Scared Yet? (12 page)

15

Other staff from the building trickled in to start their work days, wandering inquisitively down the hall, peering into Prescott and Weeks, some even going right in and being asked to leave by police.

Gino and Mariella from the wigmaker's made horrified noises, the latter hugging Liv several times before the former shooed her into work. Scott, the mortgage broker, had a bit of a poke around and a couple of the travel agents brought their take-out coffees down as though they were on a tour. Anthony, the solicitor who worked on the other side of Liv's wall, went in and out then spoke quietly to her as she leaned against the wall in the corridor.

‘I'm not saying I know what's going on here,' Anthony told her. ‘But I'm available anytime if you want to talk about your legal options.' He handed her a business card. ‘It's got my mobile number, if you prefer to talk out of business hours.'

What did he think was going on? What legal options did she have against someone she didn't know and couldn't identify? ‘Thanks.'

It was past eight o'clock by the time Rachel Quest appeared. She walked down the corridor like she was ready to break into a run. She shook Liv's hand. Liv tried not to wince at the pain in her knuckle and smiled wanly when Rachel thanked her for waiting – where the hell else was she going to go? Rachel told her she wanted to take a look before they talked. Liv followed her in but watched from the doorway of her office as the male cop went over the details.

‘The intruder broke in through the street entrance and came to this business. The lock was jemmied then this office ransacked. It appears from the spread of glass in the hallway that the front door was smashed on the way out. There's no evidence so far that any other stops were made to other offices.'

As he talked, Rachel put gloves on, lifted and replaced various upended items – a chair, the filing cabinet, a drawer, the computer monitor. Liv listened with her arms wrapped around her torso, her stomach feeling like it was trying to push its way out through her throat. When she'd had enough, she turned to leave and saw Daniel at the other end of reception. He had a large coffee and something warm and sweet smelling in a bag.

‘I'm just about to leave,' he told her. ‘Thought you looked like you could do with some breakfast.' He held out the cup and brown paper package.

‘That's for me?'

‘You should eat.'

Rachel Quest stepped up beside her, glanced at the food then up at Daniel. ‘Daniel Beck.' It sounded more like a statement than a greeting.

‘Rachel,' he replied, just as deadpan.

The detective checked her watch. ‘You're in early. Office hours don't start for a while yet.'

‘My day starts when it needs to. Just like yours.'

Rachel was head and shoulders shorter than him and had to lift her chin to look him in the face. Liv figured it might have been easier if she'd taken a step back but she pushed her hands into the pockets of her trousers, nodding at his delivery of food like she was impressed. ‘That for Livia?'

‘Yeah.' He handed it to Liv with a quick quirk of his brow. ‘I put it on my tab.'

And she was covering his tab this month. ‘Gee, thanks.'

‘I wish I had colleagues who bought me breakfast after a tough morning.' Rachel said it like she was joining in their banter but there was an edge to it. Nothing nasty. Just making some kind of point.

Whatever it was, Liv didn't get it. But she saw Daniel's dark eyes catch on Rachel's. Maybe it was directed at him. Maybe it was professional, if they'd worked together before. Or maybe it was personal.

‘If you'll excuse us now,' Rachel said to Daniel and pointed Liv towards the chairs in reception.

Before Liv moved away, Daniel closed fingers around her elbow, lowered his face to hers and spoke quietly. ‘You've got my number. Call if you need anything.'

He was gone by the time she sat down. Beside her, Rachel waited while Liv took a sip of coffee and checked in the bag to find a chocolate croissant. She put it aside, not sure her stomach was up to it.

‘I think you already appreciate the break-in appears to have been aimed specifically at your office.' Rachel pulled out a notebook as she started. ‘In light of the two notes you've received, my assumption, for the moment, is that they're connected. The fact your workplace has been targeted and that your assault occurred in the car park outside and the notes have been delivered here, suggests the motive may be related to your business. So I want to ask you a few questions about your situation here.'

For ten minutes, Liv answered, her disquiet growing rapidly. Was she working on anything sensitive or controversial? Did she have any disgruntled clients or staff? Had her actions ever been questioned? Had she upset anyone in the building? Anyone in the street? Had she raised her voice to anyone? Had a car accident? Even a bump in the car park? Did she owe any money? Did anyone owe her money? No, no, no, no, like a CD stuck in a scratch.

When Rachel asked her about Prescott and Weeks' financial situation, Liv was happy just to have something to tell her.

‘We got caught in the Connect Call Centre bankruptcy.' It was in the news for a couple of weeks and Rachel nodded like she knew what Liv was talking about. ‘We'd had casual staff with them for eighteen months. The first time they missed a payment, they told me it was a glitch in their online pay system. The second time they claimed
it was a minor cash flow issue because of an incident with head office in Sydney. There were rumours but I knew the human resources manager personally and she swore she'd tell me if there was a problem. A week later, they were bankrupt.'

Rachel raised an eyebrow. ‘How did that affect you?'

‘Connect was our biggest client. We lost seventy per cent of our business overnight and we were left with the bill for the wages of our casual staff.'

‘Did you pay all the staff?'

‘Yes.'

‘So no one was left short?'

‘No. Just us. We had to cut back our wages six weeks ago.'

Rachel looked at her notebook for a moment. ‘What happened when you heard about the bankruptcy? Did you ring and make accusations, go down there and cause a scene?'

Liv shook her head. ‘No. We made phone calls, of course, but the lawyers took over pretty fast.'

‘What about the human resources manager? Did you go see her? Accuse her of making problems for you, that sort of thing?'

‘No. She rang me. She'd been kept in the dark until just a few days before and threatened with legal action if she told anyone. She sounded devastated and I didn't think it was an act. Besides, I was getting ready to move house and I didn't have the time or the energy to get worked up about her actions. I was just trying to get everything done.'

Rachel nodded again, slowly, thoughtfully. ‘Have you talked to her since? Maybe said something off the cuff she might have misconstrued?'

Liv let her eyes roll away as she thought about it. ‘I don't think so. And our financial situation isn't all her fault. We shouldn't have relied so heavily on one client. We should have had other income streams to fall back on. I'm the one with the Business degree. I should have known better.'

Rachel twiddled her pen between her fingers as she studied her notepad. It was the first time she'd stopped to think and it made anxiety flap like a bird inside Liv's chest.

‘Does your husband have a stake in the business?' Rachel asked.

‘Not anymore.'

‘Does your partner's husband?'

‘Kelly and Jason invested with a joint loan. Where are you going with this?'

Rachel tipped her head to one side. ‘Just looking for pieces.'

A scrunch on the carpet in the hall made Liv turn around.

Teagan stood in the doorway, looking stunned. ‘What the . . . ?'

‘Tee. We had a break-in.'

Teagan's hand went to her mouth as she worked her way around the glass and backed up to the reception counter.

‘No one was hurt,' Liv tried to reassure her. ‘It's just a mess.'

*

An hour later, as Liv marked time in a chair, Rachel emerged from her office, gloves back on, carrying . . .

Liv frowned. It was the huge blotter pad from her desk.

‘I found this.' Rachel turned it around.

The front was covered in her own jotted notes and phone numbers, circled and coloured in and highlighted by her doodling, overlaid with smudges of black fingerprinting powder – but it was the slash of scrawled handwriting across the middle that made Liv open her mouth and suck in air.

‘Have you seen this before?' Rachel pointed a gloved finger at the words.

‘No.'

‘It wasn't on here when you left yesterday?'

‘No.'

‘And you didn't write it?'

‘What? No. What the hell does that mean?'

‘I'm sorry, Livia. I have to check.'

Liv wrapped her arms around herself. ‘No
.
I didn't write it.'

‘Okay. It was facedown on the floor under the other items from your desk, probably meant for you to find when you were cleaning up.'

‘Shit.' It came out as a whisper.

Rachel checked her watch. ‘I have to be somewhere else in ten minutes. Fingerprinting is almost finished in there. You can start the clean-up when they're done. I can't see
anything else the offender might have left but just in case, I'd like you to handle everything with gloves. The Forensics guys will give you a pair. If you find anything, put it in plastic.'

Liv nodded then asked the same question as yesterday. ‘How scared should I be?'

Rachel's eyes flicked back to the office. ‘This does appear to be directed at you but I'm inclined to think it has something to do with the office or your work. My advice is to make sure you're not alone when you're here. Both incidents have happened out of work hours, so don't stay back or come in early. And don't park your car in the parking station. All of that applies to you and your staff.'

‘You think Kelly and Teagan might be at risk, too?'

‘It's better to take the precaution.'

Liv pressed at the bruising on her face. She didn't want anyone else getting hurt. ‘What do you think he wants?'

Rachel turned her mouth down briefly. ‘He's probably a nut with a gripe about something that only makes sense to him. With any luck, his demons will have been put to rest by ransacking your office. You might never hear from him again.'

Liv nodded, wondered why beating her up three days ago wasn't enough.

‘Is there someone who could stay with you tonight? A friend or a relative?'

‘Do you think I need protection?'

‘No, you've had a rough couple of days. You look like you could do with some company.'

Liv ran a hand through her hair. It was shock – that
was all. And fear. They were normal reactions. ‘I'll think about it.'

Rachel glanced at her watch again. ‘I have to go. Just keep doing what you're doing, Livia, and call the police if you're in any way concerned.'

As the detective disappeared into Park Street, Liv felt the uneasiness stir in her belly. She wasn't convinced this was about the office. It felt personal. Like the bruises on her face.

Liv squatted in the debris and sifted through the ruins of her working life. The contents of the filing cabinet were scattered – tax information, client details, job records, invoices. No scrawled notes. She collected the paper in piles, stacked them against the wall, hoping she'd be able to make some sense of it later.

She worked her way around the desk, sorting the salvageable from the hopeless, filling a garbage bag and starting a second one. She'd been gripped by fear since she'd walked into the office but as she moved painstakingly through the mess, that fear was overtaken by loss, then by a sense of waste, then by an edgy, uncomfortable awareness of someone unwelcome in her personal space. Behind the desk, she picked up the smashed remains of her dad's old clock and became a little more worked up. The clock had sat by his bedside for as long as she could remember. She'd saved it from his flat when he'd been moved into the hospice. It was ancient, it didn't work, but it reminded her of him. And someone had wilfully, disrespectfully crushed it.

She ran a finger over the dented casing, put it gently on her desk, turned back to the floor and saw the dish Cameron had made for her. It was a lumpy piece of lopsided clay, painted in swirls of fluoro green and covered in blobs of glitter. He'd made it at kindergarten when he was four and given it to her for Mother's Day. She kept paperclips in it, told him it was the best paperclip holder she'd ever had. She picked up both halves, pressed the broken edges together. It would never glue back cleanly. It was ruined. The bastard from the car park had ruined Cameron's dish.

Had he come to her office to wreck the things she held dear? Or was it just arsehole's luck that his spree hit where it hurt the most? It was only an old clock and an ugly dish but she'd already lost too much of Cameron and her dad. She held the two pieces tight in her fingers and felt anger burn like a hot coal in the pit of her belly.