Ridge Creek (13 page)

At least she didn’t come out of last night unscathed.

Popping three more pills from the packet, I wait for her to
drag herself to a sitting position before handing them over with the second
bottle of water.

“You started it,” I tease her with a small grin on my face.

“You
allowed
it,” she returns taking the pills from
my hand and throwing them back.  I watch as she unscrews her bottle and gulps a
few big mouthfuls of water to wash them down.

“We need a sound system,” I inform her.

“We need a sound system,” she agrees softly.  “That dodgy
mini hi-fi system they’ve got near the pool table sucks.”

“I’ll add that to my list.  You need to get up and take me
shopping.”

Taking another swig of her bottle she looks thoughtful.  I
watch as she uses one hand to gather her hair into a pony tail at the back of
her neck.  “A sound system big enough to keep us happy won’t fit in my car.  My
car is too small.  It’s only got two doors.”

I consider a words for a short while.  “We’ll get it
delivered.  Or perhaps we could buy a ute to carry it in?”  Today, the skies
the limit, I’m starting my new life and there will no barriers.

Emma perks up suddenly, her eyes flashing with excitement. 
“Ooh,
yes,
lets by a truck.  A monster truck or something really cool. 
Something to make a statement, something
kick ass.
”

I roll my eyes at her.  “We are not buying a monster truck
Ems.  I’m supposed to be living under the radar.  No big statements.”

“Haven’t you ever heard the saying ‘hidden in plain sight’? 
I say go big – the bigger the better, you’ll be so obvious no one will
notice
you.”

I start to rub one of my eyes and shake my head at her. 
“I’m not buying a monster truck Ems.  I wouldn’t be able to park it anyway.”

“Kill joy,” she mumbles unhappily picking at the label on
her bottle.   “On a brighter note, did you get lucky last night with Mister
Hot
as Fuck?
”

“Well… no.  Quite the opposite, I got a firm knockback.  I
doubt I’ll be going there again.”

Emma scrunches her brows again and looks confused.  “How
weird is that?  He looked hot to trot.  Every time he looked at you I could
have sworn he was the guy dying of thirst and you were the fresh water.  What
the fuck?”

At least I’m not the only one who thought he was keen.  My
newly tuned ‘man-dar’ isn’t
that
far out of tune.

“What’s weirder,” she continues, “is Zane knocked
me
back too.  What was with that?  Are they fuckin’ gay?”

Brief visions of Jake and Zane getting some man action cross
my mind and I cringe. 

Crap – no way. 

How did we miss that?  Surely not?

“Nah, Jakes married,” I share remembering one of our
conversations.

“He’s
what!” 
Emma snaps out loudly.  “Fuck
no.
 
What an asshole.  I swear he was flirting with you.  He
can’t
do that if
he’s married.  Asshat, assclown, asswipe…”

I cut her off.  “Settle down Ems, he’s explained he’s trying
to divorce her.  He’s not
happily
married.”

“Mm,” she stops her tirade to look thoughtful again, “maybe
so, but have you
seen
her?”

Good point.  Men can be liars.  For all I know she could be
waiting at home living the happy wife life and he’s just gadding about doing
whatever he likes.  Or worse still, he is trying to divorce her but still feels
something for her and can’t bring himself to move on.  He could be with her
right now for all I know.

Jesus.

“No I haven’t,” I reply and decide to leave it at that.

I watch as she purses her lips and nods.  I can see her mind
working overtime but she too decides enough has been said.

“Oh well, there’s plenty more treats for us to snack on. 
Did you get a load of Luke?  Or that other guy, Nick?  Now he was
hawt
too.  I had no idea the hotness that biker men were hiding beneath their
helmets, face scarves and leather jackets.  Jesus, it’s like we’ve landed in
our personal man garden and we just have to pick the crop.”

Shaking my head at her again, I realize that she is in her
element here.  Men a plenty and lots of excitement.  I start to roll from the
bed, the pounding in my head slightly lessening as the pills start to kick in. 
“Time to hit the shower, I need you to take me to a bank and help me set an
account up.  I need a credit card too.”

“Sure, you shower, I’ll find food.  Where do I look?”

I stand and turn back to face Emma.  “That’s another issue
that needs correcting.  There’s no food here.  The guys go out and buy
take-away, or order it in for every meal.  We are living in a shop Emma, a
place of work.  The place is not set up for permanent living.  I had some
decent food early on when I got here, cooked by Jake and Zane’s mum.  Since
then, crap.  When I asked if someone could take me to the supermarket I
received blank stares.  Biker men don’t do groceries. We need to go grocery
shopping and set up a kitchen.”

Looking appalled Emma mutters, “Christ, right, lets add
grocery shopping to the list.”

*****

“You just let him sit up there crapping on stuff while you
drive around?” I question Emma as we pull away from the kerb out the front of
the shop in her gorgeous burgundy, 2008 Maserati Gran Turismo.  I am astounded
that she is happy to let her parrot have free reign of her leather interior and
polished timber trimmings.

“It’ll clean,” she chuckles as she leans across to give
Jambo a chuck under the chin.  The crazy bird is sitting front and center in
the middle of the dashboard.  “He loves it.  I think he was a race car driver
in his previous life.  Check out the way he leans into the corners.  It’s just
another thing he does that makes me laugh.  He’s a hoot.”

And she’s not wrong.  The bird is hilarious.  From the
moment he’d laid eyes on Emma this morning, he hadn’t shut up.  He appeared to
be overjoyed that she was alive from the moment we entered the communal room
this morning.  He had demonstrated this by jabbering in Swahili, singing songs
in English, swearing in English and also doing stunts in the air and on the
ground.  He genuinely seems to love his new female owner and is doing his best
to please her and keep her close. 

As soon as he laid eyes on her, he opened his cage and made
a beeline to his new girlfriend.  Since then he’s stuck to her like glue. 
Either riding on some part of her anatomy or sitting on an object nearby paying
out on whoever is closest with a stream of obscenities.  Sometimes his tirades
were even directed at inanimate objects.  These outbursts were even funnier.

I am now watching the little guy strutting up and down the
dashboard as she drives.  The only time he stops his strutting is at
intersections where he plants his feet, looks out the windscreen and leans with
the turns.  Once the car is moving in a straight line again, he resumes his
strutting.

“Where are we headed?” I finally decide to ask as Emma starts
slamming through gears in her car and we shoot out of town at well over the
speed limit.

“Desmond,” she replies without taking her eyes from the
road.  “It’s about an hour away and the closest place I could find with a
staffed bank branch on a Saturday.”

“Do you think it will be busy?” I ask nervously.  This is my
first trip out since that night and I’m feeling edgy.  Even though Emma has
assured me multiple times that no one will be looking for me here, I can still
feel a ball of fear clamping my stomach tight. 

Perhaps I should have just stayed at the shop – it’s
safe.

“Nah, it’s full of farmers and outbackers, you’ve got
nothing to worry about,” Emma replies confidently.  “There is no way you are
going to run into anyone you know in Desmond.”

The saying, ‘famous last words’ crosses my mind and I hope
to God she is right.  Then there’s my other stress factor.  “You sure this ID
is going to work?”

“Positive baby, its rock solid.  I normally get paid fifty
grand for a set of documents as tight as yours,” she mumbles absentmindedly as
she starts fiddling with the satellite navigator built into the center console.

“
Fifty
grand!” I screech loudly as I swing to face
her in my seat.  “Did you say
fifty
grand?”

“Fifty grand!”  Jambo echoes with excitement as he starts
bobbing up and down on the dashboard. 

I flick him an annoyed glance, returning my eyes quickly to
Emma to see her grinning at her little green partner in crime.

“Yeah,” she mumbles as she checks the road ahead before
returning to fiddling with her navigation system, apparently unaffected by my
freak out.

“You’re telling me you’ve done this sort of ID before and
you get paid
fifty
grand to do it?”

She can’t be serious.  I knew she was a hacker and that she
did some other illegal stuff on the side but fifty grand ID’s?

What the fuck?

What is it with the people that I hang around with?  I
appear to be the central pivot point for the people who make appearances on
Australia’s Most Wanted.

“Yeah,” she says again, pressing one last setting on her
navigation screen before leaning back into her seat, her body calm and
relaxed.  It would appear she doesn’t have a worry in the world.

I stare stupidly at her for a few moments and realize she is
not going to elaborate much further without prompting.  Calming down slightly,
I resume a more normal tone of conversation.

“Are you joking with me?”

“Nah,” she replies keeping her eyes on the road.  

And that’s when I spot it.  The one tell-tale sign that
she’s not as calm as she looks.  She’s nibbling on the inside of her bottom
lip.  Something Emma has done for as long as I have known her.  It’s something
she does when she’s bothered and is either covering something up, or holding
something back.

“What aren’t you telling me Ems?” I find myself almost
whispering, the hair on the back of my neck is starting to lift.

“A lot,” she mumbles as she continues to chew on her lip. 

“What’s a lot?” I ask, wondering if I really want to know.

“More than I’ve got time to explain today but suffice to
say, I have quite a few computer
skills
I’ve never discussed with you
and I probably need this fresh start just as much as you.”

Oh my god.

“Are you a criminal too?” I blurt out, a sick feeling
roaring up from my stomach as I suddenly face the harsh reality that not only
Tony has been keeping things from me over the past ten years.

“Sort of,” she mumbles, not taking her eyes off the road and
not looking at me.  Clearly she senses that this is quickly becoming an issue
for me.

“What the fuck do you mean sort of?” I start yelling again. 
“Are you going to get me bashed and raped too?  Will there be more people out
looking for us than just Tony and his goons?  Jesus Christ, how’d I miss
this?   How the fuck did I not know that my boyfriend was a gun running pimp
and my best friend was a…  What the fuck
are
you?”

“I’m an IT specialist, Ari.  You know that,” she says softly
as she finally swings her eyes to me.   And that’s when I stall.  All the
breath leaves my body as I look at her eyes and see what’s showing there. 
Remorse.

She looks truly remorseful that she is only telling me this
now.

“But you do a bit more than hacking for your friend’s and
making fake ID’s for schoolkids yeah?”

I watch her lips twitch slightly as she returns her eyes to
the road.

“I never said I made fake ID’s for schoolkids,” she mumbles.

“No, but you let me
assume
you did.  Why did you do
that?” I ask as my mind flies into overdrive about what she means by an IT
specialist.

“Because how do you explain to your best friend that you’ve
made
millions
doing some dodgy shit with your computer?”

“
Millions!” 
I’m screeching again.

“Millions!” Jambo shrieks loudly as he lifts himself up
slightly and spreads his wings out.  A sure-fire sign that he is getting
excited at the conversation.  Emma leans over and scratches him on the head to
settle him.  The last thing we need is him doing crazy aeronautics in the cabin
of the car while she is driving.

“I thought you inherited a trust fund from your parents?”

“I did,” she confirms as she returns her attention back to
the road again.  “But that ran out,
quickly.
  I have rather
expensive
tastes.”

Which is something I
had
noticed.  Emma sure does
know how to spend money.  Her car is just one small example of the fact.  Money
means nothing to her. She spends it and enjoys it, wanting for nothing.  I’d
just assumed she was spending her trust fund all these years.

“Are you into gun running and prostitutes as well?”  I find
the words dribbling from my mouth before I have time to think about whether I
want to ask them or not.

I watch as she starts chewing her lip again.  “Not directly…
I don’t think...  Maybe.  It’s not up to me to ask why people need their ID’s
or need me to get information from certain
places.
”  She swings her eyes
back to me.  “Ari, can we please let this go?  For now?  What I do is not all
clean
as you might say but I don’t think it’s exactly
dirty
either.  I’m not
selling heroine to schoolkids or anything like that.  It’s hard to explain and
something I  had hoped that I would never have to explain to you.  Which I
doubt I ever would have.  Until that fuckwad Giotti did what he did to you. 
Now everything has changed and we both have a chance to start a clean slate.  
New lives.  New lives where we can be whoever we want to be and live however we
want to live.   Let’s just do that yeah?  I promise I’ll tell you one day, I
just need to get it straight in my head first?  Yeah?”