“Why?”
She stares at me, that unfamiliar smile haunting her lips, then shakes her head. “Who knows? I couldn’t possibly comment, but I’m glad you answered my call. I didn’t want to go without seeing you again.”
The words are alarming, but I can pull the pieces together easily enough. The planted stories might be false but she’s obviously now talking. I guess she’ll be guarded as a vulnerable prisoner and, upon release, will be bundled into witness protection.
“Thank you,” I tell her, the words not equal to the level of gratitude in my heart but that would take days to pull the right sentences together, so I go ahead with what I’ve got.
“For what? Being a constant irritant? For trying to freak George out?”
“I should be the one in here.”
She guffaws at that, the undainty laugh so dissimilar from anything I’ve seen Kari do before that my mouth falls open in shock.
“I’m sure you’d thrive in a women’s prison,” she teases. “Good-looking boy like you.”
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
My eyes cut sideways to a disturbance at a nearby table. The argument grows heated but there’s love behind the harsh words. No one is threatening anyone, they’re just airing grievances so the safety valve on the pressure-cooker environment will reduce the likelihood that they’ll explode.
“If I’d talked to you earlier, perhaps we could’ve found a way out of this that didn’t involve…” I trail off, waving my hand at all the things I can’t put into words.
“Or I’d have turned you in for a better deal for myself.”
“Ah. And the Kari we all know and love is back.”
“She never went away,” she says with a chuckle, then winks. “Remind George that you should watch out for each other, just in case.”
I take it as a joke, but also make a mental note to double check all our security arrangements later.
The rest of the visit passes, mostly in comfortable silence since we never had a lot to say to one another. Still, it’s with genuine affection that I say goodbye. We might never meet again—that would prove disastrous given her trajectory—but it’s good to know we didn’t damage each other too badly; any scars are small enough to easily heal.
I zip back to Kingswood, evading the known camera spots to make it in record time. George is outside the housing block, bouncing on her toes with excitement. I wave and she runs up to me, tilting her head back for the kiss she knows is coming, my hand nestling along her jaw, my thumb just touching her windpipe, feeling the vibrations as she laughs with pleasure.
“How’s the school dux?”
She rolls her eyes. “Over it, is what she is. They expect me to maketwospeeches now. Like the one in front of the entire school assembly wasn’t enough to give me night terrors.”
“Tell them to sod off.”
“But then I won’t get the pretty piece of card telling me how great I am.” She mock slaps me. “Honestly, are you even paying attention?”
“I can have someone write them if you want. Anton’s got far too much free time now term is ended.”
“Anton is not writing my speech.”
The level of aggression is perhaps not surprising, given he was the student she beat out for the title.
Her phone buzzes and she pulls it out, looking delighted at the message waiting on it for her. “Dad’s rented a new flat forty minutes out of the city. That’s good, isn’t it?”
“Hamilton city?”
“Yeah.” She shoots me a glance. “Why? Did you think he might come back here?”
“Just checking.”
Playfulness aside, I know exactly where he is. Under the foundations of a brand-new state-of-the-art milking shed. Those texts come courtesy of me and I’ve been steadily tapering them. Eventually they’ll stop.
