After his last bite of green curry, he signed the papers and took the money.
“Goodbye, sis. I guess I won’t be seeing you anytime soon.”
“Goodbye, Sean. Make good choices. Okay?”
He laughed and kissed her cheek before walking out of the restaurant. Charmaine hadn’t realised how tense she was until he was gone. She let out a long, slow breath and leaned her elbows on the table in relief. It was over. She’d done it. He was gone, perhaps for good.
She folded the paper to add to her purse, paid the bill, and waved goodbye to Beatrice and Aidan. Then she stepped outside with her face raised towards the sun. She spun in a circle, arms outstretched. For the first time in a long time, she was free.
Sixteen
Evie wanderedthrough the blackened remnants of the bookshop. It was a shell of a structure. She wore protective clothing and a mask. There was no one else around, and for the first time since the fire a week earlier, she was alone in her former place of business. Up until that moment, there’d been insurance adjusters, police investigators, fire inspectors, Janice and other staff, and more. Always someone tramping around her bookshop. She’d answered their questions as best she could, but now she was on her own, and the silence felt overwhelming.
The brand-new bookshelves she’d bought, in solid timber, the ones she’d thought would last forever, were falling apart and entirely black. They were unrecognisable. Her darkroom had been partially destroyed, although some of the filing cabinets had miraculously made it through unharmed, and she’d been able to save files of photographs and negatives she’d developed over the years.
But everything else was gone.
All her work, the years of her life she’d dedicated to this passion of hers—nothing remained. The insurance company had decided that the fire was accidental, since they hadn’t been able to identify a cause. They’d assured her she would receive a large payout, as would her landlord. It would be enough money for her to rebuild the business, if that’s what she wanted to do.
She stepped outside and slipped off her mask, then lowered herself onto the blackened step. The steel pelican remained, no longer rust-coloured — now black like everything else around her.
“What a disaster,” Bradford said as he climbed out of his truck in front of the bookshop.
“Hi, Brad.”
He nodded and sat beside her. “I’m sorry, Evie.”
“Thanks.” She leaned her head against his shoulder.
“What will you do now? Are you going to start all over again?”
She sighed. “I don’t know. I was in the middle of a renovation. I’d bought new furniture, we were halfway through painting . . . It was a lot of work. And now…”
“It’s gone,” he finished.
“Yep. And I’m tired.”
“But everyone loves your bookshop.”
“I wish they’d loved it enough to shop there.” She offered a bitter laugh.
He patted her hand. “Famous last words of every person who opened a business.”
“I’m joking… kind of. I had plenty of tourists come through, of course. And sometimes we thrived. But there were days when I wasn’t sure we were going to make it. I loved the bookshop too, but I don’t want to use the payout to rebuild it. I don’t think I like the idea of owning a bookshop anymore. I’m feeling defeated right now.”
“It’s a great location,” Bradford said.
She nodded. “I know. The landlord lives on the mainland, though, and I haven’t been able to reach him. I don’t know what he wants to do with the place. He may not want to rebuild, in which case this whole decision is pointless. I can’t redo a bookshop where there’s no building.”
“I wonder if he’d be willing to sell.” Bradford glanced around, taking in their surroundings. The bookshop had sat on the corner of the main street, close to the docks and in the centre of the busiest part of town.
“I can’t buy it,” Evie replied despondently.
“I might, though,” Bradford said.
“What?”
“Only if you don’t want to redo the bookshop. I’m looking for a second location for my business — we rent yachts and fishing boats out to tourists, and we’ve outgrown the Airlie Beach location. I want to find somewhere on the island where I can set up an office that will provide scuba diving, snorkelling tours on the reef, boat hire and so on. I also want someone to run a photography outfit as well. Tourists love that kind of thing.”
