Conspiracy Girl (29 page)

‘So am I,’ Finn says. ‘But remind me never to get on your bad side.’

‘Too late,’ I say, smiling at him before I can stop myself. Every time I try to push him away or put a barrier up between us he knocks it down as it if were made of paper. Our eyes
lock, something passing between us that sends a jolt through my body. I look away, flustered. He made it crystal clear back at the house by the lake that he wasn’t interested in me –
not only to Maggie but also to my face. I’m not planning on humiliating myself again any time soon.

‘So tell me what you’re going to do,’ I say, to distract myself from remembering it.

‘First, I’m going to launch an attack on Vorster’s website,’ Finn says. ‘Take it down. Nothing major, just a shot across the bows. Then I’m going to dig into
the management and CEO’s emails and files and see what information I can find on all their dirty dealings.’

‘What kind of dirty dealings?’ I ask.

‘All kinds. For a start Vorster claim that their diamonds are all from non-conflict areas, but I highly doubt that. I’m sure the media will love a blood-diamond story about Vorster,
especially with documentation to back it up. Then there’s the theory that they’re price-fixing, holding most of the world’s supply of diamonds in a vault somewhere so they can
artificially inflate prices. Imagine if hackers and criminals the world over woke up tomorrow and had access to the vault’s location and the blueprints for how to break into it? Imagine if
their financial details were exposed online – their share price would nosedive. Imagine if—’ He’s talking so fast I can barely keep up.

‘But isn’t this just kicking the hornet’s nest?’ I interrupt.

‘Maybe,’ Finn says, ‘but that’s why you build in a contingency plan.’

‘What do you mean?’

Finn looks over at me with a sly grin on his face. ‘This is when it helps to have friends in low places.’

Maggie’s left the key to my new front door under the mat. She’s also had a new alarm system installed and I input the code she gave me over the phone.

I wanted to keep this bit a secret but as soon as I open the door Goz pads over – or rather, hops over – as his right front leg is still lame and bandaged up. Nic lets out a cry when
she sees him. She never asked me the whole time how he was and I figured it was because she was scared to know in case he was dead. And, for my part, I was glad to not have to tell her because it
was touch and go there for a while. He’s bandaged all across his shoulder and abdomen, with shaved patches of fur all across his back and torso.

Nic is on her knees in the doorway, hugging the beast and crying. She looks up at me with glistening eyes. ‘Why didn’t you say anything?’ she asks.

‘Because I didn’t know how he was doing until I talked to Maggie in the car, and I figured it would be a nice surprise.’

She smiles at me then so wide my stomach contracts. I know it’s only girls that talk about butterflies and racing hearts . . . but, well . . . call me a girl. When Nic smiles up at me all
I can think about doing is sweeping her up off the floor and carrying her over to my bed, which, I note only now is still ransacked and covered in feathers from the ripped comforter. But, as I scan
the rest of the room, my thoughts quickly divert from the bed to revenge. The cube is a wreck. It’s as bad as I remember, even though Maggie has tried to clean up as best she could.

I shut the door behind us and leave Nic and Goz to their happy reunion. The beast is licking her. I actually feel a twinge of jealousy as she kisses his ugly, scrunched-up face.

I set down the silver ballet shoes we collected from Nic’s on the way (no police guard to get past this time) and inspect the cube up close, something I didn’t have much time to do
before. The damage is pretty dire but still salvageable. I put in an order late last night to a buddy of mine who works at a computer store. I glance at my watch. It’s just gone four a.m. He
should be here any moment with my order. I head to the fridge and grab two Snapples and hand one to Nic. Surprising me, she takes it.

Sitting on the floor, she stares around the loft, keeping one hand on Goz at all times. She doesn’t look at me and the tension ripples off her body like one of those invisible electric
fences that keep pets from leaving the yard. Except this one is designed to keep me from coming near her.

Probably for the best
, I remind myself.

The doorbell buzzes just as I’m replaying that scene from the bedroom. It’s my friend Travis, bearing gifts. We bump fists and he starts carrying the boxes into my loft. He glances
at Nic in surprise and then winks at me. I shake my head. If only he knew the half of it.

Travis and I go way back. I’ve been buying computer hardware from him for over a decade. He’s in his late thirties, has a thick beard, thicker glasses and even thicker skin.
I’ve never in a decade seen him wear anything other than ripped jeans, scuffed Vans and a
Star Wars
T-shirt.

‘Who’s the chick?’ Travis whispers.

‘None of your business,’ I answer.

‘Woah,’ Travis says, his eyes widening as he takes in the damage to my cube.

‘I know,’ I say.

‘Holy shit,’ he mutters, ‘who’d you piss off this time? The Latvians? Or that crazy chick at the steak house?’

I glare at him but Nic is busy rubbing noses with Goz and didn’t hear.

‘You don’t want to know,’ I tell Travis.

He makes me sign some paperwork and I thank him for the early-morning call, handing him one of Martha’s boxes by the door as a little extra payment.

‘No problem, man,’ he says heading to the door. ‘You know I sleep all day, work all night.’

He leaves and I contemplate the boxes.

‘Why don’t you take a shower and grab some sleep?’ I tell Nic. ‘I need to start setting all this up.’

‘OK,’ she says. She gets up and our eyes lock for a long moment.

It takes all my willpower not to cross the few metres between us. I want to wrap her up and hold her. I want to erase that image in my mind of her bent over the sofa with that guy on top of her.
I want her to know that I will stay by her side until she is safe.

Seven hours later I’ve set up the computers, installed all the programs I need and rolled out phase one of my Vorster attack. Their site is down. I’ve also managed
to find a hole in their firewall and have downloaded all their filed tax returns, which tell a very different story to their actual financial records. It looks like they owe tens of millions of
dollars in back taxes. I’ve gathered information on the locations of all their mines, several of which are in known conflict areas including Liberia, the Congo and the Ivory Coast. I sent it
all to a journalist I know at the
Washington Post
. If all goes to plan, I imagine the IRS will be investigating them first thing in the morning.

The second phase involves me putting on my grey hat. I enter the chat room where FBI1 and FBI2 were hanging out last and find Ivarstheblack
.
He’s very, very interested in what I
have to tell him and promises to get back to me in under twelve hours.

I log out and stand up to stretch. About an hour ago, Goz got up from the bed where he was sleeping beside Nic and wandered over to hang out with me. He likes sticking his head in my lap.
I’m starting to wonder about the dog’s proclivities. I notice he never follows Nic into the bathroom, though he follows her everywhere else.

I glance over at Nic. There’s that tug again, as though I’m on a leash that she isn’t even aware she’s holding. I walk over to her and stand there, watching her sleep.
She’s breathing steadily and I notice with something of a smile that she’s no longer curled on the edge of the bed in a foetal position, but is lying straight down the centre, under the
covers, in a position which suggests ease and abandon. She’s wearing a camisole top and leggings. We freshly bandaged her shoulder after she took a shower but it was a weird moment, neither
of us saying anything as I applied gauze and tape, my fingers aching to linger. She did the same to my wrist where the handcuffs had cut almost to the bone, but she didn’t once look me in the
face and as soon as it was done she walked away.

Ignoring my better judgment I lie down on the bed facing her, careful not to wake her. My hands twitch. I want to reach out and brush her hair aside so I can study her face, but something holds
me back. She has a dimple in her chin and lips that would give Scarlett Johansson a run for her money. And just as I’m remembering what it was like to kiss her, what it was like when she
kissed me, her eyes flash open.

‘Hi,’ I say. Awkward much?

She gives me a fleeting, forced smile, gone before I’m even sure it was there. ‘You sleep OK?’ I ask.

She nods. ‘Did you?’ she asks. Her hands are bunched under her chin.

‘Not yet,’ I tell her, unable to stop staring at her lips.

She’s a witness!
Maggie’s voice is loud as thunder in my head.

But she’s not any more, I realise. She’s safe. It’s over.

I screwed up with Eleanor. But I didn’t this time.

‘Come here,’ I whisper, pulling Nic towards me across the bed.

She resists, tugging her hand free.

Shit. I read it wrong. I sit up, feeling a numbness taking me over. I got it all wrong.

‘Sorry,’ I say, making to stand up.

‘I heard you on the phone to Maggie,’ Nic mumbles to my back.

‘What? When?’ I say, turning around to face her. What is she talking about?

‘Back at the house by the lake.’ She takes a deep breath. ‘You told her you weren’t interested in me.’ She’s staring up at the ceiling, refusing to look my
way, her cheeks flushing red.

That’s it? That’s why she’s acting so cold? Relief makes me light-headed, like I just took a toke of something potent. ‘I lied to her,’ I say, reaching again for
her hand. ‘Because I didn’t want Maggie on my back. I knew what she’d say. You were a witness. I wasn’t supposed to get involved.’

She frowns. Though she’s letting me hold her hand and isn’t pulling away, she’s still not convinced.

‘Why? Have you done it before?’ she asks. ‘Got involved with a witness?’

I nod. I’m not going to lie to her.

‘I made a mistake. A girl called Eleanor Ricci. It cost more than my job. It cost her her life. I was meant to be protecting her. I failed. She got away. The man who she was going to
testify against found her and killed her.’ My voice cracks but I don’t look away. I need her to see what I am,
who
I am; the mistakes I’ve made. If she chooses to walk
away she can. I wouldn’t blame her. But if there’s going to be anything between us it has to be based on truth and trust.

For a long moment Nic says nothing. Finally she looks up.

‘It wasn’t your fault,’ she says. ‘She chose to run.’

I’ve never stopped blaming myself for Eleanor and hearing someone actually tell me it wasn’t my fault feels like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders that I didn’t even
know was there.

‘You can’t save everybody, Finn,’ Nic says quietly, squeezing my hand.

It is possible to save some people though. I saved her. That has to count for something.

‘And now?’ she asks sadly.

I shake my head, confused.

‘Am I still out of bounds?’

I lift my free hand and stroke it down her cheek. Immediately blood rushes to the surface of her skin, her lips part and I feel a quickening of my own pulse, a stirring in my gut.

‘I tried to stay away from you,’ I murmur, my eyes drawn to her lips. ‘I tried to follow the rules. I guess though,’ I admit with a small shrug, ‘I’m not very
good at following rules. So I give up. I want to be with you, Nic. I want to be the one who takes down all those walls you’ve put up against the world,’ I say. ‘Will you let me do
that?’

‘Will you let me do that?’ Finn asks, and slowly the meaning of his words sinks in.

I stare at him. At the pent-up frustration in his fisted hands, at the lines of tension in his knotted shoulders. He’s looking at me, waiting for me to speak, but I’m frozen.
It’s what he said about walls. He’s right. Being with Finn means letting him in, means tearing down all the defences I put up after my mum died and, more than that, it means keeping
them down. It means inviting in chaos and uncertainty and all the things I’ve worked so hard to avoid. It means learning how to live with risk. And I’m not sure I know how.

But with all that, I tell myself, comes love and craziness and excitement and the type of feelings that let you know you’re alive and make you feel grateful for every breath you get to
take. If I choose to, I can open myself up to all of it. The only thing is, I don’t know if I can make myself that vulnerable. I’ve lived so long on my own, keeping people out, hiding
behind locked doors with just a dog for company, that I think I might have forgotten how to live like a normal person. I can’t imagine living without locks on the door, without always
glancing backwards over my shoulder scouring the shadows, without walking down the street with one hand buried in my bag clutching a Taser.

‘I don’t know if I can,’ I say to Finn in response to his questioning look, and my voice breaks as I say it. ‘I don’t know how to take them down.’

His free hand comes up and strokes a strand of hair back behind my ear. ‘I do. That’s my job, remember,’ he says.

And then he kisses me and, as he pulls me into his arms, I feel the walls – all the firewalls I’ve erected out of fear and steel and the jagged, broken shards of memories –
start to crumble to dust as if Finn is sweeping them aside.

As hard as he pulls me to him, I press myself against him. In his arms I’ve finally found the place I’ve been looking for, where fear can’t touch me, where memories can’t
reach, where the past is forgotten and the present is enough. Where the present is, in fact, all that matters.

My hands knit into Finn’s hair as his slide up my back. I tilt my head back after a few minutes to catch my breath, my head swimming, and he leans down and runs kisses up my throat until
it feels like I’m breathing in fire. My skin is coated in goosebumps and I’m not sure I could stand it if he let me go. But that’s OK, because I think we just agreed that
he’s not going to.