Page 12 of Last Breath (Blood Wine Dynasty #2)

Nella

‘Only fools represent themselves,’ Avery told Nella as he half-filled a Styrofoam cup with black, burnt coffee.

‘Where did you get that line from? CSI Miami or The Good Wife ?’

‘Suit yourself, Barbie-rani.’

‘Cheap shot.’

‘I know better than to play verbal scrabble with you.’ Avery’s eyes crinkled. ‘I am but a mortal man.’

His attempt to ‘get the suspect onside’ crawled over her skin. ‘What do you need to know, Avery? Do you want a timeline of my movements since I left Perth? DNA? Want to do a strip search in case I’m hiding the murder weapon in my—’

‘That won’t be necessary. And that’s highly illegal.’

‘It’s so cute when you guys pretend to know the law.’

She was stalling. He knew she was stalling.

Surely Noah Avery didn’t actually think she’d killed Clarkson Lieu.

He was the one who’d held her as she’d started to shake uncontrollably once the paramedics separated her from Jett after the gala.

And she’d sobbed and garbled nonsensical incantations at him – asking for Jett, asking for her sister, and then, in one particularly deluded moment, her mother.

She knew he had just been doing his job, but she hadn’t forgotten how, after soothing her into a semi-sitting position, he’d turned away to wipe a hand across his glassy blue eyes.

Avery didn’t pass her challenges, but he had that kind of lumberjack, teddy-bear vibe that she could definitely find attractive in the right mood.

Her mind was doing that thing she’d trained it to do in situations like this, she realised.

It was only a temporary dam and soon the true weight and heaviness of Clarkson’s death would flood and drown her.

But as Avery sat down, that tiny self-preservation pixie inside her tried to imagine how his beard would feel between her thighs.

It wasn’t enough to hold back that strange feeling she couldn’t name, though, which had been festering since she’d learnt Jett was leaving.

She gave Avery her timeline, all the boring details sans bowel movements.

She skipped over the part where Jett had caught her with her mouth around some guy’s penis and she’d thrown her vibrator at him.

She also didn’t tell Avery that they’d fought about him leaving, or how Jett had basically called her spoiled and selfish.

She did try to be as specific as she could about the time she arrived at her office, and was careful not to go overboard with details, because she didn’t want her words to be twisted into something else later on – like providing the real killer with a plausible alibi.

Witness testimonies were rarely enough to convict someone with, because human memory was one of the most unreliable factors in a murder case.

There were innocent people on Death Row who’d been wrongfully convicted by someone’s faulty memory.

‘So, you knew Clarkson before today?’ Avery frowned at his notes.

Nella chose her next words carefully. ‘We were in undergrad law together. Shared a few classes. He came to the burger joint I worked at sometimes. Saw him at a few parties.’

‘And your interactions with him were entirely platonic?’

‘Are anyone’s interactions at uni parties ever entirely platonic? I’m pretty sure we kissed once.’

They had, definitely. And it was Clarkson she’d been waiting for in her bed at the Easter-break party she and Eliza had thrown at their share house.

But his roommate was the one who’d turned up, throwing himself onto her mattress, nudging her with his foot.

She’d pretended to be asleep. At the start.

It wasn’t rape, she’d chastised herself as she pressed her head against the glass of Jett’s car as he drove her back to Bindi Bindi that morning.

It was rape if you said ‘no’, if you fought back.

Rape was violent and painful and didn’t count if it was just his fingers.

Nella hadn’t said ‘no’. She hadn’t pulled away when he’d tried to kiss her.

She didn’t get to be upset about that. She had a voice. She knew how to use it. And she hadn’t.

But she’d never seen Clarkson again, because she didn’t want to see his roommate.

It was a shame, because Clarkson had been a really good kisser, and he was rich, because his dad owned a successful tour company.

Being rich meant Clarkson wouldn’t only want to kiss her because of the family she came from.

Avery cleared his throat. ‘Antonella? And you didn’t see him again for ...’

She focused on being a good witness. ‘Six years.’

‘Even though he worked on your father’s legal team?’

He what? ‘I didn’t know that. I thought my brother hired him based on his reputation.’

Avery frowned. He flicked through his brown folder of notes. ‘Hard to believe you were unaware of their connection, seeing as you work in law too.’

‘I’ve done everything within my power to separate my career from my father’s.’

‘But you haven’t totally separated yourself, have you?’ Avery’s finger ran over a heading that Nella couldn’t read despite the blinding fluorescent light of the meeting room. ‘You represented Francesca two years ago when she was charged with destruction of property.’

‘Francesca, yes, but not my father,’ Nella said. The taste of her sister’s name on her tongue was caustic. ‘I don’t ... didn’t ... ever get involved in my father’s affairs.’

‘So that’s why Tomaso hired Clarkson? Because he knew you would refuse to take the lawsuit?’

‘I think Tom honestly thought Clarkson would be better than me. He’s annoyed I’ve been AWOL after the gala.’

Avery’s eyes crinkled again. ‘I can’t say I blame you.’

Stop trying to get me to like you. We’ll never be on the same side.

Avery was a good boy. A superman, Captain America, fighting for the cause.

She was Maleficent, Cruella de Vil. The blood running through her veins was poison.

And Avery knew that; he’d been hunting her family since he’d first made detective in Bindi Bindi Cove.

She was very familiar with Avery types – they usually made it quite a way up her list, passing all the challenges. But they would never respect her.

‘What was the last interaction you had with Clarkson, Nella?’

Nella sipped the liquid crime he’d put in front of her, which tasted like wet bark, as she thought back to that morning. She’d been too fired up at Tom and the rest of her family, and Jett for dragging her back in the first place, to really pay attention to what Clarkson had said.

‘He needed a place to go, to make some calls,’ she told Avery. ‘I offered him my file room as a temporary office.’

‘Did he say who he was calling?’

Nella tried to recall the scent of Daisy’s anti-dandruff shampoo to bring back that moment, when her paralegal had her in a vice-grip and Clarkson was mumbling through the door of the room.

‘He said there was some inconsistency.’ She chewed her lip.

She’d been so wrapped up in herself that she hadn’t bothered to push Clarkson on that.

‘If you show me his notes, then I can help you with the shorthand.’

Avery raised a freckled eyebrow. ‘Because a lowly detective like me wouldn’t be able to decipher something as complex as a lawyer’s to-do list?’

‘Just trying to be helpful.’

He assessed her like he was weighing something up. Could he trust her? Or was she just another wolfish Barbarani in designer sheep’s clothing?

‘Did you hear him mention someone called Abby?’

So, he’d chosen trustworthy. Interesting. Or it was a trap? ‘No. Why?’

‘That’s all we found with him. A post-it-note with Abby written on it.’

‘Can I see it?’

‘No. It’s evidence.’ And you’re a suspect.

‘There’ll be more information in his—’

‘Notebook, yes. Like I told you, there were no other notes in your file room or with Clarkson’s body.’

‘But ...’ Nella closed her eyes. Dandruff shampoo, the clink of Pearl’s jewellery, the tap of Ian’s keys.

‘He had a notebook or a journal with him – he kept a record of everything that was going on when you lot came to our property. And he was writing in it when he was in the file room. Green. It was green!’

Avery blinked. ‘There was nothing like that at the crime scene.’

‘Who handled the evidence?’ The pit of her stomach frothed.

‘My officers.’

‘Well, someone fucked up, didn’t they? Or you’ve tampered with—’

BAM!

His fist slammed on the table. Black drops of coffee jumped out of the Styrofoam. ‘Don’t you dare!’ he said. She’d trained herself to not react to these kinds of things, but she hadn’t been prepared this time. ‘Especially after—’

After I dragged you out of the bloodbath your family started. After I gave the murderer the antidote you screamed at me to administer even though they’d tried to kill you.

Did Avery think she was in his debt?

She hadn’t made up Clarkson’s green notebook. If it wasn’t in her file room, and if Avery’s officers weren’t crooked (which she wasn’t completely ruling out), then she had to find it.

‘I’m sorry.’ Avery dragged a hand over his face again. ‘It’s been a long day. I didn’t mean to lose control like that.’

‘If you keep going all soft like that, then people aren’t going to respect you, Avery,’ she said, allowing a smile. ‘Sometimes you gotta bang a fist on a table to make a point.’

Whether or not Avery was right – whether or not she owed him – she’d chosen allegiance for now.

She needed the police on her side if she was going to figure out who might have taken Clarkson’s notebook.

There was also the possibility the cops had missed it.

She’d need access to her office as soon as possible.

‘Have you told his family?’

Avery nodded. ‘His father, Yuze, lives half an hour away. He owns Bindi Charters, the tour bus company.’

I know.

It felt like someone was wrenching a rusty fishhook through her stomach as she pictured the twinkling eyes and kind, chubby cheeks of Yuze Lieu, remembered him bellowing along to ‘It’s Raining Men’ at the top of his lungs as they drove up Forrest Highway to Perth.

He’d wanted Clarkson to carry on the family tour company but even when they argued about it, you could still tell Yuze was proud of his son.

It annoyed Nella, because Clarkson was the closest she ever got to someone understanding what it was like to be a Barbarani, and it still wasn’t enough.

Yuze never told Clarkson he would come crawling back one day, that he had no business having dreams of his own when the whole reason he’d been put on this earth was to continue the family business.

And have children who would grow up and continue the family business too.

‘Yuze Lieu’s sick,’ Avery admitted. ‘He’s trying to sell the company. He identified the body.’ Avery’s tone was clipped.

‘What do you think happened to Clarkson?’ Nella asked, refusing to acknowledge the burning in her throat that had nothing to do with the awful coffee.

He held her gaze before letting out a deep sigh. ‘I honestly think you’d have a better idea than me.’

‘It was the La Marcas.’

Avery’s frown deepened.

‘I know you think I’m just saying that because I’m a Barbarani, but it had to have been them. There must be something in that notebook that was going to eviscerate their bullshit claim that my grandfather profited from a stolen recipe, and they killed Clarkson for it.’

She shouldn’t have said it so calmly. She should be whimpering and hiccupping and acting like a proper victim.

This was one of the reasons she’d never told anyone about what happened with Clarkson’s roommate: she didn’t know how to play a real victim.

Even at Sally Sue’s trial, Nella had been accused by one journalist of looking ‘bored’.

How could she be a victim when she was born with all the privileges people like Jett didn’t even know existed?

You can’t be the villain and the victim in the same story.

Avery stared at her. ‘We’ll investigate every avenue.’ Cop translation: I don’t believe you. Silence ticked away.

‘The others – Pearl and the rest – have you talked to them? Are they okay?’

‘You know I can’t comment on other interviews, Nella. But no one’s under arrest. No one else was in the office when your second-in-command found him, they’d all gone home.’

‘Ian found him?’

‘He claims he left his gym bag behind at the office.’ Avery said it in a tone that suggested that was the most outlandish thing he’d heard in his entire career. Forgetfulness was apparently less common than murder.

‘None of them knew him,’ Nella said. ‘No one from my office would have any reason to want him dead.’

‘So you see my predicament.’ Avery stood. His massive frame made the interrogation room feel like a matchbox. And Nella was the match.

‘I don’t,’ Nella said. ‘You’ve got the La Marcas. You couldn’t have better suspects even if you tried to frame them yourself!’

‘The La Marcas have never met Clarkson Lieu.’

‘Sorry.’ Nella smacked her forehead. ‘I forgot about the physical impossibility of killing someone you don’t know.’

Avery tapped his pen aggravatingly against his notepad.

‘What did they do to him?’ She should have asked that earlier.

Avery looked down. ‘You know I can’t tell you that.’

‘You know I’ll find out anyway.’

He made a sound – a half snort, half grunt of pain. ‘Got that down to an art now, don’t you?’

‘What?’ She stood too, matching his stance – hands on hips, shoulders back, rod up arse.

‘That.’ He waved his hand up and down like he was airport security checking her for bombs. ‘Making everyone do what you want.’

She had no response. But flames licked the base of her throat as she realised what was off about this whole interrogation.

‘You’re not treating this as a murder,’ she said calmly.

‘Why would you say that?’

‘I’ve sat in enough interrogations to know the kind of things you guys ask for different crimes. You’re not treating this as foul play. Or you’ve been told not to treat this as foul play.’

Avery’s ears went red. Bin-fucking-go.

‘They’re going to rule it a suicide, aren’t they?’ His lips formed a thin line but he didn’t correct her, so she kept going. ‘But you’re not as dumb as them, are you, Avery? You reckon there’s something else going on. Tell me.’

Avery looked up at the red camera light flickering in the corner. Who else was watching? ‘We’re finished, Ms Barbarani.’