by Riley Banks
Baker might be a con on the run who hadn’t been with a woman in two decades but he had still managed to yield the arrival times of a pair of Harvey planes from the unwitting employee.
And best of all was the knowledge that Victoria would be on one of them.
Unfortunately, the receptionist could not tell him which plane Victoria would be on, which meant, if Baker wanted to find his daughter, he had to stake out both planes.
The first was due to arrive in twenty minutes with the second following four hours later.
He hoped and prayed she would be on the first plane. Baker didn’t think he could take any more disappointment, not to mention any more of this heat.
The first plane arrived right on cue, dipping low over the airport, banking mid air before coming at the runway from the opposite direction.
Baker lifted the binoculars to his face, his heart rate spiking as he recognised the Harvey insignia on the jet’s tail.
It took forever for the plane to taxi to the mouth of the hangar and another eternity for the door to slowly swing open.
A single black Mercedes approached the aircraft, stopping a metre from the bottom step.
Please be Vikki. Please, please be Vikki.
His hands were slick with sweat, the metal binoculars slipping out of his grip and clattering to the floor beneath his feet. Baker reached for the plastic strap, scooping it up with his outstretched fingers, keeping one eye at all times on the stairs leading from the plane, afraid that if he looked away, he might miss his one opportunity to see his daughter.
Logically, Baker knew Victoria had aged since he last saw her.
Yet when he closed his eyes and pictured her, he still saw the blonde ringlets and warm caramel eyes of childhood. She was his little girl, cryogenically frozen in perpetual youth, tattooed on the psyche of his mind.
No matter how many times he tried to picture her as an adult, he could not see beyond the little girl torn, screaming, from his arms.
I can’t believe I am about to see her again.
The anticipation was a shot of pure adrenalin to his heart.
His dreams were about to come true.
Only, it wasn’t Victoria that stood at the top of the stairs.
It wasn’t the angel of his dreams.
It was Bill Harvey, the demon who haunted his nightmares.
After being rerouted half way around the planet, travelling economy class for the first time in his life and spending four hours trying to get to sleep on an uncomfortable plastic seat at Beijing International Airport, Damon had, at last, arrived in Sydney.
The last thirty hours were filled with enough new experiences to last him a last time, many Damon could have gladly lived without.
Take clearing customs, for instance.
He would have given anything to have Karen there to sort it all out for him. Instead, he had joined the long queue in the immigration line, fronting up to an unsmiling and unhelpful Immigration Officer who scrutinized his passport and questioned his every intention before joining the crowd waiting for the baggage to clunk off the conveyor belt.
The whole process took an hour, from disembarking the plane to exiting the airport; an hour spent nose to ass in a production line of inefficiency before being spat out on the sidewalk to join yet another queue – the taxi rank.
A wave of hot, humid air slapped Damon in the face as he stepped outside to join the line.
He was jetlagged and exhausted and his whole body ached. Being crushed into a tiny sardine-tin seat for endless hours had left his bones aching, his legs numb and his eyes feeling as if someone were stabbing them with red-hot pokers. The last decent night’s sleep he’d got was Portofino and that was only three hours. Even the pavement was starting to look appealing.
If he closed his eyes now, he’d sleep for a week.
Damon had never considered himself a pampered prince but at that precise moment, he missed his old life. All the surety he had felt in Morocco had disappeared somewhere over south-east Asia, leaving only self-doubt in its place.
What if Charlotte were fine? What if she was deliberately ignoring his calls? What if she wanted nothing to do with him?
He was sure Charlotte was in danger so why, the closer he got to Sydney, did his fears for her morph into nightmares of insecurity? Over the course of his long-haul trip, his greatest fear had become Charlotte giving in to his brother’s advances.
You’re just tired. Find her and you’ll get all your answers.
But Damon couldn’t just waltz into the lobby and demand to see Charlotte. Not with BJ and his father gunning for his head. He had to play it safe.
He would hole up at the hotel for a few hours, get some sleep and maybe, in the process, regain some of his sanity and assurance.
A dirty white taxi pulled up in front of him, the hinges squealing as he swung open the door. Damon eyed the interior, wondering how many sweaty bums had sat on the cracked leather seat before him.
At least it’s cool inside.
He pushed his suitcase into the taxi, wedging it between the front and rear seat before climbing in after it.
‘Where to?’
‘The Park Hyatt,’ Damon said. He couldn’t afford the $1200 a night it was costing him, not now he was on a reduced budget, but with its location alongside the Harvey Waterfront Suites and the room’s windows overlooking the entrance to his father’s hotel, he couldn’t afford not to pay it.
Charlotte had screwed up – and not just a little. Right from the start, she had let her personal relationships and problems get in the way of her objectivity.
It started the minute she got on the plane in London. Instead of focusing on the story at hand, she had been languishing in the past, letting her demons dictate her path.
True to form, her demons had brought with them more misery. If she were in her right frame of mind, she would never have hooked up with Zac Wilson and he was the catalyst for everything else. If she had not hooked up with Zac, he wouldn’t have attacked her. She would never have been alone on that boat with Damon and they would never have had sex. She would have been in Venice with Miranda instead of Portofino and Miranda would still be alive. Wilson would never have attacked Damon’s sister because she wouldn’t have been there. Damon would not have had to leave, so Charlotte wouldn’t have met BJ. She would have been there for Nancy Robertson and might have been able to stop her killing herself.
Ergo everything bad had happened because Charlotte wasn’t focused on her job.
Mark Barclay didn’t know it but he had done her an enormous favour.
By reminding her of her career, Mark had pulled Charlotte up by the bootstraps, getting her mind off her screwed up personal life and back on what was important. Her work.
It was all that mattered, especially now when she had lost everything and everyone else.
She was a good journalist even if she was a shitty human being. It was time to change, to refocus her attention on her career.
The plane circled the airport, making its final descent towards Sydney.
Mark stashed the papers they had been working on inside his backpack, pushing the bag beneath his feet as the plane banked hard to the left.
‘You ready for this?’
They had discussed Mark’s story idea in the briefest terms, agreeing not to divulge anything sensitive on or near a Harvey property.
Mark was a bit sceptical at first but as soon as Charlotte told him about Nancy’s photos, he had agreed to her terms. Terms that included leaving separately and not taking the same route to the rendezvous point.
It seemed a little foolish taking such outlandish precautions but someone had been watching Nancy.
Not just watching but taking photos.
Until she knew whom or why, she was going to be bloody careful even if that meant giving in to her paranoia.
‘Yep. All ready.’ In response, her pulse rate quickened.
There were ghosts down there. Painful ghosts.
C
harlotte had not even begun to process the death of Joanne but for the first time in years, she was ready to face the past.
It was her duty – her penance - to face it because only then could she move on.
The plane’s wheels touched down on the ground and she leaned forward, gripping Mark’s forearm. ‘Be careful. Don’t trust anyone.’
At quarter to ten the second Harvey plane landed, sending Baker’s stomach into free-fall before resettling somewhere inside his throat.
Victoria was on board – he was a thousand percent sure.
He could feel her presence as if their cosmic connection had suddenly been re-established after a twenty year blackout. Goosebumps danced along his skin, reaching his heart like jump-starting currents of electricity.
Four black Mercedes pulled up alongside the parked plane and the ground crew rolled the moving stairwell into place.
Baker pressed the binoculars to his face, as anxious as a child watching for his first glimpse of Santa Claus.
But the first passenger down the stairs wasn’t his daughter. It was Bill Harvey, only this version of Bill was thirty years old again.
Young Bill strode towards the lead car, pausing at the open door to watch the other passengers emerge, as if he were waiting for one passenger in particular.
And then that one passenger descended the stairs, sending Paul tumbling into his very own time warp.
‘Helen?’
It was impossible. His wife was dead.
Is she? Bill Harvey is capable of anything, even turning my wife against me.
Suspicion rose like bile in this throat. Twenty years in prison ate away at his trust, leaving a cankerous wasteland in its place. Had Bill and Helen been working together all along? It was the only thing that made sense; the only thing that would explain the two of them together, twenty years later, frozen in time.
But no, Helen wasn’t walking into Bill’s waiting arms. She was climbing into the back of the second car, snubbing Bill’s obvious invitation.
You fool. That’s not Helen. It’s Victoria. Which means that guy isn’t Bill. It’s one of his sons. Those bastards all look the same.
The truth was a double slap to the face because it meant Helen really was dead. The realisation was like losing her all over again.
Even from this distance, Baker could see the lecherous hunger in Harvey’s eyes. Worst of all, it was aimed at Victoria.
Murderous hatred swelled inside him, setting off a chain reaction of righteous indignation.
‘Fucking bastard,’ he screamed, his fist crashing into the glass window, cracking the corner. ‘Lay one finger on her and I will tear your spine through your asshole.’
Every fibre of his body fought the need to pummel Harvey into the ground and it was all Baker could do not to sprint across the car park to do just that.
The cars began to slowly move forward, forming a procession line at the boom gate.
Paul slid behind the driver’s seat, determined to follow them.
Yesterday, it would have been enough just to see Victoria.
Now that he had, he knew he had to speak to her. He had to get her away from the Harveys.
Chapter Forty-Six:
Bill sat in the semi-darkness, a crystal glass of single-malt scotch in one hand and a Cuban cigar in the other, not enjoying either since reading the lead articles in the three newspapers now discarded on the coffee table.
‘This complicates things.’
‘Yes it does,’ Campagni said, scratching the stubble on his chin.
Bill drew the rich smoke into his mouth, exhaling a thick cloud above his head. ‘Who wrote it?’
‘A syndicated journalist – David Lucas.’
‘And the artist’s impression?’
Campagni shrugged. ‘I’m not sure. It doesn’t say.’
It didn’t matter. The damage was already done.
Bill simply had to roll with the punches and change his course to accommodate the damage.
‘I don’t care if you have to lock her in her room, once she arrives, Burke does not leave this hotel. Am I clear?’
‘Crystal.’
Bill had serious doubts about Campagni’s ability to get a job done.
Anita was still missing. William had disappeared into thin air and Damon was God knew where.
Knowing Damon, probably closer than Bill wanted him to be.
Three people that could seriously fuck up Bill’s plans and he couldn’t seem to find a single one.
As for Burke, she had become an affliction. Bill had not seen her in the flesh since she was a small child. Now, one son had thrown away his inheritance after screwing her and the other was so obsessed with doing the same that he had become unmanageable.
Instead of the bait she was supposed to be, bait to lure Baker out of hiding, she had become a cancer, destroying Bill’s family from the inside out.
If the stories in the paper were true, every cop in Sydney was looking for her to question her on the whereabouts of her father.
The intercom squawked to life and a disembodied voice interrupted his thoughts. ‘Mr Harvey, your guests have arrived.’
‘About time,’ Bill said.
He stood up, extinguishing his cigar in the last centimetre of liquid.
‘Time to meet the temptress who has bewitched my sons.’
Charlotte could not believe the change Sydney had undergone in the four years she’d been gone.
Change wasn’t always a bad thing, but she was disappointed that the brand new Harvey property was located on the site of the former Waterfront restaurants – a favourite haunt of hers - replacing the iconic and much-loved building with a towering monstrosity that rose into the sky with all the phallic subtlety of an Egyptian obelisk.
In typical Harvey fashion, they had monopolised the view, blocking everyone else, including The Australian Music and Ballet Centre, from taking advantage of the picturesque vista.
Charlotte wasn’t surprised.
After three weeks with the family, she had come to expect nothing less. Private planes, mega yachts, billion dollar hotels, historic homes. It was all just another day in the lives of the world’s richest family.
Mark climbed out of the car before her, sucking in his breath as a wall of humidity swept across the harbour. ‘Jesus Christ. It’s almost 11pm. What’s the go with this heat?’
Charlotte smiled, taking off her red linen blazer to expose a blue and red striped sundress, her body awakening like a bear coming out of winter hibernation. ‘Welcome to Australia.’
‘Don’t look now but I think you’ve got an audience,’ Mark said, leaning across to whisper so his warning would not be overheard.
Charlotte glanced over her shoulder at the double glass doors that led into the vaulted glass foyer of the Waterfront Suites. ‘It’s just BJ,’ she said, trying to avoid his blatant staring, just as she had avoided him since Dubai, having as little to do with him as physically possible.
‘Not BJ,’ Mark said, inclining his head towards the lead car from which BJ was just alighting.
Could it be Damon?
Her heart skipped a beat and her stomach churned like a washing machine on spin cycle.
Despite everything that had happened, everything she had done, she couldn’t help but smile as she strode towards him.
But the closer she got, the more she realised something was wrong. There were deep lines etched into his tanned skin and his face was cold, devoid of emotion.
‘Dad.’
The voice came from behind her. She jumped, startled, as BJ’s hand touched her bare shoulder. ‘Allow me to introduce Charlotte Burke.’
So this was the famous Bill Harvey?
The man didn’t look old enough to have school aged children let alone offspring in their late twenties. She shrugged BJ’s arm off her shoulder, making it clear to one and all that his attention was unwelcome – a fact that didn’t go unnoticed by Bill Harvey.
‘Pleased to meet you,’ she said but i
t came out more as a question than a statement, as if she was unsure whether she was pleased.
Bill Harvey stared at her proffered hand as if he suspected she had leprosy, keeping both of his firmly at his side. Apart from a slight curl of his lips – almost like a dog preparing to snarl - he all but ignored Charlotte, turning instead to BJ.
Mark, on the other hand, may as well have been invisible for all the attention he got.
‘We need to talk.’
‘Just let me show Charlotte to her room.’
‘We have people for that. Now. Follow me.’ Bill strode towards a bank of glass elevators – everything at the Waterfront Suites seemed designed to enhance and encapsulate the famous views.
There was hesitation on BJ’s part but it didn’t last long, not once his father turned and gave him a withering glare.
‘Wait up for me, Charlotte. There’s something I need to tell you.’
Charlotte was on the verge of telling BJ not to bother, that she wasn’t interested in hearing anything that he had to say but her eyes were drawn to a headline on the front page of The Sydney Morning Herald.
Under the headline The Hunt Continues was the grainy photograph of her father from the diner where Joanne had died.
Across the harbour, Carl Harvey poured another two fingers of scotch into the crystal tumbler, unwittingly echoing his father’s earlier actions. He swirled the amber liquid before letting its warm comfort soothe him from the inside out, replacing the bitterness and recrimination that had become his constant companion with elation and invincibility.
Carl had cracked open the door on the William S Club and was now closer than ever to being granted membership.
You’re not quite in the Club yet, Carl.
It was true. His grandfather hadn’t divulged his plans or even explained why they couldn’t stay across the harbour in their own property. Instead, he’d been placed under virtual house arrest, forbidden from leaving the property under any circumstances.
None of it mattered. It was enough to be with his grandfather; soaking up his presence, immersing himself in the William S Club essence, even if it wasn’t all that Carl had hoped it would be.
