Inconsolable (33 page)

She pulled at his hair, not gentle. “I know what you look like with a proper haircut.” She stroked a hand across his chest, nails raking. “I know what you look like in clothes that fit, in a suit that was made for you. Fucking hell, you're incredible. I don't need any of that, the clothes, the cars, the yachts. But I need this.”

He finally got her mouth, got her undivided attention and she worked on short-circuiting him all over again, but nothing could be better than going there with her. He hauled her up his body and they fit together again; no barriers, no fear, only muscle-wracking goodness, nerve endings shocked to blinding point and the ultimate spin-out, locked together mouth on mouth, breathe to breathe.

She gave him approximately the length of time it takes to swipe a screen on a hand held device to recover and she talked.

“How real are the death threats?” She sprawled across his chest, a hand playing in his hair. That had to have been something that worried her. He should've dealt with that earlier.

“Not serious. You don't need to worry.”

“How can I not worry? Getting a death threat is not a normal thing. Though Roger got one once, under the windscreen of his car. A resident unhappy with a decision to change traffic flow near his house.”

“What happened?”

“The resident blamed his teenage son for authoring it. We'll never know the truth, but Roger never felt genuinely threatened, but he did change where he parked his car.” She gave his chest a flick. “Quit deflecting.”

“Not serious. They were investigated.”

“Still, they must have made you feel unsafe.”

Not unsafe—unclean, unworthy.

“Hey.” She poked him. Not a girly poke, a knuckle between his ribs. He flinched and caught her hand.

“You're not talking. You're giving me the bare minimum. I'm trying to understand why you won't sleep in your own bed.”

He brought her hand to his lips and sucked on her knuckles. Another deflection, but what he had to say wouldn't make her comfortable, might send her screaming from his arms. She pulled away and flopped down beside him.

He came up on his elbow to watch her face. “The first one was a shock. I had to involve the police. But it was grief, lashing out, the family looking for someone to take responsibility. The second one was motivated by the same thing. The next four, there's no way to know. I had investigators look into each of them. In each case there was a sudden unexplained death.”

“But unexplained means—” She stopped.

He wasn't smirking, wasn't conscious of making any particular expression, but she was reading something from him.

“Ordinary sane people, driven to the extreme, wanted me dead, Foley. Enough to put a threat in writing.” If she'd read them she'd know the threats were graphic, medieval. They wanted him beaten, tortured, shot, hung, poisoned, staked through the heart, beheaded. No one wished him an easy death. “No one thought they'd take action. Same as no one thought your mayor was in real danger.”

She put her hand to his chest, close to his heart. “Why do you punish yourself so hard?”

“This isn't about changed traffic flow. This is life and death.”

“But we don't live in Old Testament times. This is not an eye for an eye stuff.”

He took her hand and held it. That's close to what it was for him. There was no way to make up for the fact he profited obscenely while people died.

“Oh, Drum.” She sat and pushed him back to the pillows and leaned over him. “We have to make you feel better about this. We need to get you back to your life.”

He looked into her eyes and had a moment of pure panic. She would never understand how he felt and he'd broken rules, stolen time, to be here like this with her and he didn't regret it. How could he regret the honeyed slide of her skin on his, the slick of her mouth, but it was a heart-stopping indictment. He was not forgiven. He was not worthy. The death threats might not have been real, but his culpability was. He couldn't think this through now. He was tired, so bone-softened and weary he could sleep again.

He put his hand to the back of her head. “Stay with me while I sleep.”

She kissed him with open skies and blue promises, with sweet young hope and spicy red longing and he could almost believe it was possible to be guilt-free.

29: Stung to Numb

Drum was gone when Foley woke and she missed him. With all his sealed sections prised open, with no more awkward secrets, he was more wondrous to her. And what he could do to her body, the way they sparked when they came together, that was a kind of neurotic necessity.

And man oh man, that was a worry.

But for now, in this little bubble of unreality they had, she was going to let it be. There'd be time enough to be practical.

She called out and he didn't answer, but this was a shockingly big house. There was a third storey she'd never been to. She had no idea what time it was but the sun was up. It had to be closer to lunchtime than breakfast, and her watch confirmed that.

He wasn't downstairs either. She went to the kitchen and checked the fridge. Nothing there they could eat other than a box of house brand cereal and a near empty carton of milk. He'd probably gone out for supplies again.

She took another shower, taking her time, washing her hair, and when he still wasn't back she sat at the top of the stairs in his gorgeous robe to wait for him. She turned on her phone and it flooded with messages. Gabriella parroting a greeting card,
get well soon
. Adro with a question about the Festival of the Wind program, which would wait. A polite reminder she'd missed a credit card payment.
Gawd
. Hugh, grumpy but sweet to demand she rest and drink plenty of fluids. Lastly Nat, three times:
Call me. Call me. Bitch, call me
.

Still no sign of Drum. If he didn't have any money, he was likely out there doing an odd job to earn enough to buy lunch. She looked at her feet, tucked under the drape of the robe. How was she supposed to go about convincing him to get professional help?

She dialled Nat.

“Where are you? You're with him, aren't you? Foley, shit, I'm worried about you. Did you sleep with him?”

Nat's agitation wasn't catching. “I'm with him.” She felt the rightness of saying that.

“And.”

“I'm not talking about that.”

Nat made a sound of exasperation. “Jesus, he must've been good.”

Foley laughed. “Sod off. What do you want? I'm busy.”

“Busy playing hooky. Busy playing hooker.”

“Nat, you have outlived your usefulness. I'm pressing end.”

“Wait, wait, wait. He's not who you think he is? Have you seen the paper? Toby's story. He's—”

“I know who he is.”

Nat whistled like she was calling a cab, or wanting her dog to heel. “It's an unbelievable story. And I'm pissed off I missed it. Nathan is so pissy with me I might be wearing both earrings for the rest of my life. When did you know?”

“Keep your hair on. Only last night.”

“Lucky for you. I was planning on throttling you in your bed. Assuming you ever sleep in it again. What do you know?”

She hadn't seen the story, but it was reasonable guess some digging would turn up Drum's story like she had. “He's Patrick Drummond, ex-CEO of NCR, who make Circa. He's playboy rich and even smarter than I gave him credit for.”

“Hah. But mad as a hatter.”

“He's not, he's—”

“Off his rocker. I don't know what he told you, but he imploded. Went from being the whiz kid darling of the pharma market to being forced out by his own board.”

“He got death threats.”

“It's a wonder shareholders didn't hire snipers to take him out. He was on his way to destroying a blue chip corporation. The stock price plummeted. His board had no choice but to sack him.”

The way Nat said it Foley could see all the reasons why Drum lived in a cave. “He didn't want the damn drug to hurt people.” She could see why he took a world of guilt as his own.

“I get that it did, but statistically, even if you attribute all the reported deaths to Circa, it's nothing, and no different to what happens with a lot of drugs.”

“He doesn't agree those deaths are nothing.”

Foley closed her eyes, this was difficult. People weren't statistics, but averages drove decisions, even in her own work. The most successful programs she ran still got complaints. It was impossible to please everyone, so you pleased the majority.

“Fole, I'm seriously worried about you.” Nat stopped being a journalist arguing her point and was a friend again. “Come home tonight, we need to talk.”

But it wasn't enough of an incentive. “I'll be home when I'm ready.”

Nat huffed and puffed. “I'm thinking of you, not a new headline.”

“I know. But—”

“But you suddenly became a qualified psychologist and you're going to fix him.”

“Nat.”

“Tell me you're not thinking you can fix him. Jesus, Foley, tell me you're not thinking magical sex with you will make him abandon being a hermit squatter.”

Foley pulled the phone from her ear. Couldn't Nat simply be happy for her? Did she have to be so aggressively judgemental? Did Foley think for just a second loving Drum would suddenly restore him to normal?

She was sitting on the stairs of his near empty mansion house, waiting for him to show up with home brand groceries he'd probably bartered labour for, when he could've bought the grocery store. She'd never skived off work before and she was perfectly happy with that. She was buzzing with the joy of knowing he'd come home, burn eggs and toast and they'd go back to bed and crawl inside each other again.

She put the phone back to her ear. “What's normal anyway?” She'd looked into Drum's eyes and seen intelligence and humour, respect and love and nothing of his detachment from reality, nothing of his appalling self-destruction.

“Shit, Foley.”

“I have never hated you so much in my life.” She'd gone to bed with Drum and glossed over the humongous issue of his existence. “What am I going to do? I'm in love with him.”

Nat sighed and that was it for sympathy. “I'll get you some names. Referrals. I don't know. I'll ask around. You can't kiss this better, Foley. Hang in there. Call me later.”

Nat ended the call, but Foley had no time to rethink her day, Drum was back, ringing the front gate buzzer. She went down the stairs to let him in, opening the front door to discover not Drum, but a small tidy man in a very classy suit and frameless glasses. He was too immaculate to be Seventh Day Adventist, collecting for charity, or wanting her to switch electricity provider.

She pulled the robe closed at her throat. “Can I help you?”

“I'm Alan Drummond, I'm looking for my son, Patrick.”

Foley felt cold wash through her that had nothing to do with the outdoor temperature or her state of virtual undress.

The man held his hand out. He didn't look anything like Drum, she had the urge to ask for ID. She shook his hand. “He's not here right now. I'm Foley Barnes. I'm.”
Shit
, fill in the blanks: naked under this robe, sleeping with your son, was once responsible for evicting him, in love with him. “I'm a friend of Drum's.”

“Oh, that's what he's calling himself.” Alan Drummond closed his eyes, relief in his expression. He put his hand out to steady himself on the doorframe. “Will he be long? I can wait in the car.”

What would Drum want? Should she let his father, the man he built NCR with, the man who sacked him, into the house?

“I don't want to interrupt. But I haven't known how to find Trick. I didn't know about this house. He had a penthouse in the city. There was a story this morning's paper and I thought—look, I'm sorry.” He turned to go. “I'll wait in the car.”

“Don't.” She had to do something to help Drum. How wrong could it be to start with his family? “Was this address in paper?” She held the door open and Drum's dad walked through, taking in the grand foyer and the staircase.

“The street name was. I've doorknocked every house. I couldn't find that cave this morning. I thought he might be there. I can hardly believe it. My son,” Alan's voice wavered, he coughed, “living in a cave. This is my fault, you know. I pushed him too hard. I didn't realise he was so affected. I thought he'd get past the stress and he'd be better. He was seeing a therapist, but he's worse than I imagined. All this time I thought he was travelling, or holed up somewhere enjoying himself. I had no idea it'd gotten like this. Who did you say you were again? You're not? He didn't? I'm sorry, I need to sit down. I think I need a glass of water.”

Foley led the clearly shaken Alan Drummond to the kitchen.

“Trick is living here then. What happened to the furniture? Have you just moved in?”

She poured him a glass of water. “Drum only uses this place occasionally. He regards the cave as his home.”

“Oh my God.” Alan held on to the island benchtop and Foley wished she could offer him a seat. She didn't know if she should feel compassion for him, or wary contempt.

“I don't know if I've done the right thing letting you in, Mr Drummond. I don't know if Drum will want you here.”

Alan nodded. “You're right. He may not be happy to see me.”

“I care for your son and I don't claim to understand everything that happened, but I know he was deeply impacted. I want what's best for him. The problem is I'm not sure what that is.”

“He must've quit therapy. He shut himself off. I didn't know. But I couldn't be more surprised. Who did you say you were again?”

“I'm Foley Barnes and I'm in love with your son, but I didn't know who he was until last night. In a way, I'm as surprised as you are.”