Graceless (The Charlie Davies Mysteries Book 3) Read online

  Graceless

  A Charlie Davies Mystery

  Graceless

  Copyright © 2016 Clare Kauter

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Also by Clare Kauter

  About Clare Kauter

  ‘Deadhead’ Preview

  This book is dedicated to Idris Elba. Why, you ask? Because look at him. Look at him.

  Chapter One

  There were certain scenarios in which I wouldn’t mind being woken by Adam Baxter in the middle of the night (most of them involving him being shirtless), but this was not one of them – not least because I was currently in bed with James McKenzie. OK, so to be fair we weren’t exactly ‘in bed’ so much as ‘on my lounge room floor’. I had a crick in my neck and judging by the dark patch on the shoulder of McKenzie’s T-shirt, I’d been drooling in my sleep. (Yes, he still had his shirt on. I had terrible luck when it came to undressing attractive men.) It hadn’t exactly been a ‘happening’ evening, if you catch my drift. There was, of course, the small obstacle that my housemate Lea was cuddled into his other side, snoring loudly enough to bring the roof down. This wasn’t a romantic date for two. Still, being woken up by my boss when it was dark outside – and a Saturday – was not my idea of a good time.

  “Get up,” said Adam.

  “Get out,” I responded with a yawn. “Can’t you see I’m busy having an orgy?”

  “We have a flight in an hour,” he said, completely ignoring me. There wasn’t even a flicker of a smile, which worried me. Adam wasn’t exactly a bubbly fellow, but usually he’d derive at least a little pleasure from the annoyance he was currently causing me. Today, nothing. The flawless brown skin of his forehead was wrinkled and his (chiselled, smooth, almost angelic) jaw was set tight. Even his hair looked clenched. Something was wrong.

  “What’s up? What do you mean?”

  “I mean get up. I’ve got your phone and wallet. You can come in what you’re wearing. We need to go.”

  James stirred beside me, where he’d fallen asleep watching Netflix the night before. There was no ‘Netflix and chill’ before you even start – although James did cook me a barbeque dinner, so I guess you could call it ‘Netflix and grill’. Hah. (Yeah, I’m the queen of dad jokes.)

  “Why are you awake?” James mumbled. “It’s so early. Go back to sleep.” He paused. “Why is my shoulder wet?”

  “I have to go,” I said. I wasn’t happy about the situation, but Adam wasn’t messing around. Something was wrong. I needed to go with him.

  “Why?” he asked.

  “I’ll explain later,” I said. I figured it was true, even though I wasn’t totally sure what I was meant to be explaining. “Go back to sleep.”

  “OK,” he said before rolling over and shutting his eyes again.

  I stood up and looked down at myself. I was wearing Frozen pyjama bottoms and a Gerongate Gators jersey. (That was a local AFL team, apparently. Like most Australians, I’d never actually watched Aussie Rules football. My mum had given me the shirt for my birthday last year in retaliation for the present I’d bought her, which was a book on parenting. Joke was on her, though – the shirt was ridiculously comfortable and I wore it to bed nearly every night. Ha. In your face, Janine.)

  “I should probably get changed.”

  “No time. Pull on some shoes. We need to get going.”

  Wow. Whatever this was must have really been urgent if he was happy to be seen in public with me wearing this. A couple of weeks ago he’d nearly fired me for wearing an ill-fitting tracksuit. Today his mind was on other things.

  I pulled on a pair of pink fake Ugg boots and followed Adam out the door, locking it behind me with a sigh. What a start to the weekend. We had to rush to the airport, which was located out of town, and barely made it to the plane on time. I had to check in during the drive and let me tell you, when I couldn’t figure out how to work the app on Adam’s phone he was not impressed.

  “What do you mean you don’t know what to press? It’s the same phone as you have.”

  “I don’t know! It just doesn’t make sense! I don’t know what to do.”

  “Just press ‘check in’.”

  “Where?”

  “On the screen.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I know that. I just can’t figure out how to…” I trailed off, lost in concentration.

  “It’s a touch screen. There’s a clue in the name. Touch. Screen. I know you weren’t exactly top of your class, but I’d have thought even you could handle this.”

  Adam rarely raised his voice, but he was more than adept at conveying his anger through snide comments.

  Eventually I managed it. As I was going to put the phone back in the cup-holder, though, I kind of slipped and fumbled and tried to catch it and – well, OK, I essentially threw it at the windscreen.

  “What the fuck,” said Adam. It wasn’t a question. Just a horrified, bewildered statement.

  I retrieved the phone from the dashboard and turned it over to look at the screen. I grimaced.

  “Um…”

  “You cracked the screen, didn’t you?”

  I hesitated. “Sorry?”

  He didn’t speak to me after that.

  Anyway, like I said, the drive hadn’t been all that fun, but once we were safely seated on the plane I decided it was time to find out what was going on.

  “So,” I said, “why exactly are we going to Sydney?”

  Adam took a deep breath. “Tim’s in hospital.”

  Tim Carter, like me, worked at Adam’s father’s security and investigations company, Baxter & Co. Unlike me, Tim was good at his job. Despite this, Tim had sort of taken me under his wing – probably because he enjoyed laughing at me – and we’d become pretty good friends. For the past couple of months he’d been working on something in Sydney. I assumed it was top secret since I hadn’t had any contact with him since he’d left. And also because when I’d tried to look up his current case on my work computer, I’d been told I had insufficient security clearance.

  “Oh,” I said. “Is it bad?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Right.” I paused. I wasn’t sure what you were meant to do in this situation. Although roughly 10% of my lifetime had been spent in hospitals over the years, I wasn’t usually a visitor. I was a frequent flyer of a patient. Seriously, by this stage all the nurses and doctors at Gerongate Hospital knew my name. It was mostly thanks to my general lack of coordination, but also partly due to the fact that I had a tendency to, uh, incite people to take violent action against me.

  “He w
as looking into a… well, I can’t really tell you. The point is the people realised he was watching them and…”

  Adam stared blankly at the chair in front of him as the plane sped along the runway, ready for take-off. I leaned back in my chair to try and make myself more comfortable during the weird moment when the plane first leaves the ground. It didn’t help much, although I suspected the plane wasn’t really why I felt sick.

  “How bad?” I asked.

  Adam shrugged. “He’s, uh, he’s having some surgery. There was a fair bit of internal bleeding, broken bones… I don’t know the extent of it yet, but I’ll be able to find out from his doctor when we get there. Our other guy – his partner while he’s been in Sydney – didn’t really know any details. Tim’s sister’s already there.” He paused. “I figured you’d probably want to see him too.”

  I was silent for a moment, not really sure what to say. “Thanks,” I said finally.

  Adam nodded.

  The flight only took about an hour, but once we’d landed it took us a further hour to get to the hospital. When we pulled up outside the building, I realised I’d been there before. (I was quite the emergency room connoisseur.) Back in high school, I’d been in the city on a school excursion when I’d walked through a pane of glass, and yes, I know that is not the kind of thing that happens to real people, but I am often the exception to such rules.

  Adam spoke to someone at the front desk before leading me through the building. He seemed to know his way around pretty well and I wondered if he’d done a placement here at some point. (Did I mention he was a doctor in his spare time? Also a lawyer. Possibly a supermodel as well, although I was yet to confirm that.) Maybe he just had a naturally perfect sense of direction, like he had a naturally perfect everything else. Eventually we reached a waiting room. A lady with sandy blonde hair and brown eyes stood when we entered. There was a little girl asleep on the seats next to her. The woman made her way over to us.

  “Ellie,” said Adam, sighing, “I told you not to bring her.”

  “I know, but if he doesn’t make it, I… I want her to be able to see him again.” Ellie had a southern accent just like Tim’s, and I realised that she must be his sister. That made the little girl curled up on the waiting room lounge fast asleep his niece, Grace. I wondered why Adam would have told Ellie not to bring her along.

  “Ellie, if they come looking for him –”

  “I know! Just one quick visit and then she and I will get on the first plane back.” Ellie took a shaky breath and bit her bottom lip, trying to keep it from wobbling. Adam sighed and pulled her in for a hug.

  “It’s OK,” he said softly as she cried into his shoulder. “What did the doctors say?”

  She shrugged and continued to sob.

  Rather than stand there and awkwardly watch Tim’s sister cry, I decided to sit on one of the lounges. Cracking my knuckles nervously, I wondered what the protocol was for this situation. I fought back a yawn. As concerned as I felt, I was struggling to keep my eyes open. I looked over at Gracie, snoozing away comfortably, not a care in the world. Well, if she could rest her head…

  Next thing I knew, Adam was gently shaking me awake.

  “Sorry, is our best friend’s impending death boring you?” he asked.

  “No,” I said quickly. “I didn’t mean to –”

  “It’s OK,” said Adam with a small smile. “He’s awake. We’re allowed to go and see him.”

  I was flooded with relief. “Is he OK?”

  Adam shrugged. “Well, he’s not dead.”

  I followed Adam down a corridor and into Tim’s room. There were two men – Baxter & Co., I guessed – stationed by the door. Gracie and Ellie were already standing beside the bed when we went inside.

  “You weren’t crying over me now, were you El?” Tim teased his sister.

  I rolled my eyes, but hearing his voice made me smile a little. That was Tim alright – typical big brother. (In a familial way, I mean, not in a 1984 way. Although he did install hidden cameras and spy on people for a living, so – this explanation has gone off track.)

  “Of course she wasn’t,” said Adam. “Who’d cry over you?”

  Tim turned his head towards us at the sound of Adam’s voice and I gasped slightly. His whole face was purple. He had stitches across his lip and his left eye was so badly swollen that it was permanently shut. He looked awful.

  “Wow, Tim,” I said. “Your face is a mess.”

  Tim raised his eyebrows at me. At least, I think that’s what he was doing – it was kind of hard to tell through all the bruising. “Right back at you, honey. And that outfit… wow. You didn’t have to get all dressed up just for me.” He paused. “Didn’t have you pegged as a Gators fan. Or a fan of any sport, to be honest.”

  “When are they discharging you?” I asked. There was clearly nothing wrong with him.

  I heard a noise behind me and looked around to see a woman in scrubs enter the room. “Good morning, Pierre,” she said. “It’s great to see that you’ve woken up.”

  Pierre? “Um, I think you’ve got the wrong –”

  “I’m Pierre’s usual doctor,” Adam interrupted. “I’d like to transfer him back to Perth, if that’s at all possible.”

  “I wouldn’t advise moving him in his current state,” she said. “Not unless absolutely necessary.”

  “I’m afraid it is,” said Adam. “ASAP.”

  The doctor frowned at Adam. “Do you have any idea of the extent of the injuries Pierre sustained from this attack?”

  “I do,” said Adam, “but I really must insist that we transfer him.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, Pierre… Pierre has some psychological issues,” said Adam. “Frankly I don’t think this hospital is secure enough to keep him in. The sooner we get him back to his usual ward, the better.”

  What the hell was going on? Pierre? Perth? Why was Adam so worried about Gracie being here? What had happened to Tim? Did they think that whoever had attacked him was still after him? I guess that would explain why there were guards on this room.

  “Right,” said the doctor, although she did not look pleased. “Well, as his doctor you know his case. I would like to keep him at least until tonight. I’m sure you’d agree that moving him so soon after surgery would not be a good idea. After that, if you think it’s really what’s best for the patient, I guess we can discuss moving him.”

  “Thank you,” said Adam.

  The doctor checked a couple of things and then left.

  Adam turned to me. “OK, Charlie,” he said. “Now that it looks like Tim is going to be alright, I think you should head back to Gerongate.”

  Wait, what? “Pardon?”

  “You should head back,” said Adam. “The weekend is yours.”

  “But I – I only just got here!” I said, confused.

  “You can see he’s alright. No reason to hang around.”

  I frowned. “Why are you so desperate to get rid of me? I’ve only been here for 10 minutes!”

  “You’ve been here for four hours, you just slept for most of it.”

  Tim gave me a fake scandalised look. “Good to know you weren’t so concerned about me that it messed with your sleeping schedule.”

  “Give her a break, Tim,” said Adam. “James McKenzie kept her up last night.”

  “What?” said Tim, actually scandalised this time. “Is there something going on between you and James?”

  I ignored him. “I don’t want to go home yet!”

  “Are you sure?” said Tim, his tone accusatory. “Because apparently you have a lover to get back to. My goodness, I leave you alone for two seconds…”

  I rolled my eyes at him. “Months, actually.” I turned back to Adam. “Why do I have to leave? What aren’t you telling me?”

  Adam sighed. “Fine. I want you to take Gracie back to Gerongate.”

  “What?” Ellie and I said in unison.

  “You heard the doctor,” Adam said to Ellie. “
We’ll be stuck here until tonight, and a hospital’s no fun for a kid.”

  “You can say that again,” said Grace.

  “I think you guys should head back while Ellie and I sort things out here. You’ll be able to visit Tim back home tomorrow. You don’t mind if Grace goes with Charlie, do you Ellie?”

  “I, um…”

  She did not look happy with that suggestion and I didn’t blame her. I wouldn’t trust me either. We’d never met before and now I was supposed to babysit her kid. Plus I doubted I looked particularly fit for the job. I was wearing Disney pyjamas, a football jersey and Ugg boots – in public. I didn’t look fit for any job.

  “It’s alright, Ellie,” said Tim. “Charlie’s a bit useless, but she’ll get Grace home safely. I trust her.”

  I didn’t know whether to be flattered or offended.

  Ellie took a deep breath and nodded. “OK, sure.”

  “Great,” said Adam. “So it’s all settled. Charlie’s taking Grace home.”

  Ellie knelt down and gave Gracie a hug goodbye, reminding her to drink plenty of water and wear a hat if we went outside and a bunch of other mum things. While they were busy talking, I turned back to Adam.

  “This isn’t settled. This isn’t even close to settled,” I hissed at him, trying to be quiet enough that Ellie wouldn’t hear. “You can’t just order me to babysit someone! I’m not even working today.”

  “I’m not ordering you. I’m asking you.”

  “You didn’t ask.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Please?”

  “No.”

  “As a personal favour to me?”

  “No!”

  “As a personal favour to Tim?”

  I opened my mouth to refuse again, but I stopped when I caught Tim looking at me with his puppy-dog eyes. Well, puppy-dog eye.

  “Please?” Tim said quietly. “I’d feel so much better knowing she was back in Gerongate with you.”

  “But I have to go to a thing tonight,” I said.

  “A date?” Tim asked.

  I rolled my eyes. “No.”

  “A family barbecue?”

  “Maybe.”