‘I’ll see you later then,’ Ella said, turning away.
‘Hang on a sec there,’ Abel called, bringing her to a quick halt. She turned to see him bend to collect something from the gazebo floor.
‘You dropped this.’ Abe handed Ella her black bra.
* * *
Jake felt like shit. How could a day go from top of the world to shit in half an hour? Poor Ella. The look on her face when Abe handed over the bra … she couldn’t get away fast enough, and he’d had no time to say anything before she’d legged it uphill to the house.
‘Don’t say it,’ he warned Abe as his brother sat back down. Jake didn’t like the smirk on Abe’s face.
‘What? She’s nice. She’s a very nice choice for your real estate agent. I can’t see you inviting Bob Begg out here for a swim.’
‘Don’t be a dick.’
‘What?’ Abe spread his hands wide. ‘I haven’t said a thing.’
‘You don’t have to say anything. I can see you thinking it.’
‘Well, you tell me what it looks like? You’re banging the chick who’s supposed to be selling Nan’s house. How long have you been at that, anyway? Before or after you signed the sales agreement? No wonder Bob Begg never got a look in.’
‘One more word and you’ll be picking yourself out of the dam with a busted nose.’
‘Okay, okay.’ Abe slumped back into the recliner.
An uneasy truce.
‘You wanna tell me why you want to sell?’ Jake asked.
‘You wanna tell me why you don’t?’ Abe pushed.
Jake ran his hand through his hair. ‘I don’t see the point. We don’t need to sell it, at least I don’t. But you do. You need the money and you won’t tell me why.’
‘Which place did Henry Graham buy, do you know?’ Abe avoided the question.
Jake thought about whether he was supposed to know and decided Chalk Hill was a small town; news would get out anyway. ‘Helen Nillson’s.’
‘Helen next door to Nan’s?’
Jake nodded.
‘Shit,’ Abe said, shaking his head and blowing out a deep breath. ‘What a colossal fucking mess.’
‘Abe, if you’re in trouble, mate, you can tell me, okay? I’ll help if I can.’
‘Best thing you could have done to help me was take Henry’s offer.’
The north-easterly swirled under the gazebo, making the towels on the edge of the jetty flap, swirling the reeds at the water’s edge so they rustled like sticks.
Jake was hot, but Abe sweated more. Actually, Abe didn’t look well at all. His shirt hung on him. The arse of his fancy pair of pants bagged. He had lines in his face that never used to be there, and shouldn’t be there. The guy was only twenty-six.
‘It’s not drugs, is it, mate? You’re not addicted to something?’
‘Ha, no. Sometimes I almost wish.’
‘Horses? You never minded a bet.’
‘Nah.’
Jake put his hand out to touch Abe’s shoulder. ‘What then? Come on, man. You gotta open up. You look like shit. You can’t sit still. Tell me what’s going on.’
‘Fuck it.’ Abe stared up at the gazebo ceiling.
Jake stared there too. Spider webs. White flakes. Spider shit. And this growing sense that his little brother was in a truck load of shit much bigger than any spider’s.
‘Ah, fuck it,’ Abe said again, head down this time, shoulders slumped. ‘I’m gonna lose the Broome restaurant, and probably Dunsborough. I owe the bank a fucking fortune. There’s no other way.’
‘You said the restaurants were going well and it was just the downturn after the mining boom ended?’
‘They are. It is. Kind of. I had to borrow against them.’
‘Borrow for what?’ Jake held his breath, willing Abe to talk to him.
‘Debts I owe.’
‘Debts for what?’
‘To pay back the bank.’
‘You’re going round in circles, Abe. Fuckin’ just tell me what’s going on,’ Jake demanded.
‘I got scammed, okay?’ Abe punched his thigh. ‘You know how that feels? It means I’m an idiot.’
Jake’s skin turned cold. ‘What sort of scam?’ Abe was too smart to get caught up in those Nigerian things you saw on the internet.
‘Here’s where it gets fun. Are you ready to laugh your balls off?’ Abe spat the words like bullets. ‘I got scammed by a woman. Fleeced by the love of my life.’
This was about a woman? ‘What woman? I didn’t even know you were seeing anyone.’
‘I had a fucking whirlwind romance with the gorgeous Amanda. Sex off the charts. Hottest chick I’ve ever known. She said she loved me, she sent me texts every day and I lapped it up. It took a few weeks before she told me she had a six-year-old kid. She said she didn’t tell me before because she didn’t want to spoil what we had with her baggage.’ Abe looked up. ‘I mean, there’s the red flag right there, right? That she’d think of her kid as baggage?’ He sniffed. ‘She was such a cutie, the little girl. Keeley. Even got her calling me Uncle Abe.’
Jake hardly dared breathe.
‘It started out when Amanda would say she was short twenty bucks for a school excursion, and payday wasn’t till Friday. I’d lend her the money. Sometimes she’d say she’d buy me lunch next day to pay me back, or she’d dump twenty bucks in my bank account, ’cos she never had cash. I checked the first few times and most of the times she’d paid it back … then I didn’t check.
‘Late last year she told me Keeley needed braces. Well, that’s like thousands of dollars and she didn’t have it, and I said I’d lend it to her. No worries.’
‘I thought you said she was six?’ Jake interjected. ‘Six-year-olds haven’t got their adult teeth yet. Six-year-olds don’t need braces.’
‘Red
