Bleeding Hearts. Lindy Cameron

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СКАЧАТЬ two houses and an apartment in Melbourne, a house in Sydney, a luxury unit in Noosa, a villa in Tuscany, seven cars, a pleasure cruiser and a light plane. Frank Bennet also had an idiot for a solicitor; an idiot related by marriage to his sister, and currently serving time in prison for fraud. The prenup was so unspecific that Tori's solicitor - armed with Kit's video surveillance tapes - had no trouble arguing that, as the 'offended' party, Tori was entitled to everything that Frank Bennet owned. Given that she was only asking for twenty per cent of his money, one house - this $2.8 million one in Black Rock - two cars and the boat, the judge had no trouble ruling in her favour.

      While Kit had been working Tori's case they had only ever met in cafes and in court, so Kit had never been to the beach-mansion before, although she had seen pictures of the interior. When occupied by the first Mrs Bennet, now known simply as Sharlie (emphasis on the second syllable) the 'face' of Flair Cosmetics, the house-mansion had been featured in a print version of 'lifestyles of the obscenely wealthy and vacuous'. Actually Sharlie's soulless but expensively furnished 'suite of entertaining spaces' had been given a four-page spread in one of the designer-decor magazines that Lillian bought every month. Which was the same thing really.

      Lillian had exhumed the six-year-old article when Kit had asked her if she'd ever heard of Frank Bennett. While Kit had long ago stopped asking her mother why she kept every magazine she ever bought (mostly because the only time she ever thought to ask was when Lillian had just provided some useful info gleaned from those very magazines), she had, on this most recent occasion, questioned why she bought them in the first place. What was the point, Kit had wanted to know, in paying for pages and pages of ads for slate tiles and bidets, just to see a few photos of someone else's lounge, bath or bedroom - which always looked unlived-in and never seemed to include pets or televisions. Who the hell lived like that?

      Not the second Mrs Bennett, that's for sure, Kit thought. While Tori was definitely lapping up the lifestyle to which her ex had introduced her, she was basically a delightful, down to earth, no bullshit kind of person who had no desire to be frivolously famous and was not letting her good fortune, or even her huge fortune, go to her head.

      Kit knew that Tori was not the sort of person who, having acquired the house and goods and chattels would rearrange them all, and then call the editor of Vanity Home and demand her turn at fulfilling their mission statement: 'to show off your home to people who'll never be able to afford what you've got, because they spend all their spare money on our magazine'.

      Kit had liked her now-ex client the first time they'd met, and when the front door was flung open just as her hand reached the doorbell, she knew her initial impression was a true and lasting one.

      "Kit, it is so good to see you!" Tori greeted her with a warm and laugh-filled hug.

      "You look great, Tori," Kit smiled. "I, however, need a drink and a good lie down."

      "Well don't just stand there, come in. But look out for the...uh, oh," Tori began. A clackety-clack and a skippety-clicker across the slate floor tiles, accompanied by a whirlwind of writhing furry excitement, interrupted her warning or, rather, finished her sentence for her.

      A golden Labrador puppy tried to leap into Kit's arms, and a peculiar prancing thing trod all over her feet and then bolted out the door.

      "Shit," Tori said. "Hang on to Bumble will you, while I retrieve that silly flying widget."

      Kit squatted down and allowed herself to be trampled and Bumble-licked, while she watched her hostess pursue the scrawny-hairy, possibly-canine creature around the potted cumquat trees that bordered the huge patio.

      Tori Bennett was honey-haired with blonde tips, blue-eyed with contacts, slim, attractive, fresh-faced and recently forty-four. Today her lippy matched her nail polish and her canvas shoes and, despite the dog chase, she looked a lot more relaxed than the last time Kit had seen her. That had been outside the court, just after her victory, when she'd kneed her 67-year-old ex-husband in the balls because he still didn't count bonking his 19-year-old bimbo secretary as an affair because they'd only ever done it at work.

      "I think I know that dog," Kit admitted as Tori shooed the creature back inside.

      "That is not a dog. It's an alien entity," Tori said, helping Kit to her feet. "It escaped from the mother ship and Miranda, thinking it was an earth species, took it home and taught it how to be ridiculous."

      "I heard that," came a familiar voice from the first room off the hallway.

      "Well, it's true," Tori called out, indicating with a nod that Kit should precede her into what turned out to be a sunbathed sun room.

      The lanky body of Miranda Prentice, with whom Kit had a passing acquaintance because of their mutual friendship with Del, was stretched languidly along a four-seater white wicker couch. Her long brown hair was braided and draped down one shoulder and she was wearing sea-green linen trousers and a white silk T-shirt. One hand held a smoking cigarette and the other a daiquiri.

      "Well this is a small world," Kit smiled. "But you weren't on my list for today."

      "But she was on my list for today, and she was supposed to be here for lunch with RJ last week," Tori explained. "Would you like a daiquiri?"

      "No thanks. I'll have a light beer if you've got any."

      "Not because you're working, surely?" Miranda asked, as if it was a foreign concept.

      "Yes and no, but mostly because I'm driving," Kit said, strolling over to take a look at the view of Port Phillip Bay from the sunroom's wrap-around windows. "So I gather you went to school with Rebecca too."

      "Of course, O'Malley," Miranda stated, in a tone that made Kit feel like there was nothing more stupid than stating the obvious. Miranda Prentice always spoke like that: like a school teacher berating the smart but naughty child in front of the whole class. She never meant anything personal by it, according to Del, but it probably explained why Brigit couldn't stand the woman.

      Kit ran a hand through her hair and sat down in one of the four matching wicker armchairs. "I just wasn't aware that you knew her, or Tori either for that matter."

      "Well, before you ask, it's not me who's sending the notes," Miranda stated, swinging her long legs around and onto the floor so she could sit up properly.

      "I wasn't going to ask," Kit shrugged. "Although, if you're not sending them you're not supposed to know about them." She cast a glance at Tori. "Does everyone coming today know about this?"

      "No, of course not," Tori reassured her. "Just we two. You do know it was Miranda who put me onto you in the first place, Kit."

      "And then Tori passed you on to Rebecca," Miranda smiled.

      "Not to mention the Traders' Action Group in Fitzroy," Kit added. "And no, I didn't know that first referral came from you, Miranda. Thank you."

      Miranda waved her cigarette around in a 'no big deal' kind of way. "Del told me you seemed to know what you're doing. And your success with Frank the Jerk, on Tori's behalf, certainly validated that opinion. Let's just hope you can help catch this letter-writing person as well." Miranda managed to make the word 'person' sound like the proper noun for a plague-infested swamp being.

      "I'll drink to that," Kit stated, accepting her beer from Tori. "So of the six people having lunch today, three including Rebecca, know who I am. Have we given any thought to my cover?"

      "Yes, we have. You're a friend of mine from СКАЧАТЬ