spilled from my mouth. The fact that she was at the club when the photographer captured that moment. The fact that she was miraculously at the airport on my way home. Her appearance at the benefit—and the fact that she’d had plenty of opportunity to spike my drink, either over dinner or when she came to get me to sign her T-shirt. I paced around my living room as I spoke, unable to keep still with the nerves coursing through my body over the fact that I might have a lead.

For a moment, Alyssa was quiet. The silence seemed more deathly than shocked as her breathing sped.

“Lys?” I asked, wondering what the fuck could be wrong. Was it the realisation that we might have both been played?

When she finally spoke, her voice was tight. Controlled. As if she were trying to stop her tears. “She was one of the girls from the nightclub?”

Fuck!
It’d completely slipped my mind that I hadn’t told Alyssa the full details of the history between Tillie and me. I couldn’t answer her, mostly because I didn’t know what words would make it better, but I had no doubt my silence spoke volumes.