16

When Paige arrived at S & S she found an ambulance double-parked outside the building.

She raced up the stairs two at a time. At the top, Hazel was being wheeled out of her office on a stretcher. Her eyes were closed, she was pale, and she had an oxygen mask strapped to her face.

“What happened?”

No one answered. She grabbed at one of the paramedics and yanked his arm until he turned to her with a frown.

“Who are you? Are you family?”

Paige hesitated, then said, “No.”

“And all I can tell you is she collapsed. She found her,” he gestured at a wide-eyed woman dressed in a courier outfit who was hovering near the door.

“Let’s go,” he said to colleague.

“Wait. I can call her nephew. Where are you going? Auckland City Hospital?”

The paramedic gave Paige a curt nod and they took her down the stairs.

Just then there was a loud and unmistakable thump from 2B. Paige immediately went over and banged on the door. “Hello?”

Empty offices don’t make thumping noises.

Paige fished Hazel’s keys out of her bag and found the one that fit into the 2B lock. Her hands shaking from adrenaline, Paige pushed the door. She paused on the threshold, waiting for sudden noise or motion, but there was none.

“Hello?” she said again. “I heard you, whoever you are. I know you’re there.”

This was not at all true. This office felt vacant. But she could feel a breeze. She went further inside and saw that in the office to the right, the window at the back was open. She raced over and peered out. There was no one to be seen, but there was a fire escape leading from the window to the ground. It was therefore possible for someone to access this office without a key. But why? Thumping around for the fun? Perhaps it was a homeless person or a squatter who was sleeping in here? Paige cast her eyes around the furniture-less space. But surely there would be evidence of that. Paige made a frustrated noise and was about to leave when she remembered the last time she was here there’d been a charger plugged into the wall. She went over to the corner and saw that it was gone. Someone had definitely been in here—was it just to charge their phone?

There was no time to ponder on this further. There was a woman on her way to the hospital that needed her help.

As Paige raced down the stairs she tried Eddie but he wasn’t picking up so she left him a message and sent him a text just in case. She then tried Sophie, but she wasn’t picking up either.

It took Paige over an hour to get to the hospital, locate a parking spot—she ended up having to park fifteen minutes away in the Domain—and find Hazel’s hospital room. She slipped inside to see a nurse and a doctor standing over Hazel, one on each side of the bed. The nurse was taking vitals and the doctor was looking at her chart.

“Do we have any information about her GP?” the doctor said.

“I can look it up. Why?”

“I need to talk to them about the meds she’s been prescribed. Her levels are all over the place.” He shook his head. “This bloodwork doesn’t look good at all.”

“A-ha!” Paige cried.

The two health professionals turned and noticed Paige standing at the foot of the bed.

“Where did you come from?” The doctor said glaring at her. “And who are you?”

“She’s not up for visitors,” the nurse added.

“But... I’m her family.”

The nurse narrowed her eyes and took a step toward Paige. “Even if you are, now is not the time.” She shooed her out.

In the corridor, Paige stopped and took stock of what she’d heard. Hazel wasn’t taking medication, she’d said so herself, and her GP in Dunedin had virtually confirmed it, without saying the actual words. So, if Hazel’s blood tests revealed the presence of drugs in her system, how did they get there?

Paige pulled out her phone and called Sophie again but it continued to ring and ring. “Pick up, Sophie,” she hissed.

The nurse emerged from Hazel’s room. “She’s stable,” she said, “but you’re not allowed in there, not right now.” The nurse gave Paige a stern look. “You can come back for visiting hours.”

Paige knew she wasn’t going to get any further here, now that her cloak of invisibility had been yanked off, so she went back to the S & S offices. The door to Hazel’s office was still open so she went straight inside. Paige needed more information, maybe even evidence, and since she’d already been through Hazel’s office, the only other place she could think to look was Hazel’s home. But she didn’t know where Hazel lived. Paige rummaged through the drawers and the filing cabinet again, but it wasn’t until she noticed a power bill sitting in Hazel’s ‘out’ tray that she hit pay dirt. It wasn’t a bill for the office, it was for a residence in Mt Eden. Paige grabbed the bill and scurried out to her car with Hazel’s keys clutched in her hand.

***

TEN MINUTES LATER, Sophie let herself into S & S, still shaken by her encounter with Josh.

She made herself a cup of chamomile tea and sat at her computer, trying to relax. She took deep breaths, using her lower belly, and exhaled slowly, telling herself that everything was okay. She had solved the case, hadn’t she? They now knew that the KiwiSaver contributions were being siphoned out and could take the appropriate steps to recover the money. People wouldn’t be conned out of their retirement money. Or, maybe at least not as much as they could have been? Sophie took another sip of tea. Overall, she felt good about what she’d done, but she’d never seen anyone as angry as Josh had been and she was still rattled by that confrontation in the lift. Sophie was desperately trying to take a leaf out of Paige’s book and shed the incident like a used skin, but it was difficult. Josh had had revenge in his eyes. Not to mention, as Sophie discovered upon opening her email account, he’d already sent her three emails, blaming her for everything.

When Sophie’s phone beeped she sucked in a breath, wondering if Josh was now going to attack her via FB messenger, but it wasn’t from him. It was from Hannah.

All the first message said was, Hi.

Hi, Sophie wrote back, biting the inside of her lip as she stared at the display.

Did you get anything when Dad died?

Sophie drew back, recoiling as if this had been a physical assault.

Was that what this was about? Hannah didn’t want to connect with her new half-sister, she wanted money? Sophie had suspected her motives weren’t particularly pure, but this seemed so callous. Sophie has always wanted a sister. And now it appeared she might have the classic evil half-sister instead of the kindred spirit she’d always imagined.

Just curious, Hannah added.

No, I didn’t, Sophie replied.

Sophie watched as three dots appeared, then disappeared. This happened again. Then, instead of a message, a photo came through. It was a selfie of Hannah at a bar somewhere. Sophie shook her head. What was the point of that photo? She waited and waited, but nothing else came through. She noticed there was a missed call from Paige but she ignored this and put her phone down with a sigh, trying to push away the uneasy feeling in her stomach.

There was a thump from somewhere out in the hall. This was followed by a clattering sound. Was this the start of the renovations, Sophie wondered, but the noises had sounded as if they were coming from Hazel’s place. When there was another thump from across the landing, Sophie thought perhaps she should check that these noises were not someone burgling the place. She left her phone on the desk and went to investigate.

She was correct, the noises had been coming from Hazel’s office, and just inside the door stood the guy Sophie had seen with Simone in the supermarket. Clutched in his sweaty hand was a plastic bag filled with, Sophie couldn’t tell what, but there were various lumps and a shiny packet of something.

“Um. Hi?” Sophie said.

“Oh. I’m Eddie. My aunt owns this place.”

“Your aunt is Hazel?”

“Yeah?” Eddie eyed her. “Um... uh, who are you?”

Sophie stopped herself from reacting and forced her shoulders up and down into a shrug. He obviously didn’t remember her from that time at Galbraith’s when he and Simone came over to their table briefly. Or maybe he did but thought she wouldn’t recall him. “Sophie. I work across there.” She tried to keep her tone casual. “So, I haven’t seen you around before.” If he was going to pretend he hadn’t seen her before, she would go along with it.

“I only moved up recently. After my mum, uh, died.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“Hazel’s my only family, now, so I thought I should be here with her. With everything going on.”

Sophie nodded. “You came to Auckland at the same time as Hazel?”

Eddie swallowed then nodded. Footsteps sounded on the stairs behind Sophie. She turned around to see Simone.

Upon spotting Sophie, she frowned. “Oh, hello.”

“Hi.”

Simone looked past Sophie to Eddie. “Hello there. You’re Hazel’s nephew, aren’t you?”

Sophie watched a few different emotions and expressions cross Eddie’s face before he landed on a wide-eyed one. “Y-yes. Hello.”

“Is Hazel around? I came by for a quick catch-up.”

“Uh...”

Simone glared at Eddie, who was still wide-eyed.

“She’s in hospital.”

Now both Sophie and Simone stared at Eddie.

“She is?” Sophie said. “What happened?”

“She has dementia,” Eddie said bluntly, looking past Sophie. “Hey, I better go.”

“Yes, me too,” Simone said, clip-clopping down the stairs.

Sophie watched them both leave with a kind of numb amazement. They were pretending they didn’t know each other—and doing a terrible job of it—but why? And since when did Hazel have dementia?

Sophie returned to the S & S office deep in thought. Something was bugging her. Multiple things, in fact. If Eddie had only moved up when Hazel returned to Auckland a few weeks ago, then how had Sophie seen him before then hanging out at the pub with Simone. And why were they pretending they didn’t know each other? It was a small thing that might be easily explained by the presence of other partners and adultery, but Sophie thought the whole thing reeked of something more.

Sophie picked up her phone. She now had two missed calls from Paige. Sophie stuck her tongue out at her phone—possibly the most childish thing she’d done in the last five years, but it was exactly how she felt. She shouldn’t have had to deal with Josh, and all that mess, on her own. Sophie doubted Josh even remembered Paige existed, so she would be shouldering all of Josh’s rancour herself. And where was Paige, anyway? In Dunedin, for God knows what reason. She’d probably been whisked away for a mini-break by the doting Tim. He probably surprised her with some amazing trip, Sophie thought bitterly.

Sophie took a breath and tried to relax. She knew she couldn’t blame Paige for the Josh situation, not really, but still, instead of calling Paige back, she texted Leo.

***

PAIGE PULLED UP OUTSIDE Hazel’s place. It was a small bungalow with a white gate and a tidy-looking garden at the front.

Paige let herself in the front door and called out, “Hello?” With no response, she immediately started snooping through the kitchen directly to her left. One half of the kitchen was pristine and the other messy, home to a box of cocoa-puffs, a carton of milk, several dirty-looking utensils, and a cereal bowl with a congealed substance in the bottom. Paige could not imagine Hazel eating cocoa-puffs. With a little more nosing and the discovery of male-sized running shoes and a coat in the hall, Paige realised Eddie must live here, or at least be staying with her. “Hello?” Paige called out again, just in case.

Paige cast her eye around the kitchen, then started opening cupboards. The doctor at the hospital had said there were drugs in her bloodstream, but Hazel said she didn’t believe in medication. So maybe there was something here in her kitchen that could explain it? Maybe she was one of those people that took heaps of vitamins and herbal supplements and that was what had made her sick. Hazel did not seem like the kind of women to take alternative medicine either. Still, it was worth a look.

In the pantry—again, organized into one tidy side and one messy side—Paige found the packet of protein powder she’d seen Hazel use to make her lunchtime smoothies. Her eyes moved past this, then returned. The packet was unopened, but there was something weird about the seal—it looked unnaturally bumpy or something. On closer inspection Paige could not find anything wrong, so she replaced it and closed the pantry door.

It was a small house but it held three bedrooms. One bedroom was clearly Hazel’s, the other occupied by her messy houseguest, and the remaining one set up as a home office. Paige was about to look in Hazel’s room—perhaps there was something on her nightstand or in a bedside table drawer? —when she heard the unmistakeable sound of keys at the front door. She lurched into the door to her right. It was the bathroom. As Paige waited breathlessly by the door, she asked herself what she was doing. It was probably just Eddie returning home. So why was she hiding? Coming up with an explanation for this would be difficult. In the absence of a clear course of action, Paige stayed where she was.

Heavy footsteps entered the house, there was a metallic clang as keys were thrown onto the hall table, then the footsteps trudged into the kitchen. Paige leaned against the bathroom door wondering whether she could find a way to slip out and then knock on the front door and ask after Hazel—which would’ve been the normal way to go about things. As Paige pondered the problem, her eyes drifted over to the medicine cabinet above the sink.

Since she was in here, she might as well look.

From beyond the door, Paige heard Eddie turn on the tap in the kitchen, then gulp noisily. Was he drinking directly from the faucet? Paige wondered briefly, before leaning forward to open the cabinet door.

Eddie let out a loud burp.

Inside the cabinet, there were four small bottles of medication. Hazel does believe in medicine, Paige thought at first, but then she saw they were not prescribed for Hazel, but for an Edward Stevens. There was a bottle of Benadryl and three prescriptions. One was for Doxycycline, which Paige knew to be a generic all-purpose antibiotic, and it was out of date, but the other two were current prescriptions. Something called Elavil, and another called Anafril.

“That’s right,” Paige whispered to herself. Hazel had mentioned Eddie had allergies and took meds for depression. Paige pressed her ear against the door and heard clattering in the kitchen, so she returned to the cabinet. She eyed the medication again, then pulled out her phone and opened a search engine. She typed in the drug names and scrolled through the results, then opened another tab to further investigate.

As she made sense of the results of her search, her chest grew tight with excitement. She was starting to get an inkling of what was going on. Paige was about to call Sophie again until she realised that Eddie might hear her, so instead she sent her a text message.

Get Roman on standby. I think I know what’s happening with Hazel. Will text again with details.

Paige took a few photos, making sure she got all the medicine bottles in shot, and was about to try to sneak out when she heard heavy footsteps coming down the hall. She looked around frantically. There was only a tiny window above the toilet. She was small, but was she small enough? Paige stepped closer to inspect its size. Eddie sneezed, just outside the door, a loud and trumpeting sound. Paige startled and dropped her phone into the toilet bowel.

“Dammit,” she cried without thinking.

The door knob rattled. “Who’s in there?” Eddie demanded. Paige held her breath. “Who is it? Open the door,” he cried, now banging his fists against the door.

Paige backed up until she was against the wall. How the hell was she going to get out of this?

***

SOPHIE’S PHONE BUZZED again. This time it was a text. When she read the message she sat bolt upright. “Oh, no.”

When Leo ambled into the S & S office a few moments later, Sophie was staring at her phone with wide eyes.

“What’s wrong?”

Sophie’s attempts to call Paige were going straight to voice mail.

“It’s Paige. I’m worried.”

“About?”

“Paige left this cryptic message about Hazel, the lady who owns this building, and now her phone is off. But she said to get Roman on standby.”

“What do you think’s going on?”

Sophie shrugged helplessly.

“Maybe you should call Roman.”

“And say what? Paige wants you on standby?”

“You got a weird message from Paige and you’re worried about her.”

Sophie nodded. “Can I text?”

Leo shrugged and said, “Sure.”

But Sophie knew what the correct answer was and reluctantly dialled Roman’s number. When he didn’t pick up, she didn’t know if she was relieved or not. She didn’t have to have an awkward conversation with him, but what if Paige needed police assistance urgently?

“No answer. I’ll text.” Sophie typed out a quick message, hoping it made sense.

“What do we do in the meantime?” Leo asked.

“I don’t know.” Sophie said. “Let’s try and figure out what’s going on.”

“How?”

“We work the clues.” Sophie started pacing the space between her and Paige’s desks. Leo copied her, following her as she moved from one end of the office to the other. “Apparently, or at least accordingly to Eddie, Hazel suddenly has dementia.”

“What do you mean suddenly?”

“Exactly.”

Leo nodded even though he had no idea what Sophie was on about.

“And then there’s Eddie, Hazel’s nephew, and Simone, Hazel’s property manager, hanging around the building, pretending they don’t know each other. They were acting super suspiciously. So what’s this all about?” Sophie paused to look out the window. The window was shut but air was still escaping through a crack at the bottom which seemed to be getting bigger. They’d decided to let it go since renovations were already planned.

Renovations.

“Hang on,” Sophie said, turning to Leo. “What’s the central thing, the common denominator?”

Leo looked confused. Understandably so, since he’d only been exposed to the briefest, most superficial pieces of this particular puzzle. “Hazel?”

“Yes. But also, this building. Right? That’s what connects Simone to Hazel.”

“Okay...” Leo eyed Sophie, wondering where she was going with this.

“Something’s going on here, Leo. We’ve got to find Paige. Can you trace her phone?”

“Not if it’s switched off.”

“Um. Okay. Let me think.”

Paige, being Paige, would be embroiled right in the middle of this. The question was where?

“What about Hazel Berryman. Can you find out where she lives?”

Sophie sat in her car. She was parked right behind Paige’s car, which was outside Hazel’s house. Sophie hadn’t gone inside yet because Roman was on his way. He’d called her back and she’d told him, breathlessly and awkwardly, the situation as she knew it. Sophie had then texted Leo, who’d gone to check Paige’s house, to let him know.

Now, after five minutes of waiting, Sophie couldn’t stand it any longer and got out of the car. Who knew when Roman was going to get here? What if he had some other police emergency to deal with? Sophie had to get inside, and now. That Paige’s phone had been suddenly switched off seemed altogether ominous. Sophie’s chest felt tight as she surveyed the outside of the house. She could knock on the front door and ask if everything was okay, but what if this made them freak out and do something to Paige? No, she needed to sneak in and find out what was going on, without anyone knowing about it. Roman had said he wasn’t far away, so she had to hope this was true.

There was a largish window on each side of the house and the one on the left was less visible from the road, so that was the one she’d try to climb through.

***

ROMAN ARRIVED AT THE address Sophie had given him but there was no sign of her anywhere.

Before knocking on the door, he did one circuit of the house. Coming around the back he discovered someone hanging half out of the window.

“Sophie? Is that you?”

He was trying not to look too closely at her bottom, but it was difficult because with her half-in-and-half-out position, it was being rather nicely framed by the window.

“Go inside,” Sophie puffed as she craned her head toward Roman. “You have to rescue Paige.”

“From what I can see, the only person I should be rescuing is you.”

“No. You have to kick in the door. Or something.”

Sophie swung her legs at the approaching Roman.

“Oomph. Ow. Dammit, Sophie.”

“Sorry.”

“Stop struggling. Just—”

“Go get Paige then come help me.”

“Fine.”

***

ONCE ROMAN HAD GONE, Sophie, motivated by the unpleasant possibility of Roman having to push her buttocks through the window or drag her through from the other side, found the strength for one more kick and this was the one that enabled her to wriggle the rest of her body inside.

She was in a bedroom. It was empty, thank goodness. As she crept to the door, she could admit to herself at least one of those kicks at Roman had been on purpose and related to the existence of Anya.

When she got to the hall she found Roman and Paige standing there, looking a little too relaxed and casual given the panic with which she’d raced over here and broken into Hazel’s house.

“What’s going on?” Sophie asked.

“Her nephew Eddie was here, but he took off. I was in the bathroom and he heard me and was trying to get inside, but then he got a phone call and stopped banging on the door and went to his room, rummaged around for a bit, and then left. When I was sure he’d gone, I came out of the bathroom, and found Roman.”

Roman got out his phone. “He probably knows you’re onto him and is doing a runner.” Paige had already given Roman a very brief rundown of the situation with Hazel and Eddie. “Last chance to tell me if this is something I shouldn’t be wasting police resources on?”

Paige nodded. “Do it.”

“Okay, I’ll see if I can get eyes on his car. What’s his full name?”

“Edward, uh...” Paige checked the bottle of pills, she’d taken from Hazel’s cabinet, now clutched in her hand. “Edward Stevens.” She handed them over to Sophie. “Check them out,” she said.

While Roman made the call, Paige and Sophie huddled together in the hall and said at exactly the same time, “I think I know what’s going on.”