Chapter 12
CHAPTER TWELVE
OLIVER
“But we have people who sweep the place for things like bugs and make sure our phones aren’t hacked and all that shit.” My mind is a racing, whirling spiral as to how this could possibly have happened. “So how the hell did that thing get through?”
I hug myself and rub my arms. It’s pretty chilly, and in our hurry to get outside into a non-buggable environment, neither Lexi nor I grabbed a jacket.
“And who the hell would be bugging us anyway? It’s terrifying, no matter who it is.
And what the hell do they think I’m going to be talking about in my bedroom that could possibly be of any use to anyone?
I don’t know any government secrets. And how long has it been going on?
Have I always been bugged and never known? ”
Lexi places a calming hand on my shoulder. “I get that this is a shock. And a lot to process. But has it not crossed your mind that the call might be coming from inside the house?”
“What call? From whom?”
“You’ve never heard that phrase before? From the horror movie?”
I blink at her.
She groans at my lack of cinematic knowledge.
“There’s a babysitter looking after a couple of kids and they keep getting calls from someone who says ‘go check the children.’ When the police trace it, it turns out the call’s being made from that address.
So it spawned the phrase ‘the call’s coming from inside the house. ’”
“Okay. But what’s that got to do with my room being bugged?”
“Jesus, Oliver. I thought you were smart.”
Ha, that’s actually a pleasing thing to learn. “I’m delighted I gave that first impression.”
She certainly made one on me. My mind flashes back to opening my front door, meeting her eyes, and that new sensation of being shot through with adrenaline.
Now those intense blue irises roll up to the gray sky. “Oh my God. It means an inside job. Like either the people sweeping for bugs are in on it, or else someone who knows when the sweep is plants it immediately afterward.”
“Inside job? Like my mum’s bugging me or something? Why would she do that?”
“Maybe,” she says. “Or maybe the staff.”
“The staff? Why would the staff want to do it?”
“Jesus.” Lexi stops and turns to face me. “Oliver, you are seriously being incredibly naive right now.” She reaches for my upper arms as if she wants to shake me but pulls her hands back before making contact. “Ever wondered how the press gets some of their info?”
“You mean you think the staff have been bugging me and then selling stories? For money?”
“There we go.” Now she reaches forward with one hand and pats me on the shoulder. “You got it.”
The entire contents of my brain feel like they’re gurgling down a drain. “How can that be right? How could my own family spy on me? Or the staff spy on us? I don’t understand. There’s security to stop this sort of thing from happening.”
I shove my hands through my hair and press my fingers into my skull as if that will somehow help what’s inside it to function better. “Are you absolutely sure it was a bug?”
“I’m sorry.” And she looks like she really is.
Her expression is full of concerned compassion, like I’ve just woken from a long coma and she has to break the bad news that we now live in a post-apocalyptic zombie world.
“I am absolutely sure,” she says. “I’ve seen them before.”
We walk in silence for a minute or so. Presumably she’s giving me time to process it. Her gaze is everywhere, taking in the gardens.
“How much land does this place have?” she asks.
“Sixteen acres.”
“That’s a lot.”
I shrug. “Doesn’t seem that big to me. Maybe because it’s divided into different areas.
The grounds are open to visitors every day all summer.
It brings in some funds for the upkeep.” I find myself drifting into the autopilot speech I’ve given on the rare occasions I’ve accidentally bumped into a visitor.
“There’s woodland over there that’s for commercial forestry.
We get income from that too. Then there are two big lawns at the back with huge flower beds all around the edges.
And there’s a vegetable garden that has beehives.
We sell the honey to visitors. The long greenhouses are cool.
I used to love playing in them when I was a kid because it was all warm and smelled of tomatoes. ”
“That’s a cute memory that can go in the book.” Her words remind me why she’s here. Purely because she has a job to do. She’s not my friend who’s on a stroll with me because she enjoys my company. She’s only on my side because she’s being paid to be.
“Sure, yeah. And there’s a big area over there that’s planted with white and blue flowers in a pattern that blooms into the Scottish flag. I could see it from my bedroom window when I was a kid. It fascinated me.”
“Another good one,” she says. “Kind of a metaphor. A young prince looking out of his window at the floral flag of the land he rules.”
“Jesus. Might need you to go easier on the metaphors. I’ll never be doing any ruling of anything.”
We head toward the formal rose garden, laid out with old herringbone brick paths between the beds of pruned, flowerless plants. If it weren’t for the thorns, it would be hard to tell what they are.
“Do you really think my family or the staff might spy on me?” The reality is sinking in. And it’s not one I want to accept.
“Maybe don’t take it personally,” she says.
“How the fuck can I not take it personally? I can’t even tell anyone or try to get something done about it, because I don’t know who I can trust anymore.”
“Maybe you haven’t been singled out. Maybe they do it to everyone. I bet there was one in my room too. And in Cole’s and Dane’s rooms.”
“My sister? Do you think they do it to her?” Then it dawns on me. “Christ, I have to tell Sofia. She definitely won’t be in on it.”
“Maybe don’t?” Lexi says.
I stop and turn to look at her. “Don’t tell my sister that she and her fiancé might be being spied on too?”
“Yeah. Maybe keep it between us for the time being.”
“For the time being? Till when?” And then another thing dawns on me. It’s like the synapses in my brain have suddenly been plugged in properly again, and it’s back to firing on all cylinders. Of course Lexi doesn’t want me to tell anyone. She’s a fucking reporter. “You mean save it for the book.”
She puts her hands on her hips and looks at me, the blue of her eyes icy.
“That actually never occurred to me. But if you want to go ahead and think that’s the sort of person I am, fine.
But not all journalists are like the ones who’ve made your life hell.
Some of us have morals and do the job for the right reasons. ”
She glances over my shoulder at the house. “Shit. Your mom’s watching us.”
I shrug.
“We probably look like we’re fighting,” she says, her eyes are back on me, but now more mischievous than icy.
“And I don’t know about you, but these people have already gotten under my skin enough that I don’t want to give them the satisfaction of thinking your relationship with me is anything but a perfect love paradise. ”
Her face softens into a gentle smile as she closes the gap between us.
Then, in a move even more unexpected than the bug, she rises to her tiptoes and gives me the lightest of light kisses on the mouth—so light that her lips barely make contact with mine.
It’s like being stroked by the very tip of a feather.
But, with my back to the house, I’m sure it would have looked to my mother like an actual real kiss that a real girlfriend gives her real boyfriend.
My insides are clearly struggling to tell the difference too. There shouldn’t be that warmth in my chest, that quickening of my pulse, that twitch in my groin, that flicker in my hands to want to pull her closer.
All of that is wrong and bad and, Jesus Christ, fucking stop it.
If I was going to get involved with anyone, it sure as hell wouldn’t be a reporter—not now, not ever. And, even surer than hell, it wouldn’t be one who holds the key to my much-needed paycheck in her hands.
“Want to mess with them?” The tip of Lexi’s nose is still just an inch away from mine. And the upward curl of one corner of her mouth is an absolute fucking delight. It sums up everything that I’m learning she is—smart, quick-witted, resourceful, independent, and hot as all hell.
“Abso-fucking-lutely I do.”
“Great. Come with me.” She links her hand into the crook of my elbow and guides us back toward Glenwither.