Floored

by Paton, Ainslie

  It moved to a kitchen style chair. Where the mood changed. Went deep. Became sultry. Got deliberate and urgent, and somehow essential to his fucking continued wellbeing. It levelled out at intense and stayed there, for minutes, hours, whole centuries during which Eucla’s sands might’ve shifted and rabbits plagued and he’d have been insensible to any of it. There was nothing but her and the secret of what she could do to him that he’d never break, never want to.

  How was it that this was his reality? He’d found the girl when he’d been lost to himself. He’d found himself and won the girl. Only to learn he’d lose her, too soon. Even if he could learn her secrets, she was staying in Perth. He had no reason to be there and professional reasons to go home.

  He was Eucla’s shifting sands, searching for a way to engulf her. He was a new rabbit plague, devouring everything in his path to do it.

  When she slept, he called Stud. The gun, the look on her face when she’d left the teller, the way her eyes showed him guilt beneath the cover of control. He needed to know what she was dealing with so he’d know how to deal with it too.

  30: Rough Justice

  It’d been obvious for days now. They were cruising. Sean had no pressing need to be in Perth. Caitlyn could see he’d have lingered in Eucla if there was anything outside the bedroom to look at other than sand and they’d given the inside of the bedroom a forensic investigation. No surface untouched by their lovemaking.

  She knew why he hadn’t called it quits. It was making her stomach churn as she seesawed between hope and despair. He felt something deep for her. He hadn’t said it, but he showed it, even when he was at his most suspicious and holding a deadly weapon. And when he was holding her—she saw shooting stars under her eyelids, grasped new possibilities in the palm of his hands, and smelled happiness in the cedar scent of his skin.

  But wanting to stay with him meant either telling him the truth or keeping her ugly secret. Oddly they amounted to the same thing. She’d end up alone. Because she couldn’t continue to lie to him. Inevitably she’d slip up, or he’d figure it out. Beyond that, lying to him felt like committing another crime, this one against a man who’d never done anything to deliberately hurt her. At least if she kept her secret she’d stay free.

  Meanwhile Sean wasn’t in any hurry and neither was she, so they had this time together to scorch an incendiary memory on her brain.

  Compared to Eucla, Kalgoorlie was Sydney. Western Australia’s second biggest town after Perth. It was an old gold rush town and still home to the country’s largest open pit goldmine. The Super Pit ran 24/7, but the real rush in Kalgoorlie now was about mining other metals and the business of supplying the world with raw materials.

  Apart from the fabulous historic pubs—twenty-five of them, and the famous Hay Street brothels, once as many as the number of pubs—the thing Cait most wanted to see was a boring old Commonwealth Bank branch. She wanted to check her balance after the monthly car loan payment and her last naphthalene rent cheque went through, but the teller machine in the Eucla pub was screwy, probably offline. It’d given her a balance of a hundred dollars instead of the thousands from Sean’s deposit that were there.

  They split up. Sean took the car and went to suss accommodation. She hit the Hannan Street branch, right on closing.

  It didn’t matter how often she asked the teller to check the balance, it came back the same. One hundred dollars. She couldn’t convince him the line in the printed statement showing the rest of the money disappearing in a single withdrawal three days ago in Sydney wasn’t one she’d made.

  She walked out of the bank with Justin’s laughter ringing in her head and panic making her near blind and deaf. One hundred dollars was what she’d left him when she cleaned out the safe.

  Sean was waiting. His face lit with a grin when he saw her and she couldn’t hold back any longer. She burst into tears. He ate the space between them with urgent strides. She was in his open arms and sobbing against his chest, but that wasn’t going to fix things.

  “Tell me.”

  She sniffed, composed herself. “Justin stripped my bank account.”

  He brushed her cheek with his fingertips, smearing tears across her face. “Start at the top, Caity.”

  “My account is empty. Most of the money you gave me should still be there. It’s gone in a single transaction.”

  “Who has access to your account?”

  She fished about in her satchel for a tissue. “No one. It’s new. The hire car company pay my fees into it and I pay my rent and loan payment out of it. That’s it. No credit card, no linked accounts, nothing tricky. It’s not even in my name. It’s in Trusted Transit’s.”

  “The bank tells you it’s not an error.”

  She blew her nose. She was an out of control, blubbering mess in the middle of downtown Kalgoorlie. That one hundred dollars, and another sixty she had in her purse, was all the money she had. There was nothing for the next loan payment, nothing to use to get set-up in Perth. If it weren’t for the rest of the money Sean still had to give her she’d have to sell the car, or the hire car license just to feed herself. But the worst of it—she’d brought up Justin again.

  “They say come back tomorrow and they’ll look into it further.”

  He took her hand. “All right, let’s get to the hotel.”

  He’d chosen the old Palace Hotel with its big gracious balcony, a short walk from the bank. In their room he was tender and patient, but with purpose. Cop to his core.

  “Why would Justin come after your bank account?”

  “To punish me.” That had to be part of it. To scare her witless was another.

  “For what?”

  To hunt her down and take back what was his was the real reason—or worse. She shrugged. “For leaving him with the business I guess.”

  Sean was on his feet moving around the room. He radiated energy and purpose. She watched him from the edge of the bed and tried not to hold her breath, another soggy tissue balled in her hand.

  “Let’s think this through. You nail dear old Jussy in the act of being a scheming, rotten, duplicitous, unfaithful bastard.” He stopped pacing. “Right?”

  “Right.”

  “You find the safe and see the money, and you take the gun and bolt, leaving everything you own behind.”

  “Right.”

  “So help me out here. I get that he’s feeling guilty for all the lies, and for the blonde. Maybe even pissed off you left him with a workload he couldn’t manage. But why does Jussy go to all the trouble of tracking you down, getting your phone number and hacking your bank account? Doesn’t seem to me like he needs the money.”

  He came and sat beside her on the bed. He reached for her hand and she knew whatever he was going to say next was going to sting. “Or that he wants you back.”

  She dropped her eyes to their clasped hands. It was easier than trying to meet his too clever ones.

  “What did his phone messages say?”

  She could give him that. “He missed me and wanted to know where I was.” True, but not as benign as it sounded. She got a hand squeeze for that. It felt like a reward, and she was desperately undeserving.

  “So I get Jussy is lying scum and has some corporate crime to pay for, and I get his moral compass is set to douchebag. But how does he go from running a tax scam to hacking phones and banks? That’s a different kind of crime altogether. More like organised crime than tax fraud.” He gave her hand another squeeze. “Tell me again what you took with you.”

  She wasn’t going to cry again, she wasn’t. God she wasn’t, but it was getting harder and harder to lie to him. “What I had with me. The clothes I wore, my handbag. I left my laptop, my engagement ring, and my phone. I didn’t even take one of the company cars. I just ran.”

  “Okay,” said with another hand squeeze that felt like he had a chokehold on her heart. “I get that you were shocked and frightened, but Caity, you’re not some wilting flower. I don’t get why you didn’t have it ou
t with him later? If only for the satisfaction of getting up in his lying fucking face.”

  “I… I couldn’t. I never want talk to him again.”

  Sean let go her hand and put his arm around her shoulder. As a gesture it was precious, comforting; as an interrogation technique it was devastating. He was so close to asking the question she couldn’t answer.

  “What else did you see, Cait?”

  She could look him in the eye. “Nothing.” He was going to ask it next. If she hesitated he’d know.

  “What else did you take, Cait?”

  She held his eyes and lied. “Nothing.”

  His face gave no reaction away. No flick of an eyebrow, no tightening of his jaw, but his eyes, oh, the way his eyes through those thick dark lashes glassed over with disbelief, with disappointment. Had he guessed already with that shoot from the hip accuracy he brandished like a sword of justice?

  He looked away first and though he was still holding her, that movement felt like distance, like a little death to what they’d shared.

  “All right, but I don’t like it. I’m past respecting your turf here. I was past it before we hit Port Augusta.”

  She broke free of the cocoon of his arms. It wasn’t safe anymore. She stood; it was her turn to pace, to turn in a performance. “What if you’re right? What if I’m overreacting? What if it is only a clerical error?” Her voice was all over the place, too high, too fast, she needed to steady herself.

  “A clerical error is what we want. We want your money back in your account.”

  She stopped and faced him. “Errors like this happen. You read about them. I’m sure that’s what it’ll be. I panicked, that’s all. I mean, why do I think it’s Justin? You’re totally right. He’d be too disorganised to do something like this.” She shook her head, aiming to show her confusion, playing for sympathy. “I’m obviously still not over the whole thing.”

  She couldn’t pick his expression. He sat on the edge of the bed, leaning back on his hands, legs in his jeans stretched out in front of him. He’d kicked his shoes off and he’d washed up when they arrived. Stray water droplets still shone in his hair like brilliant jewels. His posture was so relaxed and casual he might’ve been about to take a nap, tell a joke, shoot the breeze, but so misleading. Had she over-played her hand? He could call her on her lies. He could walk out and leave her with one hundred and sixty dollars to her name. He could interrogate her till she broke wide open and her dirty secret spilled out on the floor at his feet. Till she confessed everything.

  He did none of those things. He watched her with eyes that knew too much of the world and it’s deceptions and he understood she was still lying as surely as she’d flunked a polygraph.

  She went to the window, her back to him. She bit her lip to stop it betraying her further than all the lies by wobbling with the threat of more tears. She should be the one to go. Not far on the sixty dollars in her purse, but she still had his expenses money. It would be a far lesser crime to take that than to play this game.

  “Come here.”

  He was still on the bed, but there was nothing casual about that command. Only two words, roughly uttered, his voice low with authority. Her feet were fixed to the carpet, glued there with indecision and reluctance. Whatever she did now, this dream of him was lost, and the memory forever tarnished by how it would end, in anger, in disgrace, in deceit.

  Because he already knew.

  If not the detail then the style of her crime.

  She heard him move before his hands came down on her shoulders. She braced against his touch, but not from fear he’d hurt her physically. He’d pluck his own eye out before he’d do that. He curled around her, his lips to her neck. The shock of that kiss sending a pointed shaft of confusion through her body. Her hand moved to touch his face and she eased back against him. He groaned and tightened his hold on her, rasping into her ear, “What did you do? What won’t you tell me?”

  The last time she’d left a man it was an event made from shock and stealth, from revenge and wrath. It’d made her dishonest. This time it was likely to tattoo her soul with its pain. She gave herself up to it.

  He turned her in his arms and lifted her, carrying her the few steps to the bed, stripping her clothes with brutal efficiency, laying her down, then he got naked too. She couldn’t look away from him. He was breathing heavily, a dark, dangerous look in his eyes, every muscle in his body taunt with intention. Behind this memory would be the searing knowledge of its deceitful origin, but inside the making of it was the lust in his glance, the heat of his touch, the surrender of herself to his powerful desires.

  If she’d ever thought she could manage this man he proved her a fool. His touch stole every physical defence she had. Every move her body made he decided on first. Her legs opened at a touch of his palm, her back arched at the stroke of his finger, her hips jerked at the scrape of his teeth. He made her captive with his tongue and the slide of his hands. He arrested her with his lips and the sounds he made, rumbling deep and grunted hard, expelled from him with primal force.

  She became his possession, an extension of his will and only that. He robbed her of all independent thought and movement, all reason to be anywhere or anything without intimate, enduring attachment to him.

  He knew it. He used it. And he punished her with it.

  He took her to her breaking point and held her there, shuddering on the edge, craving release and crying out her pleasure. And he took it away, leaving her thrashing in a new kind of panic, reeling in an agony of short-circuited feelings. He had no mercy. He did it again and again, until he defeated her, until he owned every emotion she felt.

  When it came, the freedom of completion was shattering. It tumbled her into a tunnel of bright lights and sweet, dragging softness. He kissed her back to reality, bringing her down with the same sureness he’d used to throw her to the stars. It made her different, this intervention, this rougher routine. It made her split apart and stick back together. It made her honest. To love this man she had to tell him. But to tell him was to lose him.

  When she could open her eyes again the look on his face was a shock.

  He loved her too.

  31: Recall

  He’d have laid there all morning watching Cait sleep, trying to get inside her head in a different way to what he’d done last night when he’d tried to learn her secrets through her skin. The flashing screen on his muted phone gave him a reason to quit on this part of the puzzle; another piece was coming in.

  He took the call from Stud out on the balcony, pulling the door closed behind him so not to wake her. “What’d you find out?”

  “Yeah, good morning to you too, sunshine.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Since when did I need to be pleasant to you? That’s Mrs Stud’s job.”

  “Mrs Stud doesn’t stoop to pleasantry, but since you started asking me favours you should.”

  Sean scrubbed a hand over his face. Before he went back to bed he should shave. “I’ll think about it if you deliver on the ask.”

  “I’m working on it. There’s something there. Nothing to give you yet, but there’s a list of suspicions as long as your arm about Justin’s old man. Nothing specific, but enough for me to want a closer look.”

  “What are you thinking?”

  “Racketeering, money laundering, tax fraud, old-fashioned ID theft.” The old man was a bad guy but white collar, not our kind of thieving, murdering, bikie colour wearing bad guy.”

  “Justin had a least one handgun, police issue. Cait took it when she left him. I’ve got it now.”

  Stud grunted. “I’ll check for a licence.”

  “It’s not true what they say about you then?”

  “Mate, you haven’t been awake long enough to pull the comedian stunt on me.”

  Sean laughed. He did sound like he’d had a heavy night. “I was going to say—”

  “Something insulting. Something to hurt my fragile pride and teeny-weeny ego. Well lay off, laughing boy. We’
ve got a problem.”

  He yawned and made sure Stud heard it, drawing it out, loudly against the phone screen. “You’ve got a problem. I’m on holiday.”

  “On that note, where the fuck are you?”

  Sean yawed again, this time for real. There was a hot woman in a comfortable bed he wanted to get back to. “What do you care where I am?”

  “Because I need you back under.”

  Way to wake a guy up. His whole body jerked to attention. He had to hang on to the towel around his waist so Kalgoorlie didn’t get flashed. “Play that one again. I missed the chorus.”

  “We need Fetch back in action.”

  “But I’m out. I’m back to being me. I’m scrubbed clean, I’ve ditched the look. I’m out, Stud. You called me out.”

  “Now I’m calling you back in.”

  “You fucking called me out because I fucked up and got made.”

  “I was wrong. It appears our pizza guy’s story didn’t hold up and several very qualified people had a go at him to see if it would. None of them were on my payroll, or likely to be paying for his medical care. He was trolling. He told every low-life he knew there was an undercover in the Pariahs’ op. Kind of a scattergun approach. Didn’t work for him in the end. He had no clue that was you paying for the pizza. Ironic huh.”

  He hadn’t fucked up. Nice to know. “So, what are you saying now?”

  “Wacker thinks you were the patsy in a doublecross. You’re back in.”

  “I was the patsy in a doublecross. I’m out. I was in too long. Find some other way.”

  “There’s no other way to get close to Wacker before this big Perth powwow. You wanted to get to the guy behind the ID theft ring—this is your chance.”

  “Things have changed, Stud.” He sighed, watching as the street below showed signs of life. “I’m not sure I can pull it off.”