Scared Yet? (11 page)

13

‘This is the third time I've called. How would you know if anything was wrong with your son if you don't pick up your phone?'

Liv clenched her teeth. ‘Is there a reason you called, Thomas, because if you're just trying to score points, I don't have the time.'

She heard his irritated intake of breath. ‘I don't appreciate you ringing Cameron at my house and telling him to ignore Michelle's instructions for a bath. It shows a lack of respect for Michelle and undermines her authority.'

What planet was he on? She didn't give a toss about respect for Michelle. ‘I rang to tell Cam about the story on the news. I told him to have a bath so he wouldn't watch it.'

‘And that's my next point. For God's sake, what were you thinking going on TV looking like that? Was it your idea or did Sheridan talk you into it?'

Liv's high heels clacked on the tiles as she paced out her frustration across the kitchen. ‘It's got nothing to do with you.'

‘But how it affects my son does. I've told you before where I stand on encouraging your father's pugilistic skills. And frankly, it's inappropriate for you to discuss with him how you belted someone, let alone making a public spectacle of it. As I said, what were you thinking?'

Liv pressed herself to the sink and glared at the fence beyond the window. ‘I was attacked in the car park, Thomas. I thought people should be warned that the bastard who did it is still out there. And there is nothing
inappropriate
about telling Cameron I defended myself.'

‘Looking like a ghoul on TV isn't an appropriate way to try to win your son's favour. I know you're upset with how things turned out but you should think before you pull a stunt like that.'

The same futile, impotent fury she'd been feeling for a year surged through her. There was no point defending herself. It wouldn't make an iota of difference. Neither would swearing but it felt better than nothing. ‘Fuck off, Thomas.' She hung up, swore again.

‘Everything okay?'

Liv's head shot up. Daniel was standing in the middle of the lounge room. How much had he heard? ‘I didn't realise you were there.'

He lifted the drill in his hand. ‘I was looking for a power point, didn't want to disturb you.'

‘Might have been better if you had.' She tried to make light of it, only managed a short, tight laugh.

‘Your ex?'

‘Yes.'

‘Does he have a key to your townhouse?'

‘No. Not unless Cameron gave him one.'

‘Make sure he doesn't get the new one.'

She wanted to tell him Thomas wouldn't come around and harass her but twelve months ago she wouldn't have predicted they'd be exchanging nasty phone calls over their son. Physical aggression wasn't Thomas's thing, though. He specialised in emotional pain.

She took the cord from Daniel and flicked the power on.

‘Thanks,' he said but stayed where he was as though he might be thinking about saying more.

‘Don't let me hold you up,' she told him. ‘I'm going to get changed and kick something.'

She caught the small lift to his eyebrow as she passed him. Yeah, well, who cares what he thought? He was nice – and tall, like Kelly said. And his shoulders were impressive. But she was too pissed off with the world to entertain the idea of any kind of . . .
boyfriend or something casual
. Either-or, it was beyond her capabilities right now. Still, she could do without him thinking she was a total wreck. She had a bit to go before she qualified for that title.

She swapped to sweatpants and a T-shirt, then shoved the boxes about in the hallway for a while, hoping it'd burn off some steam. It didn't even break a sweat. Daniel was working on the sliding door when she reached the bottom of the stairs so she checked out the chunky security chain on the front door and tried the new deadlock, twisting it back and forth, rattling it about.

‘That's much better, thanks.' She wrapped an arm around one of the boxes and heaved it up.

‘Want a hand?' Daniel called.

‘No. I want locks. I can handle this.' Needed to, was what she meant.

She spent fifteen minutes hefting boxes and lugging them to the garage, stacking them against the wall, feeling the effort chew into her anger. Then she started on the ones that were already there.

They were filled with dinner sets and glassware and ornaments she'd collected over ten years of marriage – memories more than possessions. They were heavy and hard to lift and hurt her hand, the labels on the sides reminding her of what she'd packed away, making her heart ache, too. She probably should have taken a break but she just wanted the job done now so she didn't have to come back and remember all over again later.

She lifted a case labelled
Dinner Set – 5th Anniversary
and lost her hold. The cardboard split as it hit the floor and lovely eggshell-blue crockery smashed on the concrete. Sudden fury exploded from her in a hoarse shout, rising up from inside her as though it'd been waiting just under the surface for a chance to escape. As the sound rebounded off the brick walls, she lashed out at the broken box with a running shoe. Heat stung her eyes. Don't, Liv. Not over Thomas.

‘Livia?'

She jumped like a shot had gone off, saw Daniel at the access door witnessing yet another of her moments and embarrassment amplified her anger. ‘You should make some damn noise when you're in someone's house. And stop calling me Livia, for God's sake. You're sneaking around and watching me fall apart so just . . . call me
Liv
.' She
turned away and shoved her hands onto her hips, silently chastising herself. He didn't say anything, didn't make a sound. No prizes for guessing what he thought now. She attempted a dignified breath, looked back to where he still stood in the doorway.

‘You want a hand or does the yelling help?' he asked.

‘No and no.'

She hoped that would make him go back to the locks but he stepped into the garage, taking in the cartons she'd transferred and the smashed crockery before he stopped in front of her. ‘Anger and tears are a normal reaction to what you've been through.'

She huffed a cynical laugh. He only knew about the latest episode. ‘So falling apart is normal?'

‘It doesn't mean you're falling apart.'

What did he know? She clasped her hands behind her head like she was out of breath and tried to rein in the emotional storm that had been living inside her and growing for months. As she pulled in fresh air, Daniel's eyes wandered to her right bicep. He moved closer, took hold of her wrist and turned the pale inside of her arm towards the harsh garage light, exposing the bruising.

‘It looks like a handprint,' he said.

‘It is.'

He ran the tips of rough fingers gently over the skin as though he could read the circles of discolouring like Braille. She wanted to pull away from the intimacy but as he reached for her other hand, she just watched as he traced another warm path across its matching pattern.

‘I was lucky,' Liv said.

Dark eyes looked up at her. ‘No, you were smart. You followed your instincts.'

‘I could've run.'

‘Better to take out a knee first. Boxing doesn't teach you that but nothing disables faster than a heel smashed into a knee. Knock 'em down then run like hell.'

She wasn't sure whether to be appalled or grateful for the advice. Maybe both. ‘I just wish I knew whether he'd been watching the building or watching me.' She looked up at the three high windows. It was dark outside now. It made her uneasy.

‘Are you cold?' he asked.

‘No, I'm . . . scared.'

‘Fear is an instinct, Liv.'

‘Maybe but I don't like it.'

‘You should listen to it. It can help you.'

So far, all it'd done was make her feel vulnerable. ‘Oh yeah. How?'

He either missed the scepticism in her voice or chose to ignore it as he arranged his body against the side of her car, crossing one ankle over the other as though he was settling in for an extended session.

‘Fire Rescue puts you in places no one should go,' he told her. ‘The natural reaction is fear. It's your brain telling you to get the hell out of there. But if you can't, if it's your job to stay, you've got to bypass the emotion and start listening to it. The thing to know about fear is that it makes you overcautious and hyper alert, which are good things when your life is in danger. I'm guessing that since Monday night, your brain is registering every dark space as threatening.'

She glanced outside again, nodded.

‘It feels frightening but it's actually your brain telling you to watch out so you don't get surprised in the dark again. The notes are giving you another reason to be worried. So use your fear to be safe and to give yourself some reassurance. Let the hyper alertness do its job.'

Okay, he knew what he was talking about and it sounded productive, assertive, practical. Everything she wanted to be. ‘How do I do that?'

‘Some of it comes down to what you know about your environment, but you've only been here a few weeks and you're probably not that familiar with it. So get to know it. What's normal and what's not. What's there and what isn't. What you can see from different vantage points, what you hear and smell.' As he said it, a weak light from a neighbour's yard cast a soft glow across the ceiling. Daniel cocked his head at it. ‘Learn what the neighbours do, what cars they drive, what their kids and pets look like, where they leave their bins. The details. And if something doesn't look the way it should, you'll know and you can make a call on it.'

Liv lifted her eyes to the windows once more, wondered what kind of call she'd have to make.

‘A cave-in starts with a crack, Liv. Believe me, I know. Pay attention and be ready to get the hell out.'

For the first time since Liv had moved in, the townhouse felt like the right place to be. Daniel had declared it safe before he left, which soothed some of the muscle-clenching
anxiety she'd had all day. The uneasiness was still there, though. The thought that someone might be watching, that she needed to worry about safety, had lodged itself like a weight in her stomach. She checked which neighbours had lights on, limited herself to half a glass of the white wine with her cheese-and-gherkin dinner and watched TV with one ear on sounds from the street. But tiredness eventually took over and somewhere between a cop show and the late news, she drifted into a dozy sleep on the lounge.

Benny's barking woke her. Actually it was her bald neighbour who brought her to full consciousness when he flicked on the floodlight in his yard and shouted, ‘Oi, Benny. What's with the noise?'

Liv realised the dog had been at it for a while but the sound got mixed up with gunshots and a car chase and a military fly-past on the TV. She stood up, rubbed her eyes, saw the top half of the old sheet hanging over the back windows lit up like a blank movie screen. She rinsed her empty plate and glass at the sink, heard Benny start up again, ducked her head to look under the roller blind on the kitchen window – and a shadow moved through the light spilling over the fence.

Christ, was someone in her yard?

Water was running over her hand, saturating the sleeve of her sweatshirt. She turned the tap off, moved quickly to one side of the window and peered out. Had the shadow come from her yard or next door's?

‘Oi, Benny! Come 'ere!' The shout was irritable this time. The barking stopped.

Liv stayed at the window wishing her fear would tell her what to do instead of just making her heart thump in her chest. Then she saw it again. The shadow. Followed by a bald head. Trevor, the neighbour, moving through his yard.

She waited until he disappeared through his screen door then flicked on the lights in her courtyard, lifted the sheet away from the glass, peered left and right.

Nothing. She checked the locks, gave the door a yank. Did the same thing at the kitchen window, tested the front door again, tugging on the deadlock.

You're safe in here, Liv. Daniel said so. Go to bed. Get some sleep.

She didn't. At least, never for very long. She kept jerking awake as a hand slammed over her mouth, as her face hit the car. Once she was already sitting upright and breathing hard.

There was a dog in the parking lot now. She couldn't see it. Just heard its incessant bark as she walked through the dark, as the hand crushed her mouth. Then she was blinking in the stripe of light from her ensuite, the dog still barking. A long, continuous stream of noise.

She rolled over, felt cool, damp sweat on her pyjama top. She'd never owned a dog. They weren't allowed to have pets in the flat above the gym and Thomas hadn't been interested. What did dogs bark at in the dark? Possums? Bats?

People?

She sat up, looked down into the courtyard. The lights were off but she could make out shapes in the night. The
line of her fence, the roof of the neighbour's townhouse, the square of their yard. Benny was a small, moving form in the darkness.

She rested her forehead on the cool glass and watched him. He was barking and pacing over near her fence, moving from side to side, a few bounds one way, a few back again with an occasional dash to the middle of the yard. After ten minutes, she gave up trying to find what was making him crazy, slid under the blanket and listened to him for a long time.

What are you barking at, Benny?

14

The trill of the phone made her eyes snap open. She searched blindly in the dark for it, annoyed that when sleep had finally come, someone was waking her.

‘Hello?'

‘Livia, it's Ray Hepple. Sorry to call so early.'

Who?

‘There's been a break-in at the office. You need to come down.'

Ray Hepple. Maintenance Ray. She cleared her throat. ‘Is there damage?'

‘Yes. You should come take a look. The police are on their way.'

She checked the time on the clock by the bed. Five-sixteen. ‘Okay. I'll see you in twenty minutes.'

Liv and Kelly took it in turns to be the emergency contact. When they'd first moved into the building, the two businesses with street frontages had suffered regular broken windows. Once, vandals had crashed through the front entry and smashed all the doors along the corridor
before running off as a police car arrived. The owner got sick of paying for replacement windows and had heavy-duty, strengthened glass installed. There had been other break-ins but not for a while.

Liv pulled on jeans and a warm top, the uneasiness in her gut rousing again as she flicked on lights. She collected her handbag and keys from the kitchen counter, peered briefly, cautiously into the dark courtyard. There was no sound from the dog.

She hesitated at the garage access door, fingers on the slide bolt Daniel had installed, a sudden thought making her hesitate. Could someone have got in during the night and be waiting for her to open the door?

Pay attention and be ready to get the hell out
. She opened the door to the understair cupboard. Boxes in there, too. And a soccer ball, Cameron's raincoat, a couple of baseball caps, an ironing board. An umbrella. A big golf umbrella with a heavy timber handle.

Liv clutched it with her good hand, flipped the light switch with the other and threw open the access door. No one there. A surge of adrenaline prickled like pins and needles in her arms as she stepped down to the concrete. No one this side of the car – and she was glad now she'd moved the boxes. She walked with the umbrella held out in front, the point in her hands, so she could swing it like a club, moving cautiously all the way around the car. No one.

Just her, feeling shaky and jittery and a tad overthe-top.

It was an eerie time to be driving around. Too late for
partygoers, too early for daytime workers. The streets were dark and almost empty and didn't do anything to lessen her concern at being out on her own.

A police car was in the lane beside the building. Ray was standing under the portico waiting for her when she stopped. The front entry behind him was half open and streaked with jagged cracks.

Pre-dawn light had lifted the solid veil of night. The door of Lenny's Cafe was shut but there were lights on inside. Liv looked up and down the length of the footpath, saw only empty pavement.

‘Is anyone else here yet?' she asked Ray as she met him at the door.

‘I didn't need to call anyone else.'

Liv eyed the bent metal frame of the front door. ‘No one else was broken into?'

‘No. Just Prescott and Weeks.'

It didn't make sense. They were the third door down the corridor.

‘Liv,' Ray touched her arm briefly, ‘it's a mess in there.'

She looked along the dark, quiet corridor. The only light came from inside Prescott and Weeks. A spray of shattered glass lay on the carpet outside, as though a bomb had gone off and the force had blown it out the door. Her stomach tightened in apprehension.

Ray came up beside her as she stopped short of her office, eyeing the trail of shards that had been flung across the hallway to the orthodontist's surgery opposite. Liv crunched over it, expecting a disaster zone. Then frowned in confusion.

Reception was lit up and the area seemed the same as when she'd left, minus Teagan behind the counter. The light was on in her office. The door was open and resting against the wall inside, a glittering mass on the floor told her the glass had been smashed there, too. A uniformed police officer walked backwards into the gap, bent over at the waist. Examining something under her desk, Liv guessed.

‘Hi,' she called.

He looked up and met her before she reached the door.

‘I'm Livia Prescott. That's my office.'

He took her details before he let her go any further – name, when she'd last been there, et cetera. Eventually, she said, ‘Can I see it?'

She stepped past him and checked the damage to the door as she went in. When she turned to the rest, the air was sucked from her lungs.

It wasn't damage. It was destruction. Everywhere. Walls, desk, chairs, filing cabinet. She didn't know where to focus, just stood with blood pounding in her head and pulsating in the bruises on her face.

Every item on her desk had been swept to the floor, the drawers upended and the contents dumped. The two chairs were overturned, the filing cabinet tipped on top of them. The frames on the wall behind her workstation gone, just the nails left.

‘It must be a shock.'

There was a different uniformed cop standing where the cabinet used to be. Liv stared down at the mess on the floor, pushing debris aside with her feet. Books and stationery and folders. Cameron's photo from her desk.
The poster-sized picture of her father in his last fight was wedged between the desk and the wall, a crisscross of broken glass on the front. Her computer monitor was on its side in the middle of it all. She used her toe to roll it towards her. The screen was broken. Not shattered like the doors. A hole had been smashed in its centre, a spider web of cracks radiating outwards, as though the fat end of a baseball bat had been rammed through it.

‘Are you the only person who uses this office?' the cop asked.

‘Yes.'

‘Is there anything you can see at first glance that's missing?'

How could she tell? ‘No.'

‘The other office here hasn't been touched so it appears the damage was directed specifically at this space.'

She swallowed in a dry mouth. ‘Yes.'

‘Can you tell me how you got the bruising on your face?'

She couldn't. Not straightaway. She needed to sit down before the trembling in her legs made her fall down. The female cop sat in a chair beside her in reception, and Liv told her about the assault and the notes and Detective Sergeant Rachel Quest. The woman had a brief conference with her partner, asking Liv not to touch anything while she made a call.

Ray appeared with two large take-out coffees, one for Liv, the other for himself. Lenny's must be open. Her office was trashed but the neighbourhood was still working. She called Kelly and told her she needed to come down. Asked
her to bring a camera – their insurance company would need pictures.

‘I've spoken to Detective Quest,' the cop said when she came back. ‘She asked that you stay until she gets here. I'm sorry but you won't be able to go through your office until Fingerprinting has been.'

Liv was pacing the corridor, staying out of the cops' way, avoiding the street that was now bathed in early light, when Daniel Beck pushed through the security door. She saw his double take at her presence then the glance at the glass on the carpet.

He walked straight to her. ‘What happened?'

‘Someone broke in.'

His eyes swung to Prescott and Weeks.

‘My office is trashed.'

He frowned back at her.

‘Just my office. Nothing else. Nothing taken. Nothing obvious, anyway. But the place has been completely, totally wrecked. Furniture, computer, files, pictures, everything. Every bloody thing.'

‘Was anyone hurt?'

She shook her head.

‘Are you okay?'

‘Not sure.' She registered his dark suit and white shirt. What time was it? She checked her watch – six-forty-eight. ‘Why are you here so early?'

‘I've got a job in the valley. I wanted to make an early start.'

‘Daniel Beck? Where did you come from?' It was the first cop. He had a smile on his face and a hand out to shake Daniel's. It seemed they knew each other from his fireman days. Daniel explained he worked down the hall.

‘Can I take a look?' Daniel asked.

The officer gave an in-you-go cock of his head. ‘Detective Quest shouldn't be long,' he said to Liv.

It was her cue to stay where she was. That was fine. She didn't need to see it again. She didn't need a reminder of the violence. She had a full-colour image of it stuck in her head.

Kelly arrived not long after. Liv let her find her own way to the mess and the cops. She came back into the corridor fifteen minutes later, looking as shocked as Liv still felt.

‘Insurance will cover it all.' Kelly was trying to find a positive. It was what she did, she was a silver-lining kind of girl.

Liv was a move-forward type but she felt pinned to this awful, ugly moment. ‘I can't stop thinking that someone had me in mind when they were doing that.'

‘Maybe it wasn't like that. Maybe they were going to smash up the whole office but got interrupted. Maybe we should feel lucky that they didn't get any further.'

Liv pressed her back to the wall, felt scepticism on her face. ‘Do you really think that?'

‘I don't know.' Kelly leaned beside her. ‘It's not necessarily the man who attacked you in the car park. It might be completely unrelated. Just a coincidence that it happened in the same week.'

Liv was grateful Kelly wanted to find a way to make it better but rose-coloured glasses weren't going to change what it was. That three days after she'd been attacked in the car park, her office – the place she spent most of her waking hours, where until this morning she'd felt most at home – had been singled out for a violent and destructive act.

It was no coincidence. This was about her.