I log into my banking app. The phone has my password saved and a hospital social worker had sat patiently beside me and talked me through the authentication. But there’s minus $167 in my account! I scroll through the list of recent transactions, revealing a regular pattern of hefty deposits—monthly—from the account of O. E. Roche. Some sort of allowance? And now it’s stopped. He must have done these transfers manually.
“Er, could you pull over somewhere, please? My card isn’t working,” I admit. He doesn’t need to know I’m completely broke. “I can’t book a flight.”
Is he going to assume I also can’t pay him and slam on the brakes in the middle of Southern Cross Drive? Lines crease on his forehead in the mirror, and the muscles in his jaw and neck tighten.
Frantically, I go to the Uber app. Maybe it’s linked to another credit card or something? I click on the booking and …oh, God. There’s a photo of the driver. Gray hair. Blue eyes. A balding man in his sixties, driving a red Toyota Camry.
I’m seated in a late-model matte-black Range Rover. My driver is in his early thirties at best. Brown eyes. Dark hair. Not even a hint of a bald patch.
My stomach drops.Am I being kidnapped?
No, I masterminded this whole thing. My eyes drop to the gear lying beside me on the back seat. Tripod. Camera bag. The glass of an enormous lens glistening in the sun through the open zippered pocket. I feel sick.
“You’re not an Uber driver, are you?”
He looks genuinely surprised at my question. “Photo-journalist,” he responds, his tone strained.
I’ve delivered myself straight into the hands of the enemy.
5
Drew
Definitely should have trusted my gut.
If I had, I wouldn’t be stuck with a grieving widow on an arterial road in the lunchtime rush, heading in the opposite direction from where I need to be. I feel bad that I stood up a first date. A Tinder match, Sally. Perfectly nice woman according to our chats. A nurse in neonatal intensive care.
That makes it worse, the nurse thing. She probably worked all night being heroic saving babies. Forced herself out of bed when she should be sleeping, shaved her legs, maybe, only to go to the café in Coogee and wait, while I changed my mind at the eleventh hour and got the guts to face my past. One part of it, anyway.
“Hey, Siri …”
“Sorry,” my passenger interrupts. “I think you’ve got me confused …”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t get that,” Siri replies.
“Send a message to Sally Engels …”
“Okay, how do I do that?” She’s pulling the seat belt loose and leaning forward so she can hear me.
“Could you possibly stop complicating my life for five seconds?” I mutter.
“Could you possibly stop complicating my life for five seconds,” Siri answers. “Send message to Sally Engels?”
Bloody hell!
“Message sending. You can press the crown on your watch to cancel …”
Shit!A taxi lurches into my lane and I swerve to the left. “Siri! Cancel! Stop!Delete!”
“Message sent.”
I think I’m losing the will to live.
“Hey, Siri … message Sally Engels … Sally comma, profuse apologies, full stop … unexpected personal problem, exclamation mark … face palm emoji … exploding head emoji …”
I risk a glance into the back seat and am met with a face like thunder.
“Give me a chance to explain, question mark. Send message.”
