Keeping Thyme (Thyme Trilogy) (6 page)

“Kira,” Simon answers Liz’s question.

I nod at Simon. “Liz, I’m fine. You’re beginning to sound like him,” I say as I flick my thumb towards my brother. “And yes, Simon knows my friend … Kira Pemberton. We were in ballet school together. She left to join the Russian ballet. It’s a long story, but she’s the one who introduced me into this other world of powerful men who pay for women, and if I know my friend she will be my best source of information on men like Tench’s Russian cousins.”

“How much can she be trusted?” Liz doesn’t sound convinced.

“I can trust her with my life, Liz. She owes me
big time
.”

At the end
of the long steel corridor, we get to a concrete wall that starts to swing open as we approach it. On the other side, the familiar sight of the twin giant men behind the wall of monitors in the agency’s side entrance greets us.

“Donahue, Thyme and Thyme.” The man on the left says as he eyes us individually.

Of course they know my brother. I have a feeling he works with the agency more than he makes out. I watch the elevator doors next to us and beg for Nick to come out of them like he always did.
Please just walk out, Nick.

The elevator doors slide open. The elevator is empty … Just like my heart.

“This feels so surreal,” Liz says as we step into the elevator.

I just want this to be over so that I have some closure.

We stand in
front of the thick wooden doors for a moment. Liz pauses with her hand on the handle. I can see her trembling. She looks like she’s handling this worse than I am.

“I just keep getting flashbacks of him on the table in the morgue with the white sheet over him,” she whispers with her hand still gripped tight on the handle.

Simon puts his arm around her and he puts his hand over hers on the door handle. “You can do this, Liz. I’m here for you,” he says sweetly to her.

He looks across to me to check on me, but I’m okay. Those images don’t sting like they did a week ago. I’m so used to seeing them now. The last images I have of Nick are now a memory that feels familiar more than anything else. He looked so peaceful.

I put my hand on top of Simon’s and together we all press the handle down and enter the room to hear Nick’s last wishes.

CHAPTER SIX

The last three
hours is all a bit of a blur. It
was
surreal, just like Liz had said. When my thoughts finally register, I find myself sitting on the edge of Nick’s bed in his apartment, watching the Harbour Bridge and Luna Park from his bedroom window. His apartment is now
my
apartment, as is his car. I still don’t know how I’m supposed to feel about this. I don’t really remember how I got here from the agency, all I know is that I just
had
to come here as soon as the last words of Nick’s will were spoken … and here I am, sitting, staring.

I look down at my fingers and watch them stretch out into the comfort of Nick’s bed. My body feels empty, as if there is a piece of it missing, but I can feel something here. The piece of my heart that I gave to Nick was here. I want to fill that void with the memories left in this apartment. I get up and pull the curtains across to block out the sinking sun in the distance. Undressing down to my bare skin, I slide into Nick’s bed. Every time I inhale his scent I feel like I could cry, but I don’t. I’m beyond feeling sad; this is more than that. This is numb … that’s worse.

I push my head into the pillow that Nick slept on a week ago and try to get closer to him again. I roll over and can really smell him this time. I inhale deep. He’s here. My nose presses against the warmth of his chest. I feel safe, and back to normal. The world no longer exists, my troubles no longer feel like they’re troubles at all. I feel Nick wrapped around me.

“I love you,” I say into the darkness of the room.

Light penetrates through
my eyelids and my eyes spring open to the sunshine beyond the curtains. I roll into the centre of the bed …

He’s not here. Nick was never here. It was a dream. He’s dead. I squeeze my eyes shut and beg to go back to sleep. I want to smell him again and feel him against me …
Please, I beg you! Come back to me again.
But my mind won’t allow it. He’s gone. He was never here. I have to accept that.

What
is
the time? I lean up to see the clock beside Nick’s bed. Seven forty-five. Tench is going to wonder where I am. But right now, I don’t care. I’m in Nick’s bed. I roll around and wrap myself up within the sheets of his bed and pray that they will just suffocate me, right here, right now.

“Mia?” I hear Charlie’s voice and sit up in the bed.

I frown as his head pops around the corner of the doorway, complete with very pirate-esque patch over his right eye.

“Your brother gave me a key and said I should come and rescue you.” He cautiously makes his way into the room and sits on the opposite side of the bed to me. “He told me everything. I’m so sorry, Mi.” His voice is unusually quiet.

What does he know? I pull the sheets up to conceal my naked body from him. Charlie reaches out and touches the top of my bare arm and pouts sympathetically.

“I can’t imagine what it must feel like to lose the boyfriend you always wanted, and just after you’ve dumped him to go back to your criminal
ex-boyfriend.” He screws his face up.

“Are you serious right now? Do I even want to know what’s with the eye patch?” I splutter at his blunt recount. Obviously Simon didn’t tell him
everything.

“As serious as you hanging out in here like a weirdo when your scary boyfriend will be wondering where you are.” He looks around the room as if it’s cursed. “As for my eye, it’s infected. Did you know spunk has some nasty germs in it? Let me just say his money shot was a bit unexpected!”

I throw my arms around his neck, not caring that I’m fully naked.

“Settle down, sister, the girls just said good morning.” He chuckles at the sight of my bare breasts.

There could only be one thing better than fucking the sad away, and that’s having your very blunt and very
gay
best friend bitch-slap you first thing in the morning with a dose of harsh, raw reality.

“Don’t worry doll,
I’ve got you covered.” Because of the eye patch I can’t tell whether Charlie’s winking, but I imagine he just did. He turns to the guard at the front gates of Tench’s mansion. “Charlie Manetti bringing Miranda home.” He bites on the end of his index finger as he eyes off the fit-looking guard. “Jesus! Break me off a piece of that.”

The guard walks back to the office and nods to us when the gates swing open. Charlie giggles like a schoolgirl as he drives his silver Audi sports car up the curved drive.

The front door of Tench’s mansion sings a high squeal as it’s opened behind me just as I shut Charlie’s passenger-side door. I turn to see Tench standing at the top of the steps in nothing but a pair of tangerine-coloured shorts. His tanned body looks perfect as usual. My eyes scan their way down to his new ink, a habit that’s now becoming hard to break. I sigh at the constant battle between grief, lust, hate and anger I’m having with my emotions at the moment.

“Sorry, Mr Tench. I had so much drama last night, and I couldn’t possibly face the world without her so I had to steal your girl. I brought her back in one piece though, and I swear I only saw her boobs once.”

Tench’s eyes flick to me as I chuckle at Charlie’s flawless performance. Tench’s eyes soften and his shoulders jolt as he too laughs at Charlie.

“Charlie, please, call me Joe. You look like you’ve been in the wars. Just don’t take my girl too often. I miss her too much.” I slide into Tench’s outstretched arm and wrap my arm around his strong torso. He leans down and presses his lips against my forehead. “Say, Charlie. How about you stay for breakfast?”

“I thought you’d never ask,” Charlie says with a playful yet arrogant inflection.

“I have some
work to do, gorgeous.” Tench wipes the corners of his mouth with a napkin as he gets up from the table in the poolside cabana. “Stay as long as you need, Charlie. Have some girly time together. Enjoy this sunshine.” He waves his hand up towards the sun. As he passes my chair, he tilts my chin up and drives his tongue into my mouth in a definite display of ownership. I reciprocate and hold the side of his face in my palm as I plunge into his mouth with long passionate strokes of my own. Right now, I want him to take me to his bedroom and feed the lust that I have for him, but I pull back and stare into his coffee eyes and try to hide my increasing desire. Again, I struggle with myself. I wish he were the one who was dead, not Nick, but the other half of me wishes I’d never learnt how evil Tench really was so that I could just be happy with him.

There’s something different about him today a
nd I just can’t place it. The work mode within me kicks in and I smell something’s wrong with Tench. There’s reservation in all his actions this morning. They’re subtle but I can tell.
I hope you’re watching this, Liz.
I need to get the message to her to let her know that something’s up with Tench.

Charlie stares at Tench’s ass as it bounces snuggly inside his shorts when he walks away from us. Charlie’s mouth dramatically drops open just as Tench disappears inside.

“And you wanted to leave here because?”

I glare back at Charlie. “Because he might have something to do with Sally’s murder.” My voice is low. The fact that I’m talking quietly makes me wonder whether Tench is running his own surveillance around his mansion, or am I just becoming paranoid from being in this job? Better to be safe than sorry, I guess. I need to quiz Liz about that.

Charlie’s brow furrows. “And do you know about Sally for sure?”

I shake my head. “That’s what I’m going to try and find out.” I hate lying to Charlie.

“Don’t do anything stupid.” His overactive brow now furrows in a scowl.

Too late!

“Let’s get some swimming cozzies from next door and we’ll go for a swim … or is your eye too infected for that?” I screw my nose up at the thought.

Charlie chuckles. “I’ll just sunbake on the side for today.”

I pick out
a Zimmerman black strapless bikini top and floral bottoms from the rack of swimwear in the cabana, change into them, then leap towards the pool and dive straight in. I pray for the water to wash away the emotional rollercoaster ride inside my head. I roll over underwater and stare up at the distorted reflection of the surface above. If I focus and get this job over and done with then I can be free. I want to feel as free as I do in the suspended weightlessness of the water … or I can just stay here. I close my eyes and imagine what it would be like to just float away.

My lungs beg for oxygen so I push off from the bottom of the pool and spring above the surface. Charlie frowns at me from the sun lounge. “That’s not the answer, you know.”

A smile rises across my face. He knows me too well. I launch out of the pool and lay the towel out across the sun lounge next to Charlie. I look around me quickly to see if anyone is lurking around the mansion or on the terrace near us.

“So, I’m having issues in the bedroom with Joe.”

Charlie sits up. He raises his sunglasses. “I knew there had to be something wrong with him. I never thought I’d hear those words come out of
your
mouth … ever. What’s the problem, kitty-cat? Let Uncle Charlie help you,” he says as he pats my laid out towel.

I chuckle and lay down on the lounge. “Tench loves to be in control …”

“Go figure.” Charlie rolls his eyes.

“So I want to let him be in control of me—as in, I want to be submissive in the bedroom so that I can manipulate him more outside the bedroom, if you know what I mean?”

Charlie smiles. “Now you have me interested. Go on.”

“But when I start to let him do what he wants, he stops. I don’t get it. I thought he would love it.”

Charlie lays his head back against the lounge and shakes his head. “That
is
his control.
Gah
, you women, seriously. I thought you would know men better than this, Mi.”

I think about Charlie’s words for a moment. He’s right, as usual. The fact that I am so willing to give myself to him is all part of the game. He liked me better when I wasn’t so submissive. He wants to take whatever he wants from me when I’m unwilling to give it. For fuck’s sake! Why can’t this ever just be easy? I’m so grateful for having a friend like Charlie in my life. He’s my real knight in shining armour. I don’t know how I’m going to continue on in the world without him. I couldn’t just leave Charlie, and it would break my heart to think that he thought I was dead.

I’m going to have to tell him the truth. I don’t care what Liz and my brother think. I know Charlie better than them, and I want him to get the fuck away from Tench and me before it gets dangerous. If Tench ever became suspicious of me, then Charlie would be in serious danger anyway. So when the time is right, I’m going to have to tell Charlie everything. I can send him to that Seychelles place my brother was talking about, and meet him there later.