Chapter 2
KANE
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I curse Justin out loud. “What’s his excuse this time?”
Nolene’s hands tighten on the steering wheel. “He says he picked up a gastric bug and hasn’t stopped puking.”
Sitting in the front passenger seat, I angle an air-con vent toward my face, my anger flaring. “A gastric bug named Johnnie Walker, I bet. I don’t care how he’s feeling, Justin should’ve grabbed a bucket and showed up for stakeout duty.”
Nolene shrugs as she makes the turn into Amy’s street. “He’s nineteen.”
“He won’t see twenty if he carries on like this.”
“Justin messed up, but the operation’s still on,” she reassures me. “Amy Hutchinson is a creature of self-serving habits. She won’t be home.”
Nearly five weeks of surveillance has shown that every Sunday Amy goes with a friend to watch the noon show at an art-house cinema.
It’s now one-thirty p.m. If Amy follows her usual pattern, she’ll be there for another two hours.
Justin is supposed to be on surveillance to confirm Amy leaving her house, but he phoned Nolene—and not me, which is probably survival instinct kicking in—to say he was unable to make it.
I pick up the emergency burner phone and dial Amy’s landline. There’s no answer. I hang up. “Okay, the operation’s still on.”
Nolene nods and turns into the entrance to Blue Crane Golf Estate, where Amy owns a house. She steers the RAV toward the boom marked for visitors. There are three cars ahead of us.
My gaze skims over Nolene. She looks nothing like her usual self. A frumpy dress hides a well-toned body even gym gorillas take a second look at. Thick glasses obscure most of her attractive face and an auburn wig covers her short, black hair. She looks years older than thirty.
My only disguise is a cap, sunglasses, and a beard I can’t wait to shave.
We’re silent as we wait for the vehicles in front of us to be cleared.
When it’s our turn, an estate security guard, logbook in hand, greets us cheerfully. “Who are you visiting?”
“We’re here to see the showhouse,” Nolene replies.
“There are many on show today. Which one?”
Nolene takes out her phone and shows him the house on the realtor’s website.
Residents of Blue Crane Golf Estate are protective of their privacy.
Realizing a lot of gawkers use the pretext of Sunday show days to gain access to the gated community, homeowners insist all potential buyers produce some form of proof to prove their seriousness.
The security guard studies the screen. Stooping slightly, he peers through the open window and grins at me. “Jacuzzi in the living room, my friend.”
With my sunglasses concealing my surprise, I manage a grin back. “That will sell it for me.”
Still chuckling, the guard hands the visitor’s logbook to Nolene. She fills in all the relevant information: name, address, telephone number. All false.
“Have a fine day, my friends.” The guard lifts the boom up and waves us through.
Nolene pulls away and I adjust the rearview mirror so I can study the guard. I watch him toss a grinning remark to the occupants of the car behind us and the tightness in my chest eases. We weren’t singled out.
“Is the guard a problem?” Nolene asks, her knuckles white on the wheel.
“He’s fine.”
“Can you believe what he said?”
“He was being friendly.”
“The nerve of him! It’s not his job to be friendly. He should know his place.” Driving slowly through the estate, she readjusts the mirror and mutters an obscene name under her breath.
“Leave it alone,” I warn her. I’m tired of these arguments, tired of battling a prejudice she’s been fed since birth.
Nolene may believe she’s discarded most of her parents’ teaching, but I know she still lives on the fumes of her privileged upbringing.
I’ve observed way too many discrepancies festering inside her.
And the more I listen to comments like this, the more put off I am.
My silence must have communicated my displeasure, because Nolene flicks me a conciliatory smile and squeezes my hand. “Getting in was easy. Your idea to use a show day is a good one.”
I withdraw my hand. “We haven’t got her yet.”
Nolene’s plan was to kidnap Amy once she left the estate.
Electrified perimeter walls and twenty-four-hour security, she argued, made the estate too difficult to access.
But I wasn’t happy about snatching Amy in a public place.
In her own home, Amy would be relaxed, her guard down. And she’d be alone.
Sunday show days are the most disturbingly simple way to enter the estate. With over five hundred houses inside and hundreds of vehicles passing through the gates every day, the likelihood of anyone remembering us is remote.
Nolene drives for a while before pulling into a parking space marked for visitors. I reach for the door handle and she grabs my arm. “Be careful.”
“I will be.”
“If you think it’s not going to work, just get out without her.”
My eyebrows lift. “This coming from someone who went to jail rather than inform on other activists?”
She looks away.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
“Nothing.”
“It’s not nothing,” I insist. “Talk.”
She bites her lower lip. “I have a bad feeling.”
I eye her curiously. A couple of years ago, Nolene jumped into a Japanese bay where fifty dolphins were herded for slaughter.
She used a knife to cut the fishing nets imprisoning them, managing to free some of the dolphins before the authorities arrested and deported her.
Nolene is not the type to waste time on nerves or sentiment. So what’s going on here?
“You’ve never had a bad feeling before,” I say, frowning.
“We’ve never kidnapped someone before.”
“We all agreed to it,” I point out. “You know what’s at stake here.” I let a second tick by. “Nolene, if you’re backing out—”
“I’m not backing out,” she says fiercely. “If I had to, I’d go in there and drag that woman out by the hair. Just...keep safe.”
Ah, so it’s personal. I don’t have time for this right now. “I’ll be careful.”
I exit the car before she says anything else, hefting my golf bag out the trunk.
Her window slides down. “Text me when you’ve got her. I’ll come pick you both up.”
I nod and watch as she drives off to wait for me in the clubhouse.
As I stand there, I feel that tingling sensation in my gut, the one I always get before a job, that sense of anticipation overlaid with a shaming dose of nerves.
Adjusting the golf bag so it fits comfortably on my shoulder, I start walking.
Amy’s house is situated on the fourth hole, a short distance away, but I’m not worried about attracting attention.
Right now, with my cap pulled low, golf shirt, and chinos, I look like a typical resident returning from a round.
A few token irons and drivers poke out of the bag, but inside I’ve hidden all the necessary equipment: ski mask, rope, and syringe filled with Ketamine.
I raise my face to the sun, letting the heat of its rays dissolve the tension tightening my skin.
I marvel at how quiet the estate is. Traffic is a distant hum, children’s laughter the only sound disturbing the almost eerie stillness in this section of the estate. It’s an unbelievably idyllic lifestyle.
Memories of my own childhood sweep over me, living in a two-bedroomed apartment in a rundown neighborhood, listening to the neighbors’ music blaring day and night, watching drugged-up delinquents doing donuts in the street.
It’s an existence Amy has never known. That’s about to change though. A couple more hours and then I’ll strip away the world Graham Hutchinson has so carefully bubble-wrapped for his only daughter.
#
I stand outside Amy’s front door and ring the doorbell, a formality since I know Sunday is the cleaner’s day off. Using my body as a shield, I slip on disposable gloves, my pulse kicking up with each passing second. The lock is an easy one to pick and I step inside.
I have about an hour to explore Amy’s house before she returns.
Skipping the guest toilet on the right, I walk into the TV room.
Huge TV. Expensive, cream-colored corner couch.
Only a woman with no kids would opt for that color.
Dirty mugs and plates are scattered across the coffee table.
A floor lamp has been left on. Definitely the cleaner’s day off.
In the dining room, instead of the large, imposing table I imagined, there’s a round mahogany table framed by six chairs.
It tells me Amy favors intimate gatherings with no social hierarchy.
From monitoring her, I know she invites a group of friends over once a week, but the invitation rarely includes the same faces.
So she has no close friends. That’s good.
That means there are fewer people concerned when she disappears.
A double-sided fireplace separates the dining room from the formal living room, another floor lamp lighting up two wingbacks.
It’s only when I stand in the kitchen that I realize what’s bothering me: Amy has left a light on in every room.
Frowning, I glance at my watch. It’s two in the afternoon.
If Amy sticks to her usual routine, she’ll return around three.
Because it’s summer, there’s still plenty of light at that time.
Only in the event of a late-afternoon storm will the lights have to be turned on.
So Amy’s playing it safe. Which means she doesn’t like the dark.
A hangover from her childhood? Some sort of phobia?
The information could prove useful, and I mentally store it away.
After committing the downstairs layout to memory, I head upstairs to Amy’s bedroom. Her four-poster bed dominates the room, some sort of sheer material draping down the cherrywood posts. A closet romantic. I wouldn’t have guessed.
I glance at the items on her bedside table. An alarm clock, a cluster of silver-framed photos, and a reading lamp. The lamp is switched on.
I study the photos. These are images she turns to before closing her eyes each night.
They’re all snapshots of father and daughter in various poses, both of them laughing, confident, only the backdrop changing—from the slopes of a snow-covered mountain to the bow of a yacht moored in an impossibly blue ocean.
The photos confirm my research, that father and daughter enjoy an unusually close relationship.
Like me, Amy is an only child. I think of all the trappings of that position—the pampering, the loneliness, the parental pressure.
Most importantly, the fierce protectiveness of the parents.
An unexpected pang cinches my throat muscles.
My parents are dead, killed in a head-on collision.
Seeing the easy intimacy between Amy and her father, I realize I’ve lost all the bonds that blood affords.
The photos catch my eye again. Even in their flat reflection, few can dispute Amy’s attractiveness.
Her elbow-length hair hangs like a sheer golden curtain around her heart-shaped face.
Large luminous blue eyes stare at me. Delicate-looking blondes like Amy are not my type.
Even disregarding my physical preferences, there’s one crucial reason I can only ever despise someone like her.
She’s a woman capable of loving a monster.
Not that the father looks like one. In truth, Graham Hutchinson is quite ordinary looking. His hair is receding, but this is redeemed by its distinguished-looking silver color. Sharp blue eyes peering out of horn-rimmed glasses add to the professorial look.
Curiously, Amy has no photos of her mother, Julie Hutchinson, who died of a heart attack when Amy was fourteen.
I’ve seen pictures of Julie Hutchinson, and Amy bears a startling resemblance to her mother.
Graham Hutchinson hasn’t remarried, devoting his life to his daughter and his work.
I wonder if every time Hutchinson looks at his daughter he can’t help but see his dead wife.
I imagine Amy sleeping here each night. What does she dream of? Hope for? At thirty-five, I’m only two years older than her, yet it seems as if more than years separate us. We are two strangers who share geography, but no familiar territory.
I can smell her perfume in this room. It’s a powerful, provocative scent, and I like it. Abruptly, I get to my feet, knowing there’s nothing more dangerous than flirting with that thought. Erasing all traces of my presence, I settle down to wait.