Bleeding Hearts. Lindy Cameron

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СКАЧАТЬ hi Hector."

      "What was the job?"

      "I was wondering if you could do a background check on someone for me."

       "Sure. Who?"

      "A writer called Darian Renault," Kit said. "Author of Shoot. Have you read it, or heard of him?"

       "Haven't read the book but I've heard that he's a wanker."

      "That's a fair description. I doubt it's his real name. He says he's twenty-eight but looks older."

      "Well he probably would if he's an ex-junkie."

      "Maybe. But I don't think he is. Was," Kit commented. "Anyway, he lives at 42 Chumley St, Abbortsford with his pregnant girlfriend Rhonda Devon who used to be a nurse. She says they met in Adelaide three years ago when Darian was there on holidays."

      "OK. Give me a couple of days," Hector said.

      "Good. Then we should talk about making your detective delusions a reality - sort of," Kit said.

       "Yeah? Are you fair dinkum, O'Malley?"

      "Usually. We'll talk about it, OK?"

      Kit hung up. Moments later she shook her head to retrieve her mesmerised consciousness from the swirling doodads of her screensaver. She batted the mouse with her fingers to stop the constant movement on the monitor, then decided she should check chapter nine of her detective novel to see if the crime-fiction fairies had written anything for her while she'd been out working her day job.

      They hadn't.

      Her hero - the bold, dashing, assertive, vivacious, clever and adventurous Flynn Carter - was still moping about, uselessly, having been struck down by a virulent strain of the once-resolved sexual tension bug. Which, unlike the unresolved variety, was much harder for the character, not to mention the writer, to deal with.

      "Oh, you're hopeless, Flynn," Kit said to the half-written chapter. "Get with it. Okay?"

      Kit tried to help by casting her mind back, just seven weeks, to draw inspiration from her own steamy, mind-blowing and passionate encounter with serious lust. When her right leg started the knee-jigging thing, a habit Kit was not prone to, she realised she was coming over all queer and tingly - and silly - and that conjuring that night was not going to help this fictional problem. It was one instance when the 'use what you know' theory of creative writing was a hindrance.

      And why, you may ask? Kit asked herself.

      Because, the lust part is not the problem - in fiction or fact, herself replied. Love is the problem. In fact love has always been the problem.

      Kit had given lust and love to the fictional Flynn; now neither of them knew what to do with it. Actually, if Kit's own 'is it love' status was any indication, this was a thing she'd never figure out.

      Crikey! she thought. Ooh, that's a nice old-fashioned word, her thoughts appended.

      But yes! Crikey indeed! She'd had, how many phone calls with Alex in the last nine weeks? And what had they talked about? Not it, that's for sure. Not once had they talked about it. Not it, not them, not anything much. In fact, if she thought about it - which she did most of the time - she'd probably missed more calls and left more messages than had actual conversations.

      She sighed. Deeply. If only it had been 'just lust', she thought. You'd be over it now.

      Kit raised her eyebrows. Over it? What do you want to be over it for? If it is love, you want to be in it - forever. Fool.

      Kit decided her screensaver was way more productive and sensible than she was, so she left the bytes to their own devices and headed into the kitchen to try and find something to cook for dinner.

      Thistle, who raced her to the bench, had suggested salmon mouse, rabbit terrine, and chicken anything by the time Kit got there.

      "Oh dear, this is sad," Kit said, noting the wide-open spaces inside her fridge. "We could film a not-likely-to-survive in the wilderness documentary in here, Thistle. Looks like it's bacon and eggs for me and, oh, bacon and eggs for you too."

      "Mlaa-cack."

      "Too bad," Kit replied. "Besides if I went out especially to buy you the canned SniffyPuss special, you'd only want my dinner anyway. So how about we start out with the same food and see what happens."

      "Glaang," Thistle mewed.

      "Good girl," Kit replied, figuring The Cat had said either 'okay' or 'bummer'.

      CHAPTER THREE

      Victoria Bennet had done quite nicely out of the divorce settlement her errant husband had been forced to agree to the previous month. Kit smiled broadly as she turned in through the gateway in the three-metre high sandstone fence, and headed up the steep driveway to the house.

      House? This is not a house, she thought, as an uncontrolled 'wow' took over her face. This is a mansion's mansion, with a panorama and a half!

      Kit figured the split-level, multi-balconied and windowed residence probably commanded a 240 degree view, sweeping around from Red Bluff, to the north of Half Moon Bay, then west and south across Port Phillip as far as the eye could see.

      Residence, mansion, beach house - whatever it is! - it's now Tori's. Which just proves that sometimes the right people win, Kit thought, deciding it was bloody marvellous that she'd a hand in making that so.

      She queued her RAV behind a Beamer, a Merc and a VW Beetle and got out, noting again the difference a half-way-decent vehicle can make to a person's self esteem. Acknowledging, also again, how incredibly shallow that was as a concept, she gave herself a mental slap and amended her original thought to: 'a professional person's self esteem'.

      While her old car had always been reliable, she had frequently disowned it as a rent-a-bomb, and had often worried that it would be towed to a wrecker's yard if it was parked anywhere for too long. So, as she jogged up, and up, the steps to Tori's front door she had to agree with herself that a Toyota four-wheel-drive better suited her reputation as a PI who could secure this kind of outcome for her client. Stopping on the second landing, which was at least another 35 steps from the front door, she wondered, however, why the hell this outcome hadn't included a lift.

      The prenuptial agreement that Frank Bennet had required Tori to sign before their marriage five years before had ultimately worked in her favour. This had obviously not been his intention. The deal had been that in the event of a divorce she would get nothing more than eight per cent of his financial assets, plus their $250,000 city apartment. Tori had agreed without question. Eight per cent of Frank Bennet was a great deal of money. Besides, she really did love him.

      In the only acknowledgement of their age difference - Frank being more than twenty years her senior - he had worried that Tori would be tempted to take a holiday from their marriage bed, so he had included an extra clause: if an affair was the reason for the divorce then the agreement would be null and void and the offended party would retain the entire estate.

      Frank Bennet was a self-made multi-millionaire, СКАЧАТЬ