Thin Blood (5 page)

“Thanks,” she
said, gesturing toward the stove. “What are your sauce-stirring skills like?”

Initially, the
conversation between the two women was a little stilted, but Jacinta soon found
herself warming to Narelle. She came across as such a genuine and likeable
person that Jacinta had difficultly imagining how she could possibly have been
involved in something criminal or sordid. But did first impressions really
count?

While she waited
for the pot of salted water to come to the boil for the ravioli, she put the
finishing touches to the salad, adding a few leaves of fresh basil from her
herb garden. Everything was running like clockwork. She couldn’t have planned
it better if she’d tried.

She was starting
to feel quite smug, but then Narelle caught her off-guard and asked her what
sort of work she did when she wasn’t being a domestic goddess.

Jacinta felt
like a kangaroo caught in the glare of headlights, rooted to the spot and not
knowing in what direction to flee. She blushed, a rapid surge of heat radiating
up her face. There was no hiding it.

“I’m sorry, I
didn’t mean to embarrass you,” Narelle said, running the words together in her
rush to apologise.

Unable to look
Narelle in the eye, Jacinta stared down at her feet, frantically trying to come
up with some response that wasn’t going to push her even further into the
corner.

She forced a
laugh. “You name it, I’ve done it.” She wasn’t lying. Backpacking around the
world in her early twenties meant finding work wherever she could. “Everything
from waitressing to fruit-picking to working in a bank.” She didn’t mention her
stint as a deckhand on a fishing trawler off Iceland, or her time spent as a
holiday rep in Rhodes. From experience, she knew that would only invite more
questions.

Thankfully,
Narelle, perceptive enough to sense Jacinta’s reticence, didn’t press the
issue. Or perhaps it was because they both had something to hide.

The pounding in her head grew
louder. Without opening her eyes, Narelle rolled onto her back and flung her
arm out to the side. The bed beside her, though warm, was empty.

The peal of the
doorbell ricocheted through the house, embedding what felt like sharp darts
behind her eyes. She groaned, lying as still as possible, waiting for the pain
to subside. It didn’t make any sense. Had she really had that much to drink?

Then it all
started coming back to her. The champagne, the wine, the liqueurs… She had been
so wired in, she hadn’t realised how much she’d had to drink. Why hadn’t Craig
tried to stop her? She groaned again, remembering. He had, but she’d brushed
him off as a party pooper. Now she was paying for it.

Oh, God
,
she suddenly thought,
did I make a complete fool of myself? Way to go,
Narelle
. She felt embarrassed and peeved with herself all at the same time.
What must they think of me?

The doorbell
rang again, and before the chime had petered out, it was pushed again and again
in rapid succession. She pulled the bedclothes up over her head, her face
contorting against the resulting off-key heavy metal jangle.

Cotton sheets
proved a poor sound barrier. Hearing a woman’s strident tones, she yanked the
sheets off her head. She couldn’t quite make out the words, but there was no
mistaking the voice. Her chest felt like it was clamped in a giant vice, the
air in her lungs being squeezed out.

She scrambled
out of bed, her brain like liquid sloshing from side to side in her skull as
she stumbled from the bedroom.

Craig,
motionless and mute, stood about two metres back from the front door, his fists
tightly clenched by his sides. He didn’t turn as she approached, but she didn’t
need to see his face to know how he must be feeling.

He flinched as
she reached out and touched his naked back with her fingertips. She paused,
opening and closing her hand before dropping it back to her side.

“Craig,” she
whispered. Focused solely on the door, he either hadn’t heard or chose not to
hear her.

“You depraved,
sick bastard! You killed your wife and then you married her sister.” Grace
Kevron’s voice rose to a screech. “You should both be rotting in hell for what
you did to Kirsty. If it’s the last thing I do, I’ll make sure you pay.”

Narelle grabbed
Craig’s forearm, trying to draw him away. He shook her off and moved toward the
door.

“We have nothing
to say to you. If you don’t leave, I’m going to call the police.” His voice
sounded remarkably calm, but both fists twitched as if each hand was kneading a
stress ball.

“And what will
they do? Lock me up? You know I’m not the criminal here, don’t you?” Mocking
laughter followed.

Narelle tried
again to pull Craig away from the door. She looped her arm through his, feeling
the tremor in his body.

“Restraining
order!” Craig shouted at the door as if the idea had suddenly occurred to him.
“I’m going to take out a restraining order against you if you don’t leave my
property this instant.”

Grace laughed
again, before dropping her voice to a hate-filled snarl. “Perhaps if Kirsty had
taken out a restraining order against you two, she would still be alive. You
haven’t heard the last of me. Believe me, you will pay for what you did.”

Jacinta tossed the morning
newspaper onto the daybed and headed to the kitchen to make coffee. She passed
the dining table, strewn with paperwork and once again reclaimed as her work
desk.

She still
couldn’t quite believe how well Saturday night’s dinner party had gone. Even
cynical Brett had grudgingly admitted to enjoying himself. But what had she
achieved, besides proving to herself that you didn’t have to be a gourmet chef
to produce a tasty meal for six?

In her mind, she
had achieved a lot. At the beginning of the night, Narelle had been as reserved
as her husband, but a few glasses of wine had soon unleashed a bubbly, outgoing
woman who possessed a wicked sense of humour. She’d had Jacinta in stitches,
laughing so much that tears ran down her face.

Although she
still wasn’t quite sure about Craig, she had begun to think that she and
Narelle could be good friends. Craig Edmonds and Narelle Croswell were no
longer just impersonal names in print; they were real people. People with
feelings. People with emotions. And yes, perhaps, people with secrets. But what
right did she have to meddle in someone else’s life?

After that night,
she had given a great deal of thought to her career direction. When she looked
inside herself, she didn’t see the ruthlessness and hunger needed to make it in
the cut-and-thrust world of investigative journalism. Nor was she prepared to
ride roughshod over people’s lives, regardless of what they had or hadn’t been
accused of.

The clincher,
though, was her bank balance. Or lack thereof. She had been forced to transfer
money from her credit card to her cheque account just to pay her living
expenses. What she needed was a job with a regular pay packet, and fast.

As hard a
decision as it was, she knew Brett, for one, would be ecstatic when she told
him. Starting from today, she was no longer an investigative journalist ready
to expose the truth and wow the world, but a job searcher prepared to
compromise for almost any job — except selling her body — she could get. She
truly believed she had made the right decision. So why did she feel so flat and
uninspired?

She had finished
making coffee and was carrying it through to the dining room to make a start on
the employment pages when the phone rang. Maybe it was news that a previously
unheard of great-aunt she didn’t know she’d had died and left her a fortune.

Instead it was
good news of a different kind; the kind where some effort would be required on
her part. Anthea Sutton, her old boss and the editor of
The Acacia Tribune
,
was calling to let her know that one of the newspaper’s regular advertisers,
Alvico Media, was looking for a copywriter. Anthea had recommended Jacinta.

A regular job
with regular money. Jacinta didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Although she
would still have to apply for the position, Anthea’s recommendation would
certainly go a long way.

With nothing
more to do until Anthea emailed through all the details, she decided to read
the newspaper. She set the cooling mug of coffee on the windowsill, hooking one
leg under the other as she sat down and spread the newspaper out flat on the
daybed in front of her.

As usual, the
front page was full of doom and gloom. Interest rates were set to rise. ‘Health
costs us an arm and a leg’ proclaimed another headline, which certainly wasn’t
news to Jacinta. A teenage boy behind the wheel of a stolen car had managed to
evade police, only to later wrap the car around a power pole, killing himself
and all three of his young passengers. Even the photo of convicted terrorist
Abu Bakar Bashir flashing a toothy smile from centre page was nothing to feel
good about.

Sipping her
coffee, she turned the page.

ACCUSED WIFE-KILLER
WEDS VICTIM’S SISTER.

For a split
second, time stood still, her mug frozen mid-air. She blinked, hoping her eyes
had deceived her. Then she read the headline again.

ACCUSED
WIFE-KILLER WEDS VICTIM’S SISTER.

The day that had
started out so promisingly came crashing down around her. In slow motion she
reached out to the side and placed her coffee back on the windowsill.
Transfixed by the words, she sat staring at the article. How was this possible?
A pure coincidence?

Problem was, she
didn’t believe in coincidences.

Leaning forward,
she gripped the sides of the newspaper in both hands and lifted it up to her
face, as if somehow that would make the words easier to comprehend.

She took a deep
breath and started reading the smaller type under the heading, feeling sicker
by the second. The writer, although careful to skirt any outright libellous
statements, implied that the justice system had failed in its duty to bring
Craig Edmonds and Narelle Croswell to account for their part in the murder of
Kirsty Olive Edmonds. Craig and Narelle’s nuptials had been cleverly used to
throw even more suspicion their way. The article’s only redeeming feature —
from the Edmonds’ point of view, anyway — was that it wasn’t accompanied by a
picture.

How was she
going to explain it to Brett? How was she going to make him believe that she
wasn’t responsible? He wasn’t one for coincidences either. The fact that it
hadn’t been published under her byline wouldn’t be proof enough for him. After
all, she had published under pseudonyms before.

Someone
somewhere had to have leaked that information about the wedding to the
newspaper. Why else, months after the event, would the news suddenly have come
to light?

Then the image
of Grace Kevron’s shocked face popped into her head. Had Grace, looking for
some sort of vengeance, alerted the press?

With a heavy,
sinking feeling, Jacinta realised that she was responsible, indirectly if not
directly, for thrusting the Edmonds case back into the limelight. But wasn’t
that what she had wanted? Wasn’t that the aim of all the research? If she were
honest with herself, she would have to say yes. In the beginning, anyway.

Since then she
had come to her senses, understanding that no good could come from playing with
other people’s lives and stirring up old emotions. Her conscience had stopped
her, but had it already been too late by then? She had unwittingly opened a
Pandora’s box. The question was, could she close it again, or was the damage
already done?

Shoving aside
the newspaper, she leapt from the daybed, making straight for the phone.
Halfway across the room, she stopped. She hadn’t thought it through. What was
she going to say to Narelle? Shouldn’t her first step be to confront Grace and
confirm her assumptions? Or maybe she should talk to Brett first. Standing
there with her face buried in her palms, she wished she could turn back the
clock.

Her hands were
shaking by the time she picked up the phone. Her first call had to be to
Narelle. It would be better coming from someone she knew, even if not that
well, than reading about it in the newspaper. The old saying about ‘shutting
the gate after the horse has bolted’ came to mind as she waited for the call to
connect.

A
snooty-sounding woman on the switchboard answered, informing her that Narelle
was on sick leave. And no, she didn’t know when she was expected back. Could
someone else help?

I very much
doubt it
, thought Jacinta as she hung up the phone.

Jacinta hung her head. How many
ways were there to say ‘I told you so’? Brett was up to number ten, each louder
and more agitated than the last.

“Okay, okay,
okay! I get the message. I should’ve listened to you. But I swear I did not
write that article. You have to believe me.”

“Believe you?”
Brett’s nostrils flared. “Oh, yes, I always believe you. Believe you when you
tell me that it’s all just one big coincidence. Believe you when you tell me
this wasn’t meant to happen. Believe you when you tell me you love me. Believe
you when…” His voice trailed off. “Jacinta, I don’t know what to believe any
more.”

“Believe what
you want, then,” she spat, regretting the words the instant they left her
mouth.

Brett sighed,
not just his shoulders but his whole demeanour sagging as he turned and walked
away from her. She watched his retreating back, feeling like a stranger in her
own body. Desperate to undo any wrongs, real or imagined, she wanted to stop
him and tell him how sorry she was. Instead all she could do was sit numbly by.