Didn't You Promise (A Bad for You Novel) (15 page)

Chapter Twenty-One

The Mustang cruises around the bend. Hair wraps around the lower half of my face as air swirls over the car. I slow, scanning the road for a break in the trees. The narrow dirt road pokes out amongst gum trees and ferns. The sign is bent and obscured. I turn onto the track, speed now more of a roll. The road opens to the lookout parking lot. I drive up as close to the barricade as I can get without touching the bumper.

The sun bounces off the hood, making the intense blue paintwork shimmer. The ground falls away in front of me, into a deep green plunge. Mountains rise on the other side of the drop, thick with Australian gum trees. Across from the lookout, twisted blackened branches protrude from lush greenery. Life bursting from death, or maybe it’s death penetrating life. I don’t know, all I do know is that last time I came here with Josh, this place was pure and lush.

Now the ravages of brushfire remain—but the landscape is healing. The view somehow more beautiful than before.

I turn off the engine. Pain laps at my edges. I don’t push it away and it doesn’t consume me—we coexist
.
I pop open the glove compartment and scoop up the newspaper tucked inside, opening it along with a new highlight marker. The fifty dollars I left home with mostly went to fuel, but all in all I achieved more than planned.

First, I attended the animal shelter to formally quit, then visited my contact at the Big Sister program and talked about how I can put the situation with my little sister Sandy back together. Lastly, I convinced Selina the manager at Pleasant Views Aged Care Facility where I’ve volunteered for three years, that I am the only person in the world who should be hired to cover the administration officer’s maternity leave position.

It might not be writing articles for
Poise
, but that didn’t matter, it will pay the bills, I love Pleasant Views, and it’s not the long-term plan.

I have a brand new one of those.

I flick to the rental section of the newspaper. Two cockatoos burst squawking from the trees. They soar over my head and into the ravine. My gaze catches in the rearview mirror. A white car rolls to the entrance of the car park. I touch the lid of the marker to my lip and watch the reflection. The car doesn’t drive in, just sits there idling. The breeze ruffles the pages of the newspaper.

My scalp tingles.

I put the paper down and hit a button on the dash. The roof groans then stretches out over my head and thuds closed. I lean over and lock the doors, but I can’t look at the paper now. The car is still there, hood protruding, body obscured.

Who goes to a lookout and doesn’t
look out
?

I start the engine and turn the car around, driving towards the exit. The white car rolls forward, and drives to the lookout, as though this were its intention all the while. I don’t turn my head, but I watch the car go by, and take a mental snapshot of the make and model even if it passes too quickly to catch the license plate.

I take the road out a little faster than I came in. Not even slowing for the wombat sign. The front wheels hit the smoothness of the main road, but I grip the wheel tighter, watching what’s behind me just as much as what’s ahead. I approach the bend. A flash of white fills the mirror just as the Mustang turns the corner.

The white car remains behind me, the entire forty-minute drive home.

Almost
out of sight, illusive,
almost
as though I imagine it all the way.

Chapter Twenty-Two

April

My thighs burn, so do my calves. I drag myself up the final stretch of stairs to my apartment, then set the three bags of groceries attempting to pull my arms off, down on the landing. I fish in my handbag for the keys, rolling my shoulders to regain circulation. Next time I chose an apartment, it will have an elevator. For now, this is what you get for a place to live inner city on my salary. I reclaim the groceries and walk the remaining few feet down the pilling hallway to my front door and lower the bags until they touch the ground. After six weeks of this you’d think I’d develop muscle memory.

Or at the very least work some definition into these aching buns of mine.

I sort through the keys, there’s one for the deadlock and one for the door handle, and I’ll be damned if I ever get them right the first time. I’ll paint one with nail polish when I get inside—after putting away the shopping. Oh, and after finding something in one of these bags to eat before I die. I move to unlock the door first. I’ll probably end up eating the strawberries right out of the punnet, they’ll never even make it to the fridge. I line up the key. The end is a touch wider than it should be, so I swap it for the other.

The door handle twitches.

I freeze, key hovering just in front of the lock. The handle turns—hair by hair—squeaking like in every horror movie I’ve ever seen.

My heart leaps against my ribs.

Not even my parents have the keys to my apartment. I glance behind me, eyeing the stairs. The tarnished steel banister. I could probably slide down it.

I
could probably also break my groin...

The door creaks, opening a crack. I leave the groceries where they are obstructing the threshold, and inch backwards, changing my grip on my keys, and hope a key is pointy enough to inflict some damage. I hope harder that my thrust reflex is strong enough to inflict more than a poke. I hold my armed hand up by my shoulder, pulled back like a spring.

The door opens wide. “Shouldn’t you be big-sistering tonight?”

I stare at the man standing in my doorway. The sleeves of his expensive shirt are rolled meticulously as though someone ironed them that way, his expression filled with the same pompous formality I’ve always known him for. He could be my butler standing there.

Except he’s not my butler.

“Shouldn’t you like—not be in
my
apartment?” I say, dropping my hand to my side instead of clutching it over my breast like an old woman. “But, since you are here uninvited, you can carry these bags in for me.” I step over the shopping and brush past Karim.

I go to the fridge and pull out two colas, cracking one and leaving one on the bench. “Jesus,” I say, then take a breathless gulp. “Where did Haithem find you? At some special recruiting ground in Egypt for people with absolutely no boundaries whatsoever?”

“No, I’ve known Haithem his entire life.” Karim sets the bags down by the fridge in my otherwise furniture free kitchen. “His father was my employer, and my mentor.” He straightens, looking me square in the eye. “Until he was
murdered
.”

I shake off the shudder and hand Karim the soda from the bench. “What are you doing here?”

He doesn’t take it, just inclines his head towards the adjoining living room. “Making a delivery. Thought you might be missing a few things.”

I turn around, walking towards the living area. Boxes occupy the space against the wall next to the second hand blue sofa I picked up on the Internet.

Thickness fills my mouth. All the things Haithem gave me. Everything we left behind that was supposed to make it back to us once we’d settled
together
.

A picture flashes behind my eyes. Of Spain, of Haithem and I and the life which might have been made there.

My throat scrapes. “You couldn’t have called?”

“I don’t have your number,” Karim says behind me.

I snort and glance over my shoulder. “You didn’t have my key either.”

His face betrays not a flicker.

“I’ve been home for nearly two months, living on my own for weeks, why are you bringing me these things now?” I turn from the living room, and my voice hardens. “Why are you really here?”

“The attention surrounding your return needed to resolve before it could be safe to approach you.”

I scan Karim’s hawklike features, not that they’d dare give a thing away. He has a point. As crazy as things have been since I got back, this week I’ve only appeared in one magazine. My stock dropped somewhere over the last fortnight from cover-worthy, to someplace near the back. No paparazzi bother loitering in my street anymore. I’m old news, which is where I’d like to stay.

“Fair enough. Thanks for bringing my things.” I hold more cola in my mouth for a few seconds before swallowing. “I didn’t expect to get any of these things back...”

“Did you think you’d been abandoned?” Karim says, his voice for once, has warmth.

My esophagus burns as though the fizz in my drink eroded its way down. I rub the condensation on the side of the can with my thumb. “You’ll have to excuse me.” I set the can down with a clang on the bench. “I’ve worked all day, Sandy wasn’t well when I went to collect her, and I wasn’t expecting visitors, so I’m just about done with today.”

“Of course.” He pulls an envelope from inside his jacket. “Perhaps this will assist?”

“You can keep that—” I vault backwards, and head for the door.
Always with the freaking envelopes.
“—Or you could try using your words, and tell me what that is?”

His slashing brows lift. “It’s the information for your new job and apartment.”

“What are you talking about?”

“We’d have done this sooner if there wouldn’t have been scrutiny,” he says and sets the envelope on the bench beside my soda. “There’s an internship at the Melbourne branch of one of our companies.” He approaches the door. “You’ll have a secure income without raising questions.”

“I have a job.”

“You’ll have a better one—with perks.” He glances around my cramped bare quarters. “Such as a fully furnished luxury apartment.”

Fully furnished—luxury.

I look at the worn linoleum on the floor. There are a couple of black holes. Almost like someone let a few too many cigarettes fall on the ground.

Furniture, now that in itself would be luxury enough for me. I hadn’t bothered to waste my hard-earned dollars on anything as extravagant as a kitchen table when there isn’t even anyone else around to use it.

“Did I mention there’s a pool, gymnasium, and let’s not forget—an
elevator
.”

An elevator.

My triceps still haven’t recovered from hauling the groceries upstairs. Neither have my glutes for that matter.

Haithem never missed a beat. He had every last detail of how to make my life better without him planned. My vision clouds. Yet he
had
missed something that cost his own life.

I blink, opening the door. “I’ll never have a life of my own, Karim, if I live off the dead.”

He doesn’t move to leave. “Haithem was very clear in his directives.”

“Oh, he was clear was he?” I slam the door closed. The frame rattles. “Well maybe
Haithem
, should have told me about these
directives
.” My hands find my waist and cut into my sides. “Maybe then I’d give a crap.” I bend forward a fraction and the words fly out like arrows. “Because he’s gone, and I’m here, and it’s my goddamn life.”

Karim’s mouth pinches, then he sets a hand on my shoulder. “He strove to protect you, Angelina.” He says this so softly it almost snuffs out the darkness spreading my insides. Nearly makes me give in to the other sadder things waiting there.

I brush away his touch. “If what I wanted was to stay nice and safe, I never would have set foot on his yacht.” I point my finger in an arc. “I would’ve got off at the island when I had the chance.” My stiff finger stabs towards the floor. “I. Didn’t. Want. To. Just. Be. Safe.”

There’s something spewing out of my pain. Something I don’t want to admit—I’m angry. So angry at Haithem.

“He should have come with me.” Behind my eyes prickles and my saliva gets sticky. “He never should have sent me away. We should have stayed together.”

I can’t look Karim in the face. Can’t see him look even half as sad as I feel. I’d rather remember him as perpetually indifferent.

I tug the door open before I can lose the strength to. “So I’m sorry, but he no longer has a say.” My chin lifts by one notch then another. “Please get out of my apartment.”

A silent Karim-sized shadow moves through the doorway.

I swing the door shut, then kick the bottom. Pain spikes up my foot. My toes curl in my sneakers, and I brace my hands against the wood. My eyes flare wide and I yank open the door. “One more thing, Karim.”

He turns from the top of the stairs one hand on the banister.

“Stop following me around.”

He stiffens slightly.

“You or Emilio, whichever the hell one of you it is—you can stop.”

I pant in the doorway.

Karim inclines his head in acceptance—at least I hope that’s what it is. Then, the very last person connecting me to Haithem walks away from me forever.

Haithem

“I suppose my advice on the matter is irrelevant?” Karim says.

I stare out the window to Angelina’s building. It’s a short squat set of flats that taste forgot somewhere in the seventies when brown and square and cheap passed for architecture. The apartment I occupy right now is both on the same level and directly opposite hers. Privacy blinds in hers prevent a more intimate view of what lays inside but the parallel moves me all the same. Knowing she’s close, just across the way.

I can breathe.

Even if I want to expel that breath in a roar of rage at least I can damn well take it. In at least this way we are together and I’ll take that over nothing. And a shit-ton of nothing is all I’ve had since I stopped listening in on her life. After things calmed down, once she started to cope, once the cops backed the fuck off her, there was no excuse other than my own pathetic need.

I owe her more than that.

Even if I do want nothing more than to turn on that audio and penetrate every single part of her new damn life without me.

“Come on, Karim, you know I value your advice.” I stare down at the cars parked on the street. “That doesn’t mean I always follow it.”

“You should be in the safe house.”

“Everyone thinks I’m dead. This will be safe enough until you can tell me who’s been following her around.”

Emilio taps away on a keyboard across the room. “We have a secure connection.”

I stride over to the laptop as a screen pops up. Emilio gets up and I take the chair, then adjust the screen angle, and greet my old friend who managed so skillfully to construct my entire disappearance. Avner nods to me on video chat. One day soon, I’ll repay him with riches even he can’t fathom. Thanks to Avner, my enemies have all been fed the rumors of my death. Untold numbers of assassins, mercenaries and spies have influxed Thailand, following a series of manufactured clues searching for factories they will never find.

Most importantly, no one has any reason to be interested in Angelina.

“What do you have for me?”

“You were right to be concerned. She’s still being monitored by the feds.” Avner’s face pixilates then reforms. Another screen pops up where he shows me the picture of a silver car. “Sergeant Hannah Goodman.”

I run my tongue over my teeth. Knew that cop was trouble. I won’t have her being trouble for Angelina. “Why so persistent? What have we missed?”

“We missed nothing. My sources confirm Angelina’s case is closed. Goodman is doing this on her own time.”

My blood stills and I lean in to the screen. “Do you think she’s on someone else’s payroll?”

“I’ve investigated Goodman thoroughly,” Avner says, his picture dimming for a moment. “No reason to believe that.”

I glance behind me to Emilio. “I want a tracker on Goodman’s car.”

Emilio nods. It’s as good as done.

“What about the other vehicle we’ve picked up on, that feds too?”

Avner shakes his head. “The plates identify the other vehicle as local paparazzi. He’ll give up soon enough, just like everyone else, when he realizes interest in her story is no longer bankable.”

“In the meantime, let’s get eyes on that vehicle as well,” I say, and glance behind me at Emilio already preparing his things. “I won’t take any chances, not with her.”

Emilio collects his bag of tricks, pulls a black cap low on his forehead, and leaves the apartment. Avner and I spare another few minutes discussing our other precautions, including the security of the manufacturing process I’ve been overseeing remotely. We finish, and I thank him once more then close the laptop.

Soon enough, I’ll make it up to Avner in riches. The one thing I’m yet to figure out is how the hell I’ll ever make it up to her.

“Can I trust you to stay inside this apartment while I attend the meeting?” Karim asks.

He’s had to attend the few covert distribution meetings that have become unavoidable.

I lean back in the chair.

“I’m not going anywhere,” I say. Although I’ll do what the fuck I like. Karim knows this. Maybe that’s why his sigh fills the room.

The door handle squeaks. “What should I bring back to eat?”

“Something light, I intend to train tonight.”

“Haithem,” Karim says, from the door. “We trained this morning for two hours.”

My head snaps in his direction. “If you’re not up to it, send Emilio.”

“I’ll always be up to it.” Karim bows his head, then leaves me alone.

I watch the door for a moment. I should be kinder to him. We’ve never been about kindness, always about respect. And I’ve struggled with both since he relayed his conversation with Angelina. Not sure who I’m more furious with, him for telling me how she’s still hurting, or myself for making things this way.

I stand and go back to the window, and watch her apartment. I tell myself she’s safe. I should leave. I shouldn’t be here. But I’ve never been too smart when it comes to her.