Some of the houses showed signs of life stirring, most would be in full stride by 0700 as everyone got ready for work and school. Even the retired couples in the street got up early.
Best time of the day as far as Aaron was concerned.
Crumpling the plastic in one hand, he unrolled the newspaper, glanced idly towards the footpath on the other side of the wire fence, and took a second look. On the footpath sat Mrs Thorn’s ginger cat.
A ginger cat will cross your path very soon.
Almost immediately he shook his head. Lucky strike, he was bound to come across a ginger cat at some time. A few of his neighbours on this street had a cat, some of his clients had cats, not to mention that cats were kept as pets by a lot of people, so his chances of seeing a ginger cat? Pretty damned good.
With a small smile, he turned and walked back up the paved path. Shea Winters was very convincing at throwing out general statements. If he was a gullible person he’d be raving about her ‘sight’ right now.
Sitting at the kitchen table with a steaming mug of coffee, a glass of orange juice, a bowl of porridge and two slices of toast with Vegemite, he’d just settled down when the sound of a car pulled into the driveway and two doors slammed shut. Recognising the sound as his brother’s work ute, he kept eating. Two shadows danced along the lace curtains as they passed the side window, the jingle of tags on a dog’s collar. No doubting the other shadow was cousin Jason, he and Luke were close mates.
Before they even got to the back door, Aaron called out, “Two mugs ready on the sink, make your own coffee.”
Luke came up the back steps onto the veranda, Jason lounging along behind him.
“How’d you know it was us?” Luke demanded, shoving open the security screen.
His dog, aptly named Dog, squeezed past him.
Aaron just looked at Luke.
“You couldn’t know it was both of us,” Luke added.
“Wasn’t hard.”
“Huh.” Luke jerked his thumb towards the small screen on the wall above the pantry. “Bet you saw us on your spy thingo.”
Aaron smiled slightly. “Sure.”
Crossing to the kettle, Jason checked the weight of it. “He didn’t see us on the camera.”
Very true. The plain fact was that Luke had shown up the last two Monday mornings on his way to his landscaping job mainly because Mikki had had to go early into her job at the local supermarket, and two doors shutting on the work ute proclaimed two people. But he liked messing with his brother’s head, so he just looked at Luke.
Luke dropped into a chair opposite him. “I think he’s in league with the Devil.”
Taking a sip of coffee, Aaron eyed his younger brother over the rim while ruffling Dog’s ears with his free hand.
“Did you go out dancing naked on a hill with a lot of old crones to get this diabolical power? That it, Aaron?”
Jason spooned coffee into two mugs. “Aaron stuck with old crones? Seriously?”
Luke tipped the chair back onto its two back legs. “I hear it involves orgies.”
“You’ve been hanging out with Mikki and Elspeth way too much.”
“Hey, I didn’t say I believe in it.”
“Suuuure.” Crossing to the table, Jason placed a mug in front of Luke before sitting and leaning back in the chair, stretching his long legs out and crossing them at the ankles.
Dog was getting a little boisterous, so Aaron gave him one look. Dog immediately laid down, putting one paw over his eyes.
Luke looked from Aaron to Dog. “You tell me that’s not freaky. Dog never does that for anyone else.”
Aaron calmly spooned up porridge.
Plucking one of the slices of toast from Aaron’s plate, Luke continued airily, “Anyway, he’s the one who had the run-in with the witch.”
Jason’s eyebrows rose, his questioning gaze flicking to his older cousin.
Aaron just shook his head slightly and kept eating.
“You know, that Stella sheila at the Willock opening.” Luke looked at Jason. “Shame you and Izzy were away this weekend, you’d have seen Aaron and this spook talker having an eyeballing contest.”
Ah, so his younger brother hadn’t missed that.
“You had a run-in with this psychic?” Jason asked in surprise.
“You’d have paid to see that,” Aaron replied.
“Bet your arse. What happened?”
“Nothing.”
Luke snorted.
“I’m impressed,” Aaron said to him. “Instead of blabbing to him as usual, you actually refrained because you wanted to see both his and my face when you shared your observation of the encounter.”
“Right. I also wanted to hear the words you spit out. That’s as impressive as your freaky intuition.”
“Just one of my many devilish talents.”
Luke flipped him the bird.
“Anyone care to enlighten me?” Jason queried. “What happened between Aaron and this clairvoyant? Medium. Whatever.”
“All three.” Picking up the last slice of toast, Aaron licked across the top of it and placed it back on the plate before resuming eating the porridge.
“You dirty bastard,” Luke said. “I wanted that.”
That had been pretty obvious.
“Woman? Aaron? Their eyeballing clash?” Jason reminded Luke.
“Oh yeah. Well, they were standing on opposite ends of the room and their eyes met, and you know how anyone looking at Aaron’s weirdo gaze gets fidgety and looks away? Not Stella. She just looks back at him and keeps eating, right up until she’s finished and he stalks up to her. I tell you, man, I thought they were going to clash right there and then.”
“And?”
“They start talking, he’s eating her with his eyes, she’s all calm and cool and shit, and then Elspeth joins them. That’s when the freaky stuff started.”
Amused, Aaron scraped the bowl clean before placing it neatly aside and draining the glass of orange juice in several swallows.
“Freaky stuff,” his cousin echoed.
Lifting his head, Dog’s ears pricked up.
“Yeah.” Luke nodded. “She tells Aaron that he misses Kipper, the cat that died when we were kids. She tells him to get the cat, a grey tabby. You should have seen Aaron’s face, he was shocked.”
Jason expression was sceptical. “Aaron? Shocked?”
“As shocked as he can look. You know, a twitch of his eyebrow. Or something. Anyway, I knew he was shocked as shit. For him, anyway. Whatever.” Luke waved one hand around. “How freaky is that? How could she know, right? She wasn’t there when Kipper died.”
Jason turned to Aaron. “What’s your version?”
“Hey!” Luke said indignantly. “I just told you.”
“Yeah, and it was entertaining. Now I want Aaron’s version.”
“What for? Don’t you believe me, dickhead?”
“Sure I do, but I think it might have been embellished a little.”
“Geez.”
Jason gave a ‘come on’ gesture with his hand to Aaron.
“Dickhead,” Luke repeated, taking a slurp of coffee.
Aaron chewed the last bite of toast before dusting the crumbs off his fingers onto the plate and pushing it away to replace with the coffee mug. “I saw Stella Donahue from a much closer distance than Lukey-boy implied, went to meet her as she was one of my security assignments, we exchanged a few pleasantries as civilized individuals do-”
“You saying I’m not civilized?” Luke interjected.
“You play in cow shit for a living.”
“Manure for the gardens. And I don’t play in it.”
“Mikki wormed you recently?” Then, before his brother could shoot back a retort, Aaron continued, “Yes, she did say I missed my cat, that I should get a grey tabby. But she never named Kipper, the statement was general.”
“General?” Jason queried.
“Most kids at some time in their lives have a pet so the chances of me having
a cat were good. If I’d said it was a dog, she’d have agreed and said something along the lines of she knew it was a close pet, and she’d probably add that there was a cat around me somewhere which is a huge possibility seeing as how many people have pet cats.”
Luke’s expression changed from humorous to thoughtful.
“As for me getting the grey tabby, she must have seen me walking near the cat shelter board outside the supermarket featuring photos of cats. I stopped and checked out the cats while talking to Ryan on the phone. There were quite a few tabby cats on the board.” Aaron raised the mug. “Case closed.”
With a nod, Jason stared consideringly into the space.
Aaron noted Luke’s expression. “That’s right, Luke, Stella Donahue is a very perceptive woman. She has the gift of keen observation and she’s learned the tricks of the trade well.”
“So you don’t believe in mediums and such?” Jason queried.
“I believe there are things on this earth that cannot be explained.”
“Avoidance,” Luke said. “See? I’m observant.”
“You’re an idiot but that’s okay, we love you anyway.”
Dog chose that moment to wag his tail, thumping it happily on the tiles while panting.
Jason laughed.
Ignoring that, Luke tapped the table with one fingertip. “Why are you so sure this Stella isn’t the real deal? From what I’ve heard from Mikki, she was spot-on with a lot of the things she said during the private sitting Elspeth had for her guests the other night.”
Now that came under business. The only other person apart from himself and his security team who knew the past about Stella Donahue aka Shea Winters, was Elspeth Arkwell, his employer of the opening event. If she chose to spread it around that was her decision. His job was to dig into backgrounds looking for threats to safety, not gossip. Confidentiality was something he and his firm stood by.
“Intuition,” he replied.
Luke’s eyes narrowed. “You know something we don’t.”
“That’s news to you?” Jason shook his head. “Mate.”
“What?”
“You’ve lived with Aaron since you appeared as a squalling, shitting pest, and you’re still surprised that he knows things you don’t?”
“I was never a squalling, shitting pest. I was the golden middle baby.”
“You keep believing that.” With a grin, Aaron took the empty dishes to the sink.
“Then tell me why my baby picture is in the biggest photo frame on Dad’s mantle?”
“Because they couldn’t get a photo frame big enough for your head to fit.”
Jason laughed.
“Unfeeling, jealous bastards.” Luke pushed to his feet. “Right, I have to get to work, and I mean real work. Get my hands dirty-”
“In cow shit,” Jason added.
“Keep up those comments, mate, and you’ll walk to the job.” Luke snapped his fingers at Dog, who scrambled to his feet and ambled over to him.
“I’d ring Uncle Harris, he’d pick me up on the way.” Jason strode across to the door. “Thanks for the cuppa, Aaron.”
“No worries.”
Luke clapped him on the shoulder as he passed. “Keep your eyes peeled for ginger cats and grey tabbies.” Turning, he backed out of the doorway. “And for curvy mystics.”
Aaron just continued drying the dishes.
The door was almost shut when Luke yelled, “She’ll be able to forewarn you about the condoms!”
The door shut, laughter drifting through the early morning air as his cousin and brother left.
Luke was incorrigible.
Not long after, showered and dressed in his usual work clothes of black suit jacket hanging open over a white shirt with the top two buttons undone, jeans and lace-up boots - what his incorrigible brother called his ‘business-on-the-top, kick-your-arse-on-the-bottom’ clothes - Aaron locked the front and back doors, checked the security alarm and went out through the door in the side of the kitchen that led into the garage. Within minutes he was driving the black SUV into the city, arriving at the Wells Security building in the nondescript back street. Pulling into the eight-car garage at the back of the building, he got out and entered through the rear door, switching off the alarm as he went.
By eight thirty his receptionist would arrive and the day would begin. He always arrived a half hour earlier so he could check how the previous shift went the night before, attend his messages and absorb the feel of the coming day in peace.
Going out into the small hallway that swept to the right and left and contained the cupboards storing the required paperwork and other bits and pieces for the offices, he turned to the right and went up the staircase to the second floor, coming out into the room dubbed ‘Control Centre’ which housed surveillance cameras, radio equipment and computers. Two security guards manned the lot. They greeted him with the news that everything was running smoothly. The night shift had left and all was well.
Returning to his office on the ground floor, Aaron switched on the radio, settled into the chair and powered up the computer. The news filled the air behind him as he downloaded the various reports coming in from the team security chiefs interstate and three from overseas. One was from the spy base situated outside the city, two were from security teams doing bodyguard duty on VIPs, and of the three overseas one of them reported from a war-torn country with details of a possible terrorist cell.
The last one sounded like any person’s recounts of a holiday and what they’d seen, but the seemingly innocent words held a code that enabled Aaron to collect information. De-coding the information quickly, he printed it out and sealed it in an envelope.
Once this was attended, he heard the sound of his receptionist coming through the front door and putting his gear away. Minutes later, Raymond came through the door in the quick, small-stepped way he had.
Looking up, Aaron studied him. Middle-aged, brown hair greying at the sides, round black-framed glasses perched on his little pug-like nose, his skinny arms poked out awkwardly from his short-sleeved shirt while his pants hung on his lanky frame. His shoes, as usual, were polished to within an inch of their lives. He also had an IQ that was almost off the charts, and anyone knowing this would expect him to be working for a secret government service raking in oodles of dough. Instead, he was a burned out college professor who had come seeking a job he could lose himself in, and live quietly.
Aaron considered himself lucky to have a man who had the know-how to be able to help source people and things needed for the various security jobs ranging from simply security alarm installations to static guards, bodyguards and under-cover security. Raymond might insist he only wanted a simple job, but he revelled in digging under the layers to discover things. They’d both spent many a night or weekend together researching, talking to, and organising things that involved security of different levels. Raymond was a valued member of the staff.
In Aaron’s opinion a team was a team no matter what the job, and every team member was valued. It was why his employee turn-over was practically zero.
“Hi,” Raymond said in a deep voice that in no way matched his looks or build.
“’Morning.”
“The new people are moving in next door.”
“Figured that when I saw the car pulled up out front and the kid unloading some boxes.”
“And I thought I was the one with the high IQ.”
“Surprise.”
“You’re not fazed by our new neighbours.”
“Nope.”
“Reckon they might at least sell a few pies and chips as a sideline?”
“Reckon what they’re selling will be as far from pies and chips as any business can get.”
“It’s an old deli.”
“It was an old deli. Now the new owners of this latest business might be an additional source of information for us.” Pretending to be checking the schedule on the computer screen, he waited for a reaction.
The silence lengt
hened before Raymond replied, “I could just quit.”
As he threatened this at least once a week -usually after a sparring session with Marietta - Aaron glanced up at him, amused.
“By the way.” Already finished with the topic as quickly as usual when he wasn’t hugely interested in it, Raymond held up an iPad. “You might want to pass on to your security teams that dirty jokes are deemed sexual harassment.”
He didn’t have to guess the culprit. “Marietta.”
“She tried to tell me it was a slip up, she’d meant to email me an assessment and clicked on the wrong attachment.”
Noting the way Raymond’s almost hollow cheeks flush, Aaron just knew the joke had to be really dirty.
“How about I just send it to you as well?” Raymond was already typing onto the iPad.
“I’m sure I don’t need to -” Before he could finish the email was pinging in his email inbox. “Okay.”
“Mutual sexual harassment,” Raymond said. “See if Marietta finds it so funny when her boss gets it. In fact…” Nimble fingers started flying over the iPad.
Uh oh. “Raymond,” Aaron warned, “don’t do anything you might regret.”
Too late. Smiling in satisfaction, he turned and left, only to stick his head back around the door seconds later. “By the way, you might want to get Marietta to revise the sexual harassment clause in the business policy.”
“I’ll do that.”
Raymond disappeared to his desk in the front office.
Another email pinged into Aaron’s inbox. He brought it up. Oh yes, Raymond had done it. He’d hacked Marietta’s account and sent the dirty joke - and boy, was it dirty - to every team member. For extra emphasis, he’d added ‘to all the boys I know and love.’
That ought to make life interesting for all of ten minutes.
Raymond just seemed to know everyone’s passwords except Aaron’s, and Aaron really ought to tell him not to hack into other employee’s accounts but Marietta had it coming. It would also provide a light diversion for his team. So he said nothing.
The Wells Brothers: Aaron Page 4
