She already knew from his comments when Georgie was talking about her great-grandma’s crystal ball that Chris was wary. Probably thinking, Oh please, not a gypsy fortune teller. It’ll only make things worse.
Of course, things could go the other way. Instead of seeing things turning around for them, getting better, Georgie might see complete disaster. Would she tell them, if the news wasn’t good?
Maybe she wouldn’t. Maybe she would just gloss over it somehow, talk in generalities, or tell them other stuff that didn’t matter.
Allie frowned. She’d try to have a word to Georgie first, when Chris wasn’t around, and tell her that she wanted the truth, whatever it might be.
She turned away from the window and went back to the small desk in the corner of the family room, and opened the blue folder there labelled Bills, Payable. She fanned through them, sighing. When she closed the laptop computer last night, she had felt sick at the thought of how little they had to carry them through. She’d been wondering if she could spend more hours on making her jewelry and the caftans that were so popular with tourists and go further afield in search of more weekend markets. But in her heart of hearts, she knew that it wouldn’t be enough.
They’d have to face facts. If there was no way to keep the business going, then they’d just have to look things squarely in the face and make hard choices.
But no matter what Chris said, she refused to believe that the business they’d worked so hard on couldn’t be built up again. The theft of the canoes a few weeks ago had probably been the straw that broke the camel’s back. After months of watching the business go downhill, after the pain of having his good reputation destroyed, being targeted by thieves was just too much.
Chris deserved better. They both deserved better.
All she wanted from Georgie was a sign that they should hang on. Just a tiny ray of hope.
5
Revelations
Chris Moore really did love his work, Georgie thought, watching him paddling along just ahead of her. She could see it — his enjoyment of the outdoors, his at-one-ness with the water and the wildlife. His mouth had lost some of the tightness she had seen earlier.
She didn’t yet know his story, but already, she wanted to help Chris and Allie. She felt for them; two hard-working people who had built up a business only to watch it fail.
They’d found out a little from chatting to Ross at the boat hire shed, who had been more than happy to talk about his town as he worked. She and Scott hadn’t charged right in with questions about Moore Canoes and Kayaks, of course. They’d talked about how nice the area was, and what they’d been doing at Huskisson, and then paved the way to what they really wanted to know by telling him where they’d been that morning, finishing with a casual query about the truck in the parking lot: “We saw the truck over there. Is there a canoe and kayak shop in town?”
Not a sales outlet as such, he told them, but business that took out groups from schools, mostly. He liked the owner, it seemed: “Good bloke, Chris Moore. He’ll see you right, pity things have been so quiet for him lately — bit of a downturn.” He hadn’t elaborated, launching immediately into a discussion about his own business and suggesting that they hire a motorboat to go up and explore Basin View and Sanctuary Point.
Exactly what ‘a bit of a downturn’ meant for Chris Moore she wasn’t sure, but instinct told her that there was a lot more behind it than Ross-from-boat-hire suggested.
Today, she should be able to find out more.
After an hour or so they stopped at a tiny sandy beach on the shore for a break, and she finally got a chance to talk with Chris.
She and Scott kept it light, chatting about some of their travels in the States, before leading the conversation to Georgie’s father’s RV empire and telling their guide how he built modern-day versions of retro trailers and gypsy caravans.
Georgie changed the subject, without mentioning the crystal ball again, when she saw a hint of wariness in his eyes at the mention of gypsy caravans. No need to spook him.
“Enough about us, Chris,” she said with a smile. “I want to learn all I can about Australia and its people. What about you, your family? Have you always lived around here?”
He nodded. “Dad’s a mechanic, retired now, but still works on cars for people around here. My two sisters have moved away, but I’ve always loved it here. Jervis Bay, St Georges Basin — I couldn’t leave.”
“I can see why,” Georgie said warmly, with a glance around at their surroundings. “How old were you when you started your business?”
Chris stared into the distance, a faraway look in his eyes. “I’d just turned twenty-six when Allie and I registered the company. Before that, I worked for my grandfather as a mechanic, but I’d go away every chance I’d get, most weekends…always hiking, boats, water. I worked for an outdoor adventure company that took school groups away, and I thought, I could do that for myself. When I married Allie she was keen to have our own business, so… we did. We had two babies, Drew and Katie, and we were poor, so it was a battle at times. But, we did it.”
Watching him, Georgie saw that the pinched look had come back to his face. When she glanced at Scott, she caught him staring thoughtfully at Chris before he shot a quick look at her, giving a barely noticeable nod.
“I always love to hear about people taking things into their own hands, doing what they love,” she said. “It must be very rewarding for you.”
Chris said nothing for a moment, but then met her gaze. “It used to be. Things haven’t been going so well lately.” He shrugged and injected a note of false cheer in his voice, screwing up a sandwich wrapper and putting it in his pocket to dispose of later. “It’ll pick up, I guess. Ready to move on?”
“I might take just ten minutes more, if that’s okay,” Georgie said, stretching her legs out in front of her. “We did quite a bit yesterday.” She grinned at Scott. “I’m not as fit as some.”
“I’ll have to send you to boot camp,” Scott said. “Toughen up a bit.” He leaned back against a rock, turning his face up to the sun, and said casually, “If I might ask… why haven’t things been going well, Chris? Is it always quiet at this time of year?”
He nodded. “After Easter, business always slackens off. School groups tend to pick the warmer months for outdoor camps and such. But I…” Chris sighed, and after another short pause said, “There was a bit of an incident eight months ago, and there have been… repercussions.”
Georgie pushed him a little further. “Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. If I’m not being too nosy… what happened?”
For a moment, he said nothing, then he shrugged. “Everyone else around here knows, so I can’t see that it matters if you do, too.”
They waited, both of them watching Chris.
“School group,” he finally said. “There’s this swanky private college here, White Sands College. You wouldn’t have heard of it. It’s on a par with some of the Sydney private schools, but smaller. A bit elitist.”
Georgie looked at Scott and raised her eyebrows in a query.
“No,” he said. “Haven’t heard of it.”
“Thought not,” Chris said. “They have a secondary campus down the coast a bit, a place where they do outdoor activities. A dozen cabins, high and low ropes, abseiling, hiking, biking, kayaking. They hire different outdoor companies to take the kids. I got the contract for kayaking. Sometimes I take staff groups as well, but it’s mostly kids.”
They nodded.
“To cut a long story short,” he said, “We had this group of Year 12 kids there. It was their last outdoor camp before final exams. I had two of my most experienced staff in charge of the group. Everything was going well until one of the stragglers ran into trouble.” He glanced at them. “They were two-person canoes, so we had two kids in each one.”
“Right,” said Scott.
“One canoe tipped over and the kids in it panicked a bit, so both group leaders went back to help. They told the others to
wait until we were all ready to go again, but two of the boys sneaked ahead.” He picked up a nearby pebble and hurled it into the water, his jaw working. “A couple of others followed them and saw what happened. An idiot in the first canoe stood up and started horsing around, rocking it to scare the other kid. So it went over too, but this time the two boys got trapped underneath. One swam out, the other one had trouble. My staff got there just in time.”
“Oh. How terrible.” Georgie hadn’t expected anything this serious. “Was he… all right?”
“He was, thanks to their training. But there was an enquiry, and they found that Harrison Burns — the boy who was horsing around — had brought drugs to the camp, and he and a few of the others were high.”
Whoa, trouble, thought Georgie. After a short silence, she asked, “And they blamed you?”
“Not formally, no. But the school had recently embarked on a zero tolerance program for drugs, so Harrison and two of the others were expelled. Their father is a big wheel at the school, donates lots of money, and he wasn’t happy. He made noises, but they refused to allow Harrison to stay until final exams. Meanwhile, my contract was terminated.”
Georgie kept her eyes on him, sensing there was more to come. Just one school contract couldn’t make this much difference to a business.
Sounding weary, Chris went on. “Over the next few months, other schools found different providers. Then the corporate groups dried up. You can imagine what it’s like: once the word is out someone in charge of kids allows drugs into the group, no-one wants to take the risk. It was Harrison Burns that brought them in, but rumors circulated about my staff. Nobody ever said anything directly, even when I pushed them. They all had other reasons for not being able to use me any more, but I knew.”
“I’m so sorry,” Georgie said. “That’s tough, when none of it was your fault.”
“Then,” he said, “Last month, a few days before I was due to take away a small group from a business up north, some piece of trash stole my trailer loaded with canoes. They found it dumped in the scrub a few miles up the road, with all the canoes wrecked. To continue with the program I had to hire replacements from someone else. So, profits were down on that one.” He looked up and forced a smile. “It’s getting so I don’t know whether I want to keep going, to be honest. It was good while it lasted, but maybe my day is over.”
“Sorry to hear that, mate,” Scott said. “You’ve had a bad run, all right. You don’t think it will all blow over?”
“It’s more competitive out there now. I’d need someone to go in to bat for me, and there isn’t any one. I’m just a small town bloke with a small town business. There are plenty queuing up to fill my shoes.” He stood up and stretched. “My problem is convincing Allie that it’s time to move on. She wants to keep fighting.” He extended a hand to Georgie. “Recovered enough to keep going?” His tone made it clear that the discussion was over.
“You’re in league with Scott,” she said, pretending to be aggrieved as she let him haul her to her feet. “Determined to make me suffer. Okay, okay. But I’m riding the current all the way back.”
The men both laughed, and they put back into the water.
Georgie, paddling along a little behind them, thought about what she’d heard.
Was Chris’s bad luck just one unlucky incident that sent things spiraling down, or was there more to it?
More, the voice in her head said firmly. You’re here, aren’t you?
6
First Reading
When they rounded the bend at around five and saw Chris’s place, Allie was waiting for them, lolling back in a camp chair with a book in her hands. When she spotted them, she sat up and waved.
Georgie envied her the deck chair. After a whole day’s kayaking, every muscle was sore. To think that Scott had done this for ten days, paddling along the Missouri! He was made of sterner stuff than she. She stretched and let out a small groan.
Scott grinned at her. “Had enough?”
“For about the next month,” she said ruefully. “But it was fun.”
Scott hung back with Georgie and let Chris beach his kayak first. “Does he know we’re staying for dinner?” he said in a low voice.
“I forgot to mention it, once he started talking about his problems,” Georgie murmured back. “Well, he can hardly un-invite us, can he?” With a few fast strokes, she sent her kayak in after Chris, grinning at Allie. “Hi! Sorry, I think we’re a bit later than we thought. At least we worked up an appetite.”
“It’s just lasagne and salad,” Allie said. “But plenty of it. I’ll go and make coffee while you get yourselves organized here.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Georgie saw Chris’s head whip around towards his wife. He said nothing, but she could imagine the look he had sent her.
Allie smiled at her husband, looking unperturbed. “Did Georgie tell you I asked them to stay for dinner? I’m dying to hear more about her travels.”
“No,” Chris said brusquely, “but they’re more than welcome.” He hauled his kayak higher up the grassy slope and flipped it over to drain, without looking at Scott or Georgie.
“Chris has already heard a few stories,” Georgie said cheerfully. “We’ll have to come up with some different ones for you.”
“Maybe Jerry and the Preppers,” Scott suggested. “That’s a good one.”
That made Chris turn and look at them, arching an eyebrow. “Jerry and the Preppers? Sounds like a pop group.”
“Jerry’s my brother,” Georgie told him. “Remember we told you about my father’s RV business? Well, Jerry had a sideline in making bug-out vehicles for preppers — you know, survivalists, preparing for Doomsday. The problem was that he got involved with a couple of hard-core crazies. They kidnapped him.”
“Kidnapped him?” Chris looked reluctantly intrigued. “I have to admit that sounds like a tale that needs telling.”
“You’ve no idea,” Georgie said, laughing as she tugged off her kayak booties. “We’ve got enough stories to keep you up until midnight.”
And, she thought with satisfaction, a few of them should make Chris more receptive to the idea of a crystal ball reading.
Then they might have some idea where all of this was heading.
Almost an hour later, when she judged that Chris had become accustomed to the idea that there might be more to a crystal ball than a gimmick at a sideshow, Georgie managed to catch Allie’s eye and gave a slight nod towards Chris, who was talking with Scott about his experiences kayaking along the Missouri.
Allie nodded back, and Georgie drained her coffee cup before saying, “So, Allie…would you still like me to do a reading, or have we put you off with all these stories?”
“Hardly,” Allie responded. “Quite the opposite.” She sent a bright smile across the table at her husband. “We wouldn’t turn this down, would we, Chris?”
“You wouldn’t,” he said wryly. “You’ve never walked past a tarot reader at the markets in your life.”
Georgie stood up. “My crystal ball is in the car.” She winked at Chris, gesturing down at her shorts and cotton sleeveless top. “I don’t have my great-gran’s genuine gypsy shawl with me, or I’d dress up for you. I’m sure it would make me look more authentic.”
“Actually,” Allie said, “the tarot reader who comes to our local market looks like she should be selling cakes for a school fund-raiser. She just has a fold-up table under a pop-up gazebo.”
“And Allie still believes everything she says,” Chris said. “So you should be fine.” Looking resigned, he stood up. “I’ll clear the table.”
“I’ll help,” said Scott. He clapped Chris on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, it’ll be relatively painless. No smoke and mirrors.”
That made Chris grin. “It’s one way to pass the evening.”
Good, thought Georgie. At least she wasn’t going to be sitting down with a totally reluctant subject.
Now all she had to do was come up with the goods.
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They sat at a round table; Allie and Chris either side of Georgie. Allie edged forward in her seat to peer at the crystal ball. Chris had his arms folded and a neutral expression on his face. Being polite, Georgie guessed, although she thought he might have warmed up a little after hearing about a few of her successes.
As though he were reading her mind, he said suddenly, “So you really use this crystal ball to solve crimes?”
“It has kind of worked out that way.” Georgie admitted. “In the beginning, our little ‘crystal ball investigation team’ was more of a joke, but we all worked well together. Layla was great with a computer and research, and Tammy — well, how can I describe Tammy?”
“Your brother’s fiancée,” Allie said, showing she’d been listening. “The girl who looks like Doris Day and shoots like Annie Oakley.”
Georgie and Scott looked at each other and laughed. “Close enough,” said Georgie.
“You must miss them.”
“You don’t know how much,” Georgie said feelingly. “But out here, we have Scott’s mother, who is into astrology and reads cards. And Scott’s no slouch himself, of course.”
Allie looked at him, open-mouthed. “What do you do?”
“I read cards a little,” he said easily. “Couldn’t help but pick it up from Ma.”
“He’s being modest,” Georgie told Allie. “He’s actually quite good, and the more he does it the better he gets. And then there’s his brother, Bluey.”
“He reads cards too?” Chris shook his head. “This sounds like a TV show. Kind of X Files meets CSI.”
“No, Bluey’s never gone in for that kind of thing,” Scott said. “He…uh…he’s pretty good with computers and research too, like Layla was back in the States. He looks up stuff for us.” He sent Georgie a bland look, and she grinned at him. They couldn’t tell most people that Scott’s brother hacked into online places where he wasn’t supposed to be. Not that he had ever admitted it.
No Good Reason Page 3
