Chapter 26
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
I hadn’t had a reason to visit the place on Heale Street since arriving, but the blaring volunteer fire alarm that sounded with every callout made it impossible to ignore. Like a toddler screeching for attention. I’d half a mind to take a petition around town to get it silenced.
“A training opportunity?” asked the silver-haired man in front of me.
“I’m sure you understand there’s many health and safety considerations we’d need to undertake first, but I can’t say it wouldn’t be a welcome idea.
Are you sure about it though? There’s no going back once it’s done.
” He dragged his thumb and index finger along his jaw line.
The parting of his hair reminded me of a war veteran.
Yup. Definitely whiskey. This man’s breath could start more fires than it could put out.
“That’s what I’m counting on,” I beamed.
His eyes absorbed my face for a moment before he bobbed his head. “Alright. Give me until the end of the day to consult the rest of the leadership team and council. Can I keep the paperwork?”
“Oh, sure.” I gathered the pages and slid them across the desk. Thank-you Rick, for the legal work. “And you remember my clause? I won’t give the go-ahead without it.”
His mouth pressed into a tight line. That clause was his sticking point, but I knew it would be.
It’d take some convincing, but his hard-lined face looked experienced in interrogation.
I didn’t doubt he was up to the challenge.
I was also pretty sure I’d made him an offer he’d be stupid to refuse.
How often did someone hand you a whole house on a platter?
Probably a big fat zero in his entire career.
There was one paid firefighter and six volunteers at Glades Bay station, meaning there was room for neighbouring stations to benefit too. At least that’s what I’d noted in my proposal, using the extended training opportunity as a sweetener.
Excitement swirled in my stomach as I exited, and I felt the first sense of control I’d experienced since opening the email from Trevor. Yup, I was doing this. I looked up at the grey sky and smiled, imagining Olivia up there somewhere.
"This is for you, girl."
I had one more proposition to deliver this morning, and it was going to be more satisfying than sex on a Sunday morning.
Bean There stood as ominous as ever in its black-on-black signage.
“Hi Fox,” I waved to the purple-haired man behind the counter as I entered.
His dark eyes frowned. A woman whose blonde hair was scooped into a high ponytail emerged from the kitchen with a tray of clean cups and, upon seeing me, swiftly turned and went back in again.
Fair enough. I’d eyed her so intensely the first time I was here, trying to figure out if she was Olivia Pratt, she was probably expecting flowers. She should be so lucky.
“Is Miss Lissy here?” I asked, leaning a hand on the counter. “Hope I haven’t missed her.”
Fox ignored my playful tone and my questions all together.
Alrighty then.
A quick glance down and the long room answered for him as I spotted the saggy woman with the pageboy haircut, folding her newspaper. I was low-key relieved I wouldn’t have to track her down anywhere else. Conversations with crazy people were best kept in public places.
“Riley!” She looked up surprised as I approached her. “I've missed you recently. I’ve got some walls that need the paper stripped.”
My eyes narrowed. “You’ll have to rope one of your other minions into that. Besides, I’m more of a painting gal. Wallpaper stripping is a bitch on the cuticles.” I stretched out my freshly painted fingernails for emphasis.
She tilted her head, her pale eyes darkening as her lips curled. If there was a face I hated most in the world, it was that one. That exact smile.
I counted to ten in my head and tried to feel my feet in my boots.
“That’s a shame,” she said, her eyes not leaving mine. I willed myself not to blink and tried not to fidget as the silence between us continued. Was this a staring contest now?
“For you, I guess.” I lifted a shoulder and leaned against the seat, letting my gaze wander out the window.
“For Ema,” she corrected, her smile growing as she tucked her paper under her arm to leave.
“Ema?”
“Well, I can’t do it all by myself. It’d take a day and a night. Without your help, she’ll have to do it for me. A day and a night won’t bother her though.” The smirk on her lips grew as she leaned on her elbows, her fingers laced together.
“I didn’t realise child labour was legal.” My gaze drilled into hers. She was as predictable as thunder after lightning.
“She likes it.”
“How we liked wall sits and the doctor’s ECT treatment at Bellamy. Or being filmed?”
She lifted a shoulder. “You guys didn’t know what you liked. People who have parents that don’t care about them need powerful people to guide them.”
Not quite the answer I wanted, but we were getting warmer.
“Let’s say she does like it. I’m sure the school wouldn’t appreciate the missed day.”
“They take my guidance well.” The dark challenge in her eyes remained. “It benefits them to stay in good stead with a Fotherington.”
Wasn’t that the truth. I wondered how many slimy activities had been carried out over the years in the name of that family.
“Besides,” she added, “don’t you have some kind of saviour complex to make up for your own failed life?”
I snorted, satisfied by the way it made her jump and her skin to jiggle. That was pretty much what I’d said to Dax the other night.
“Maybe I do," I answered. "How’s Ema doing, anyway?”
“Not your business.”
“Maybe not.” I admired my nails again. “But I don’t think she’s your business anymore either.”
Breeze had done a great job with the polish. Racy red wasn’t usually my colour, but paired with my black skinny jeans, heavy combat boots and today’s mood, it was a winner.
The darkness left Miss Lissy’s eyes for a second, but her experience at making other people squirm into submission in front of her made the rest of her features stay the same.
She didn’t want me to know what she was thinking, and I could see her chess-player brain trying to calculate two steps ahead of me.
I wasn’t playing chess though; I was more of a Go Fish kind of gal, and this time I had more pairs than she did.
The silence stretched longer between us, engulfing everything in its path. I wondered what the other patrons thought about the cowboy era stare down that was happening.
“Must be off. It’s been lovely to see you,” she finally said as she stood to leave. Her eyes still watched me like a predator.
“I wish I could say the same, but I seem to remember a rather electric punishment for lying as a child. I tend to avoid it now.”
“And you said you didn’t benefit from Bellamy House.” She replied.
Bingo.
“Good luck stripping the wallpaper from the spare room,” I called after her. I was about to put my last pair down.
“You know perfectly well it’s Ema’s room,” she sang. “But I’ll wish her luck.”
“Don’t you mean Ema’s old room?”
That did it.
She spun on the spot.
“I heard she moved out about…” I checked the invisible watch on my wrist. “Oh—twenty minutes ago, give or take? At least, that’s what the welfare advisor from the school said.”
Miss Lissy’s face distorted in a terrifying display that I recognised, and she tore down the narrow room toward me.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” she hissed.
I flipped my phone over which had been recording our entire conversation, and pressed stop before flicking down to an earlier one.
“Don’t they wonder why they’re not hearing from you so much?” My recorded voice asked.
“Miss Lissy tells them that UK schooling is different from Japanese schooling and takes a lot of immersion. She tells them not to interrupt my learning. So they accept that. They want me to do well. They want me to get a good job after. But I miss them. I want to talk to them more.”
Miss Lissy’s eye twitched. “That proves nothing.”
“Maybe not,” I leaned back, stretching my legs out. “But it doesn’t look good.”
I reached into my off-the-shoulder jumper and pulled out a photo from my bra. Miss Lissy stilled as I slid it onto the table.
Her and Trent Ebsworth, local scumbag and part-time dealer, sat side by side in his rust-bucket car.
“Neither does this.”
That, combined with what Ema had told the welfare advisor yesterday, had been enough. She went back home this morning. I couldn’t blame her for wanting to go back to Japan after her experience with Miss Lissy. She’d received an overseas education she never bargained for.
“Turns out schools frown on host parents restricting contact between a minor and their parents. They didn't seem to like whatever this is either,” I said, picking up the photo.
If I were still five, I’d have been running for a hiding spot because Miss Lissy had murder in her eyes.
If we weren’t in public, I had no doubt she would have had something more physical to say to the bomb I'd just dropped. I felt like Harry Potter when he instigated Dobbie’s freedom with a sock.
Adrenaline filled me, causing my knee to tremble under the table, but it was born from excitement.
I’d pay for this; I knew that already. There was no time limit on revenge when it came to Miss Lissy, but I didn’t care.
My body was sick to the core of running from my memories and the people who'd hurt me. I couldn’t save Olivia, but I could save Ema.
And maybe a part of me wanted to save myself now.
Heat filled Miss Lissy’s face and plunged down her shirt. She looked like she might break out in hives. “There’s plenty more where she came from,” she spat.
“Maybe,” I said, smiling wide. “But there’s a black smudge on your name now.”
She pierced me with a wide-eyed gaze for another moment before storming from the building.
I blew out a breath. Holy crap.
I wanted to high-five the child in me that was jumping for joy. But the real celebration would have to wait.
“I’ve told you before, Jem, I’m not interested at that price. It’s valued at—” Big Boss Betty’s voice trailed off as I passed her sitting on her scooter, engulphed in a phone conversation and completely blocking the exit.
“Yes. Yes, I remember,” she said, frowning as she listened.
Seemed like Miss Lissy wasn’t the only one in the firing line today.
“Miss Walls?” a gravelly tone emerged from the phone pressed to my ear.
What was I—my fake mother?
“Yes?” I wasn’t sure if arguing with every person who tried to use my old surname was the best way to start conversations.
“Denis Gavellin.”
“Yes?”
“We agree to your terms.”
My back straightened from where I’d been pricking new seedlings into the garden. I’d been spending more time out here since my world flipped inside out. If my people skills were limited before, they’d now gone on sabbatical indefinitely.
“All of them?”
He cleared his throat. “Yes. All of them.”
Colour me impressed. The local council had approved something in under a day. Maybe it’d rain cats and dogs next—or I’d win the lottery.
“With one contingency,” he added.
Always so close.
“Which is?”
“Local police need to be on site and there can be no spectators besides the two listed.”
I’d figured the first might be a requirement. I tried not to hope that a certain detective would be there. He hadn’t contacted me since yoga class, and I’d taken to cleaning Steamy Sips after hours to reduce my interaction with humans.
“Fine by me.”
“There’s a contract being drawn up by our lawyer—Trevor. You’ll need to go over it with your own counsel before we can begin prep.”
I threw my head back and laughed. Fucking Trevor. Fitting, really—coming full circle with him involved.
“How long will prep take?”
“Two days, give or take. We’ll need time to notify residents that a training is taking place—otherwise the phone will ring off the hook come go time. Then there’s traffic management, prepping the grounds and building, and sending invites to neighbouring stations.”
Sounded like a party.
“Miss Walls?”
I groaned. “Mr Gavellin?”
“You said you wanted this done as soon as possible. We’re happy to honour that. But it begs the question… have you really thought this through? Do you need…” he cleared his throat again, like something unpleasant was stuck in it. “Do you need to talk to someone? Professionally?”
I snorted. Poor Denis. That must’ve taken some effort.
“Sir,” I said, pressing the earth around a new spinach seedling with my fingers before sitting up straight. “I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.”