“I think it’s you who’s missed the fact you’ve been fucking shot. Doc will string you up if he sees you on that thing.”
“I’m stressed.”
I laugh. “You’re a dick.” He totally wants to fuck Pearl. It’s a good job she hates him now because that would only end in tears. Hers. And Brad’s when Rose and Beau beat him black and blue. “I’m going to get a shower.”
“Hey, your cell,” Brad calls as it starts ringing from the mat in the corner where I was stretching. I wander over and crouch, swiping it up and turning it over. I look back at Brad. His pedaling slows. “Amber?”
I connect the call and rise, walking to Brad, waiting for whoever’s on the end of the line to speak.
“Danny?”
Brad’s eyes shoot to mine, and I exhale. I’ve never been so glad to hear her voice. “Amber.” Tread carefully, but not too delicately. This woman has only ever known brutality and coldness from me. “What do you want?”
“I’m in trouble, Danny. Serious trouble.”
I figured. The gym door opens, and with the lightest of breeze comes the most incredibly pungent stench of stale alcohol. I look over my shoulder and grimace. He looks like death warmed up. And what the fuck’s happened to his head? “The kind of trouble you get in when you take the inheritance that rightly belongs to someone else?” I ask, trying to clue a comatose looking James into what he’s walked in on.
“I had no idea about the money.”
James walks over, interested, as I laugh. “Come on, Amber.”
“Danny, I swear. Tom and I split up. He called me and said he missed me. Wanted to have dinner at his place. I went and we rekindled.”
So was Amber who Tom had been dating? “You loved him? Didn’t just want his money?” We all huddle in, waiting, listening. I can’t say Amber is transparent, because I’m pretty sure she loved me, despite the fact I showed her no love, fucked her regularly, and shared her. My money and power were a bonus. But, and forgive me for bashing a dead man, I’m a fuck load better looking and a few decades younger than Tom Hayley.
“I did what I needed to do to survive after you threw me out.”
“Oh boy,” Brad murmurs, pulling back from the phone, his worried eyes on me.
“What can you tell us about Tom’s death?” I ask, knowing James is going to be jumping in any moment if I don’t get this moving.
“I need something in return.”
“What?”
“Well it ain’t money, is it?” Brad says on a sardonic laugh, earning dark looks from me and James. “Hi, Amber,” he adds.
“Brad.” She strains his name, no love lost there. Yeah, I shared Amber, but never with Brad. He despised her. Prefers to take his women as strangers, mostly in hotels. There’s never any backlash for him. No whore biting at his ankles wanting money or safety.
James nudges me, pushing me on. He looks green, like he could throw up at any moment. “Well,” I push.
“Protection.”
“My protection is expensive. It depends what I get in return for protection.”
“You get a teddy bear.”
The room becomes still and quiet, all our bodies straightening. Somehow, this offer feels more serious than any other. What I’m thinking though, is how the fuck does the lover of Beau’s father have information about The Bear? “I can give you protection.”
“How?”
“I have a place abroad. Secluded, solitary, no one knows about it.” I am saying and thinking so many things lately that could get me a divorce. “What do you know about The Bear?”
She’s quiet, for so long I wonder if she’s hung up, but a quick glance at the screen tells me she’s still there. “Not on the phone,” she eventually says.
We all sag. Fuck. “Where?”
“Where’s safe?”
I immediately look around the gym that’s in my safe home but quickly dismiss it. That wouldn’t end in divorce, that would end in death. Whether at the hands of Rose or Beau, I couldn’t say, but it is not a risk worth taking. But . . . where else? Fuck it. “Come to the house,” I tell her, looking at Brad who shakes his head. “Three o’clock. Call me when you’re at the gates.” I hang up.
“I don’t like this,” Brads says, now motionless on the bike.
“Here is safest.” We all know it. I get another strong waft of stale alcohol and move away from James. “Mate, get a shower, I beg you.”
Brad’s nose wrinkles too and he slips down off the Peloton after a pointless workout. “My question now is, how are you two going to distract the girls while we deal with this?”
I look at James. He doesn’t look capable of dealing with anything. “Are you and Beau okay?” I need him on the ball today. It’s a ridiculous statement when he’s drunk enough vodka to sink an island, but whether he and Beau are all right will tell me if we’re at risk of an AWOL woman again and if that might steal his time chasing around town looking for her.
James lowers to a bench and sinks his face into his palms on a groan. “I know nothing.”
“Are you saying she’s a flight risk?”
“Who the fuck knows?” He scrubs down his face. “She wants a baby, she doesn’t; she thinks her dad wasn’t murdered, she does; she wants to be married, she doesn’t; she wants to be a cop, she—”
“We get it,” Brad says. “We can’t depend on Beau to behave. What about Rose?”
I laugh. “If she sees Amber in her house, she’ll attack.”
James raises his hand, a message that even if we contain Beau and stop her disappearing, we have to then stop her attacking Amber too.
“Do we put her in a cage?”
James’s head slowly lifts, his mouth a twisted shade of murder, and I purse my lips, thankful on Brad’s behalf that he’s not on form today, or I’m pretty sure Brad would be embedded in the wall right now. “Why don’t you ask her?” James growls.
“No, thanks.” Brad takes a seat next to him. “So if we can’t cage both of your pets, what do we do with them?”
“You’ve got a death wish, Brad.” I start pacing, chewing the edge of my phone, thinking about what we can do with the women that won’t have them suspicious. The boatyard, nope. Fuck knows what might go down. And Hiatus isn’t an option when we’re not there. What does Rose want? A school for Daniel. I’m working on it. Driving lessons. When I have time. Another baby. Check. Do regular shit with the kid. I sent them for pizza yesterday. “Independence,” I blurt, slowing to a stop.
“What?” they both say in unison, impatient.
“Rose wants independence. A job.” I face their frowns. I’m a fucking genius. “She’s going on about jobs and freedom constantly, not just for her but for Pearl and Anya too.” I get on my phone and pluck out the first one I find, dialing, then lowering to the bench beside them.
“Good afternoon, Red’s Salon and Spa, this is Petal speaking, how many I help you?”
“Hello, Petal,” I say in my most friendly voice, very thankful Petal won’t be meeting me in person. “I would like to book your spa facilities for a private party.” Brad laughs under his breath, and James puts his head back in his palms.