Scared Yet? (9 page)

11

It was ink on a page but it felt like words whispered in her ear.
I know it and you know it.

It had been just the two of them that night. Terrifying and intimate. And now he was stretching out the moment.

Blood pulsed in Liv's swollen cheek as she tried to make sense of it. Not the meaning, she got that loud and clear. How his message had got on her desk.

It was in the mail. It had been sent to Prescott and Weeks.

Which meant he knew where she worked.

She lifted her eyes swiftly from the page, half expecting to see a black-clad figure hovering in her doorway. But her office was empty. So was the reception area, except for Teagan behind the counter talking into her headset.

That's right. Teagan had opened the mail, taken the cards and letters out of their envelopes. Had he bought a stamp and posted it from far away or stood in the street outside and delivered it by hand?

Liv raised her voice as she walked to reception. ‘Where are the envelopes?'

Teagan turned, still on the phone, smiling. A private kind of giggle.

‘Finish up on the phone, Tee. I need the envelopes.' She waved the note about. ‘Where are the envelopes?'

Teagan frowned as though she didn't understand the question, covered her mouthpiece and hooked a thumb over her shoulder. ‘Where they usually are, in the storeroom.'

Liv didn't have the brain space for a discussion about personal phone time with the office junior. ‘Get off the phone, Teagan. I need your attention.'

The girl whispered, ‘Gotta go,' pressed a button on her console and looked at Liv.

‘I mean the envelopes the mail came in this morning. Where are they?'

‘I put them in the recycling,' Teagan said as if she'd already saved the world.

‘Can you dig them out again?'

‘Well, I . . . put them in the big bin outside. It's pickup day.'

Liv glanced over her shoulder in the direction of the bin bay out in the lane. ‘When does the truck come?'

‘This morning, I think, bu-ut . . .'

Liv raised her eyebrows. ‘But what?'

‘The travel agents dumped a bunch of cartons and shredded stuff just after me. There was, like, a heap of it.'

Liv pushed a hand through her hair. ‘Shit.'

‘Everything okay?' Kelly asked from the doorway of her office.

Teagan held her hands up as though she had no idea. ‘I didn't know Liv needed the envelopes.'

‘It's all right, Teagan. It's not your fault,' Liv told her then spoke to Kelly. ‘I got another one.'

‘Another what?' Teagan asked.

As Liv explained about the first note, Kelly took the new one from her and read it. ‘Oh my God.'

‘What?' Teagan looked back and forth between them. ‘What's it say?'

Kelly passed it to her. ‘Have you called the police?'

‘Not yet,' Liv told her. ‘I wanted to find the envelope to see whether it was mailed or hand-delivered first.'

‘That's totally creepy.' Teagan handed it back to Liv. ‘So the guy who . . . who . . .' She waved a hand in front of her face as though it was too awful to say. ‘He's, like, a stalker?'

Was that what he was? Liv met Kelly's eyes and saw the same edgy apprehension in them that was making her own chest tight. ‘I don't know if he was stalking me before but he sure seems to be making a go of it now.'

‘You mean, he could've been stalking you without you knowing?' Teagan asked.

‘I don't know. I suppose.'

‘Maybe he got sick of keeping it a secret or something.' Teagan's eyes widened with inspiration. ‘Or maybe he wanted to attack someone then stalk them. You know, really scare the crap out of them.'

Liv pressed the swelling gently and tried not to think about the fist that had put it there.

‘Tee, please,' Kelly cautioned. ‘This is difficult enough.'

‘Oh, right, sorry. So did you see him last night?' Teagan pointed at the top line on the note. ‘He says,
You lied last night
.'

Liv shook her head. ‘I got the note on my car yesterday.'

‘So what happened last night?'

She'd visited her dad, talked to Jason, locked herself in the townhouse and . . . ‘The story was on the news last night.'

‘That's right,' Kelly said. ‘At the end Sheridan asked if you were scared and you said . . .' she held her fist up like an activist, ‘
No, I wasn't
.'

‘Actually, Sheridan edited a bit out,' Liv remembered. ‘I didn't say I wasn't scared. I said I wasn't scared when I first started throwing punches then when I realised what was happening, I was terrified.'

‘Well, it sounded like one of your “I am Liv, I will survive” speeches.'

‘Her what?' Teagan asked.

‘Liv invokes Gloria Gaynor when life gets tough.'

Teagan frowned. ‘Who?'

‘
Once
,' Liv said.

Kelly and Liv had been celebrating the end of exams and commiserating Liv's impending fail in Statistics. Liv had stood and drunkenly vowed to go on, reciting the entire lyrics of Gloria Gaynor's ‘I Will Survive' like a speech at a political rally. Kelly had never let her live it down. Is that how she'd sounded last night? Had he watched the news and interpreted it as adamant? As emphatically
un
scared?

‘Maybe it annoyed him that I didn't say he scared the hell out of me.' She put a hand to her stomach, felt sick at
the thought she might have provoked him. ‘I just wanted to do the right thing. I wanted to stop other women getting hurt. I wanted to stop feeling so . . . damn . . .' Vulnerable. Discarded.

Kelly wrapped an arm around her waist. They looked at each other for a drawn-out moment, lifelong friends reading what was beneath the surface. Liv saw concern and sympathy and a little fear in Kelly, felt alarm and trepidation building inside herself. Then tears filled her eyes without warning. ‘Christ, I shouldn't have done that interview.'

‘What's done is done, Liv.' Kelly pulled a tissue from a box on the counter and handed it to her. ‘You should call the detective.'

‘Oh. My. God.' Teagan covered her mouth with sudden drama. ‘I threw out the evidence.' Her eyes flicked to the front door. ‘OhmyGod. The bin. It might not have been emptied yet.' She darted around the counter. ‘I'll go see if it's still full. I can get inside it like they do on
CSI
.'

Kelly grabbed her by the back of the shirt as she passed. ‘You're not getting into a waste bin. Your mother would kill me. Not to mention the fact that Occupational Health and Safety would make mincemeat of us.'

‘Yes but . . .' Teagan started.

‘Right. Everyone settle down.' Kelly said it loudly, as though she was instructing herself as well. Behind her the phone buzzed. ‘Teagan, you answer the phone. Liv, let's go call the police.'

Kelly's practicality stilled Liv's anxiety. ‘Yep. Okay. I'll call Detective Quest.'

‘When you're done, Tee,' Kelly said, ‘grab a couple of glasses of water. And maybe a stiff Scotch for Ms Prescott.'

‘Do we have Scotch?'

‘No, I was kidding. Just water, Tee.'

Liv perched on the edge of her chair. Kelly watched her from the visitor's seat on the other side of the desk. ‘You okay to call the police?'

‘In a second.' She dabbed at the bruised side of her face with the tissue. ‘Man, I'm so sick of crying. I don't want to cry but I just keep blubbering away like I've got no say in it.'

Kelly smiled gently. ‘Listen, Liv. You were in a really deep and shitty hole before that guy jumped you in the car park. Now it's an even deeper, shittier hole. Give yourself a break for once and let yourself have a good howl.'

‘No, I don't need to. I'm fine.'

‘You're not. You're injured and frightened.'

Liv turned her face from the probe of Kelly's eyes. She was both of those things but she was fine. She was. ‘I just need to recite a bit of Gloria.'

It was a couple of seconds before Kelly spoke, maybe deciding whether it was better to go along with her or tip her towards tears. ‘Do you want me to call the police for you?'

That wasn't staying on her feet. That was letting the bastard from the car park get the better of her. Liv pushed her hair out of her face, wiped her nose. ‘No. I'll do it.'

*

‘I'm on my way to the station now, Livia. I'll take a look at your note as soon as I get there.' Rachel Quest sounded like she was walking.

‘I got another one this morning.'

‘On your car?'

‘No, in the morning mail at the office.'

There was a pause. ‘The same as the first one?'

‘Yes and no.' Liv told her about the scrawled writing and the lines arranged down the middle of the page, explaining that she didn't know whether it'd been posted or hand-delivered.

‘Did you put it in plastic?'

‘Not yet.' It would be covered in all three of their fingerprints.

‘Then do that now and I'd like to see it. Can you bring it into the station?'

There was no urgency in Rachel's voice but Liv wanted it gone from her desk. Wanted the whole thing over.

‘When will you be there?'

‘In about twenty minutes.'

Liv said goodbye, hung up and looked at Kelly. ‘I'll give her half an hour.'

‘By the way, where were you earlier? I saw you come out of Lenny's and you took ages to get here.'

‘I went to see Daniel Beck.'

‘Well, no wonder you took an hour.' She tipped her head, lowered her voice. ‘He seems nice.'

‘It was ten minutes and it was about the locks in the townhouse.'

‘What's wrong with the locks?'

‘Everything. He's going to find someone to replace them for me.'

‘That's nice of him. And he's tall.' Kelly raised a knowing eyebrow like a nudge. In their teenage years, she'd been Liv's spotter – tall was hard to find when you reached a hundred and eighty centimetres by the age of fourteen. But she didn't need that kind of help now.

‘Yes, he's tall and nice and I'm not interested. How did it go with Toby Wright?'

‘Well . . .' Kelly sat back in her chair, a tentative smile forming on her lips, ‘yesterday he confirmed the rumour that they're expanding their operations and asked what we could do. This morning he suggested I put some figures together. I don't think he's talking to anyone else yet.'

Liv tipped her head back with relief. They'd worked with him before but last year he'd played the field and they'd been undercut by a competitor. Then Kelly had heard on the grapevine he wasn't happy. Maybe with the expansion, he was looking to go with what had worked before. ‘Fantastic. This could be it, Kell. When do you see him?'

‘Tomorrow afternoon.'

‘So soon. Even better. What do you need from me?'

Kelly grabbed a notepad from Liv's desk and wrote as they discussed the proposal. It felt good to be talking about something else. Like a breather from the pain and anxiety she'd been nursing since Monday night. As they went back and forth with ideas, Liv found a plastic file holder, held the note by a corner and slid it inside, ignoring the uneasiness it stirred in her. They were going to save Prescott and Weeks. That's all she needed to think about.

Kelly drew two lines under her last words, tore the sheet from the pad and stood up. ‘Right, I'm onto it.'

‘Wait. What about the meeting with Neil?'

She stopped in the doorway, a hand on the jamb. ‘It was . . . fine.'

‘Good fine or bad fine?'

‘He put a report together. We've got some options.'

‘What kind of options?'

Kelly glanced towards reception. ‘It was complicated. I can't explain it off the top of my head and . . .' she held up her notes, ‘I should get started on this. I'll go through it with you later.'

Liv tried to read the expression on her face. She seemed cautious, a little evasive and it added a new loop to the knot of agitation in her stomach.

Liv sat in the chair beside Rachel Quest's desk once again while the detective read the second note. A young guy in a suit talked quietly on the phone at the next workstation and an older man across the room was bashing away on a keyboard. Rachel laid the page on her desk alongside the first one, still in its plastic bag.

‘Have you received anything like this via email?'

Liv had checked before she left. There'd been another twenty-odd emails to add to the thirty-something that'd come in yesterday. Mostly best wishes from people who'd seen her on the news, one offering the name of a good plastic surgeon – hilarious. ‘No.'

‘Have you had any anonymous phone calls?'

‘No.'

‘What about before you were assaulted? Any hang-ups or strange messages?'

‘No.'

‘Has anyone else in your office?'

‘Not that I know of. It's just the three of us. Teagan, our junior, handles most of the calls and she hasn't said anything.'

Rachel tucked an errant strand of hair over her ear. ‘Is there anyone you've upset recently? A boyfriend? Someone casual?'

She hadn't had the opportunity or the inclination since Thomas left. ‘I haven't had either.'

‘Someone in your building?'

She shook her head.

‘Your husband?'

Liv smiled cynically. ‘We upset each other plenty.'

‘Recently?'

‘We've been separated a year. It was a messy break-up. I can't remember the last time we weren't upset with each other.'

‘Has he ever sent you threatening mail?'

‘No.'

‘What about angry phone calls?'

‘He left me for another woman. There've been plenty of angry phone calls. From both of us. But nothing like this. He wouldn't bother when he can get me on the phone and tell me in person what's pissing him off.'