You Had It Coming by B.M. Carroll (best fiction novels .TXT) 📕

Jess swings around on her heel and stalks to the bedroom, where she slams the door so hard the entire apartment reverberates. She sits on the bed, breathing heavily, listening to Alex banging around the kitchen. A pot crashing down on the stove. Some cutlery clattering into the sink. She is shaking all over.

It’s her decision, not his.

She wants him to know, but she doesn’t need his approval.

He doesn’t understand, he can’t begin to.

She closes her eyes, summons her seventeen-year-old self. There she is, wearing tight jeans and a skimpy top that she’d ‘borrowed’ from Natasha’s wardrobe without asking. There she is, wriggling her way free from Thomas Malouf’s proprietary arm, deciding that she’d had enough of his wandering eye. There she is again, flirting with another group of boys, dancing with uncharacteristic abandon, arms in the air. She’s floating above the room. She can see Thomas and he’s kissing someone else, and she really doesn’t care. Now someone is kissing her – one of the boys she’s dancing with – and she kisses him back with the same abandon. Fast-forward and she’s staggering up the stairs, woozy, lips swollen. She suspects that she kissed more than one boy in the end but she’s on her own now. She could swear that she’s on her own. She has finally remembered her responsibilities to Megan. God, she hopes so. What happens once she finds Megan in the bedroom? Either she can’t rouse her or she doesn’t even try, deciding to have a nap herself. Thomas and Dylan aren’t with her. She’s alone. She is almost positive of that fact.

Jess couldn’t live with herself if she’d led them to Megan. But she has doubts, grave doubts, and a thousand questions. Where had all her inhibitions gone, for a start? What was going on with all the dancing (she is not an arms-in-the-air kind of girl) and pashing more than one boy? How about that weird out-of-body sensation she remembers? As for the sex, there are disjointed memories of a body pressing heavily on hers, of grunting and breath pungent with alcohol, and feeling leaden and unable to stop it from happening. Jess knows Dylan O’Shea has some of the answers, and she hopes they’ll help her understand what led to what, and forgive herself with regards to Megan.

Someone is knocking rather loudly. Probably Helen next door, checking that Jess and Alex haven’t killed each other. Jess will have to apologise, reassure her. She rises from the bed with a sigh, opens the bedroom door. Alex has beaten her to it. He glances over his shoulder before lifting the security chain, and they exchange a look of mutual embarrassment. Upsetting elderly neighbours isn’t their thing. Neither is screaming and slamming doors.

‘Hello. Alex, isn’t it? Detective Sergeant Bridget Kennedy and Detective Constable Sasha McEvoy. Is Jessica home?’

Oh God. What now? Could the timing possibly be any worse? It’s 5 p.m. on Friday night; shouldn’t the detective be finished for the week? Shouldn’t they all?

‘I’m here.’ Jess comes forward to position herself next to Alex. His arm snakes around her waist: his way of saying sorry for losing his rag.

The detective is holding out a piece of paper. ‘Jessica Foster, this is an occupier’s notice to search and enter 31/165 Stanton Street. The warrant was applied for on the basis of having reasonable grounds to believe that we’ll find evidence relating to the disappearance of Dylan O’Shea.’

Shock roots her to the spot. A warrant! Evidence! Dylan O’Shea! What do they think they’re going to find here? Dylan can’t have disappeared; Jess has questions she needs fucking answered.

‘Move, Jess.’ Alex manoeuvres her out of the way. ‘You’ve got to let them in.’

49

BRIDGET

Jessica and her boyfriend, Alex, stand mutely in the living room. His hand rests on her shoulder; they both seem shell-shocked. The apartment is well-proportioned and thoughtfully furnished. Bridget already knows that the deeds are in Jessica’s name.

Sasha starts on the bedroom, while Bridget stays with the couple.

‘We need to seize your phone,’ she informs the young woman, not unsympathetically; she understands that it’s a major inconvenience. ‘The texts between you and Dylan could be important evidence.’

‘We never even met in the end.’ Jessica’s eyes flick upwards to her boyfriend, who is considerably taller than her. There’s a strange dynamic between them. An unfinished argument? ‘I didn’t turn up the first time – my sister called around unexpectedly – and he didn’t respond when I tried to reschedule.’

‘We shouldn’t need to keep your phone for very long, then,’ Bridget states matter-of-factly.

Jessica could be lying. If they did meet up, she could have been the last person to see Dylan O’Shea. Alternatively, her boyfriend might have taken a dim view of the proposed meeting.

Sasha finds a small amount of cannabis in a bedroom drawer, which Alex admits to owning. Bridget advises him that he’ll be issued with a caution; he doesn’t seem overly perturbed. On closer scrutiny, it’s hard to tell if his blank expression is shock, as she first thought, or extreme nonchalance. He’s hard to read.

‘What do you do for work, Alex?’

‘I’m a landscaper.’

‘And there’s a family farm in the Hunter Valley, is that right?’

‘Yeah.’ He looks surprised that she knows this fact.

‘Been back there recently?’

‘Not for a few months. Work’s been busy.’

‘Got some motorbikes on the farm?’

‘Yeah, a few.’

‘Yamahas?’

‘Suzukis. And a Honda.’

The search of Megan Lowe’s property is being conducted concurrently by Dave and Patrick. Everyone’s Friday-night plans have gone by the wayside. Hopefully, they’ll have something to show for it.

Sasha emerges from the bedroom again, holding a black puffer jacket aloft. ‘Which of you owns this?’

Jess glares at her boyfriend. ‘For God’s sake, Alex, you told me you’d given that back to Ramsey.’

He blushes; it’s obvious he’s been caught out in a lie. ‘Ramsey said it isn’t his. Thought I better hang on to it till someone claims it.’

‘These stains look quite like blood.’ Sasha’s soft voice contains a thread of