‘I’m Nathan Regan, and I’m from Hull. I’m thirty-six, I own a successful global company called Drive that deals in state-of-the-art computer software. We met at the Grosvenor Hotel, and I asked you to accompany me to Michigan where I will be attending a conference. He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Need anything else?’
‘The press will check all this, you know. You can’t just say you head up a multinational company and think no one will look it up,’ Autumn told him.
‘D’you think I haven’t done this before?’
‘Of course, you do this sort of stuff all the time. Stupid me,’ she said with a heavy sigh.
‘Look, it doesn’t really matter if they believe this or not. The most important thing is putting you on display and giving me a reason to be there right next to you.’
‘Can’t you just be my bodyguard?’ Autumn suggested.
‘You need to trust me, Autumn, no matter what I tell you to do. Remember?’
‘I trusted Janey and look how that turned out.’ Autumn gulped down the remainder of the wine.
‘Who do you trust?’ Nathan asked hypothetically. ‘Yeah, I get it—you never really know. If I had the foolproof answer to that one, one hundred per cent, I’d be retiring to the Seychelles,’ he said, putting his hands on the fence and stretching his arms out.
‘Is that where you’d like to go? There’s nothing much there. Just sand and water and five-star hotels,’ she told him.
‘I’ve heard the fishing’s good. Diving and fishing, walking, five-star hotels, I’d fit in just fine,’ he insisted with a grin.
‘You’d have to take off your diving suit for the restaurants. Gentlemen are required to wear long trousers and formal shoes for dinner,’ Autumn informed him.
‘What’s a formal shoe?’
‘Not Havaianas,’ she responded with a snort.
‘So, where would you go if you could go anywhere?’
‘I can go anywhere. It doesn’t change you though. Life doesn’t suddenly become perfect or even easier.’ She nursed the wine glass in her hands.
‘You’ve got the world at your feet. You’re twenty-seven, you’re beautiful, you’ve got your whole life in front of you,’ he said, studying her face.
She lifted her head, gazed at him, and whispered, ‘No one ever calls me beautiful.’
*
There was real pain etched on her face. He could see that so clearly. She ached inside for some reason. She’d been taken apart by someone or something, gradually, like picking a scab over and over, and she carried that weight, that kilo of agony, around with her. It may be underneath the pop facade, the iconic image she showed the world, but it was there, and it wasn’t too deep. Scratch at the surface and you could touch the insecurity.
*
‘I get “Autumn Raine, looking stylish, Autumn Raine, glamour personified, Autumn Raine, resplendent in green” or pink or whatever color I happen to be wearing. But never beautiful.’
The tears rolled from her eyes now, and she had to cough to remove the boulder in her throat.
‘I love what I do,’ she continued, frustrated, ‘but no one actually cares who I am. They only care about what I can give them. And when I look into the mirror, well… I’m turning into my mother.’
‘No, I don’t know anyone who can raise their eyebrows that high,’ Nathan said.
‘I knew Juan didn’t love me, I knew that from the beginning, so why did I let it go on? Because that’s all there was for me, him and a virtual pet. What was I thinking?’ she asked herself as much as him.
‘I don’t know. I can hardly wait to meet the prick in person.’
Autumn stifled a laugh and wiped her eyes.
‘I mean, isn’t that High School Musical/Baywatch guy single? Wouldn’t he be more your type?’ Nathan suggested.
Autumn laughed aloud at the suggestion and hit him on the forearm.
‘Do you have his number? He might be able to help you whip up a non-organic song in twenty-four hours,’ Nathan suggested.
‘Hey! I can whip up a song. I was just letting you know that these things aren’t easy. I didn’t say I couldn’t do it.’
‘Piano in the basement,’ Nathan stated.
‘Have we got any more chocolate?’
Thirteen
He didn’t find the chocolate, but he did find another bottle of wine. He poured them both a glass then showed her the piano. The basement of the house was as luxurious as the rest and was decorated like a 1940s style bar and dance hall. Gold-flecked fawn wallpaper hung around the perimeter, Art Deco lamps adorned retro sideboards, tables, and the walnut-colored bar, and at the far end of the room was a grand piano.
Her eyes lit up when she saw it, and she practically skipped the length of the room to reach it. She sat down on the stool, opened the lid, and let her fingers flow up and down the keyboard like the professional she was. She started exercising her fingers with scales then stopped, as if she had just realized he was still there. She swallowed, looked awkward, so he dismissed himself under the guise of checking up on Jazz and Teo.
Once upstairs, he heard her working the piano. Tentatively at first, trying different chords, then creating something longer, note by note, key by key, steadily growing in confidence.
Truth be told, he didn’t know what to do. He wasn’t convinced by what his contact had told him during the phone call on the plane. Something about this was off; he just didn’t know what it was yet. Tomorrow should help. Tomorrow, hopefully all the potential suspects should be in the same room. This had nothing to do with As-Wana. This was something different.
*
She’d seen Nathan come back into the room, but he’d sat down in one of the armchairs by the bar, with the wine, and not interrupted her.
‘What rhymes with cretin?’ Autumn called across the room.
‘No idea,’ he responded, turning to face her.
‘Nothing! Kind of. It might work,’ she said, triumphant.
‘How’s it going?’ he asked.
‘I’ve finished. Would you like to hear it?’
