Chapter 22
22
Max
‘Hey, Conrad?’
Max felt eternal gratitude towards Alexandra as she peeled her away from Grey. She knew it was just delaying the inevitable, but it gave her a second to breathe through the vice that Libby’s words had clamped around her lungs.
Alexandra shunted her into the warden’s office, where Max immediately began shivering under the silent air-conditioner.
‘Sorry.’ Alexandra turned it off. ‘Laura’s hot flushes don’t have great timing.’
Max managed a smile.
‘What’s the deal with you and Greyson Hawke?’
Right, she was jumping straight in there. Had Alexandra seen Max put her hand on Grey’s knee? Surely she hadn’t thought that was a romantic gesture? All she needed to do was take one look at how Grey glared at her to know the truth.
‘I’m helping him with security for the Barbarani wine gala.’
Alexandra surveyed her with that prison-guard bullshit radar Max assumed they must all be fitted with on their induction day. ‘And what’s Libby Johnston got to do with that?’
Max stayed silent. Like her shitty lawyer had told her to do. Turns out, that part of his advice had been right.
Alexandra sighed and reached for a half-eaten strawberry glazed donut, taking a bite. Max’s stomach churned as the sickly sweet tang of icing wafted up her nose.
‘You don’t want to get mixed up with Libby, Conrad.’
‘You made me sleep in the same room as her for six months.’
‘You know what I mean. I’m surprised she even spoke to Hawke, given his connection to ... that family.’
Max shrugged. ‘He has a way of getting what he wants.’ She didn’t add ‘from women’ but she’d bet Alexandra heard it. ‘How do you know him?’ she tried.
Alexandra finished the donut. Wiping her hands against her thighs, she frowned. ‘Not in the way you’re thinking.’
‘What am I thinking?’
‘You’ve got the wrong end of the stick. And I’m personally not partial to sticks.’
Oh. ‘Right. Sorry, he just said—’
‘That we go way back? We do. Platonically. You’ve got nothing to worry about.’
‘Worry about ... What are you? No! God ...’ Max spluttered. ‘We’re just working together.’
Alexandra raised her eyebrows. ‘He looks at you like he’s—’
‘Like what?’
Alexandra wiped the donut dust off her leg. ‘Like he’s trying to decide if he wants to rip you in half or rip your clothes off.’
Max barked out a laugh. Alexandra must be tired.
‘I don’t trust Libby.’ The warden sat down behind the desk.
‘That’s part of the job, isn’t it?’
‘You know what I mean. She hates the Barbaranis, Conrad. Why would she be helping you?’
‘Because she hates Skinner more?’
Alexandra pursed her lips. ‘You remember the Farmer Wants a Wife finale?’
Max’s blood went cold. She tried not to think about that night in the prison TV room – the night she’d been about to tell Grey about before Alexandra had escorted them into the visitors’ room. She couldn’t remember what the headline had been as the Barbaranis’ faces flashed across the too-bright screen – at this point, without the crack down its centre. Perhaps the hotel announcement, perhaps Luca’s altercation with Forrest. She remembered the tall shadowy figure shielding them from the camera, shoulders taking up half the screen. Now, of course, she knew that had been Grey, but his identity hadn’t mattered back then because of what happened next.
‘He killed my son!’ Libby had screamed as she launched herself at the TV. The image frozen on the Barbaranis’ headshots. The guards hadn’t needed to intervene; the inmates had no intention of letting so much as a scratch deface the Farmers’ faces. ‘That Barbarani boy killed my son!’
It wasn’t just pity that had spiked through Max that night as the inmates piled on top of Libby to protect the precious TV, it had been a cold understanding, dripping down her like water on her back. She had been Libby once when she saw the driver who’d T-boned her parents’ car leaving the courtroom in handcuffs.
Those handcuffs hadn’t been enough. The one man wasn’t enough. Max had wanted everyone to pay – his girlfriend for breaking up with him, the meth dealer who’d sold him the drugs, the people who’d made the meth, the P-plater who’d seen him cross the double line ten kilometres earlier and hadn’t called the cops, the architect of Toodyay Road, the designer of their car’s airbag system ...
Max knew Libby’s belief in the Barbaranis’ guilt could only be because of relativity. They were rich, they were alive, while Rocky was not.
Guilt stabbed her with its serrated blades. Should she have told Grey about Libby screaming at the TV? Would he have cared? Or just dismissed it as the hysterical ravings of an incarcerated madwoman?
Like Max had.
Don’t you forget, Mr Barbarani Man. The fucker who killed my son’s gonna get what’s coming to him tomorrow night.
This was starting to feel like close to out of her depth.
‘You right, Conrad?’ Alexandra’s voice brought her back.
‘Just tired.’
‘Look, I’m not supposed to tell you this, but I owe Greyson, and I suppose I owe you too.’
Max figured she could only ask about one. ‘How do you owe me?’
Alexandra ignored her. ‘Let me just say Libby’s been popular with visitors lately.’
‘Kaine Skinner’s been here?’
Alexandra shook her head. ‘Two others,’ she said. ‘A man and a woman. On separate occasions.’
‘Can you tell me—?’
‘Absolutely not,’ Alexandra said, ‘but you need to be careful.’ She picked up a shard of icing from the plate and stuck it on her tongue. ‘Don’t trust anyone.’
‘I already don’t.’ And they don’t trust me.
That’s a lie. Grey did. But you fucked it up, like you always do.
Alexandra coughed. ‘I’m glad you’re out, Conrad.’
‘I’m not,’ Max said. ‘I loved it here.’
Alexandra frowned. ‘I had to explain the use of my taser once, in front of a panel.’
Max went cold as though the air-conditioner had started up again.
‘I know it’s not the same thing,’ Alexandra went on. ‘I’m just saying ... not all of us think you did the wrong thing. I couldn’t say this to you while you were inside, obviously, but I just wanted to let you know – not everyone in the system’s your enemy. Not everyone who’s in prison deserves to be there.’
Max had never taken Alexandra for the unsolicited Ted Talk type. ‘I appreciate it, Alexandra, but you don’t know anything about what I did. No one does except Evan and Jackie Terrace. And they gave their statements in court.’
‘I don’t think everyone believes they told the whole truth.’
Max laughed. ‘The truth? You’ve been part of the system long enough to know there’s no truth . There’s just two sides – it’s a football game. Doesn’t matter who you think deserves to win, it comes down to who has the best argument or the best lawyer. Who plays the best game. Evan won. I lost.’
‘You were protecting someone.’
Max’s lawyer had tried that defence. Unfortunately, that relied heavily on Jackie’s evidence that she’d needed protecting. Evidence Max refused to let her lawyer use.
‘It’s done now,’ Max said, trying as she always did not to think of Jackie.
‘And your life is ruined.’
Not if I stop these murders. Not if I save the most famous Western Australian family. That’s if Greyson even lets me back on the property.
Who was she kidding? She’d be lucky if he let her back in the car. It was the only time, Max realised, that she’d wanted to be back in a car since she was sixteen. She smiled, like she had in court when the jury came back with their verdict.
Guilty.
She remembered the foreman’s face as he watched her grimly. She’d felt sorry for him. She could see how it affected him – to be the one to say it – and she’d smiled so he knew it was all okay. No hard feelings.
It was the same look Grey had on his face when Libby had dropped the grenade about what she’d asked Max to do to Skinner.
Guilty.
‘I’ll stay at a motel,’ Max said, the wind carrying her voice like a runaway ghost. She didn’t want to be stuck in a car with him, silent, seething, for another four hours.
Grey didn’t look at her. ‘I’m not driving back tonight.’
‘I’d gotten the impression you were like the ghoul that haunts the Barbarani property and would turn into a puddle if you’re not back before midnight.’
It was a solid joke and she felt a strange, toxic agony rip through her when he didn’t react. When had she become so addicted to making him smile?
‘I’m meeting Poppy Raven’s family in the morning. Alone. It’s too late to call on them now.’ Night had closed in while they were in the prison, the shadows across his face now sharper.
‘ Poppy Raven’s family are going to talk to Greyson Hawke, the man who works for the family whose wine allegedly killed their daughter?’
‘Of course not,’ he snapped, unlocking the car. ‘They’re meeting with Greyson Kelleher, private investigator, to see if they want to engage my services.’
‘That’s low, even for you.’
‘Even for me ?’ Halfway in the car, he stood up again and slammed the door shut. His enormous frame eclipsed the night sky above her.
Max wasn’t sure what this feeling was – wanting to run but simultaneously desperate to step inside his skin just so she could feel what it was like to be him. Even just for a minute.
‘You have the nerve to accuse me of being like Skinner, of being the Barbaranis’ hit man. And now look where we are. I guess it’s like how cheaters are always paranoid their partner’s being unfaithful. Here you stand before me, the hit woman hired to take out Kaine Skinner.’
‘ Hired insinuates I’m getting paid to do it.’
He threw his head back and let out a laugh, exposing the stubble shadowing his jaw. ‘That’s all you’ve got to say?’ It was a werewolf moment, that laugh. The last human moment before it morphs into a beast.
‘Well, I could tell you the truth. But you won’t believe me, will you?’ She put her hands on her hips, feeling like a forest creature trying to puff up its frill in the presence of a predator.
‘What would give you that impression?’ His sarcasm was like the kick at the bottom of a glass of gin. She wanted to scream. She wanted to ... ‘Get in the car,’ he said.
‘No. I’ll find my own way to a motel. You may not have heard of Ubers but they’re this new fandangle thing ...’
‘You’re not getting a ride on your own out here.’
‘Scared I’ll murder the driver?’ She watched him carefully. He was her entire world right now. There were no stars, no sky, no prison car park. Just Grey.
He swallowed. ‘I’m not letting you out of my sight. You’re staying with me. All night.’