I haven’t thought about Joe in hours, and now here he is again, sinking into my frontal lobe because he’s just another problem I have to solve. I ignore Joe and focus on the more pressing problem of Chatty Cleaning Guy and how I can get out of this without looking so guilty.
And then it hits me. I reach for my phone lying facedown on my desk like it’s ashamed of itself.
JOE: R u coming home or not
JOE: ???
JOE: Whateva im goin to Andy’s
Wincing, I close the texts. Right there on the home screen, along with a picture of Joe and I when he could stand me, is the time: 3:07a.m.
I turn the phone off with a soft click. “It’s three in the morning,” I tell him. “The cleaners usually get here at five.”
Am I seeing things, or did he flinch? I see a way out of my mess and try to take back control. “You’re here a bit early today.”
It’s a statement, not an accusation. But it sure feels like one. Maybe that’s why his eyes narrow, why his back stiffens. He shrugs, sticks his hands in his pockets. “Had a few things to take care of.”
His words hang there like a little rain cloud, and I want to reach forward and wring the truth out. But he’s already turning away, and that little creak at the threshold makes my skin itch.
Had a few things to take care of.
“Hey?” I call out, and he stops stiffly. “You never told me your name.” When he turns around, I’m surprised how cold his eyes are. A chill settles over my scalp as I wait for him to answer.
He slides his hands into his jean pockets. “Watta’s it matter what me name is?”
Okay, I’m nervous now. I take a half step back. “Did you open my door when you got here?” My voice is harsh, accusing.
“No,” he says firmly. “Was already open.”
But I locked it. Iremember.I rushed to the bottle shop after Emily left, and I remember sneaking back into my office with the booze. I locked my door and plonked myself at the window.
He’s been in here. I can feel it. He was snooping around in herewhile I slept.
Had a few things to take care of.
Like what, exactly? Like sneaking into my office and lying about it? Before he slinks away, his cold gaze lingers on the wine bottles.Careful,his eyes warn.You’ve got secrets too.
If I lost this job…
So I shut my mouth and let him disappear into the dark. I wait there in the moonlight, gripping my desk and knowing I will keep his secret.
And I pray he will keep mine.
Chapter 4
Welcome to Beacon, where everyone is settled and safe and smug as fuck about it. I drive through the moonlit streets, still surprised I can call it home. There are no traffic lights in Beacon, population 1,831. It’s a one-road town where children bike to the general store on lazy Sunday afternoons while mums hang lemon-scented washing on the line and dads gather in good-natured groups at the town’s only pub.
Kids don’t have curfews, though none are needed. There’s no danger lurking in the darkness and no trouble to get into that can’t be sorted out with indulgent neighbors. Cinemas and shopping centers are a half-hour drive away, and a trip into the Big Smoke is gently discouraged. Kids grow up sequestered from outside influences and kept so distracted they barely notice. There are plenty of good trees to climb, cricket teams to join, pools to splash about in, and nothing but room to run and run and run.
There’s a waiting list to buy into this town,the realtor told us. No wonder. The only people who can afford to live here are older couples, long retired, who spend their day gardening and chatting with their neighbors of thirty years while their children wait impatiently for them to die.
Kids grow up slowly here, and some barely grow up at all. My colleague Becky inherited her three-story Grecian house when her mother passed two years ago. Now she works three days a week, plays tennis the rest, and has heated conversations about how entitled this generation is.She has one kid, Josh, and when she dies, he’ll inherit that stunning two-million-dollar house and complete the Beacon cycle, until the town is just one long bloodline.
I grew up in a two-bedroom shithole in north Queensland that smelled of sweat and smoke. Summer was a miserable stretch of forty-degree-Celsius days where sticking your arm out the car window felt like you’d shoved it in the oven. Little kids would wail red-faced in their strollers in the supermarkets while their exhausted mums fanned them with rolled-up pieces of paper and counted the days until summer ended.
Like the rest of the poor families on our street, we had no air-conditioning, and not even a quick, cold shower helped. Five minutes later you’d be dripping sweat down your nose, knees, and underarms and flopping on hard, tiled floors until you woke up dizzy an hour later with a pounding heat headache.
But the rich kids had it easy. They’d hide away in air-conditioned houses or splash in their sparkling pools before emerging fresh and clean and cool, and God, I hated them for it.
