Trusting a Stranger (8 page)

‘Boarding school.'

‘Yes. I should have… She left this evening?' Hayley asked. ‘Where is it? It must be fairly close by.'

She paused, suddenly aware that she was doing it again. Asking too many questions. She had to admit to herself that Ethan's suspicions weren't entirely groundless.

‘I haven't been completely honest with you about that,' Ethan said now.

‘Katy wasn't at dinner,' Hayley remembered. ‘She hasn't been here at all, has she?'

‘Not today, no.'

‘So where is she? Why did you —'

Ethan raised a hand. ‘Where she is, is safe,' he said. ‘It's a location I am not divulging to anyone.'

‘Not even someone wearing a completely unwired bathrobe?'

‘It wouldn't make any difference for you to know,' Ethan said, simply. ‘Katy is virtually my whole family, you know. I have a sister but we aren't close. And Katy is…'

‘I do understand,' Hayley felt even more touched. Her own family was very small and, with her father's illness, threatened to shrink further still. She understood what it was to have all your love poured into one person and how at once fragile and vital this could make that one person seem.

‘I'm not going to tell anyone what you've told me, I promise. I came to you tonight because I was worried about her. I was worried about you. My father brought me up on his own. When I hear you talk about her, it's the first time I really appreciate why my father was always so good to me. How he must have felt. Maybe that's why I find myself caring so much that she is safe.'

‘I can understand that you care. I can even understand why you care.'

‘You do?' asked Hayley, who had been wondering about this herself. ‘I don't even know Katy. But I…'

‘Feelings aren't always rational,' Ethan explained. ‘You had no idea what Tomasi really wanted to know, but all the same, you must feel slightly responsible for coming here under false pretences. And I feel slightly responsible for you being shot, because it happened on my property.'

‘I suppose you're right,' Hayley said.

She leaned back on her elbows and looked at him from the side. He looked quite different from this perspective. His jaw was very square and his forehead and his shoulders very wide but there was a set about his arms and his strong hands that was almost gentle.

‘It's not like a man to be so perceptive.'

He grinned suddenly. ‘Maybe I'm no ordinary man.'

‘I'm beginning to get that idea.'

Now that Katy was safe, it dawned on Hayley that she had nothing to do until morning. And she was alone in a big, empty house, with a very attractive man. What was that line she had heard once about Las Vegas? What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. That was it. She was not ready for any sort of relationships right now, particularly not with a man who was not ready for any sort of relationship with her. But she wondered all the same if that Vegas comment was the sort of comment that could also be made about Siena. The city seemed to be made for drama. The Renaissance here hadn't only been significant in the artistic skills of perspective and the capturing of light and dark that Hayley tried to incorporate in her photographs, but also of political power games. The city leaders had wielded immense power over lesser citizens, and blood feuds had lasted generations.

Was she part of something like that now? Or was she in a holiday destination, as so many tourists seemed to think, free here to do just as she liked, and to forget about the consequences?

She leaned towards him slightly, testing the water. Ethan turned, a little more. Hayley began to lean his head towards his shoulder. Then his phone rang.

Damn.

Hayley wasn't sure if she said that, or Ethan said it, or if neither of them said it, or both. They both knew that in the current circumstances, the call could not be ignored. Ethan reached into the pocket of his jeans for his phone and flipped it open.

‘Yes?'

‘Ethan.' There was a woman's voice on the other end of the line. Beyond his name, Hayley couldn't make out what the woman said but felt a sliver of jealousy go through her all the same.

Who was this woman that knew Ethan — who Hayley sensed was a very secretive man — well enough to have his mobile phone number and to feel confident calling him on it in the middle of the night?

‘Thanks, yes it is me. It is a secure line,' Ethan said. Then he stood to leave the room, and closed the door behind him.

At least the voice on the other end of the line had changed before he left, deep male tones replacing the woman who had made the call. All the same, Hayley felt her heart sink at the idea that Ethan didn't trust her enough to take the call in here. She tossed her legs out and regarded her toes as though they were beings she could talk to.

You've only known him for one day, she told them. Make that just a few hours. You came into this house pretending you were after one thing when really that was fraudulent. Of course he doesn't trust you. Something tells me that his trust is something that you have to earn.

Through the strong, timber door, she could hear snippets of conversation. Ethan was talking to someone named David, she soon worked out.

‘What did he say?' Ethan was asking. ‘The corporate crime division had been going from strength to strength? Well, that's very kind of him but I still can't come back just now.'

Silence. Hayley tried to imagine what the invisible David might be saying.

‘I really can't,' Ethan repeated a moment later. ‘I'll do what I can from here but first I have to work out how Tomasi is getting his information. This case needs to be my first priority, David, no matter what Michaels thinks. Katy's safety depends on it. Sometimes these things do get personal.'

A few moments later, farewells were said and there was a knocking noise on her door.

‘Come in,' said Hayley, feeling that the formality was unnecessary given that he had already walked in here all by himself. Not to mention that soon afterwards, he had seen her virtually naked.

‘Sorry about that,' Ethan said, swinging the door open but barely walking into the room. ‘Work.'

‘The Tomasis are involved with your work as well?' Hayley asked. ‘How did that happen?'

He sighed and she realised she had asked another question. More than one. Had she always been like this, she wondered, or was it some change in her character, brought on by her new association with this man?

At least, this time, Ethan didn't seem to mind.

‘They are involved now,' he said. ‘I've been working with the Corporate Crime Division of a private industry body back home. They recruited me after Erica died. Thought I might know something about the Tomasis and care enough to find out more.'

Hayley nodded. She tried to imagine how Ethan's life must be. All these different layers of concerns, all centring around the one family he had married into, and had not been able to separate from even after his wife had died.

‘And have you?' she asked.

‘Enough to discover that he won't stop at anything. Alvaro Tomasi wants Katy. So does the rest of his family.'

‘I'm not the first person he has sent here, am I?'

Ethan shook his head. ‘And I doubt you will be the last. Please don't feel bad about it. He is a powerful and influential man. You need to spend some time now working out how to keep yourself safe now you have disappointed him. Tomasi does not take disappointment lightly.'

Icy fingers seemed to clutch around her heart. Yes, she had been shot at, but Hayley had not really believed until this moment, when the stern set to Ethan's features confirmed what he was saying, that she might continue to be in danger. ‘What do you mean?'

‘I mean he's a cruel man and not all of his methods are as easy to identify as a bullet from a gun.'

‘You sound like you're speaking from personal experience.'

‘Are you going to sleep?'

Hayley regarded him for a moment. ‘You know, I might ask a lot of questions, but you ask the most random ones.'

‘It's not completely random.'

‘Well, the answer is that I don't completely know. I might sleep eventually. Why do you want to know?'

‘There's something I can show you. If you want to see it.'

***

Ethan pushed a DVD into the player in the sitting room and stood back with the remote control to turn the television on. Hayley was sitting on the sofa behind him, her legs curled beneath her. She was still wearing the bathrobe. He had never before realised how attractive one of those could be. Not to mention that he was acutely aware of how little she was wearing beneath it.

‘This video is taken from a family Christmas three years ago,' he said.

The screen flickered to life. He looked over his shoulder to check that Hayley was watching.

The sound started a moment before the picture. It showed an outdoor scene on a sunny day. There was a well-watered lawn, a background of trees, and part of what looked like a stone wall. Ethan felt himself swallowing as a little girl ran onto the screen.

‘Katy?' Hayley asked.

Ethan nodded. ‘She's a lot bigger now.'

‘Is she still that pretty?'

‘I think so.'

A moment later the camera panned out and the complete exterior of this house came into view. A wide stone wall broken up with a long door. A woman walked into the shot, emerging from one of those long doors with a platter of sandwiches.

Ethan looked at Hayley. She was frowning. Perhaps she had realised that the film had been shot here but, of course, she wouldn't know who anyone was.

‘That's my sister,' he explained. ‘Pearl.'

Hayley's expression cleared. Ethan felt a pang of regret in case he had given her any feelings of jealousy. And then another pang that came from an awareness that Hayley would only feel jealous of another woman if she had feelings about him herself. Could that be the case?

He was annoyed with himself when he realised how much he hoped this was true. It had been a long time since he had allowed a woman in his life, because the prospect was so full of danger both to him and to any woman who might be concerned. That situation hadn't changed. Even if Hayley were interested in him, he couldn't allow that interest to develop. Anyone who got close to him was a likely target for Alvaro Tomasi and his guns.

Hayley leaned forward, peering more closely at the screen as the camera zoomed in. Pearl stood there now, laughing as the wide lens caught her dark hair and tossed it about her shoulders. She was saying something to the camera but the sound was not quite good enough quality to make out what it was.

When Pearl began to turn and raised her platter, as though offering her sandwiches to Hayley and Ethan as they sat on the opposite side of the screen, Ethan hit pause. Pearl's image was frozen in time before them, the image of healthy and smiling young womanhood.

Without saying any more, Ethan leaned towards the DVD player and, slipping in another disk, pressed play. On the screen before them, Pearl's happy face was replaced with that of a much older woman. She was tall and thin to the point of being angular, with skin that seemed to bear the signs of having been continuously sunburned for at least thirty years. She looked like she could have been the mother of the young woman they had seen on the previous disk. Maybe even her grandmother.

Hayley was still leaning forward. There was the beginning of a puzzled frown beneath her brows.

‘Pearl!' the voice echoed out from the high quality sound system with the same resonance as if it had been spoken in the next room.

Ethan felt that familiar jolt of surprise many people get when they hear their own voice as it has been recorded. The woman on the screen turned.

‘That's Pearl?' Hayley asked. Her voice was sharp with surprise.

Ethan nodded.

‘What happened to her?' Hayley clamped her hand over her mouth. ‘Oh, I'm sorry, that sounded rude.'

Ethan shook his head. ‘It's startling,' he agreed.

‘She obviously isn't well in the second DVD.'

‘She isn't,' Ethan said. ‘You aren't rude, it's true. That change was what I wanted to show you.'

‘This has something to do with Alvaro Tomasi?'

Ethan paused the image again. Now Pearl's eyes were gazing towards them, wide and dark and mute in her wasted face.

‘Something to do with Alvaro Tomasi and with crack cocaine.'

Hayley's mouth dropped open into an expression of horror. Ethan could tell that she knew what he meant.

‘Pearl became an addict?' she asked.

‘It wasn't her fault. Tomasi is a very wealthy man. Perhaps if I tell you a bit more of her life story, you'll understand more clearly,' Ethan said.

Hayley nodded.

‘Pearl was involved in a relationship with a successful lawyer. They were planning on getting married. But Tomasi wanted to show me what he was capable of.'

‘He made her get addicted?' Hayley asked.

She was still staring at the screen. Ethan moved to the side of the room. His hand was shaking as he poured himself a drink. From here it looked like Pearl was staring back at Hayley, too. He took a deep mouthful of the whisky.

‘How can someone do that?' Hayley asked.

He passed her a drink too. ‘Crack cocaine isn't like other drugs,' he said. ‘It's instantly addictive. Pearl's fiancé turned out to be addicted both to drugs and to a high-living lifestyle. Tomasi was able to find this out without too much trouble. And once he knew that, he was able to pay Pearl's fiancé…' His voice faded.

Hayley was holding her glass near in her lap but she hadn't taken a sip. Her face was turned towards Ethan, her mouth open in a horrified ‘O'.

‘Pay him to do what?' she prompted.

‘Pay him to introduce Pearl to drugs,' Ethan said, his eyes closed. It was a crushing story to tell, and never got any easier. ‘Once she tried the drug, it wasn't long before her life was ruined.'