The Soulmate(58)

Gabe is standing at the back door, looking out over the ocean.

‘Gabe?’

Still, he doesn’t respond. He ponders. Breathes. I have a sudden impulse to punch him in the face if he doesn’t answer me immediately.

‘Gabe!’

This snaps him out of it. He looks at me blankly, as if he’d forgotten I was here. ‘What?’

‘What happened?’

‘Sorry,’ he says. ‘Max didn’t believe me when I told him Amanda jumped. He said if I didn’t tell him the truth, he was going to the police.’ He turns back to the view. ‘But then he started asking questions about the USB, and he seemed to forget about the police.’

I squeeze the edges of the cushion. ‘And?’

‘And it occurred to me that I could use it as insurance. To stop him going to the cops.’

‘But you don’t have it.’

‘No. But he doesn’t know that. The important thing is that he thinks I have it.’

He moves away from the back door and sinks onto the couch beside me. He still looks troubled.

‘But he must have been upset when you said you wouldn’t give it to him,’ I say. ‘Surely he’s not just going to accept that?’

‘He wasn’t happy. But he’s a pragmatist. He’ll understand that we have to protect ourselves.’

I’m not so sure. Would Max just let it go? I think of what Gabe said to me the other day. Max isn’t the nice guy everyone thinks he is. I think of what Mei said. Max Cameron is not the kind of enemy you want. He knows some dangerous people.

‘He’s worried the USB will fall into the wrong hands, Pip. But it won’t. It’s gone. Which means Max is safe from whatever is on it . . . and we’re safe from Max.’

‘But are we really safe? If Max is the guy you said he is, surely he’s going to try to get it back?’

Gabe tucks a strand of hair behind my ear and smiles at me. It is supposed to be reassuring, but it misses somehow. I get the feeling that he’s as concerned as I am.

The next question that slips out of me takes me by surprise. Yet I must realise the weight of it, because it comes out so softly even I can barely hear it.

‘There’s nothing else is there, Gabe? Nothing you’re not telling me?’

‘No,’ he says. I can see the sense of betrayal in his eyes. ‘There’s nothing.’

He puts his arms around me, and we drift into silence – Gabe in his world, me in mine. I try not to focus on the fact that I’m not sure I believe him.





59


AMANDA

BEFORE



Max and I both reared back as we heard the gunshot.

‘Baz, Jesus. No!’ Max cried. ‘I didn’t give instructions to shoot. I said not to harm him! What are you doing?’

I put a hand on Max’s arm. ‘What is it? What happened?’

But he didn’t meet my eye, and he shook his head to silence me.

‘Baz,’ he repeated. ‘Are you there? What just happened?’

Max listened. His eyes closed. ‘Shit. Shit.’ He walked over to the wall and rested his forehead against it. Then, again: ‘Shit!’

Baz must have continued talking because Max was silent for a while, just nodding. Finally he said: ‘All right. Yes. Call me when it’s done.’

He ended the call, walked around his desk and collapsed into his chair. It took me several minutes of pleading to get him to say anything at all.

‘What happened?’ I asked, kneeling by his side. ‘Tell me, Max. Please.’

‘It was an accident,’ he said at last. ‘A miscommunication.’ He had a faraway look in his eyes. I suspected he was in shock.

‘But I don’t understand. What kind of miscommunication? Baz is a professional. How did this happen?’

Max didn’t meet my eye for the longest time. When he did, there was something in his gaze. It looked a little like responsibility. Or guilt.

‘Baz didn’t shoot him,’ Max said. ‘It was Gabe.’





60


PIPPA

NOW



‘What are you looking for, Daddy?’ Freya asks that afternoon at the beach. It’s cold but sunny and the girls are playing on the sand in their tracksuits, with buckets and spades. I sit beside them on a towel, pretending to be interested in their banter, while utterly consumed by my own thoughts.

‘Daddy!’ Freya repeats. ‘What are you looking for?’

Gabe is on his hands and knees on the rocks, peering into the nooks and crannies. Since his phone call with Max, he’s become obsessed with finding the USB. He has fishing wire with magnets attached which he intermittently drops into holes and then pulls out again. So far, he’s pulled out two bottle tops, a five-cent coin and a foil chocolate wrapper. He’s so focused on his search that he still doesn’t hear Freya’s question.

‘Daddy just dropped some money,’ I say. ‘He’s trying to find it.’

The girls look appalled. They recently discovered the value of money when Dad gave them two dollars each to buy treats at the corner store. An important lesson in fiscal management, Dad said, as they considered the price of gummy bears versus Kinder Surprises. Also a royal pain in the arse, given that they now ask the price of every item on the shelf at the supermarket, and whether that is more or less than two dollars.