Page 65 of The Soulmate

She’s her father’s daughter, that one.

62

AMANDA

BEFORE

‘Gabe Gerard shot Arthur?’

Max sighed. ‘Yes.’

‘But why was he eventhere?’

A look of shame crossed Max’s face. ‘He wanted to be there. He said it was his mistake that got us into this mess and he wanted to ensure that we got out of it.’

‘And you let him?’

Max didn’t respond, but his face said he understood his error.

‘Your judgement of him is skewed, Max,’ I said.

Max looked weary. ‘It’s a little too late for this, Amanda.’

I let out a breath I didn’t realise I was holding. ‘So what happened?’

‘Apparently, he meant to shootnearArthur, to scare him. He grabbed Baz’s firearm as if it were an episode ofLaw and Order. I don’t know what came over him.’ Max rested his head in his hands. ‘This whole thing is a nightmare.’

*

Baz dumped Arthur Spriggs’s body in the scrub by the beach. He did a good job; it took the cops nearly a week to find. When they did, Arthur’s underworld connections meant the investigation went off in the wrong direction. The case was mentioned briefly in the papers and that seemed to be that. But Max was haunted by it.

Gabe lost his job, obviously. For a moment I’d worried Max wouldn’t let him go, but thankfully he did what was necessary. Apparently, Gabe didn’t take the news especially well. He begged Max to reconsider, which I thought was rich of him. He got off easy, compared to us. Now, not only did we have a shady organisation investing in the company, its boss had just been murdered! This made extricating ourselves from the investment that much harder.

‘We’ll get out of it,’ Max said. ‘It’s just a little more complicated now. And it will take a little longer.’

‘And Gabe?’

Max threw up his hands. ‘He moves on with his life, I guess.’

‘Hopefully far away from us,’ I said.

For a while, it looked like that was exactly what he did. But our involvement with the Gerard family didn’t end there. Sometimes I wonder if that’s exactly what Max wanted all along.

63

PIPPA

NOW

I‘ve been in the supermarket for nearly an hour. Usually, I find the supermarket soothing. The rows of goods lined up and labelled and in their proper places, adjacent to similar and complementary items. The oranges and apples and bananas arranged in pleasing colour-coded piles. The little baskets for weighing produce. The music playing through the speakers – Smooth FM – which almost always features a Lionel Ritchie song.

Today, though, I am not soothed. I attribute that to the fluttery, nauseated feeling in my belly I’ve become accustomed to this past week. Today, it’s worse than ever. And I have the bizarre sensation that someone is watching me.

I glance up from my shopping list suddenly. The faces around me are all familiar. Preschool mums, neighbours, people I’ve met at the surf club. But the sensation remains. As I stand at the deli counter ordering ham, as I reach for the yoghurt, as I squeeze an avocado – I feel it. It’s unnerving. I watch a young mother hand her baby a peeled banana. The baby throws it on the floor. Nothing at all out of the ordinary. Everything is exactly as it should be.

I mean, it isn’t ridiculous to think someone could be following me, is it? Max, for instance. Isn’t itprobablethat he is keeping an eye on us? Or, if not him, one of his ‘people’? Someone like Max is bound to have people.

What if someone breaks into our house?I think suddenly. If Max is so desperate for the USB, it would be the obvious thing to do. He wouldn’t find the USB, of course, but who knew what would happen to the house . . . and anyone in it. I think of my family, the way they drop in without warning, sometimes letting themselves in the back door. Someone could be conducting surveillance on the front, think the coast is clear and then head inside only to find Mum in the kitchen making soup, or Kat and Mei popping by for a cup of tea. I must warn them, I realise. But what would I say?