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Lexi abandoned her SUV at the end of the narrow lane. Its rear wheels rested on a row of double yellow lines and she no longer cared. Fury drove her at Lachlan Mortimer’s presumption. But she hadn’t expected to find the city centre crawling with pedestrians. The town’s stores remained open late on a Friday night. Darkness came with increased determination and light spilled from wide shop windows and pooled beneath the street lamps. Lexi’s rage only increased as she navigated shoppers trailing heavy bags and wandering families balancing precarious ice creams on slender waffle cones.
Lexi burst into the bookshop and her gaze burned a trail around the laden shelves. Aged paper and dust filled her nostrils. Marla smiled up at her from behind the counter. A man in a smart suit watched the woman’s deft hands as she tenderly wrapped a valuable edition of a Shakespearean compilation.
“Where is he?” Lexi demanded. She stood behind the customer with her fists balled.
Marla gulped and her fingers stilled their magic with the archival tissue paper. “Has something happened?” she asked, her tone soothing.
The customer turned his whole body to face her, and Lexi ignored him. “Where is he?” She repeated her question, but hope faded in her chest at the subtle twist of Marla’s thin lips. “Fine!” Lexi growled. Determined strides carried her past shelves loaded from floor to ceiling with secondhand books. Lachlan had used the wooden units to create a maze of reading nooks and hidden corners. She made the last turn towards the shadow filled office at the back of the shop. Not waiting to knock or receive an invitation, Lexi burst through the door.
She saw Lachlan first. He sat behind his heavy oak desk and leaned back in his chair. Fine-boned fingers folded across his stomach as though in relaxation. His gaze turned to the visitor with a frown, which only deepened as he registered Lexi’s unexpected presence. Her chin wobbled as words of anger and admonishment pinged around her brain like unleashed pin balls. She hated him with every fibre and nerve ending. For GPS tracking his own children, bugging his son’s private conversations, and setting one of his minions to follow her.
But Lexi didn’t unleash the words. Not when she noticed the figures standing opposite Lachlan. Doug and Ron occupied most of the space with their feet planted like trees and their giant jackets shrouding their muscles. Sweat oozed from their pores like a yellow haze. They paused before their puppet master for orders like heat-seeking missiles awaiting the coordinates for destruction. Lexi’s rage and accusations dried in her chest. The words corkscrewed on her tongue and blocked her throat. As though suffering from a slow strangulation, Lexi stared in disbelief at the other man occupying a prime space at Lachlan Mortimer’s court.
Harvey Rojas turned his square jaw towards her, and a smirk lit his lips. With his shoulders held rigid and his hands behind his back, he stood as though on a parade ground. Lexi’s chest rose and fell as her lungs made futile grabs for oxygen. The dull room swam, blurring the papers scattered across Lachlan’s messy desk. She had time to notice the streaks of blood dotting the nearest giant’s knuckles and the bundle of cash resting on its side before her father. Her biological parent. And he entertained a man who’d made her life a living hell. So she turned and fled, hating the lack of courage it displayed.
Lexi remembered nothing of the drive home. Her mind whirled with the nausea of betrayal. Lachlan Mortimer commanded Rojas. Or at least used him in some significant way. Her father and Rojas. The notion of their combined treachery burned like acid in her mouth.
The remote control for the gate only slid it halfway across the aperture. Lexi shook the device in frustration and pressed the button again. Nothing. The gate remained half open. She ached to hide in her silent home and lick her raw wounds. But even that proved insecure against the might of the local council. Nothing of hers seemed sacred. And now this mishap with the gate added itself to her woes as though even her possessions refused her bidding.
With a giant sigh, she squeezed the SUV between two other vehicles in line with her boundary fence. Only the parking cameras prevented her from dinging them both. Lexi stuffed her phone into her pocket, her mind already venturing ahead of her to search the hall drawer for a new battery. She remembered seeing a lone one which might fit the remote and kept the failed device in her hand. Her usual awareness of her surroundings failed her as Lexi emerged from her vehicle. But her right foot slid in the gravel, chips loosened from the macadam by the day’s searing sun. The remote clattered to the floor, and she bent to retrieve it.
A shot rang out in the quiet street. Unexpected and jarring, it reverberated between the wooden clad houses and unseeing windows as an echo. A split second later, wood splintered from the neighbour’s gate post just beyond Lexi’s head. A heavy thud accompanied the cascade of shards and dust.
Slumbering birds rose from the avenue of trees in a cacophony of fear. Lexi dropped her phone in shock, hearing the screen crack against the road. Her reactions seemed too slow. Sludge encased her frozen feet, preventing her from moving.
Another shot echoed as a dark shape moved across Lexi’s eye line. It cannoned into her with such force, her feet left the floor. She flew beneath her front bumper and hit the road hard, her left arm crumpling behind her hip. The crack of her skull against the hard surface knocked the sense from her brain and the air whooshed from her lungs. Her eyes squeezed closed against the pain. The overhead glare of a street lamp dazzled her even through her eyelids. Bright spots danced behind them like fireflies.
A weight bore down on Lexi’s chest. She couldn’t refill her lungs. Her mind struggled with the simple task of orienting her. She’d caught her left cheek on the tow bar of the vehicle in front of hers as she fell. It smarted and something warm trickled along her bruised jaw. When she opened her eyes, artificial light from the street lamp kissed her face. Stars in the Paynes Grey sky blinked down at her as though unsurprised by the ninety degree tilt in her world. She turned her head to the right, seeing her truck’s front tyre close enough to touch.
