Your phone might be compromised.
How? And by whom, exactly?
I’m so nervous my stomach’s cramping. I squirm in the driver’s seat, watching the Cooma pub. It’s silent except for the occasional shout of laughter from inside. My car window is cracked an inch, letting in icy air tinged with cigarette smoke. I haven’t smoked in years, but I suddenly crave one. I’m jittery as hell, freezing cold, and my hands are restless and trembling.
I press my forehead against the wheel, staring down at my feet. Out of the corner of my eye, something moves. A shadow in the dark. I freeze as a man strides to my car window. Darren?
In the dim glow of the lone streetlight, he looks nothing like his profile picture. The guy in the picture looked clean-cut and harmless, arm slung companionably around his dog.
This guy raises a fist, tattoos marking each knuckle, but it’s too dark to read what they say. Oh God, he taps on the window, and my pulse speeds up. My eyes flicker to the car keys still in the ignition. Shit. Is iteven him? What if this is a hoax? A holdup? He leans down, eyes level with mine, and he looks just as uncertain as I am.
“Sarah?”
His voice is soft, shy almost. But he sure as hell doesn’t look harmless. He’s got the heavily muscled forearms of a tradie, a mullet haircut, a tattoo of the Southern Cross under his throat. Clear skin and cool green eyes. Hot, to be honest. Someone the good, clean folks of Beacon would refer to as a bogan. The type who makes old ladies wince and young ladies lose their good sense for a twenty-minute tumble in the back of his car.
He motions for me to wind the window down farther, and I notice the tattoo on the underside of his forearm. A flying dove with a name across its breast.
Amanda.
I unlock the doors, point to the passenger seat. He shoves his hands deep into his pockets, crosses in front of the car. I grip the wheel and try to steady my breathing. Too late to change my mind now.
He opens the door, and a blast of cold air hits me in the face. He shuts it quickly, stares straight ahead, and for a moment, neither of us speaks. I’ve never exactly met up with a stranger in a deserted parking lot before.
Nervously, I face him, my right hand cradling my phone. Before I left work, I told Emily about him. She’s calling me in ten minutes, and if I don’t answer, she’s going to drive here. There’s a lot wrong with my plan. Like the fact that Emily’s forty minutes from here. Plenty of time for this nice, hot stranger to strangle me to death.
I clear my throat, not even sure how the hell to start this. The pub door bursts open, and a man staggers out, yelling and pointing at someone still inside. We watch him silently as he stumbles off the curb, muttering to himself.
“We used to come here,” Darren says softly, staring up at the pub. “Me and Amanda.”
He reaches into his pocket, and I freeze. Oh God. Oh God. He pulls out a pack of cigarettes, sticks one between his teeth. “Mind if I smoke?”
It’s the first time he’s looked at me since he got in. Now that I’m inches away from his face, I can see bits and pieces of the guy from the Insta photo. But there’s been a change in him since, an undercurrent of grief and anger, and I wonder if that change is Amanda.
“That’s fine,” I tell him, and he winds his window down. His hands are covered in tattoos, and I read the words across his knuckles.Live Free.
“Can I have one?” I ask.
Wordlessly, he passes me a cigarette, and when he leans forward and lights it for me, I don’t know where to look. My skin feels uncomfortably hot. He smells like mown grass, sweat, tobacco, and unwashed hair, and it’s not unpleasant. My life is so wretched that sitting here with a hot stranger who may have bad intentions barely matters. Is my life even worth saving anymore? Was it ever?
We sit and smoke, eyes straight ahead. The silence isn’t so loaded now, but it’s not comfortable either. He scrunches his shorts in his tattooed palm. He’s keyed up and anxious.
I inhale slowly. “How long did you know Amanda for?”
He winces as if it’s physically painful to hear her name. He slumps a little, and I wonder if he loved her. Everyone said she looks like me. Does he notice? Do I want him to?
I lean back, and my limp ponytail digs into the headrest. A shout of laughter echoes through the parking lot, and I tap my cigarette against the glass, watch the ash fall away. Everything feels strangely perverse, and I kind of like it. Is this how Joe feels when he meets up with his girlfriend or whatever?
“Only a few weeks.” He blows smoke out the window. “Met her here at the pub last October.
“She was from South Australia, I think, but she didn’t say what town.” He flicks ash out the window. “I got the feeling something bad happened there. She had a lot of secrets, Amanda.” He hesitates before adding, “To be honest, I don’t even know if ‘Amanda’ was her real name.”
Well, that would explain why she’s been so hard to trace. I watch the smoke float into the dark night. “What was she doing in Beacon?”
He shakes his head. “I never asked. I think she just wanted to get away from her family. Her mum especially.”
“They didn’t get along?”
A young couple exit the pub, laughing loudly, their breath steaming in the cold air. Darren watches them silently, eyes pained like he’s been cheated of something.
