Bitter Nothings (3 page)

“We’ve talked,” Todd said.

“He obviously didn’t explain what a dysfunctional family we are then.”

“He knows,” said a voice from behind her.

She twisted around in her seat to find Emmet standing with one hand on the back of the chair, the other on his hip, and no coffee cup in sight. She cocked an eyebrow at him.

“Detective Senior Sergeant Gleeson is smarter than he looks.” He snorted. “Besides, it doesn’t take a genius to see what a loving, close-knit family we are.”

Todd narrowed his eyes at Emmet. “Back to my original question,” he said, returning his gaze to Dervla. “After the weather, what did you talk about?”

“The job he was doing for my client. Business stuff.” She studied her toenails again. It pained her to have to admit to a near stranger that the most intimate conversations she ever had with her father revolved around print resolutions, color separations, and trim sizes. If she had been a teacher or a nurse, instead of a graphic designer, they probably wouldn’t even have that.

“You say you last saw him two or three weeks ago. Have you spoken to him since? Or had any other contact with him at all?”

She shook her head. “No, wait. He did phone and leave a message Friday, said it wasn’t important and that he would talk to me Monday. Today.”

“How did he sound to you?”

“I don’t know. A bit tired, I suppose.” She frowned, quickly adding, “But no more than any of us are at the end of a workweek.”

“You didn’t call him back to find out what he wanted?”

“No, I didn’t get it until late. If he’d really wanted to talk to me, he would have phoned my mobile. And anyway, when he said he would talk to me Monday, I just assumed it was to do with work.”

DSC Stewart jotted something in her notebook.

“What about your stepmother, Lucinda Johns?”

The knot in the pit of Dervla’s stomach tightened. She’d never been able to think of her father’s wife in those terms. “What about her?”

“When did you last have any contact with her?”

“The eighteenth of October.”

Todd’s dark eyes flared for an instant. “How can you be so sure?”

“You mean, because I was so vague about the last time I saw my father?”

He didn’t answer.

“Because,” she said, her voice cracking as she answered her own question, “it was Kayla’s seventh birthday…” Memories of her half-sister dressed in a silver fairy costume, complete with sparkling tiara and gauze wings, her round face flushed with excitement, flooded back. The normally more reserved Oliver, too, charging around the family room brandishing a cardboard pirate sword, his black eye-patch only adding to his cuteness. Dervla swallowed back tears. Not now. Not here.

“How did relations between your father and stepmother seem to you at the time?”

She bit down on her lip, tasting blood. She shrugged.

“Tense?” DSC Stewart prompted. “Hostile? Civil? Friendly? Loving? What?”

“I don’t know, okay?” She felt Emmet’s hand on her shoulder. “He wasn’t bloody there, was he?” She fought to keep the screech from her voice, fought to hold back the tears. Her father was never there.

CHAPTER 4

Two a.m. and Dervla stared unseeing at the off-white walls of her self-imposed cell. Claustrophobic as she found it, the toilet was the only room with permanent ventilation. Every other window in the house was locked tight. She’d made sure of that.

The toilet seat lid squeaked as she shifted her weight, the hard plastic cold against the back of her bare thighs. She scrolled through her mobile phone’s contact list, stopping when she reached her father’s number. Should she or shouldn’t she? Inhaling a lungful of bleach-tinged air, she pressed the ‘call’ button. It went straight to his voicemail. She hung up.

A few seconds later, she hit the redial button. “Dad, it’s Dervla…” She swallowed. As if he wouldn’t recognize his own daughter’s voice. “Where are you? You need to come home as soon as possible. Please call me as soon as you get this message. Please. It’s important.”

Then she sent him an abbreviated version of the same message via SMS. If he was in a weak mobile reception area, a text message stood a better chance of getting through. Though the police suspected he might be in hiding, Dervla thought differently. She had to.

She tapped her phone against her palm and thought about calling Emmet, then changed her mind. He’d looked dead on his feet when he left earlier. Gabe, too, his eyes as sunken as hers felt. They’d wanted to stay, keep her company, but she’d insisted she needed to be alone. Needed time to process everything that had happened. Or so she thought at the time. Still, she’d half-expected Emmet to return.

Sighing, she sagged against the cistern and tipped her head back. The air filtering through the screened narrow opening at the top of the window was only marginally cooler than that inside. A perfect night for sitting outside in the dark, listening to a city that never slept. Except now, she feared the darkness, feared what she couldn’t see.

…Marcus, Quentin, Sophie…
Her finger hovered over the ‘call’ button. As much as she wanted to hear a friendly voice, a recorded message wasn’t quite the same. That’s all she would get with Sophie holidaying somewhere on Victoria’s east coast in a cottage, its main attraction being no mobile reception, no radio and no television. Incommunicado. And with an ex-husband making her friend’s life a living hell, Dervla couldn’t blame her. She racked her brain for the name of the place but came up blank. Even if she could remember, she knew no way of contacting Sophie in the middle of the night.
No
, Dervla thought,
let her finish her holiday in peace
.
She’s due home Friday, anyway.

Dawn arrived none too soon. Dervla showered, turning the cold water up as much as she could bear it. Then she wrapped a towel around herself, and ignoring the water trickling down her legs, checked her mobile phone for a missed call from her father. Nothing. A quick streak to the answering machine in the hall produced the same result, the message indicator light a solid green. Shivering, she dashed back to the bathroom, leaving a trail of wet footprints in her wake.

After patting her body dry, she combed out her hair, now dark with water. Next, she sprayed her underarms with deodorant, cleaned her teeth, and moisturized her face, all the while avoiding her reflection in the mirror. If she looked half as bad as she felt, she could do without the fright.

Dressed for comfort in an old oversized T-shirt and stretch jeans, she headed down the hall, rechecking the answering machine as she passed. Pale morning light streamed through the glass doors, giving everything it touched a surreal glow. She crossed the Persian rug to the kitchen and raised the semi-opaque blind over the sink, letting in more light.

The coffee machine gurgled, her stomach retorting with a growl. But like sleep, her appetite had deserted her. She went through the motions anyway, and popped a slice of multi-grain bread into the toaster.

Five minutes later, armed with a double-shot espresso and a slice of dry toast, she sat down outside at the wooden-slatted table in the courtyard. With scarcely a breath of wind to stir the air, every little sound was accentuated. She heard her neighbor’s toilet flush and wondered, not for the first time, how three people could be shot in a suburban house and no one hear or see a thing.

Not one but four gunshots. Lucinda had been shot point-blank, once in the temple and again in the chest. Both fatal wounds but the killer obviously wasn’t taking any chances. Kayla and Oliver, too, died instantly with one shot each to the head. Strangely, though, the children were found with their bedsheets pulled up over their faces.

Under the watchful gaze of a family of ever-hopeful sparrows, she sipped her coffee and nibbled a corner of toast. After half a mouthful of what tasted like gritty cardboard, she gave up and doled out the rest to her feathered audience. She pushed aside the empty plate, slouched forward over the table, and rested her head on her forearms. Her eyes closed.

She woke with a start, disorientated, the smell of oiled timber strong in her nostrils. Massaging her cricked neck, she looked back at the house. Was it a dream or had her phone rung? She struggled to her feet, the effort required almost beyond her.

Brrring…
Not the phone, the doorbell. Leaving her breakfast dishes on the table, she stumbled inside, making it halfway up the hall before it rang again.

“Hang on,” she called. “I’m coming.”

She opened the door.

The tousle-haired man on her doorstep looked her up and down, his grin widening. “What was that about coming?”

She slammed the door, the sound reverberating through her body. Her pulse in overdrive, she could do nothing except stand there, breathing in short, ragged gulps. Why now after all this time? Why at all?

“Dervla?”

“Go away. I have nothing left to say to you.” Her emotions were in enough turmoil without having Nathan Ward add to the mix.

“Don’t be like that.”

Her jaw tensed. “What are you doing here, Nathan?”

“I’ll tell you if you open the door.”

“And if I don’t?”

“No problem. I can keep shouting so long as you don’t mind those nice reporters eavesdropping.”

She yanked the door open. “What reporters?” she asked, panning the street over his shoulder. “What the hell do they want?” She spotted a bald-headed man leaning against the driver’s door of a white station wagon and shrank back.

“To talk to the daughter of a murder suspect? You’re lucky your phone number is unlisted.”

Unlisted for a reason. “How did you find me?”

He tapped the side of his nose.

“Whatever.”

“No, wait,” he said, planting his palm against the door as she tried to close it. “I rang Gabe. He told me.”

“And why would he do that?”

“Because I’m a good bloke?”

“Erkkk,” she said, in a bad imitation of a buzzer. “Wrong answer.”

“All right, all right. One of my work colleagues called your brother, saying she was an old school friend of yours, had seen the news and wanted to send you flowers. I admit it was a bit underhanded but hey, my intentions were honorable.”

“That’ll be the day. Which reminds me, how is Fiona?”

He lowered his gaze, rubbing his forehead as if he expected a genie to materialize.

Dervla sniggered. “She dumped you. Now why doesn’t that surprise me?”

“It wasn’t like that.”

“No—” The phone rang. She rushed for it.

“Hello?”

“Oh thank God! What happened? Are you okay? Why didn’t you call me?”

Sophie. Dervla hugged the phone to her ear as if it were her friend and not just her friend’s voice. “Your phone was switched off…”

“Forget that. What a horrible, horrible thing to happen. Are you okay? Sorry, stupid question…”

Dervla whirled around at the sound of the door closing. Nathan stood less than two meters from her, hands in pockets. She scowled at him.

“Is anyone with you?” continued Sophie, not pausing for breath. “I couldn’t believe it when I saw the paper.” Her next words were lost in what sounded like a car door slamming. “I have to drive back to the cottage and pack my things first, but then I’ll be on my way. If I don’t break too many speed limits, I should be there in about nine hours. See you then, okay?”

“Okay.” She eyed Nathan, daring him to move. “Drive safely.”

“Boyfriend?” he asked her after she hung up.

“None of your business.”

He nodded, the corner of his mouth lifting in a self-satisfied smirk. “I knew it.”

“You know nothing. Who invited you in, anyway?”

“You left the door open. What else was I to think, babe?”

“Don’t call me that. I’m not your babe. And you can damned well just go back out the way you came in.”

He held up his hands in surrender. “Now, now, is that any way to treat a friend who only wants to help?”

Dervla spluttered. “Excuse me. You wouldn’t know the meaning of the word friend or help. Unless you thought…” She clenched her fists. “Unless you thought fucking my best friend on the night of our engagement party was doing me a favor.” She still felt the pain of betrayal, though she didn’t know whose was worse, her best friend’s or her fiancé’s.

“That was when I was young and stupid.”

“Oh, so you’re older and wiser now? How convenient.”

He laughed. “Can’t you see the grey hairs? C’mon, babe, you can’t hold that one mistake against me forever.”

“Can’t I?” She jutted out her chin, her crossed arms crushing her breasts.

His face fell, his hazel eyes holding hers in a gaze she remembered only too well. “Please don’t be like that.”

With a sigh, she dropped her arms to her sides. “Seriously, Nathan, why are you here?”

“I saw the news, wanted to check you were doing okay?” His eyebrows arched. “Are you doing okay?”

“What do you think?”

“What I mean is…” He scratched his head.

“Why now after four years?

“Not that you’re counting or anything.”

She ignored him. “You didn’t bother when Mum died, but I guess you and Fiona were still together then.”

At least he had the decency to blush. “I’m really sorry about your mum. She was a great lady. I know it’s no excuse but I didn’t find out she’d died until a few weeks later.”

She ducked past him to the door and opened it. “I’m fine. Now if you don’t mind, I have things to do.”

“Can I use the little boy’s room first?”

“Out!” She jerked the door back wider. He could pee his pants for all she cared.

“I’m sorry. Are we interrupting?”

Her head snapped around at the sound of Todd Gleeson’s deep voice. He and DSC Stewart hung back, looking more like Mormons loitering on her doorstep than police officers.

“Not at all, Detective Senior Sergeant,” she said, enunciating the rank for her ex’s benefit. “Nathan was just leaving.”

Nathan pressed a business card into her hand. “Call me, yeah?” Then with a backward flip of his hand, he was off.

She watched his retreating back, the waiting detectives temporarily forgotten. If only Nathan Ward were as easy to forget.