Free Crystal Coffin by Anita Bell Page A

guys never seemed to appreciate that. Not the ones that she knew. They were all sons of politicians or lawyers or stockbrokers and they got their allowances without having to work for it like she did. They were sweet, considerate and polite when their parents were around and into smokes, booze and shooting up as soon as they turned their backs.
    This guy was an alien by comparison. He didn’t hide his cigarette packet. He was older. His eyes were colder, grey like steel. And the muscles down his arms looked like they’d been carved out of granite, not pumped up on hormones in a gymnasium.
    And she could smell him — salty, like the sands of Bondi on a windy day or the sea foam carried in on the Sydney breeze. She seemed to feel his touch even though he was an arm’s length away. And the goosebumps spreading on her skin stood up like tiny soldiers pointing hairs like bayonets and screamed ‘stay away from me’.
    Her mutinous eyes refused to pull away from his reflection. She followed the strong line of his jaw and the curve of his lips, and it took her another long moment before she realised that she too was being studied.
    His hand shifted the outside mirror on his door until she saw his eyes in it and she stared at him harder, then gave in and looked away.
    She endured a heavy silence, but it didn’t last long.
    â€˜How old are you?’ he asked. ‘Nineteen? Twenty?’
    â€˜Twenty-one,’ she lied, preferring to end the conversation. ‘Girls are always twenty-one. Didn’t anyone tell you?’
    â€˜Only after the first time,’ he said, raising an eyebrow. ‘Have you ever had a first time?’
    â€˜Excuse me,’ she said flatly. ‘Do you have any influence whatsoever in who the Maitlands choose to work for them?’
    He shook his head, surprised by the change of subject.
    â€˜Are you going to be my supervisor, or do I have to work with you in any way?’
    â€˜Not that I’m aware of,’ he said. ‘I don’t think so.’
    â€˜Good, then,’ she said. ‘Mind your own business.’
    He was silent for a second then he looked at her again as she wiped off the sweat that was streaming down her face. ‘So what kind of work are you going to do for Eric Maitland?’ he persisted. ‘Secretarial, or are you some kind of model for him to paint?’
    Nikki stared out her window without answering. If he wanted the last word, she’d let him have it. She twiddled the charm on her necklace, checking his reflection again in her dusty window.
    He was staring at her again with those cold warrior eyes, making her stomach churn. She pushed her finger to her temple to stop it from throbbing in the heat and tried to stare through his reflection to the fleeting farmlands outside.
    Eucalypts lined the road like refugees from barren paddocks, stretching their thirsty branches to beg rain from a merciless sky. Her eyes fixed blankly on their tragic parade, and soon Locklin’s cold eyes were replaced by the even colder eyes of her stepfather accusing her of murder. She rubbed him from her tired eyes but he was there again in the darkness, clawing at every thought. She needed to scream, to chase him from her head, but the Bedford jolted over corrugations in the road and the ripples through the vinyl reminded her that she wasn’t alone.
    Instead of screaming, she sat in tortured silence. But it wasn’t her silence that distracted Locklin from asking her another question. It was the talisman of an angel that she was wearing around her neck.

    The Mercedes turned left at the Warrego crossroads and the stalker stamped the accelerator to the floor. His butt ached for a fast flight home after a night in the rented car, but he had another hour’s drive to get to Brisbane airport. Still, he thought, it had been worth it.
    There was only one Nikola Renee Dumakis and she was working for him now, whether she wanted to or not.