Insecure Read online

  She stepped up beside him, a hand to his shoulder. “You cut yourself on that broken glass.”

  “Your boyfriend got me a bandaid.”

  “Jay. He’s my neighbour—”

  “Sure.”

  She sighed and he wanted to punch his forehead into the glass. He was acting like a prize jerk. He braced his hand on the window instead, so he felt the sound wave as it met the glass, hit his palm, ricocheted through his arm and whacked his chest. The thunderous sound of it was muted, but still an assault on his ears. “Holy fuck.”

  “Dear God.”

  There was grey smoke and then the weight of silence so heavy it made the screaming that followed surreal. Another gas explosion, a bomb, what?

  “Oh my God. Oh my God.”

  He heard the fear and shock in Jacinta’s voice and he reached for her. She came into his arms, tucked her face into his shoulder. Underneath them was carnage, people down and not moving, others running, covered in blood and scurrying with panic. His other hand was a fist made of the horror.

  “Why?” She virtually sobbed it, pulling away, turning her back to the window.

  “I should go.” He meant to help instead of being a spectator.

  She put her hand to his face. “No. It might not be finished.” She went to the television and turned it on and they saw the whole thing again, this time as breaking news from a ground angle, this time with the shocked voices of the commentators overlaying it. They heard the sirens in stereo.

  His head felt clear. He needed to move. “I’m going down there. I have to do something.”

  “I need shoes. I’m coming with you. I have a first-aid kit.”

  On the TV a talking head appealed for calm. The front door opened and Jay was in the room, white-faced, his hands shaking.

  “I was down there. I thought I’d watch from the street. God. Fuck. It’s like hell.”

  Mace turned to Jacinta. “Stay with Jay.”

  He went for the door, but Jay caught his arm. “They won’t let you out. There are cops on the door already.”

  He pulled away. He only got as far as the lift and Jacinta was in the corridor. “You don’t want to see this.”

  Jay held the door to the apartment and called her back, but she ignored both of them. She stabbed the lift button repeatedly. “Jay’s right. They’re not going to let us out there anyway.”

  “So go back inside.”

  She gave him the barest glance and got in the open lift door. “Do you have any first aid training?” She was calm, assessing the situation, gathering her resources, not a hint of panic in her, outside the excessively deep breaths she took.

  He followed her in. He had nothing but the basics, but there had to be something he could do. “Do you?”

  She shook her head grimly. “We’re going to be in the way.”

  They didn’t even get the chance to do that. A cop stopped them at the door. Jacinta got in his face. “We can help. Let us out to help.”

  She was five foot nothing, slender and girlish in her short dress and flatties and the cop was easy six four, thick with protective padding and riot gear, but he took a step back from her directness. “You need to stay off the street, miss.”

  “You can use my apartment for the wounded, for relief for rescuers, whatever you need.”

  The cop paused, looked down at the swipe key Jacinta was trying to press into his hand. “Miss, step back. We have it covered. Go back inside and let us do our job.”

  Mace reached for her hand. “We should go.” She snatched it away, but ducked back inside the door.

  Neither of them spoke on the way back to her apartment. But just before the doors opened on her floor she reached for his hand. He folded it in his and squeezed it. He had trouble swallowing over the tightness in his throat and she was so pale her tulip petal skin looked like it could tear. Almost directly outside the door were several bodies with tarps over them. She had to have seen them too.

  Jay was standing by the TV but he turned when they came in, his eyes flicking to their joined hands. “There’s coffee.” He gestured over his shoulder to the kitchen. “I took the pan off the heat. It was a bomb, deliberately set. They don’t know if there’s a connection to the gas explosion last night. They’re locking down this part of the city. A twenty-four hour curfew. No one is to be on the street or leave their homes.”

  On the screen a uniformed officer was using words like manhunt and calling for the cooperation of the public. They were flashing up phone numbers: a victim’s hotline, another for information, a map showing the extent of the lockdown, street by street.

  All over again this was like a scene from a movie; a lockdown, a curfew—that stuff didn’t happen here. Jay put a stainless steel mug in his hand. The smell of the coffee made his stomach flip. He had to eat.

  Beside him Jacinta coughed, then put her hand over her mouth. She was going to be sick. She made it to the sink. She had nothing in her to throw up, but she kept retching. Jay beside her stroking her back.

  “Why didn’t you stop her going down there?” he barked.

  “She can make her own decisions.”

  “Not fucking good enough. Who are you anyway?”

  “No one. I’d be gone except...” God knows when he could be gone. A phone rang. Not his but it galvanised him.

  “There’s been ringing on and off since you left,” said Jay.

  Jacinta straightened up, she looked grey. She pushed past Jay and went down the corridor to the ringing.

  Mace fished out his mobile, five missed calls, two from Buster, four percent battery. He rang her room. It rang out. He rang the switch at St Ags and asked someone to track her down. His phone went dead before they did. He flung it at the sofa and looked up to see Jay watching him.

  “I guess you’ll be sticking around then.”

  “Not much choice.” Though maybe he could bargain his way past the cops. They’d let the race crowd disperse, what was one more guy?

  “She’s important to me.”

  “I gathered.”

  “No, you don’t get it.”

  “I’m in the way. I get it.”

  “No fuckhead, you don’t.”

  “Jay.” Jacinta’s tone shut Jay’s mouth. “You should go.”

  “I’ll go.” Mace grabbed for his phone, went for his bags. On the TV some politician in casual clothes was calling for people to be calm.

  She met him at the door. “They’re not going to let you out.”

  “I’ll make it work.” She put her hand to his chest and looked up at him. This was goodbye. They couldn’t talk privately at work and he might not even run into her again, and Jay was hovering. “Are you all right?”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  Of course she would. He’d confused her for a moment with someone less capable, less in control because she’d wrapped his shirt in her fist and was hanging on. He leant forward and kissed her forehead, she released his shirt and he stepped though the door.

  Before it closed he heard Jay say, “He’ll be back.”

  A different cop was on the door but the bodies were still there. He pushed it open and stepped out.

  The cop put his combat boot in the door to hold it open. “You need to go back inside, sir.”

  “I don’t live here. I need to get home.”

  “Put your bags down and open them up.”

  He did and when he straightened there were two other cops and a sniffer dog. “I need to get home.” He needed to get to St Ags, to Buster. He needed a phone to call Dillon and tell him to keep his hair on.

  “ID.”

  He went for his wallet and the cop stopped his arm. “Tell me what you’re going to do.” Man, heavy. They released the dog and it snuffled around his bags and he described where his wallet was. The dog went to its haunches, which seemed to be an all clear sign, and the cop fished out his wallet and pulled out his driver’s licence.

  “Mason Lauder. What are you doing in this part of the city?”
r />   “I was with a friend.”

  “That friend live in this building?”

  He nodded.

  “So you’ll be staying with that friend until the curfew is over.”

  He thought about saying friend was a pseudonym for one night stand and that he’d made the career limiting move of fucking his boss’ boss’ boss’ boss, and there probably weren’t even enough bosses in that thought, and furthermore there were things he had to do, but what could he say? Countless people killed or injured, the city on high alert, a terrorist manhunt in progress. His issues were immaterial.

  He shouldered his laptop bag and rezipped his duffle. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to cause a hassle.”

  The foot in the door cop pushed it open and he went back inside. Without a lift swipe he’d have to camp out in the foyer, or buzz her to come get him. Not that he wanted to go back to her apartment and have to deal with the boyfriend.

  He put his back to the glossy marble and slid to the floor. Took his shoe off and closed his eyes. It was going to be long day.

  5: Locked Down

  If she could force dry toast down Jacinta might stop feeling sick, and she needed her wits about her to deal with Malcolm.

  It didn’t matter to him the world outside her doorstep had gone apocalyptic; he wanted a new strategy for dealing with the shareholder discontent and the failed takeover. He didn’t ask if she was concerned, unsettled, and he’d know precisely what was going on: he had a hotline to the mayor’s office. It wasn’t that she expected any consideration from him, but after seeing those faces: the mother cradling the limp, bloody body of a child, the man with one arm blown clean off, the bodies under cover outside the front door, Malcolm’s lack of basic human compassion was harder than usual to take.

  And so was Jay’s overbearing clinginess. The only thing she wanted to do was go rescue Mace. She could see him on the foyer security camera sitting on the floor, one shoe off, his head tipped back, trying no doubt to wish the day away. If she could have her way there’d be no explosions, no terror threat, Jay would go home and stay there, Malcolm would fuck off, and she’d coerce Mace back to bed. None of that was easily doable.

  She’d dispense with Jay as soon as they worked out the details for a marathon victims relief fund. Next to Malcolm, Jay was one of the richest men in the country. Unlike Malcolm, he believed in philanthropy. She’d match Jay dollar for dollar from her own account and despite the fact it was Saturday he’d have it set up, staffed and working by tomorrow. They could be assessing needs and dispensing money by Monday, when she’d have the marketing department look into sponsoring whatever was needed to rebuild the credential of the marathon.

  She needed a clearer head, twenty minutes and one definitive email to fuck Malcolm off. But it might take her the rest of the morning to coach Mace out of the foyer. He hadn’t attempted to buzz the apartment. He disliked her, but she couldn’t leave him there.

  She thought she’d been so wise in choosing him. The quiet, deadly smart one. The one who didn’t give a hoot for office politics, professional status, or playing the power game. She’d known who she was dealing with. He was a code whizz, a tech genius, always one step away from being officially reprimanded for not following protocol, but too much of an asset for anyone to bother taking on.

  She liked how his brain worked. She couldn’t help but be attracted to him physically. He was straight out of some men’s extreme sport magazine, all tight muscle and spare hips, shoulders that could hold the world up and eyes that gave you nothing, but the kicker, the deal sealer, was that he didn’t care who she was, or what she could do for him, and that was a rare and precious commodity.

  She’d even bated him about that and got the fringe of his temper to show.

  All that about Mace, the shock of the explosion, and the frustrations of the day had been enough to tempt her out of her self-imposed sexual exile and proposition him. She’d fully expected to be going home alone then avoiding the tower, the floor he worked on for months.

  But he was a mistake, a giant writhing, seething lake of blunder, not because he could talk, start any number of truths and rumours, but because when he touched her he made her think another life was possible. A life outside work.

  And that was ridiculous. That was the unrelenting pressure, the sheer loneliness she felt whenever she had time to stop. Her career was unhealthy. But it was a small price to pay. The board would force Malcolm to name his successor by the end of the year, and assuming they got past yesterday’s disaster the company would be hers. She’d be the youngest CEO of a national bank, one of only four women leading a top one hundred listed company. The triumph of that ambition was worth every twisted hint of lonely, every twinge of sexual frustration. And it was certainly worth reminding herself that Mason Lauder was a one night stand.

  So why did she care if he was stubborn enough to sit in the foyer all day?

  She drank the coffee Jay pressed on her and thought about rumbling with Mace on the bed. She’d thrown water on him and he’d tackled her. That must’ve been when the glass got broken, her ears had been so full of the sound of her own heart and his gruff laughter she’d missed it.

  God, he had a laugh that could put gossamer wings around your heart. He’d laughed with surprise and disbelief when she’d propositioned him. That’d only made her want him more. And he’d laughed in the bedroom when she’d wrestled with him and he’d been able to master her so easily.

  He was otherwise so taciturn, so reluctant to speak, so hard to read, outside of a wayward eyebrow that could mean anything, but so unguarded and truthful when he let go. The way he reacted when she slipped, let that old fear come through, he was offended to think she’d worried he might hurt her. And he’d disliked Jay on sight and didn’t care enough to hide it.

  But he’d been desperate to get away. He was halfway out the door with one shoe on when she stumbled into the living room. He only stayed because she made it hard for him to go, to stick it up Jay, and because he looked like he was ready to fall down. But then he’d held her like she was semi-precious to him, or was she imagining that, because the idea of showering with her was repulsive to him, and there he sat on the hard floor of the foyer for what was destined to be a very long, distressing day.

  When Jay went back across the hall she slapped a sandwich on a plate, poured fresh coffee and went down to the foyer. She was barefoot, but unless Mace was asleep, he would’ve heard the lift ping, but he didn’t stir, not even when she sat beside him.

  He’d bled through the plaster and his shoe was full of blood. His laptop was open at his side but it was blacked out.

  “I brought you a sandwich.”

  He opened his eyes. “You didn’t have to do that.”

  “There’s a sexy man in my foyer with a hangover, bleeding and starving to death. I felt I should launch a humanitarian effort to save him.”

  He tried not to smile, but it was there, a twitch of his cheek, the jump of his brow. He took the plate out of her hand. “Thanks.”

  “You know I have a perfectly good working PC upstairs, fresh bandages and headache pills. You don’t have to pretend to like me.”

  He took a bite of the sandwich and groaned. It was a gourmet BLT because Jay made it.

  “They’ve said it’s not linked to last night. They’ve identified a lone bomber. A man who got ripped off in a finance scam. Lost his home, his family—his mind.”

  Mace ate but didn’t otherwise respond. She should leave him to stew. He could buzz if he wanted to come up. “Seventy-one injured, three on the critical list, four dead. Tragic, but I guess it could’ve been so much worse.”

  He picked up the coffee mug and sipped. He looked out the glass doors to where a forensic squad were working. “I don’t have words to...this makes everything...different.”

  It was her turn to be quiet. They sat in silence and watched people in bomb disposal gear sift debris. On any other day, the street would be filled with commuters, shoppers, tourists.r />
  He broke the unnatural stillness. “I need to use your phone.”

  Back in her apartment he dumped his gear and she led him through to the bathroom, made him sit on the edge of the bath so he could sluice the sodden plaster off his foot.

  “That needs stitching.” The cut was wide and angry. “You’ll have to stay off it.” She was no nurse, but she figured iodine couldn’t hurt, except it did because he flinched and then apologised for almost kneeing her in the shoulder. She taped him up and then showed him to her office. Her desktop PC was still on. She handed Mace her laptop and pointed out the phone. “Use whatever you need.”

  “Thanks.”

  “The password is—”

  He was already logged on using whatever tech guru password worked. “Slick.”

  “Slick would’ve been having enough smarts to hack your security system so you couldn’t see me on the foyer camera.”

  She laughed. “You did look pathetic.”

  He grinned at the laptop screen.

  “Why didn’t you buzz to come back up?”

  “You had company already.”

  She leant against the doorjamb. “You can’t possibly be jealous of Jay.”

  He grunted an affirmative.

  “Apparently you can. He’s—”

  “None of my business.”

  “Very true.” She watched Mace looking at a message stream on an unfamiliar screen, nothing as pedestrian as Outlook or Gmail. “How’s your head feel?”

  He didn’t look around. “Halloween pumpkin. The sandwich helped, but I’m dehydrated.”

  “I’ll get you a drink.”

  “You don’t have to wait on me.”

  “You don’t have to be so prickly.”

  He stopped typing and swivelled the chair around. “Sorry.” He looked up. “I’m your basic antisocial muppet. I’m not good at small talk. But then you probably knew that before you hit on me.”