Chapter 20
20
Max
They’d been driving for fifty-eight minutes and Grey hadn’t said a word.
At first Max had been reluctant to acknowledge something had changed between them. She wasn’t sure if it was what happened when he crashed on top of her in the cellar, or his reluctant abdication of the throne of ‘ I have no emotions, nothing has ever fazed me before and I will not apologise for anything ’ when he explained why he’d been so quick to assume Max had been trying to attack Nella instead of helping her cat.
She wondered what it had cost him to reveal that part of himself.
He hadn’t spoken to her since she’d asked what he was doing, half submerged in the bonnet of the car after the final group in his extended security team had returned from their search of the property.
‘Cutting the brakes?’ she’d asked mildly.
‘You joke,’ he said, head still in the bonnet, ‘but someone did exactly that to Tom’s car a few years ago. Jett does these checks on all the cars now before every drive.’
‘So why isn’t Jett doing it now?’ Was this what they’d been distilled to? Small talk? It made her skin crawl.
‘He’s checking the bomb remnants to see if he could get anything else from them.’
And that was it.
Fifty-nine minutes later, Grey was glaring at the road as though it were whispering personalised insults at a decibel only he could hear. Max was left to try to forget about the fact she was in a car by drafting a list of suspects that weren’t Kaine Skinner.
It all kept coming back to the La Marcas. And to Libby. She’d said Kaine was going to be at the gala. She’d said there was going to be a murder. Women like Libby had their life stories written for them by men like Kaine Skinner. But Libby knew Kaine better than anyone, knew firsthand that he was capable of sending his own wife to rot in a cell for him. It was a huge risk for Libby, giving Max the inside information about how Kaine operated, his plans for the Barbarani gala, his connections with the La Marcas. So what was Max doing, questioning her judgement?
And what are you doing, keeping that note a secret?
Maybe it would have been better if they succumbed to the small talk – because then at least it would be Grey’s judgemental voice in her ear, not her own. She’d managed to convince herself that keeping her word to Vittoria and not telling Grey about the note wasn’t putting anyone’s life in danger. If she was still a cop, she would have had no problem keeping that information to herself. In fact, it would have been unprofessional for her to share it.
At least the vastness of the road and the yellow and green speckled plains they passed were soothing her various neuroses. She’d forgotten how big the world was. How there were spaces that had no end in sight. No fences. No walls. She envied the man beside her that he got to wake up every morning and be reminded of the enormity of the world. She hadn’t had that, even before prison. Her little flat in Fremantle that echoed with the sounds of the city – sirens, car horns, drunken yells – had just reminded her that she had work the next day.
Grey was not a calming presence, though. He was wound tight and way too intense, making her feel like she had to be on her guard all the time. But something had shifted. She could feel it loosening, a bolt slipping from its washer, ever since the bomb. Now that he believed her. Maybe it wasn’t trust. But it was enough to steady her breathing and keep her from jumping every time he moved.
She couldn’t stop her mind from thinking about the moment in the cellar. His enormous body on top of hers. Where had he gone? But when she’d exhausted all the horrific scenarios that could have caused such trauma, her treacherous, immature mind started to elaborate on the scene. Pushed him down. His mouth traced her neck ...
‘Where’s your coroner based?’ Max asked. It was the first random thought she could conjure that had nothing to do with the cellar.
‘I don’t have a coroner,’ he said, only one hand on the wheel. It always annoyed her when people did that. ‘I just told the Barbaranis that’s where I was going. We’re going straight to the prison.’
Max opened her mouth like a python. ‘You lied. To your creator?’
‘I didn’t lie. I am going to get the information from the coroner. Through this new fandangle piece of technology called a phone.’
‘Fandangle?’
‘You said it first.’
‘Hmm.’ She watched the fields of cows turn into little cottages and primary-coloured cafes and second-hand bookshops on display like decorated cupcakes. ‘Will they be all right without you?’
‘I left some toys, and there’s food in the fridge.’
‘You know what I mean.’
‘There’s an entire security team in the house right now. Jett’s there, and Concetta will make enough food to put everyone in a coma. It’s my job to fix things, not be a bodyguard. But Gio will hate that the security are staying. He thinks it makes him look weak.’
‘Tell him the King has it.’
‘I have. Many times. I won’t tell you what he said in response.’
‘I can guess.’
They lapsed into another silence. Strangely, it wasn’t as awkward as Max thought silence had to be.
‘Did I hurt you?’ he asked as rolling vastness of the country dried up into concrete. They were nearing the end of the highway.
It took her a while to work out what he meant. She studied his profile. His hands were clenched tight on the wheel like he was steering the car through a meteorite storm. His jaw looked just as rigid. His eyes were straight ahead, hyper-focused on the straight road even though there was no traffic.
‘I’m fine,’ she lied. Her chest ached from where he’d crushed her. She’d have bruises tomorrow. But they’d remind her that someone had thought she was worth saving. Just strange that it was the Fixer.
‘I’m sorry.’
She figured from his expression and how he’d acted in the grove by the karri trees that those words were not pulled easily from his mouth. ‘Two apologies in one afternoon. I might overdose.’
His lips tightened.
Remembering how he’d reacted when she’d brought up PTSD, she turned over her next response carefully before rolling it like a dice. ‘You were trying to protect me.’
‘It’s just instinct.’
Her stomach dropped. Like she’d expected him to say something else? ‘From the army?’ It was dangerous territory, but her bruised ribs surely gave her a little leeway.
Dishonourably discharged.
He made a sound that was neither agreement nor dismissal.
‘Why did you leave?’ she asked, hating herself. She shouldn’t have asked. Not when she already knew half the answer. But a small part of her couldn’t help but draw a shaky connection between her own career downfall and Grey’s. Although she would never tell him what happened, it made her feel safer somehow, knowing that she wasn’t completely alone.
‘Got caught with drugs,’ he said, gaze still stapled to the road.
She rolled her eyes. Should have realised she’d reached her quota of emotional vulnerability from a man who could barely pronounce the word ‘sorry’ without breaking out in hives. ‘It was fucking terrifying back there,’ she said, figuring if she was expecting him to be honest, she’d have to give something up too. Like taking a sip of medicine to prove to a toddler it was fine to drink. ‘I don’t know if I’ve ever felt like I was that close to dying in my entire career.’
‘My reaction probably made it worse.’ His knuckles were white; if he squeezed the wheel any harder, the bones would rip through skin.
‘I’m not sure how else you were meant to act,’ she said. ‘We would have died if you hadn’t remembered the secret passage. And by the way, why the hell was Emilio Barbarani so paranoid?’
A smile pulsed at the edge of his lips. ‘He was convinced the La Marcas were sending spies disguised as customers and investors. He wanted places he could hide the wine while it was being made so no one could ever take the recipe. But mostly he just used them to smoke and play cards with his mates so his wife didn’t find out.’ He was old-school. Everything opens via a lever – no electricity.’
‘Well, thank god for Emilio Barbarani.’
‘Most people only say that when they’re about to make a very stupid decision after drinking too much sangue.’
‘You know sangue means “blood” in Italian, right?’
‘I did know that. How do you?’
‘I read it in one of the articles about the Barbaranis— Holy shit! ’
‘What?’ Grey slammed on the brakes, his arm flung out instinctively to bar her from catapulting through the window. His hand brushed the underside of her breast and her skin caught alight.
‘Nothing, sorry. Thought I saw a roo.’
He snatched his hand away, shifting Bessy down a gear and fixing his gaze back through the windscreen like nothing had happened.
But something had.
Max realised where she’d seen the name Sophie recently. In bold Times New Roman font at the bottom of all those articles she’d consumed about the Barbaranis. Sophie Kingsley – the journalist.
Had she and Grey—?
But she wrote all those—
So that would mean—?
‘What?’ He was staring at her like he’d planted a bug in her brain and all her thoughts about how Sophie must have used Grey to get close to the Barbaranis so she could advance her writing career were downloading into his mind. No wonder he’d hated the thought of Max trying to worm her way onto the Barbarani property without giving him the full story.
No wonder he was so ... Greyson .
‘It’s not visiting hours,’ she squeaked out, a random Hail Mary to justify her temporary insanity. Saliva slipped down her throat in an awkward way that had her descending into a tear-streaming coughing fit.
‘We’re not visiting,’ he said after she stopped dying. They were approaching the part of the freeway where the lights were spaced closer together, a concrete fairyland at the end of the dark woods. Max had no idea how Grey planned to get them into the jail, unless they committed a quick crime. She also had no idea how she could ever bring up Sophie again without him ejecting her from her seat into the middle of Forest Highway. But both puzzles melted in her mind as they sailed under the lights and she realised something.
This was the longest she’d been in a car since she was sixteen. The bus ride to Bindi Bindi had almost broken her, but she’d got through that by focusing on her research and the thrill of finally being free. Also, the bus hadn’t had the same claustrophobic feel as a car.
The realisation was enough to set her off though. The leather’s perfume was soaking her nose. The whirring sound of the engine and the sickeningly smooth glide of the wheels over bitumen twisted inside her like a building tornado. Her skin was clammy, but given the outside temperatures and Grey’s thick jacket, she knew it would be ridiculous to ask to turn the air conditioner on. She shifted, trying to imagine she was somewhere else. But the places her mind conjured up – the cellar, the prison, Jackie’s house, the blank spaces between each word on the note Vittoria had shown her – were not helping.
Max felt Grey’s eyes on her a few times, but she must have looked completely normal (well, as normal as she could look to him) because he said nothing. Had he noticed the hitch in her breath when they stopped suddenly because of the city gridlock? Or when a truck roared past, did he feel her body tense, bracing for it to hit?
Of course not. He wasn’t paying her that much attention.
The prison was the last place Max had imagined she’d end up tonight when she left yesterday morning. Now, in the early evening, it was a dark slab of chocolate against the flat fields, tiny squares of dull light puncturing the concrete edges like little nuts. Max hated chocolate with stuff inside it.
Nella had lent her another jacket, a plum corduroy that was a step up from the pink one, but her freak-out realisation about Sophie in the car had her skin still bubbling in prickly sweat. She draped the jacket over her arm as she led Grey to the security block.
‘Aren’t you cold?’ he hissed, his gaze on her bare shoulders. She’d tossed the smoky, blood-stained singlet into his washing basket (an act that had felt oddly intimate and equally rebellious) and had replaced it with Nella’s second-least revealing clothing item, which was a black silk high-necked evening top. Her shoulders, all the way down to the rose tattoo on the middle of her back, were exposed, but at least her front was covered this time. When the evening air scraped away the layer of sweat, she’d look almost professional from the top up, with the jacket covering her back.
It was a shame about Nella’s heeled leather boots and apple-red miniskirt swathing her thighs like Glad Wrap. Oh well, beggars and choosers and all that.
‘We’re walking into the fires of hell, Greyson. I’ve never been warmer.’ She hoped he didn’t pick up on the wobble in her voice. Everything was making her off-balance, the car, the prison, Nella’s shoes. The breath of the man behind her on her neck as they waited for their security clearance.
‘Did Skinner ever visit her here?’ Grey asked as they waited for someone to escort them in.
‘Not that I’m aware of. She only ever had one visitor that I remember – some guy, short, always in trackies and a hoodie pulled over his face. Young, I think.’
That was the only time Max had been in the visitors’ area. After that first visit, she’d told Jackie not to come back again.
‘Any idea what they talked about?’
‘Caught a few words.’ While I was waiting for Jackie to tell me she was sorry instead of just sitting there staring at me . ‘They were talking about someone called Edie or Evie. Libby kept referring to her as Edie R – you know, like in school when there’s two people in the class with the same first name? That’s why I asked Libby if it was her son who came to visit – I thought maybe whoever they were talking about was his girlfriend. Just trying to make normal cellmate talk. Everyone loves talking about their kids, right?’
‘I’m guessing Libby didn’t.’
Max smiled at the memory – she and Libby had come a long way since then. ‘She told me to shut my fucking cock-biting mouth and mind my own motherfucking white-trash business.’
Grey nodded slowly. ‘Libby’s son’s dead.’
‘I know that now.’ Max had looked up Libby Johnston on the bus to the bachelor auction, right after the Barbaranis. Some part of her had felt guilty for checking. For doubting that the moment in the TV room had been anything less than genuine, animalistic pain.
Grey looked like he was about to say something else, but instead he went over to the security desk, presumably to ask why he had not already been given access to the master key to all prison doors. Something moved in Max’s periphery and she turned to see a tall, red-haired guard stalking towards them.
‘Missed us did you, Conrad?’ Alexandra, the guard who’d handed her back her see-through singlet and Doc Martens yesterday morning, smirked as Grey worked whatever magic or made whatever threats he needed to get them in. The guy could walk through walls.
Max didn’t believe it when Laura, the guard who’d let Max have an extra custard cup one night, handed them two lanyards with prison passes.
‘Don’t get locked in again, Conrad,’ she said without a smile. Not that Max had expected the guards’ attitude towards her to shift at all now that she was technically a free civilian. Max used to bring coffee to the prison when she had to do interviews. She’d once been a colleague to people like Laura and Alexandra. She imagined it must be hard for them to place her now. Cop. Criminal. Civilian.
She’d always wondered why Laura had snuck her that custard cup.
‘It’s like you’re famous,’ Grey whispered. She wished he’d stop doing that. The feel of his breath against her skin was not helping her focus.
‘Clearly not as famous as you.’ She hooked her thumb through her lanyard. ‘What did you say to them to get us in at this time?’
‘Alexandra’s an old friend.’
‘Just like the ambo guy who came to the Barbaranis in civy clothes without an ambulance?’ Max recalled how the guy had done everything Grey told him with the fervour and obedient fear of a regency-era servant.
‘No, Lang’s a different story. He owes me for other reasons.’
‘And Quinton?’
‘That was Frankie, not me.’
‘But Alexandra’s a friend?’ Max scrutinised the guard in front of her, realising she’d been too full of either self-loathing or pity over the past six months to give any thought to how gorgeous the woman was. It was hard to look attractive in the grey prison officer uniforms with the thick belt tightening in all the wrong places, but on Alexandra it only exemplified her generous curves.
‘An acquaintance. From my military days. We scratch each other’s backs on occasion.’
An unwanted image started to curdle in Max’s mind: Alexandra’s nails digging into Greyson’s wide, bare back, his fingers tangling in her maple-syrup-coloured hair ...
Max physically shook herself to expel the thought. The car ride had affected her more than she’d realised. Or maybe it was being back in these musty, never-quite-dark halls she thought she’d left forever. Anyway, the original thought she’d had in the kitchen was more accurate – Greyson wasn’t the type for intimate, bedroom missionary sex ...
Stop. It .
Alexandra motioned for them to wait in the corridor while she went into the empty visitors’ area, switching on the lights.
‘Do you have any real friends or just people who “owe” you?’ Max asked.
‘I also have short, annoying accomplices who irritate me into working with them.’ He was leaning against the wall, arms crossed, a small, unusual smile tugging at his mouth.
‘So I’ve graduated from criminal to accomplice? You know what that makes you, right?’
‘The good-looking one.’
‘I think that’s a little bit sad.’
‘It’s a large cross to bear, yes. Sometimes I just want someone to buy me a drink for my personality.’ He sighed.
‘I mean it’s sad you not having any real friends.’
‘You’re the one who said I don’t have any friends.’
‘The Barbaranis don’t count.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because you work for them.’
‘You can’t be friends with people you work with?’
‘You don’t work with them, you work for them.’
Something darkened in him, a bruise she’d poked a little too hard. Served him right for using his romantic relationship with Alexandra to gain access to Libby during non-visiting hours.
‘Where are your friends, Maxella?’ He was back to glaring now. ‘Did they pick you up from here yesterday morning?’
Thankfully Alexandra waved them through, saving Max from making up some convoluted lie or, worse, telling the truth. Something about the Barbaranis’ Fixer made her feel, strangely, like he might understand.
The cold, artificial air with the scent of metal and the plastic chairs brought back her only other memory of being in here. Jackie’s basically silent visit. Then, still sitting in the same chair, the fight with Libby after she’d asked what she thought was an innocent question. She remembered how it had all made her feel exactly like she had when her parents died – like she herself was a hollow visitors’ room that people and cold air just passed through, never staying long enough to make a permanent home.
‘Before we go in,’ Max said, turning to him, the reality of what they were doing slamming into her, ‘there’s something you should know ...’
‘I’m gonna fuckin’ kill you, Conrad, if you came all the way back here and made me miss the start of Farmer Wants a Wife to introduce me to your white-trash boyfriend.’
The voice that shocked Max right back to her first night here rose from behind Alexandra.
Grey raised his eyebrows in that frustrating way that made her want to drag them back down his forehead with her thumb. ‘I stand corrected. You are the expert when it comes to quality friendships.’ He smirked and pushed past her into the prison visitors’ room.