‘Really? It’s not too sweet?’ I hadn’t figured him for the cocktail type.
He pulled a face and shrugged one shoulder.
‘Bruce,’ I called out. ‘Get him a beer as well.’
‘So,’ I said when Bruce was out of earshot. ‘What’s this really about?’
‘The case?’
‘What else would I be talking about?’
He rested an elbow on the bar and put his head on his hand. ‘Boris escaped.’
‘Russian Mafia Boris?’
‘Shhhhh.’ Billy looked over his shoulder to see if anybody had heard my shriek.
‘Huge man, teeth filed to a point, psychotic personality?’ I wanted to be sure we were talking about the same guy.
‘The one and only.’ He paused as Bruce appeared on the other side of the bar shaking his cocktail mixer for all he was worth. The mixer sailed up into the air as Bruce crossed his legs and spun around on the spot. He caught it with one hand as it came back down.
I shook my head. ‘He never does that for me.’
Bruce tossed it from hand-to-hand a few times before cracking it and pouring the contents into a glass. He passed it to Billy with a wink and a smile.
‘He’s straight,’ I yelled after him as he went to get Billy’s beer.
‘Does he try to crack on to all of your friends?’ Billy asked.
‘Only the gorgeous ones.’ I froze as I realised what I had said. Oh great. Now he knew I thought he was gorgeous. Awkwaaaaard.
But instead of looking around for the nearest exit he smiled his cute smile and said, ‘And how many gorgeous male friends does my little sister have? Do I need to get a gun?’
‘Ha ha,’ I said. ‘You’ve already got one.’
‘Yes.’ He took a sip of his cocktail. ‘But that one’s licensed.’
He was kidding. I think.
Bruce placed the beer on the table and Billy reached for his wallet.
‘Stop.’ Bruce held up his hand. ‘You’re family. Family don’t get to pay for drinks.’
Billy nodded his head. ‘If you ever need anybody killed, just let me know.’
Bruce let out a shriek of laughter. ‘Stop it. Hot and funny. You’re too much.’ He looked Billy up and down again and let out a sigh before heading to the other end of the bar.
‘What? How? When?’ I couldn’t comprehend that Boris had escaped custody. I mean, I know it happened in movies all the time. But really?
‘A couple of days ago. They were moving him and some of his buddies ambushed the bus.’
‘So why do you think he’ll be coming after Matt?’
‘They found the newspaper article in his cell. He’d drawn a skull and cross bone next to Matt’s name.’
I let out a giggle. ‘Seriously? That’s all you guys are going on?’
He took a sip of his cocktail and then followed it up with a swig of his beer. ‘Beer chaser makes it bearable. Almost.’ He smiled at me and then said, ‘It was Matt’s investigation that led to his capture. Plus, he knows now that it was Matt who ruined the Russian operation in Morocco.’
‘And?’ There had to be more, surely.
‘And we have evidence that suggests he boarded a boat that was headed to Australia.’
‘Ready for a top up?’ Bruce sidled up next to Billy and batted his eyelashes.
I rolled my eyes and took a sip of my cocktail. Perhaps it was a good thing he’d turned out to be my brother. The jealousy caused by watching the whole world try to hit on him would have driven me insane.
I was going to tell myself that anyway.
‘Still good. Thanks.’
I let out a cough and held up my empty glass.
‘Oops,’ Bruce said to Billy. Then he laughed and whispered loudly enough that I could hear, ‘She’s a bit of a lush.’
I poked my tongue out at him as he ducked back under the gap in the bar.
‘Biiiillllyyyy.’ The shriek came from several of the club’s drag queens at once. They had been heading out the back to get dressed for the night’s performance, but now they flocked towards us, bustling around Billy, stroking his arms and running their hands through his hair. A lesser man would have wet himself, but not Billy.
‘Hello ladies,’ he said, looking up at them. ‘You all look ravishing tonight.’
I picked up his martini and took a large sip.
The Mutual Appreciation Society continued until Bruce finally intervened. ‘Ladies.’ He clapped his hands to get their attention. ‘Shouldn’t you be getting ready?’
With fingertip waves and giggles they headed out the back.
Billy swivelled back towards me. ‘You have such great friends.’
‘Really?’ I mean I knew I did, I just didn’t expect a guy to see that.
‘Yeah. They’re not scared to be what they want to be. That’s pretty rare.’
He had a point. It took a lot of guts for a guy to stand up and say, ‘I like dressing as a woman.’
‘I mean look at Martine.’
‘Oh no.’ I held up a hand. ‘Martine is a woman.’
He cocked his head to the side and stared at me.
‘She is.’ I shrugged my shoulders. ‘Martyn is her alter-ego. He’s dull, boring and germ-phobic. He’s an accountant,’ I said as if that explained everything.
‘She’s schizophrenic?’
I squirmed, uncomfortable with such a blunt dissection of my best friend. ‘She’s…Martine.’ In my mind Martine and Martyn were two different people. I tried not to spend time with Martyn. He was awkward.
‘Chanel.’
‘Speak of the devil,’ Billy muttered as Martine trotted towards us.
‘Oh, and Billy. Hello gorgeous.’ Martine leaned over and pressed her lips to Billy’s cheek. I had rung her that afternoon to fill her in. ‘Can’t stay. I’m late. See you in the break.’
‘Is your Mum coming?’ Billy took a sip of his beer. He hadn’t seemed to notice that I’d drunk his cocktail.
‘Not much lately.’ I raised my eyebrows at him and he barked out a laugh. ‘Besides, the girls have a huge repertoire. She won’t need to work with them for a while yet.’ I met his brown eyes. ‘What aren’t you telling me?’
‘What are you talking about?’ He picked up his beer and took a sip.
‘What. Aren’t. You. Telling. Me?’ I leant forwards to emphasise my words.
This time he smiled. ‘And they don’t think you’re smart.’
I raised my eyebrows, crossed my arms and waited.
He dragged his finger through the condensation on the bar top from his beer. ‘We won’t be working this case alone.’
‘I didn’t think we would.’
‘No, I mean the local cops have insisted they be included in the investigation.’
‘So, not other FBI?’
‘They’ll be there in the background. But Salindra and Nick will work with us. Salindra will be acting as my girlfriend and Nick as your boyfriend.’
‘Oh.’ So not what I had been expecting. ‘So this Salindra, is she pretty?’
Aghhhhhh. Did I really just ask that?
His eyes danced above the top of his beer bottle. ‘I’m not sure.’
‘Well, hello there. Chanel, you didn’t tell me you knew one of the Man Power boys.’ My friend, Bianca, slid onto the bar stool on the other side of Billy and stretched out one of her long, brown legs.
‘That’s because I don’t.’ I huffed out a breath of air. ‘Aren’t you meant to be serving drinks?’ It was mean, I know, but I didn’t want her and her bootaliscious butt anywhere near Billy.
‘I’m on a break,’ she purred, leaning against the bar. She stretched an elbow back to support herself, affording Billy an eyeful of her size D breasts. They bulged out of her halter-neck top as if trying to climb Mt Everest.
‘Billy.’ He stretched out a hand to her and I had to stop myself from slapping it away.
Brother. Not mine.
I was still working on that.
‘B
il-ly.’ She said his name in such a way that her tongue flicked out over her teeth between her lips. ‘The pleasure is mine.’ She leant back further to expose a long, lean expanse of stomach.
I wouldn’t have minded so much except when I had first met Bianca, she had been a pro. And I wasn’t talking about wrestling. I was sure she could show Billy things that would make his eyes roll back in his head and never come back out.
‘Bianca.’ Bruce’s voice was like a whip cracking. ‘Don’t make me flick you with my tea towel.’
‘I’ll pay you to let him do it.’ She smiled at Billy.
‘Sorry to disappoint,’ Billy said. ‘But I’m a terrible shot with a tea towel.’
She gave me a grin as she hopped back up.
‘What’s the plan for tomorrow?’ Suddenly I wanted to be at home on the couch with Cocoa. Billy had only been there half an hour and already I was exhausted with jealousy.
‘I’ll pick you up at nine-thirty. We fly to Brisbane at eleven, then onto Hamilton Island from there.’
‘Early start.’ I faked a yawn.
‘Nine-thirty is an early start?’
‘I’ve got to pack and walk Cocoa and do the dishes.’ I was rapidly running out of reasons to get out of there.
For a second he looked disappointed, and then Bianca appeared at his side with another beer. ‘Bruce thought you looked thirsty.’ She bent far lower than was entirely necessary as she placed the drink on the table.
I had a sudden urge to take down a fleeing criminal and beat the shit out of him. It was definitely time to go. I stood up and plucked my handbag off the floor.
‘You going girlfriend?’ Bianca had a concerned look on her face. I knew she didn’t mean to annoy me, but my feelings where Billy was concerned were convoluted.
‘Early start.’ I pasted a wide smile on my face and turned to go, but then I remembered I wouldn’t see her for a while. I didn’t want to part like that. I swung back and caught her in a hug. ‘Going to miss you,’ I said.
‘You off again?’
I nodded. ‘Bruce is looking after Cocoa. Make sure he doesn’t feed him too much.’
She pushed my hair back behind my ear. ‘You be careful, you hear.’
‘As careful as I ever am.’
She raised an eyebrow. ‘That sort of comment don’t fill me with much confidence.’
‘I’ll be with him.’ I pointed at Billy. ‘What can go wrong?’
If I had known the answer to that question, I would have sat right back down on that barstool and ordered a couple of extra-strong cocktails. Then I would have kept drinking till I was too hung over to catch the plane the next morning.
2
You Have Got To Be Joking
Billy was there right on time, but he wasn’t alone. Mum and Harry sat in the back of the cab holding hands.
‘They’re coming?’ I said.
‘Managed to get seats on our planes.’
I took a deep breath and let it out. It’s not that I didn’t love them, but being around them when they were so caught up in each other only added to my misery. I was a bad, bad daughter.
I slid into the back next to them, leaving the front for Billy so he would have more leg room.
Mum chattered on about the last minute accommodation they had managed to get, and the new bikini she had acquired, and I found myself unable to give her any feedback. She didn’t notice but I felt my silence weighing heavily on my shoulders.
We arrived at the airport, checked into our flight and then, as a family, we made our way to the café closest to our gate. A cappuccino later, we boarded our first flight. Mum and Harry sat across the aisle from Billy and me, but as soon as the plane had finished its ascent I put on my headset and pretended to be engrossed in a movie.
I didn’t know if I could do this. Didn’t know if I could smile and pretend I was happy Billy was my brother. I felt sick whenever I thought about it, my feelings still caught in a time warp – before I knew he was Harry’s son. Before I knew the truth.
My reaction the night before had made it clear to me that I still had feelings for him. I was sick. Sick, sick, sick. They locked people like me up.
I wanted to reach into my brain and rip out the part of me that couldn’t let him go. But I couldn’t. And instead, I had to pretend we were all one big happy family.
The flight landed and we made our way to another café to wait out the hour before we boarded our connecting flight. My mood seemed to have affected Billy. He slumped into the seat across from me and picked up a drink coaster. Holding it between the thumb and first finger of one hand, he twirled it with the other while he stared off into the distance.
‘Well, you two are a fine pair,’ Mum said. She sounded annoyed that we weren’t sharing her high with her.
I flicked my eyes to Billy and met his gaze. He stared at me for a second before looking away again. I resisted my urge to put my head on my arms. I wanted to go to sleep for a decade. Surely by the time I woke up from a sleep like that I would be over him.
‘Want to go for a walk, Pumpkin?’ I started at the feel of Harry’s hand on my shoulder.
‘Sure.’ I jumped to my feet. Anything was better than sitting there opposite Billy.
I followed him to a newsstand and we stood next to each other while we pretended to peruse the magazines. Well, I know I was pretending to, and I doubted very much that he was as interested in the House and Garden section as he was making out. I could only surmise that he wanted to talk to me.
‘I’ll get over him.’ I blurted it out before he could say anything.
‘I need to tell you something.’
‘I promise.’ I could feel tears welling in my eyes. ‘It was just the shock of seeing him again yesterday, I wasn’t prepared for that.’
‘Ah Sweetie.’ He pulled me into his arms.
‘I’m sick, I know.’ I sniffled. ‘I keep trying, but I can’t see him as my brother.’ I lowered my voice to a whisper. ‘When I’m with him, I want to be with him. I need shock treatment or whatever else it is they do to sickos like me.’ I pushed away from Harry and looked him in the eyes. ‘Do you hate me?’
‘Chanel,’ he said, ‘you’re not sick.’
‘So this is normal?’
‘No. None of this is normal.’
I lowered my eyes. ‘If you want me to go I will.’ I would take myself away from all of them. Go live in the middle of Australia somewhere where they couldn’t find me. I would…
‘He’s not your brother.’
I could feel my mouth hanging open as I stared up at him. ‘Exsqueese me?’
‘I’m not his real father.’ His eyes were sad as he observed me.
‘How do you know?’ Was he just trying to make me feel better?
‘When Billy was nine he fell out of a tree and ended up in hospital. He lost a lot of blood and needed a transfusion. He was B positive. Both Cindy and I are A.’
I was still clueless as to what he was trying to tell me.
‘Blood type is inherited. For me to have even had a chance of being his father, at least Cindy had to be the same blood type as Billy.’
I thought back to the story Mum had told us the night after the police raid in Las Vegas. ‘Dick,’ I said.
He nodded his head. ‘I confronted Cindy about it and she confessed. Don’t hate me for agreeing not to tell him, but I really liked being his Daddy.’
‘You thought that would change if he knew?’
He shrugged his shoulders.
‘You still think it would change things.’ The forlorn look in his eyes told me that.
‘You never know how somebody will react to news like that.’
Oh God. My possible happiness relied on Harry’s possible unhappiness. For me to have a chance with Billy, Harry had to risk losing him as a son. That wasn’t a fair swap.
‘I think just knowing that,’ I said, ‘is enough.’
‘You’d be fine pretending to be his sister?’
‘Knowing
that I wasn’t a sick pervert for ogling him all the time? Yeah. That would be a great start.’ I let out a weak laugh. He wasn’t my brother. The relief of that knowledge flowed over me.
Harry shook his head. ‘That’s not enough. I’ve seen how you watch him. How miserable you’ve been since we got back. I’d like you to have a shot at finding what your Mum and I have.’ He reached out and grasped my hand. ‘I will tell him. But can we have this holiday together first? As a family?’
Exuberance bubbled up inside me and I stomped it back down. The sacrifice Harry was prepared to make was too much. The price too high. But I knew I was going to let him do it. The least I could do was smile and pretend everything was hunky-dory. ‘Of course,’ I said.
I bought a Vogue magazine for Mum and then we wandered back to where we had left them. Mum sat by herself, staring at her phone with a look bordering on fanatical. She jumped as Harry pressed a kiss to the top of her head.
‘I’ve found them,’ she said. ‘Look.’ She held her phone out to him.
‘Found who?’ I sat down next to her, trying not to worry about where Billy had gone.
‘Liss and Thor.’
‘Oh.’ I leant over so that I could see the phone screen. It was a Facebook page. A woman with strawberry blonde hair was looking up at an enormous man. Her blue eyes shone with affection and the corners of her lips curled up. His massive arms held her protectively and he had taken her look and returned it with interest.
‘It’s them all right.’ Harry looked up at Mum. ‘You were right about where they would be. The Canary Islands.’
She nodded her head. ‘She always said that’s where she would go if she won the Lotto. I sent her a friend request.’ She reached across the table and took Harry’s hand.
He lifted it to his mouth and kissed her knuckles.
Urghhhhh. The looks they were exchanging were a nine on the puke-inducing scale. Nearly as bad as their post-coital looks. Time to go find Billy.
‘Any idea where Billy went?’
‘Hmmmmm?’ Mum dragged her eyes from Harry’s and looked at me.
‘Billy?’
‘Oh.’ She smiled and turned her gaze back to Harry. ‘He went to get a drink.’
Two Weddings and a Fugitive (The Chanel Series Book 4) Page 3
