Kitabı oxu: «The Last Guy She Should Call»

ONE

Rowan Dunn sat in the hard chair on one side of the white table in an interrogation room at Sydney International Airport and reminded herself to be polite. There was no point in tangling with this little troll of an Immigration Officer; she looked as if she wanted a fight.

‘Why have you come to Australia, Miss Dunn?’

As if she hadn’t explained her reasons to the Immigration Officer before her—and the one before him. Patience, Rowan. ‘I bought these netsukes in Bali...’

‘These what?’

‘A netsuke is a type of miniature carving that originated in the seventeenth century.’ She tapped one of the fifteen ivory, wood and bone mini-sculptures that had been stripped of their protective layers of bubble wrap and now stood on the desk between them. Lord, they were beautiful: animals, figures, mythical creatures. All tiny, all perfectly carved and full of movement and character. ‘These are uncommon and the owner knew they had value.’

‘You bought these little carvings and yet you have no money and no means of income while you are in Australia?’

‘That’s because I drained my bank account and maxed out my credit cards to buy them. Some of them, I think, are rare. Seventeenth, eighteenth-century. I suspect one may be by Tamakada, circa 1775. I need to get into Sydney to get Grayson Darling, an expert on netsuke, to authenticate them and hopefully buy them from me. Then I’ll have plenty of money to stay in your precious, I mean, lovely country.’

‘What are they worth?’

Rowan tipped her head. ‘Fifteen at an average of two thousand pounds each. So, between twenty and thirty thousand, maybe more.’

The troll’s jaw dropped open. ‘You’ve got to be...joking!’ She leaned across the table and her face radiated doubt. ‘I think you’re spinning me a story; you look like every other free-spirited backpacker I’ve seen.’

Rowan, not for the first time, cursed her long, curly, wild hair and her pretty face, her battered jeans, cropped shirt and well-used backpack. ‘I’m a traveller but I am also a trader. It’s how I—mostly—make my living. I can show you the deed of sale for the netsuke...’

Officer troll flipped through her passport. ‘What else do you sell, Miss Dunn?’

‘You’ve gone through my rucksack with a fine-tooth comb and I’ve had a body search. You know that I’m clean,’ Rowan said wearily. She’d been here for more than six hours—could they move on, please? Pretty please?

‘What else do you sell, Miss Dunn?’

God! Just answer the question, Rowan, and get this over with. ‘Anything I can make a profit on that’s legal. Art, furniture, antiques. I’ve flipped statues in Buenos Aires, art in Belize, jewellery in Vancouver. I’ve worked in construction when times have been lean. Worked as a bar tender when times were leaner. But mostly I buy low and sell high.’

‘Then why don’t you have a slush fund? A back-up plan? Where is the profit on those deals?’

Fair question.

‘A large amount is tied up in a rickety house I’ve just co-bought with a friend in London. We’re in the process of having it renovated so that we can sell it,’ Rowan admitted.

And the rest was sitting in those little statues. She knew that at least one, maybe two, were very valuable. Her gut was screaming that the laughing Buddha statue was a quality item, that it was by a famed Japanese artist. She hadn’t planned to wipe out her accounts but the shopkeeper had had a figure fixed in his head and wouldn’t be budged. Since she knew that she could flip the netsukes for two or three times the amount she’d paid for them, it had seemed like a short, acceptable risk. Especially since she knew Grayson—knew that he wouldn’t quibble over the price. He was the best type of collector: one with deep and heavy pockets. Pockets she couldn’t help lighten unless she got into the blinking country!

‘The reality is that you do not have enough money on your person to last you two days in Australia.’

‘I explained that I have friends...’

The troll held up her hand. ‘Your not having enough funds has made us dig a little deeper and we’ve found out that you overstayed the visa—by six months—on your South African passport.’

Crrr-aa-aa-p!

Rowan felt her stomach sink like concrete shoes. That had happened over eight years ago, which was why she always used her UK passport to get into Oz. She’d been into the country four times since then, but they had finally picked up on her youthful transgression.

Bye-bye to any chance of getting into Oz any time in the next three years. Hello to a very sick bank account for the foreseeable future, to doing the deal with Grayson over the phone—a situation neither of them liked—or to finding another netsuke-mad collector who would pay her well for her gems. There weren’t, as she knew, many of them around.

‘You are not allowed to visit Australia for the next three years and you will be on the first flight we can find back to South Africa. In a nutshell, you are being deported.’

Rowan looked up at the ceiling and blew a long stream of air towards the ceiling. It was the only place in the world where she, actively, passionately, didn’t want to go. ‘Crap.’

The troll almost smiled. ‘Indeed.’

* * *

Sixteen hours later Rowan cleared Immigration at OR Tambo International in Johannesburg and, after picking up her rucksack, headed for the nearest row of hard benches. Dropping her pack to the floor, she slumped down and stared at her feet.

What now?

Unlike many other cities in the world, she didn’t know Johannesburg, didn’t have any friends in the city. She had one hundred pounds in cash in her wallet and thirty US dollars. Practically nothing in both her savings and current accounts and her credit cards were maxed out. All thanks to that little out-of-the-way antique shop in Denpasar...

Stupid, stupid, stupid, she berated herself. What had she been thinking? She’d been thinking that she’d triple her money when she flipped them.

‘Hey.’

Rowan looked up and saw a young girl, barely in her twenties, take the seat next to her.

‘Do you mind if I sit here for a bit? I’m being hassled by a jerk in that group over there.’

Rowan cut a glance to a group of young men who were just drunk enough to be obnoxious. One of the pitfalls of travelling alone, she thought. How many times had she sat down next to a family or another single traveller to avoid the groping hands, the come ons and pick-up lines. ‘Sure. Take a seat. Coming or going?’

‘Just arrived from Sydney. I saw you on the plane; you were a couple of rows ahead of me.’

‘Ah.’

‘I’m catching the next flight to Durban. You?’

‘Haven’t the foggiest.’ Rowan tried to sound cheerful but knew that she didn’t quite hit the mark. ‘I was deported from Oz and I’m broke.’

Bright blue eyes sharpened in interest. ‘Seriously? How broke?’

‘Seriously broke.’ Rowan lifted her heels up onto the seat of the bench and rested her elbows on her knees. ‘C’est la vie.’ She looked at her new friend, all fresh-faced and enthusiastic. ‘How long have you been travelling for?’ she asked.

‘Six months. I’m home for a family wedding, then I’m heading off again. You?’

‘Nine years. Can I give you some advice...? What’s your name?’

‘Cat.’

‘Cat. No matter what, always have enough money stashed away so that you have options. Always have enough cash to pay for an air ticket out of Dodge, for a couple of nights in a hostel or hotel. Trust me, being broke sucks.’

She’d always lived by that rule, but she’d been seduced by the idea of a quick return. She’d imagined that she’d be broke for a maximum of three days in Sydney and then her bank balance would be nicely inflated.

It sure hadn’t worked out that way... Deported, for crying out loud! Deported and penniless! Rowan closed her eyes and wondered if she could possibly be a bigger moron.

‘Can I give you a hundred pounds?’ Cat asked timidly.

Rowan eyes snapped open. Her wide smile split her face and put a small sparkle back into her onyx-black eyes. ‘That’s really sweet of you, but no thanks, honey. I do have people I can call. I would just prefer not to.’

Look at her, Rowan thought, all fresh and idealistic. Naïve. If she didn’t get street-wise quickly the big bad world out there would gobble her up and spit her out. Travelling in Australia was easy: same language, same culture, good transport systems and First World. Most of the world wasn’t like that.

‘Your folks happy with you backpacking?’

Cat raised a shoulder. ‘Yeah, mostly. They have a mild moan when I call home and ask for cash, but they always come through.’

Rowan lifted dark winged eyebrows. Lucky girl. Could her circumstances be any more different from hers, when she’d left home to go on the road? Those six months between being caught in a drug raid at a club with a tiny bag of coke and catching a plane to Thailand had been sheer hell.

Two months after being tossed into jail—and she still hoped the fleas of a thousand camels were making their home in Joe’s underpants for slipping the coke into the back pocket of her jeans, the rat-bastard jerk!—she’d been sentenced to four months’ community service but, thanks to the fact that at the time she hadn’t yet turned eighteen, her juvenile criminal record was still sealed.

Sealed from the general public, but not from her family, who hadn’t reacted well. There had been shouting and desperate anger from her father, cold distance from her mother, and her elder brother had been tight-lipped with disapproval. For the rest of that year there had been weekly lectures to keep her on the straight and narrow. From proper jail she’d been placed under house arrest by her parents, and their over-the-top protectiveness had gone into hyperdrive. Her movements had been constantly monitored, and the more they’d lectured and smothered, the stronger her urge to rebel and her resolve to run had become.

She’d tried to explain the circumstances, but only her BFF Callie had realised how much it had hurt to have her story about being framed dismissed as a lie, how much it had stung to see the constant disappointment on everyone’s faces. So she’d decided that she might as well be the ultimate party girl rebel—sneaking out, parties, cigarettes, crazy acting out. Anything to live up to the low expectations of her parents—especially her mother—and constantly, constantly planning her escape.

It had come the day after she’d written her final exam to finish her school career. Using cash she’d received from selling the unit trusts her grandmother had bought her every birthday since the day she was born, she’d bought a ticket to Thailand.

Everyone except Callie had been furious, and they’d all expected her to hit the other side, turn tail and run back home. That first year had been tough, lonely, and sometimes downright scary, but she’d survived and then she’d flourished.

And she really didn’t want to go home with her tail tucked between her legs now, broke and recently deported.

She didn’t want to lose her freedom, to step back into her family’s lives, back into her parents’ house, returning as the family screw-up. It didn’t matter that she was asset-rich and cash-poor. She would still, in their eyes, be irresponsible and silly: no better than the confused, mixed-up child who’d left nine years before.

‘So, who are you going to call?’ Cat asked, breaking in on her thoughts.

‘Well, I’ve only got two choices. My mobile’s battery is dead and all my contact numbers are in my phone. I have two numbers in my head: my parents’ home number and my best friend Callie’s home number.’

‘I vote for the best friend.’

‘So would I—except that she doesn’t live there any more. Her older brother does, and he doesn’t like me very much.’

Cat leaned forward, curious. ‘Why not?’

‘Ah, well. Seb and I have always rubbed each other up the wrong way. He’s conservative and studious; I’m wild and rebellious. He’s mega-rich and I’m currently financially challenged—’

‘What does he do?’ Cat asked.

Rowan fiddled with her gold hoop earrings. ‘His family have a shed-load of property in Cape Town and he oversees that. He also does something complicated with computers. He has a company that does...um...internet security? He’s a nice hat... No, that doesn’t sound right.’

Cat sat up suddenly. ‘Do you mean a white hat? A hacker?’

Rowan cocked her finger at her. ‘That’s it. Apparently he’s one of the best in the world.’

‘Holy mackerel...that is so cool! I’m a bit of a comp geek myself.’

‘So is he. He’s a complete nerd and we’ve always clashed. He’s book-smart and I’m street-smart. His and Callie’s house is within spitting distance of my parents’ house and I spent more time there than I did at home. I gave him such a hard time.’

Cat looked intrigued. ‘Why?’

‘Probably because I could never get a reaction out of him. He’d just look at me, shake his head, tell me I was a brat and flip me off. The more I misbehaved, the more he ignored me.’ Rowan wound a black curl around her index finger.

‘Sounds to me like you were craving his attention.’

‘Honey, I craved everyone’s attention,’ Rowan replied.

This was one of the things she loved most about travelling, she thought. Random conversations with strangers who didn’t know her from Adam.

‘Anyway, I could bore you to death, recounting all the arguments I had with Seb.’ Rowan smiled. ‘So let this be a lesson to you, Cat. Remember, always have a stash of cash. Do as I say and not as I do.’

‘Good luck,’ Cat called as she walked towards the bank of public phones against the far wall.

Rowan lifted her hand in acknowledgement. She sure as hell was going to need it.

* * *

Seb Hollis shot up in bed and punched the comforter and the sheets away, unable to bare the constricting fabric against his heated skin. He was conscious of the remnants of a bad dream floating around the periphery of his memory, and as much as he tried to pretend otherwise it wasn’t the cool air colliding with the sweat on his chest and spine that made him shiver. The blame for that could be laid squarely at the door of this now familiar nocturnal visitor. He’d been dreaming the same dream for six days... He was being choked, restrained, hog-tied...yanked up to the altar and forced into marriage.

Balls, was his first thought, closely followed by, Thank God it was only a dream.

Draping one forearm across his bended knees, Seb ran a hand behind his neck. He was sweating like a geyser and his mouth was as dry as the Kalahari Desert. Cursing, he fumbled for the glass of water on the bedside table, grimacing at the handprint his sweat made on the deep black comforter.

Habit had him turning his head, expecting to see his lover’s head on the other pillow. Relief pumped through him when he remembered that Jenna had left for a year-long contract in Dubai and that he was officially single again. He didn’t have to explain the nightmare, see her hurt face when he wouldn’t talk about the soaked sheets or his pumping breath. Like most women, and despite her corporate career, Jenna had a need to nurture.

He’d never been nurtured and he had no need to be fussed over. It wasn’t who he was, what he needed.

Besides, discussing his dreams—emotions, thoughts, desires—would be amusing in the same way an electric shock to his gonads would be nice. Not going to happen. Ever.

Intimacy hadn’t been part of the deal with Jenna.

Intimacy would never be part of the deal with anyone.

Seb swung his legs off the side of the large bed, reached for the pair of running shorts on the chair next to the bed and yanked them on. He walked over to the French doors that opened onto the balcony. Pushing them open, he sucked in the briny air of the late summer, early autumn air. Tinges of the new morning peeked through the trees that bordered the side and back edges of his property: Awelfor.

He could live anywhere in the world, but he loved living a stone’s throw from Cape Town, loved living at the tip of the continent in a place nestled between the mountains and the sea. In the distance, behind those great rolling waves that characterised this part of the west coast, the massive green-grey icy Atlantic lay: sulky, turbulent, volatile. Or maybe he was just projecting his crappy mood on the still sleepy sea.

Jenna. Was she what his crazy dreams were about? Was he dreaming about commitment because he’d been so relieved to wave her goodbye? To get out of a relationship that he’d known was going nowhere but she had hoped was? He’d told her, as often and as nicely as he could, that he wouldn’t commit, but he knew that she’d hoped he’d change his mind, really hoped that he’d ask her to stay in the country.

It hadn’t seemed to matter that they’d agreed to a no-strings affair, that she’d said she understood when he’d explained that he didn’t do love and commitment.

Women. Sheez. Sometimes they just heard what they wanted to hear.

Seb cocked his head when the early-morning silence was shattered by the distinctive deep-throated roar of a Jag turning into the driveway to Awelfor. Here we go again, he thought. The engine was cut, a car door slammed and within minutes he saw his father walking the path to the cottage that stood to the left of the main house.

It was small consolation that he wasn’t the only Hollis man with woman troubles. At least his were only in his head. Single again, he reminded himself. Bonus.

‘Another one bites the dust?’ he called, and his father snapped his head up.

Patch Hollis dropped his leather bag to the path and slapped his hands on his hips.

‘When am I going to learn?’

‘Beats me.’ Seb rested his forearms on the balcony rail. ‘What’s the problem with this one?’

‘She wants a baby,’ Patch said, miserable. ‘I’m sixty years old; why would I want a child now?’

‘She’s twenty-eight, dude. Of course she’s going to want a kid. Have you told her you’ve had a vasectomy?’

Patch gestured to the bag. ‘Hence the reason I’m back in the cottage. She went bat-crap ballistic.’

‘Uh...why do you always leave? It’s your house and you’re not married.’ Seb narrowed his eyes as a horrible thought occurred to him. ‘You didn’t slink off and marry her, did you?’

Patch didn’t meet his eyes. ‘No, but it was close.’

Seb rubbed his hand over his hair, which he kept short to keep the curls under control, and muttered an expletive.

‘Don’t swear at me. You had your own little gold-digger you nearly married,’ Patch shot back, and Seb acknowledged the hit.

He’d been blindsided when he’d raised the issue of marriage contracts and his fiancée Bronwyn wouldn’t consider signing a pre-nup. Like most things he did, he’d approached the problem of the marriage contracts intellectually, rationally. He had the company and the house and the cash, and pretty much everything of monetary value, so he’d be the one to hand over half of everything if they divorced.

Bronwyn had not seen his point of view. If he loved her, she’d screamed, he’d share everything with her. He had loved Bronwyn—sorta...kinda—but not enough to risk sharing his company with her or paying her out for half the value of the house that had been in his family for four generations in the event of a divorce.

They’d both dug their heels in and the break-up had been bruising.

It had taken him a couple of years, many hours with a whisky bottle and a shattered heart until he’d—mostly—worked it all out. He believed in thinking through problems—including personal failures—in order to come to a better understanding of the cause and effect.

It was highly probable that he’d fallen for Bronwyn because she was, on the surface, similar in behaviour and personality to his mother. A hippy child who flitted from job to job, town to town. A supposed free spirit whom he’d wanted—no, needed to tame. Since his mother had left some time around his twelfth birthday to go backpacking round the world, and had yet to come home, he’d given up hope that he’d ever get her love or approval, that she’d return and stay put. He’d thought that if he could get Bronwyn to settle down, to commit to him, then maybe it would fill the hole his mother had left.

Yeah, right.

But he’d learnt a couple of lessons from his FUBAR engagement. Unlike his jobs—internet security expert and overseeing the Hollis Property Group—he couldn’t analyse, measure or categorise relationships and emotions, and he sure didn’t understand women. As a result he now preferred to conduct his relationships at an emotional distance. An at-a-distance relationship—sex and little conversation—held no risk of confusion and pain and didn’t demand much from him. He’d forged his emotional armour when his mum had left so very long ago and strengthened it after his experience with Bronwyn. He liked it that way. There was no chance of his heart being tossed into a liquidiser.

His father, Peter Pan that he was, just kept it simple: blonde, long-legged and big boobs. Mattress skills were a prerequisite; intelligence wasn’t.

‘So, can I move back in until she moves out?’ Patch asked.

‘Dad, Awelfor is a Hollis house; legally it’s still yours. But I should warn you that Yasmeen is on holiday; she’s been gone for nearly a week and I’ve already eaten the good stuff she left.’

Patch looked wounded. ‘So no blueberry muffins for breakfast?’

‘Best you’re going to get is coffee. No laundry or bed-making service either,’ Seb replied.

Patch looked bereft and Seb knew that it had nothing to do with his level of comfort and everything to do with the absence of their elderly family confidant, their moral compass and their staunchest supporter. Yasmeen was more than their housekeeper, she was Awelfor.

‘Yas being gone sucks.’ Patch yawned. ‘I’m going back to bed, Miranda has a voice like a foghorn and I was up all night being blasted by it.’

Seb turned his head at the sound of his ringing landline. ‘Crazy morning. Father rocking up at the crack of dawn, phone ringing before six...and all I want is a cup of coffee.’

Patch grinned up at him. ‘I just want my house back.’

Seb returned his smile. ‘Then kick her whiny ass out of yours.’

Patch shuddered. ‘I’ll just move in here until she calms down.’

His father, Seb thought as he turned away to walk back into the house, was totally allergic to confrontation.

* * *

‘Seb, it’s Rowan...Rowan Dunn.’

He’d recognised her voice the moment he’d heard her speak his name, but because his synapses had stopped firing he’d lost the ability to formulate any words. Rowan? What the...?

‘Seb? Sorry, did I wake you?’

‘Rowan, this is a surprise.’ And by surprise I mean...wow.

‘I’m in Johannesburg—at the airport.’

Since this was Rowan, he passed curious and went straight to resigned. ‘What’s happened?’

He would have had to be intellectually challenged to miss the bite in the words that followed.

‘Why do you automatically assume the worst?’

‘Because something major must have happened to bring you back to the country you hate, where the family you’ve hardly interacted with in years lives and for you to call me, who you once described as a boil on the ass of humanity.’

He waited through the tense silence.

‘I’m temporarily broke and homeless. And I’ve just been deported from Oz,’ she finally—very reluctantly—admitted.

And there it was.

‘Are you in trouble?’ He kept his voice neutral and hoped that she was now adult enough to realise that it was a fair question. For a long time before she’d left trouble had been Rowan’s middle name. Heck, her first name.

‘No, I’m good. They just picked up that I overstayed on my visa years and years ago and they kicked me out.’

Compared to some of the things she’d done, this was a minor infringement. Seb walked to his walk-in closet, took a pair of jeans from a hanger and yanked them on. He placed his fist on his forehead and stared down at the old wood flooring.

‘Seb, are you there?’

‘Yep.’

‘Do you know where my parents are? I did try them but they aren’t answering their phone.’

‘They went to London and rented out the house while they were gone to some visiting researchers from Beijing. They are due back in...’ Seb tried to remember. ‘Two—three—weeks’ time.’

‘You’ve got to be kidding me! My parents went overseas and the world didn’t stop turning? How is that possible?’

‘That surprised me, too,’ Seb admitted.

‘And is Callie still on that buying trip?’

‘Yep.’

Another long silence. ‘In that case...tag—you’re it. I need a favour.’

From him? He looked at his watch and was surprised to find that it was still ticking. Why hadn’t time stood still? He’d presumed it would—along with nuns being found ice skating in hell—since Rowan was asking for his help.

‘I thought you’d rather drip hot wax in your eye than ever ask me for anything again.’

‘Can you blame me? You could’ve just bailed me out of jail, jerk-face.’

And...hello, there it was: the tone of voice that had irritated him throughout his youth and into his twenties. Cool, mocking...nails-on-a-chalkboard irritating.

‘Your parents didn’t want me to—they were trying to teach you a lesson. And might I point out that calling me names is not a good way to induce me to do anything for you, Rowan?’