Chapter 26
When Estella’s message finally came, Ellie almost jumped out of her skin. Three days was about the shortest they’d gone without seeing each other, but it was a hell of a long time to wait to find out if you’d accidentally killed a man. She was furious.
The message, as usual, was completely impersonal, just a time and a place, not so much as a goddamned it’s fine, he’s alive smiley-face emoji.
Ellie immediately pressed call on the number she was texted from, only to get nothing but a disembodied voice telling her the number you have dialled does not exist. She yelled out loud and threw her phone at the couch.
All she could do was wait.
The following evening, just after eight o’clock, she arrived, as instructed to an address in the city.
It was, to her deep annoyance, a thumpingly loud hipster dive bar at the far end of a lane-way near Chinatown.
She pushed her way through beautiful boys with man buns and huge beards, beautiful girls with pierced lips, and beautiful someones with tattoos, until she reached the bar.
“Estella Grant,” she all but had to yell into the bartender’s moustache.
He nodded, immediately stopping mid-pour of the cocktail he was making to walk out from behind the bar, leaving an annoyed shout of hey as he went.
He led her down a flight of sticky stairs, past the bathroom queues where couples were making out, then all the way to an unmarked door at the bottom.
He gestured to her to go in. She wrenched it open to see another small bar, low-lit in a deep orange-red glow, filmy fabric draping luxuriously from the ceiling and a handful of opulent sofas.
This bar was blissfully quiet as she let the door fall closed behind her — the music becoming a distant thudding beat — and entirely empty. Almost.
“Lock the door,” ordered Estella from her seat on a sofa, half-hidden beneath the low eaves of the sloping ceiling.
Ellie did. Estella looked infuriatingly calm, her dress almost as red as the lighting, her long bare legs crossed, everything about her immaculate.
Ellie had the worst urge to pull her fucking hair.
“Is he alive?” she snapped on her way across the room. Estella had the gall to look surprised, as Ellie sat down hard right beside her.
“Gio?”
“No, the fucking pope. Yes, Gio! Did I kill a man?”
“Jesus, Ellie! No! He’s fine. He’s very much alive.”
“Then could you not have told me that?” Ellie’s voice came out high and loud and Estella gripped her wrist to stop her.
“You thought you killed him?” she asked, still seeming surprised. “It was just a bump on the head. It would take a hell of a lot more than that to kill a man like Gio Florelli.”
“You’re not lying to me, are you?” Ellie said suspiciously. She remembered the incoherent groaning, the blood leeching into his clothes.
“Why would I lie about something like that?” Estella hadn’t let go of her wrist.
“I don’t know, to protect me?”
“A hardened psychopath like me?” Estella quipped. Ellie didn’t laugh. “Not likely.” Estella sighed. “Fine. He’s not only alive and well, he’s — to borrow a line from the police — assisting us with our inquiries. Tied up in a warehouse,” she clarified.
“You’re torturing him,” Ellie said, her voice coming out monotone at the horror of it. Estella recoiled.
“If that’s what you think of me, sure. Cut off all his digits myself this morning.”
“Fucking stop!” Ellie cried. “Can you just tell me the truth, please? I can’t take this from you anymore. Is a man going to die because of me?”
Estella took both her hands and held them tight, looking her right in the eye. “No,” she said. “He’s not going to die. He won’t lose a digit. He’s not being tortured. Because of you, you and I are both alive. You saved two people, Ellie. You didn’t kill anyone. That’s not who you are.”
Ellie didn’t let go of her hands. She really needed to know. “Is it who you are?”
“You don’t get to ask me that,” Estella said sharply.
“It’s none of your business, and god knows you’ve already gotten in too deep.
” She pulled her hands from Ellie’s and turned her face away, reaching out for one of the two tall glasses in front of them, packed full of ice and topped with fresh mint.
“Here,” she said, her voice evening out, becoming gentle. “Have a Nojito.”
“A what?” Ellie thought she’d heard wrong.
“It’s a mojito with no alcohol,” Estella said flatly. “I don’t know about you, but I never want to drink again.”
Ellie was so surprised to hear such relatable words coming out the mouth of a crime boss that she snorted and took the drink. It was icy cold and delicious. Estella was even good at mocktails. Annoying.
“Thank you for meeting me,” she said, after a minute, letting the fact she hadn’t killed anyone take the head out of her steam.
Estella sipped beside her, quietly. The room looked made for about twenty people, if they were standing close.
But she and Estella were entirely alone, not even a bodyguard to be seen. It made her stomach twist.
“It’s for the last time,” Estella told her. Her voice was easy, like the decision was made. Ellie put down her drink.
“No,” she said firmly. “It can’t be. There’s so much more I want to know—”
“Then ask me anything,” Estella said. “Anything at all. Not that—” she warned, as Ellie immediately opened her mouth. “But anything else.”
“I don’t understand,” Ellie said plaintively.
Estella felt odd to her tonight, on edge, sharper, no longer her relaxed almost-friend.
She remembered the goofy, giddy woman at the bar the other night, the flirt in the bright bikini, the amused beach babe in the cabana in St Kilda.
Ellie would do almost anything to bring any one of those women back into the room.
The thought felt desperate. What was happening to her?
“It’s time to end this,” Estella said with that same maddening calm. She looked at Ellie like they were two colleagues in a business meeting, no warmth or sparkle left in her eyes. “Ellie, this was never going to be more than this. A transaction. You always knew there was an end date.”
“Why are you talking like you’re breaking up with me after a couple of Hinge dates?” Ellie demanded. “We’ve been working together on a project and that project is portraying you. You asked me for this, Estella!”
“I know!” Estella rapidly lost her cool, her hands balling into fists in her lap. “And now, things are getting dangerous! You could have been killed the other night!”
“And, like you pointed out, it turns out I’m quite fucking good at taking care of myself!
” Ellie felt a ridiculous urge to knock her drink over to watch it spill, or better yet throw it across the room and hear it smash.
She hated the way Estella was looking at her, the cold front melting only to be replaced by something closer to concern.
She didn’t need Estella pushing her away to protect her.
She glared at her, and Estella shook her head in exasperation.
“You shouldn’t have to in the first place! This isn’t your world. It’s not your fight to win!” Estella protested. “You wanted to study me like a goddamned butterfly and now you have! You’re going to give a great performance, which is what I wanted. So we’re both happy!”
“I’m not though!” Ellie cried. “And you’re not either. I know you better than that Estella, whether you like it or not.”
“You don’t know anything,” Estella said sharply. “Nothing at all I haven’t let you think you’ve worked out for yourself.”
Ellie laughed at that. She couldn’t help it.
“Estella, I know you lie to me! I know your tells by now. I know that when you sound your most sincere it’s because you’re pretending with everything that you’ve got.
I know that when you talk or act dumb it’s because you’re hiding how terrifyingly smart you are.
I know you’re two steps ahead of everyone else, that you’re ten steps ahead of the police.
I know that you act like everything just happened to you because you’re always the one doing the driving. I know—”
Ellie’s words were cut off when Estella, completely without warning, stopped them with her own mouth, her lips pressing in firmly against Ellie, whose mouth fell open in shock.
She gasped in abject surprise, and Estella slid her hand around her jaw to hold her still, kissing her harder.
A sound escaped Ellie — a moan, a gasp, something in between — and she tasted Estella’s mouth.
She was fresh mint and lemonade, her tongue hot and soft, stroking Ellie’s with determined hunger.
Every bone in Ellie’s body melted at Estella’s desperate, forceful kiss and she reached for her, gripping the back of her warm neck, needing more.
Suddenly, Estella drew away. Her eyes were two flames, the deep glow of the low lights dancing in them. She licked her lips, seductively.
“There,” she said. “I know that’s what you wanted.” She pulled away and stood up. “And now, you adorable thing, we’re really done.”
Estella smirked down at Ellie, undone on the couch, and stalked away, closing the door behind her.