Scared Yet? (20 page)

‘Hey!' She made it throaty, forceful, then waited as her pulse raced. She slid the security chain noiselessly out of its track, took a breath, pulled the door – slowly as it moved out of the jamb then in a fast, aggressive thrust, lunging into the doorway, holding the bat like she was facing a pitcher.

No one – on the porch, on the driveway, by the fence. She stood there with her heart thumping until she felt like
a crazy woman freaking out on her doorstep. It wasn't until she'd retreated backwards over the threshold and turned to go back in that she saw it and felt the sharp zap of fright.

She swung around again, expecting him to be there. But she was alone – with just his words to keep her company. They were printed in a large, red font on a single sheet of white laminated paper that was taped to her door.

26

‘Go up a floor. See if there's something on street level,' Liv said as Jason flicked his indicator and slowed to pull into a parking space in the hospital's multistorey lot. It was midmorning on Sunday, the police had left the townhouse before midnight but the few hours' sleep she'd managed to get between nightmares hadn't done anything to alleviate the tension that was clenched like a fist in her gut.

He pointed. ‘But the stairwell's there.'

‘I don't want to use the stairwell. I want to be on street level,' she snapped.

He shot her a glance.

Maybe she shouldn't have come. Would a tight-faced smile give comfort to anyone? ‘Sorry, I'm tired. I just want to be somewhere we can get to the car quickly.'

Liv monitored vehicles and drivers and pedestrians as they wound their way around two more floors of parking.

I'm
watching for
you
, Liv thought.

They found Andy in Sheridan's room. He looked shattered by the previous thirty-six hours. He'd changed
clothes since Liv had left him early yesterday but his eyes were dark-rimmed and he hadn't shaved. When Jason left with him for the hospital cafe, Liv took his place beside Sheridan's bed and felt her heart stutter at the sight of her friend.

The last time she'd seen Sheridan, she was smiling and waving as she got in her car in the street outside the townhouse – gorgeous, healthy and full of her ever-present zest. Now she was pale and still. Her head was swathed in bandages, a padded plaster covered one side of her jaw, her face was swollen and bruised and tubes snaked from both of her arms.

A hard lump of emotion lodged in Liv's chest. Fear and anger at its core but layered with sadness and horror and powerlessness. The man who'd beaten and stalked her had done this to Sheridan. Did he think delivering his malicious card with its veiled warning before the accident was fair play? She thought of the lily on the front. Had he tried to kill Sheridan? Was she lucky to be lying here at all? A short, sharp gasp escaped her lips as realisation and guilt pitched and rolled in her belly.

When Jason took her place, she sat with Andy in the corridor as he finished a huge take-out coffee.

‘The cops asked if I knew what she'd been working on recently,' he said. ‘Did she tell you anything?'

‘No, nothing about work.'

He put his elbows on his knees, interlaced his fingers tightly around the cardboard cup. ‘I've had so much on, I haven't paid much attention lately. I don't even know what she was working on and I can't honestly say if it's
because she didn't tell me or I wasn't listening. Christ, if it was something dangerous and I left her alone . . .'

Liv stopped him with a hand on his forearm. ‘This is my fault. Not yours.'

‘You can't blame yourself. She could have been going anywhere.'

‘I think someone hurt her to get at me.'

Andy turned to face her, his eyes moving over the bruising. ‘What the fuck are you saying?'

‘Someone is stalking me. I've been getting threatening notes. I got one yesterday about the crash.'

‘What's it got to do with Sheridan?'

‘I don't know. I . . .'

‘You asked her over when you knew it wasn't safe?'

‘It wasn't like that.'

He thrust back against his chair. ‘How can you say that? Look at you, for Christ's sake. Your face got smashed in. You shouldn't have been there yourself.'

The door to Sheridan's room opened. As Jason appeared, Andy stood up and swore under his breath.

‘What's wrong?' Jason asked.

Andy directed a loud breath at the floor.

Jason looked at Liv. ‘What's happened?'

‘I told him about the stalker.'

‘Did
you
know Liv had a stalker?' Andy pointed at him.

‘Hey, calm down, mate.'

Andy aimed his finger at the door. ‘I'm not going to calm down until Sheridan gets up and walks out of here. For fuck's sake!' He pushed between them and disappeared into her room.

As tears welled in Liv's eyes, Jason squatted beside her chair, slid an arm around her shoulders. ‘He's upset. I'll talk to him.'

She stared out the passenger window on the way home, Jason peppering her silence with offers of pig noises and assurances everything would be all right.

When?
she wanted to yell.

At the townhouse, she asked Jason to come in while she checked the rooms. He didn't have Daniel's physique and he chuckled when he saw her with the baseball bat but a double-act felt like a better option. ‘I feel so stupid asking you to look in my wardrobe,' she said as they descended the stairs. ‘Who the hell would hide in my wardrobe, anyway?'

‘A cross-dresser with small feet. You've got a ton of man-sized stilettos in there,' he said.

‘Are you suggesting my feet are too big?'

‘Better your feet than your arse.'

‘Well, hey, let me know if you want to borrow a pair. You might enjoy the extra height.'

He stopped at the bottom of the stairs, looked like he was going to shoot off another one-liner but just watched her the rest of the way down.

‘Thanks, Jase. For this morning and the search-and-destroy mission.' Christ, he was about to leave. ‘Do you want to stay for a while? Have a coffee or something?'

He hesitated as though he was weighing up whether he should stay or leave to start the supermarket run he'd planned for the trip home. She smiled hopefully, a little self-consciously, embarrassed to have him see her desperation. Better needy than alone, though.

‘I thought you'd never ask,' he eventually said.

As she gathered the coffee makings, he sat at the bar. ‘Give me something to do.'

‘Just talk to me, Jase. No weird noises, just something nice to think about when you've gone.'

He was silent for so long she looked up from spooning the coffee grounds. He was studying his hands on the counter, a thumbnail digging at something in the ridges of a knuckle. The kettle reached boiling point, clicked off.

‘No pressure or anything,' Liv said.

He lifted his eyes, drew breath. She could see in his face he had something to say, not just the silence-filler she'd requested. Then her mobile rang.

‘Hold that thought, I want to hear it,' she told him as she pulled the phone from her jacket. ‘Kell, hi.'

‘Jason told me about yesterday. Are you all right?'

Tired, upset, anxious, pissed off. ‘I'm doing okay.'

‘I just dropped the girls at a party. I'm coming by your place. I could drop in, if you're up to it.'

‘Up to what?'

‘Talking.'

Not a chat or a coffee. Something more serious. And she wanted to hear it. ‘Yes, I am. See you soon.' Liv disconnected and stared at the phone in her hand, her disaster meter soaring into the red zone. On the other side of the counter, Jason stood. ‘Oh, sorry, Jase. I, um . . . What were you going to say?'

‘Another day. When you and Kelly have got past this. When the timing is better.'

She grabbed his arm as he turned to leave. ‘You know what's going on, don't you?'

He looked at her hand curled around his sleeve. ‘Kelly will be here in a few minutes.'

‘So stay till she gets here. Have your coffee. Talk to me.'

He peeled her fingers free, held onto them. ‘We can do this another day.'

They both looked across the room as a car pulled into the driveway.

‘It's bad timing, Liv. That's all,' Jason said.

She frowned at his back as he started across the room.
Bad
 
timing?
She thought they'd been talking about the business but she wasn't sure now what he was referring to.

Kelly had her fist raised to knock when Jason opened the door. Her eyebrows shot up in surprise. ‘Well, hi there. I thought you'd be charging around supermarket aisles by now.'

‘Liv wanted me to check the townhouse. I'll go, let you talk.' He glanced over his shoulder, met Liv's eyes briefly. It seemed more furtive than supportive. What the hell had he wanted to tell her? Something he hadn't told Kelly, that was for sure.

Kelly made small talk as Liv poured the coffee she'd made for Jason. It felt tense and awkward and it made her nervous. She assumed Kelly had wanted to talk business too but after Jason's visit . . . Or maybe she was reading too much into throwaway words and facial expressions. Whatever it was, she wanted to be past it. She handed Kelly a mug, said, ‘What's going on?'

‘Let's sit down.'

Foreboding crowding her chest, Liv followed her to the lounge room, waited for her to pick a sofa then sat beside her. Kelly sipped coffee, flipped her hair over her shoulders, crossed her legs.

Liv got tired of waiting. ‘Is it Neil's report?'

Kelly's expression was apologetic. ‘I didn't want to have to talk to you about this right now. You've had enough to deal with this week but . . .'

‘Just tell me what it said.'

‘It's not great.'

Was that Neil's assessment or Kelly's euphemism for up shit creek? ‘You said we had options.'

‘We do. None of them are what we'd want.'

‘Tell me.'

The first and worst was to fold the business. The rest amounted to various versions of bringing in cashed-up partners, being absorbed into larger firms and generally handing over control of the business they'd built. It took Kelly ten minutes to run through it and, as Liv listened, a pulse drummed painfully above her swollen eye.

‘Okay,' Liv said when Kelly had finished. It wasn't among the words that were running riot in her head but a stream of expletives wasn't going to improve the situation.

‘There's one other possibility,' Kelly said. ‘It's not in the report but it could work.'

‘May as well put it on the table. Got nothing to lose at this point.'

‘One of us could get another job. Something on contract for, say, twelve months, while the other focuses on building the client base back up.'

Liv shook her head.

‘It would halve our wages overnight,' Kelly went on. ‘And if we moved out of the premises and worked from home until we got back on our feet, we wouldn't need a receptionist and there'd be no rent.'

‘There'd be no Prescott and Weeks,' Liv said. ‘One of us would be employed by someone else and the other would work from home. Neither of us wanted to do that. That was the whole point of doing it together. It's our business. We've both got money and a lot of effort invested in it. We complement each other's skills. Whatever we do, we should do it together.'

‘I think it could work.'

Liv shook her head again. ‘We've still got irons in the fire, Kell. That thing with Toby Wright. When do you hear back on that?'

‘I have.'

‘And?'

Kelly dropped her gaze to the floor. ‘He offered me a job. A twelve-month contract to run the new training division.'

No, no, no. Liv squeezed her eyes shut. ‘What did you tell him?'

‘I'm seeing him tomorrow. I'm going to accept.'

27

A pulse of heat hit Liv like a body slam. It was over. Prescott and Weeks was done. She'd lost that too without even knowing it was happening. She knocked clenched fists on her forehead, did it again and again.

‘Liv?'

‘When did he make the offer?'

‘Thursday. I put our proposal to him in the morning and he came back in the afternoon with a job offer.'

Liv felt her eyelids narrowing. ‘You're a partner in a business. What the hell was he thinking?'

‘He knew there were problems. There've been rumours. He thought it was an opportunity we could take advantage of.'

‘Poaching one of the partners is not an advantage. And today is Sunday. You knew days ago. You should have told me before now.'

‘You've had enough to worry about.'

‘It's not up to you to decide what I worry about.'

A tiny, sympathetic smile twitched at the side of Kelly's mouth. ‘Liv, come on. I know what Prescott and Weeks means to you and this week was not the time to tell you we could lose it. Toby's offer is a lifeline and I wanted a chance to nut out a plan we can move forward with so it didn't tip you over the edge.'

‘Over the edge? What's that supposed to mean?'

Kelly answered with regret. ‘You're not coping.'

‘Who says I'm not coping?'

‘Liv, you must know. You've been swinging from tearful to furious in a heartbeat. You've missed meetings and been impatient with Teagan. You put yourself at risk looking for the man who beat you up and you chased a kid down your driveway with a baseball bat.'

Sheridan must have told her. She'd laughed about it, she would've turned it into a comedy. Kelly had put her own damn interpretation on it. ‘You weren't there. I
am
coping. I'm
fine
. And I own fifty per cent of the business.'

‘This is the only way we can keep it.'

Liv paced to the windows, glared at the courtyard. She'd lost her marriage and her son and her home, she was losing her father and a violent man was threatening her and there was nothing she could do about it. But Prescott and Weeks was her business. It was all she had left. She wasn't going to let Kelly decide for her. She turned around.

‘It's not keeping it. It's breaking it up and pretending we're not. It's you taking a job so I won't get upset. That's not the way we do things. You don't make decisions for me and I don't deal with my life that way. You know that.
You fucking know that.' She took a breath. ‘We've got time, Kelly. We don't need to take the first offer that comes up. We should wait.'

‘You're not up to making a decision like that.'

Anger straightened her spine. Kelly had already decided and she wanted Liv to toe the line. ‘What makes you think you are? You're too cautious. You always are. You're jumping at the first opportunity because you're scared. This is about you, not me.'

Kelly stood, the concern in her face hardening with indignation. ‘Well, sorry but I don't have a two-storey mansion I can sell to pay out my debts. Jason and I have still got a business loan to pay off and we've been pushing it to make ends meet since you and I cut back our salaries. I'm trying to make this work for you. Toby is offering good money. I can hold off looking for something permanent until we see how it goes but it's not fair to ask my family to continue making sacrifices when I've got an opportunity to put us ahead.'

Liv blinked. Is that what Kelly thought? That she'd done well out of Thomas's deceit. And when did Kelly and Jason start having trouble making ends meet? Liv would've offered to cut back just her own wages if she knew they had problems. They could have worked something out. They had to be honest with each other. They needed to make decisions together. This was not the way to do it. ‘Tell Toby to wait. We need to see what else is out there.'

‘He wants a decision tomorrow.'

Liv paced along the glass, a scream working its way up through her chest. She held it back. ‘Don't do it, Kelly.
Please.' She tried to make her voice calm, reasonable, like she was coping.

‘It's our best chance.'

It wouldn't work, Liv knew it. She didn't want to run a business on her own. She didn't want to leave their office. She didn't want to work from the goddamn townhouse. And left to her, Prescott and Weeks would be like everything else she'd touched in the last year – a fucking train wreck. ‘Christ, Kelly, I didn't think you'd hurt me, too. Not you.'

Liv steamed around the supermarket aisles, impatient and harried by strolling Sunday afternoon shoppers, heedless of her stalker. She needed breakfast cereal and milk and healthy snacks for Cameron's school lunches. He'd be with her tomorrow. That was a good thing. She'd had a bad week. A shocker. The worst. But next week would be better.

She needed spaghetti sauce and mince – Cam loved spaghetti. She'd needed to get out of the townhouse before she smashed something. Before she drove a fist through the back window. Fuck it, Kelly.

She stopped in the biscuit aisle, stared at the packaging, saw nothing she wanted. She couldn't buy what she wanted. It didn't come wrapped in plastic with a barcode that beeped at the check-out.

She tossed chocolate and cheese and washing liquid in the trolley, thought about the long, long list of things she did want.

A big, new client. No, a million dollars. That would fix it.

She wanted the bastard from the car park to get hit by a bus.

She wanted Thomas to drop off the face of the earth and Michelle to disappear in a puff of smoke.

She wanted Cameron to live with her.

And her dad to be well.

Oh Christ, Liv, don't cry. Not here. Pull yourself together. Stay on your feet.

She did. Up and down the aisles, out to the car and all the way home, carrying the bags to the kitchen, unpacking. Holding herself tight, not letting herself think about it. Any of it. Until a bottle of mineral water slipped from her fingers and smashed on the floor.

There were two bottles of mineral water. One was still on the bench, ready to be put in the fridge. She picked it up, hurled it down, made no attempt to avoid the wave of fizzing liquid as the glass shattered on the tiles at her feet. Then she threw the closest thing she could find. A coffee mug. It broke. So did the breakfast bowl. The spoon skittered and pinged and bounced.

It wasn't enough so she howled and raged and stomped. Threw more things – cushions and a newspaper and a running shoe – thrusting and punching. Lost in a world of not coping. She stopped herself before pitching a hand weight through the sliding door. Even in her frenzy, she knew a hole in the glass wasn't going to help.

Maybe it was the circuit-breaker. Maybe she'd just crested the wave. But she stopped then, didn't bother
trying to stay on her feet. Just sank to the floor and cried a year's worth of tears.

It was dark and Liv was drunk when she heard the knock at the door. She was glad now she hadn't drained the entire contents of Thomas's cellar down the sink six months ago. There were three cases of chardonnay in the garage. Minus one bottle that she was in the process of pouring down her throat. It hadn't stopped her sobbing like a baby or feeling pathetically sorry for herself, just made her too drunk to keep it all locked up any longer. Her head swam woozily as she swung it towards the door. Would a stalker knock?

‘It's Daniel. Are you there, Liv?'

She scrunched up her face. She looked like shit – yeah, well, he'd seen that before – and walked unsteadily to the door, leaving the chain on as she peered out through the crack.

‘Hey,' he said.

‘If it's bad news, I don't want it.'

‘Okay.' He said it like he checked that off his list. ‘Thought I'd see if you wanted me to walk around the property again.'

She gave him a quick up and down. Jeans, T-shirt, battered leather jacket, cropped hair – man, he looked good. So long as he didn't throw another bomb at her, she didn't mind if he did. Not at all. ‘I've been in most of the day.'

‘You want me to check, anyway?'

She felt a chill under the alcoholic flush on her cheeks.
Had someone been outside while she was drinking herself into a stupor? ‘Yeah, thanks.'

‘Are there any more lights you can switch on?'

She thought for a moment he was making a joke about the myriad she already had burning, then saw he was serious. He was a man with an exit plan. ‘No, that's it.'

As he descended the two steps to the driveway, he flicked on a torch she hadn't noticed in his hand. Had he planned to do a walk-around even if she hadn't been there? She closed the door, listened for his progress, heard the gate at the side of the garage, saw his shadow pass the curtains, then the gate at the other side. No footsteps, no scuffle on the pavers. Not comforting. Ten seconds later, he knocked at the door again.

‘Doesn't look like anything's disturbed,' he said as she let him in.

‘Great, thanks.' She was having trouble not swaying so she led the way to the sofas, sat on the nearest armrest.

He stood in front of her, the at-ease-but-ready pose. ‘Have you had any messages today?'

‘Nope.'

He watched her a moment before the angle of his eyes moved to the coffee table and back again. ‘You celebrating?'

‘Something like that.'

‘Not always the best option to drink on your own.'

‘Got no friends to drink with.'

‘I'm a friend.'

Fast, hot tears pressed at her lashes and she dropped her eyes.

‘You want some company?' he asked.

‘Thanks but I'm not good with friends right now.'

‘What are you drinking?'

‘Outrageously expensive chardonnay.'

‘How much have you got left?'

‘Three cartons.'

His eyes went to the coffee table again then glanced over his shoulder towards the kitchen. She was glad now she'd bothered to clean up the broken glass and mineral water. ‘You like Indian food?' he asked. ‘The local does delivery.'

She heard Kelly in her head –
You're not coping –
and her fury flared again. ‘What is it, Daniel? You think I'm not coping? You think I need someone to drop by and make sure I'm eating? Did Kelly put you up to that? Or is there some other reason you're still here? Did you think the frightened, drunk woman might show a little gratitude? I've been screwed by everyone else lately, maybe you figured you'd just get in line.'

She spat the words at him, pent-up resentment and anger crashing out of her like a wave. If it surprised him, he gave nothing away. He just held his pose, kept his eyes on her face, took a good five seconds to answer.

‘I think it's better not to drink alone when you're doing it tough. Personally, I find the hangover's not so bad if you put some food in your stomach but that's up to you. And I won't say sleeping with you hasn't crossed my mind – it has, more than once. But if it happens, it won't be because you're drunk or scared.'

His words hung in the space between them. He'd
thought about sleeping with her? She'd wanted to tell him to get the hell out but it was hard to be mad at a man who'd thought about that. More than once.

And his manner had thrown a blanket over her fire. She was messy and mean and he was making sure she was safe about it. His attitude said, ‘Go at it.' His tone said, ‘Been there, done that.' She thought of the woman under the collapsed building, wondered whether he'd seen enough people doing it tough to understand the process. Maybe he'd seen enough to feel some pain himself.

Maybe . . . no. ‘We're not sleeping together. It'd be a disaster.'

‘Disasters are my area of expertise.' He uncrossed his arms, dug a phone out of his pocket. ‘So . . . I've got Indian and pizza on speed dial. What do you like?'

They had butter chicken and lamb korma, lots of naan bread and rice, delivered to the door. They finished the bottle of chardonnay she'd been working on, so she introduced him to her stash and they depleted it by another as they sat on the floor, knees bumping under the coffee table while they ate. He asked questions about her dad and she told long, rambling, alcohol-infused stories from the gym and the ring. She asked him what it was like to see someone die. He poured more wine before he answered, told her it hurt the living more than it did the dying. That he couldn't recall most of the ones he'd saved but remembered every detail of the ones he'd lost. That he figured he'd had a preordained number of rescues in him and he'd gone four too many.

‘I had four in a row. I didn't want to make it five so I
left.' He stood up then, put the kettle on and stared into the courtyard while he waited for it to boil.

He'd made tea, joined her in a half-hearted clean-up and a once-around the townhouse to check the locks. The next she knew, she was bedded down on a sofa again as if it was her second bedroom, one knee bent in the recovery position, the blanket tucked tight around her and her phone was ringing. She struggled to free an arm, reached it on the coffee table, noting the birdcage state of her mouth, the fact it was still night, Daniel was gone and her clothes were in place. At least she hadn't made a complete fool of herself. She checked the caller ID, sat bolt upright.

‘Rachel, what is it?'

‘We got your guy.'