“Calm down,” I urged. “You’re going to blow a gasket.”
And if that were to happen, he’d be in the same state as his hundred thousand dollar vehicle.
Louis shrugged and straightened his collar. “You should come back inside.”
His voice was calm, but I was still wary. “Why?”
He pointed at the paper in my hand. “So I can draw you an accurate map. That one is a map to my uncle’s chicken farm.”
Fighting the urge to slap the back of his head, I followed him into the shop. While he redrew the map, I peered through the glass cabinet, checking out the wares. Most of it was junk – paste stones and enamel jewellery, but one piece caught my eye. The black opal pendant was most definitely not junk.
“Do you believe in angels, Louis?” I asked, leaning across the counter.
“Yes.”
“And juju?”
He handed me the amended map. “Of course,” he replied. “Good juju keeps the angels happy.”
“Do you want to score some really good juju points?”
He narrowed his eyes. “How?”
I tapped the glass countertop, pointing at the pendant. “Let me return this to its rightful owner.”
“I am the rightful owner.”
“Oh, come now, Louis,” I crowed. “We both know that’s not true. Mitchell paid you fair and square for that necklace years ago.”
He glowered. “Prove it.”
I turned and headed for the door. “I don’t need to prove it,” I called over my shoulder. “The angels know the truth. You need to change your ways, Louis Osei – before it’s too late.”
I had one foot out the door when he called me back. I turned around just in time to catch the pendant as he threw it. “Good luck getting the devil off your back, my beautiful Shiloh.”
I slipped it into my pocket and smiled at him. “Same to you, Louis.”
Plan
MITCHELL
I lifted the gun off the dashboard twice while Shiloh was gone – and my hand shook both times. The only gun I could ever remember seeing was the ear-piercing gun that my sisters used to use to punch holes in themselves, and I don’t think that counted.
Shiloh was obviously well versed in weaponry, and like many other things that had come to light that day it bothered me.
I felt duped on every level. The life I’d built was slipping away with every passing second. I’d had to abandon my house and business, my friends were homicidal diamond thieves and my girlfriend was as shady as heck.
There was nothing naïve or timid about Shiloh Jenson. She was as street-smart and hard as any other gangster in Kaimte, which probably meant she’d been working to an agenda all along. The problem was, I hadn’t figured out what it was and she wasn’t talking.
When she finally got back into the car, she grabbed the gun and secured it in the glove box. “Louis drew me a map.” She spread a piece of paper across her lap. “It’s not far from here.”
“So what’s your plan?” I asked. “I’m assuming you have one.”
“Yes.” She breathed out the word. “The plan is to stay alive.”
***
As far as I knew, Melito and Vincent had never been overly particular when it came to choosing their modes of travel. I expected to drive up on a beaten up old Cessna parked on a gravel track, but the reality was much different. Parked at the end of a short but perfectly serviceable runway was a shiny white leer jet.
“The business of stolen diamonds must be extremely lucrative,” I noted, slowing the car to a snail’s pace.
“Yeah,” mumbled Shiloh. “Stop here.”
We were a good few hundred metres from the plane, but there was no hiding. With the exception of the rocky outcrop miles to the west, it was flat terrain for as far as the eye could see.
Once I turned the car off, the droning of the plane’s engine was clear. “They’re leaving soon, I guess,” I suggested.
Shiloh looked at her watch for much too long. “We have until five.”
I twisted in my seat, angling my body toward her. “Then what happens?”
She swallowed hard. “I have a confession to make, Mitchell.”
Finally, I didn’t reply.
“I do have a plan to get you out of this,” she began. “But you’re not going to like it.”
“I haven’t enjoyed a single minute of this day, lady. What’s your plan?”
She grabbed her bag off the back seat. “I’m going to shoot you.”
I literally felt the colour drain from my face. “Sucky plan, Shiloh.”
“They’re going to kill you whether they get their diamonds back or not,” she said matter-of-factly. “You know too much. They can’t come back and continue their operation when the bloke next door is on to them. Do you understand?”
“I don’t quite understand the part where you kill me,” I sarcastically replied.
She stopped rummaging through the bag and gave me her full attention. “You have to listen harder,” she urged. “I never said I was going to kill you. I said I was going to shoot you.”
She spent the next few minutes laying out her plan – slowly as if I was somehow impaired. The idea was to let the Greeks think I was dead. “When I get to the plane, I’m going to turn around and shoot at you,” she explained. “As soon as I do, I want you to drop to the ground and stay there until the plane leaves.”
“You’re really going to shoot me?”
Shiloh took my face in her hands. It wasn’t a romantic gesture. She was trying to calm me down. “I’m not going to hit you,” she said quietly. “I’ll shoot to the left of you, but it’s only going to work if you hit the deck.”
“Are you a good shot?”
She smiled. “I’m a great shot.”
I tried to nod but she held me firm. “What’s going to happen to you?” I asked.
Worry flashed in her eyes, but she recovered quickly. “I’m going to get on the plane.”
I pulled her hands away. “Just tell me,” I demanded. “Are you working with them?”
“No.” Her voice was barely there. “I swear I’m not.”
I was impossible to make sense of the stupid decisions she was making, but when the Jeep’s interior clock caught my eye, I realised it didn’t matter. It was five minutes to five, and if those were the last five minutes I’d ever have with her it was foolish to spend them trying to get a confession.
I grabbed her hand. “Whatever happens, I hope you never forget me, lady.”
“I hope you never regret me.” Her voice shook, and for a moment, she was the same gentle girl that I’d spent weeks falling in love with.
I leaned across and lightly kissed her lips, holding her for as long as I could before she pulled away.
“I have something for you.” She reached into the bag and pulled out a chunky old mobile phone. “When it’s safe to leave, go straight back to Mimi’s and stay there. A man called Dan is going to call you on this phone.” She forced it into my hand. “He’s your ticket home.”
I would’ve asked questions but she threw open the car door. “I have to go.”
Real panic finally hit me. Crooked or not, Shiloh had no idea what she was about to walk into. She could’ve concocted a hundred plans, but none of them would’ve been better than the one that flashed through my head when I realised I was about to lose her for good.
I jumped out of the car and rushed to her. “Wait,” I said, grabbing her around the waist. “Let’s just go. We’ll go right now.”
She shrugged me away. “I have to do this, Mitchell. Just stick to the plan.”
When I made another grab for her, she pulled the same move she’d used to drop me on my arse at the beach. I hit the dirt, and in a cruel final blow, the three strings of bin bin beads that I’d accidentally snapped off her waist scattered on the ground beside me.
Greedy Souls
SHILOH
It took every ounce of will I had not to turn back. As I got nearer to the pl
ane, the door opened and Melito strutted down the steps. Even from a distance I could see his evil smirk.
“I see your boyfriend accompanied you,” he yelled, fighting to be heard over the engine. “I was rather hoping you would’ve brought my diamonds instead.”
I glanced back at Mitchell. “I thought I’d bring both,” I announced. “And then decide which one I want to keep.”
Melito threw his head back and roared with laughter. “You’ve no idea how much I wish you weren’t such a greedy soul,” he said. “We could’ve been exceptional business partners.”
With just a few metres of distance between us, I stopped. “We still can be,” I offered. I took the calico bag out of my pocket and tossed it at him. “There’s always room for negotiation.”
Melito peered into the bag, and when he called Vincent out of the plane to look, my heart stopped beating. Both men had guns strapped to their sides, and if they caught on that I’d given them nothing more than a bag of white quartz, I was dead.
Vincent finally lifted his head to grin at me – an ugly simper than made my skin crawl. “Beautiful, aren’t they, darling?”
I finally released the breath I’d been holding, and felt a little lightheaded because of it. “If you count them, you’ll notice that there are three hundred and ninety four gems in there,” I stated. “Far more than I took.”
Melito handed the bag to Vincent. “A bonus?” he asked.
I shrugged. “I was thinking more of a buy-in fee,” I replied. “We could sit down and hatch out a business plan – perhaps during the long flight.”
Melito grinned. “The problem I have, dear Shiloh, is that you’re not entirely trustworthy.”
“I’m loyal.” I somehow made the declaration without choking. “You can trust me.”
“We’d need a good will gesture of some sort,” said Vincent.
“Sixty-four extra diamonds was supposed to be a gesture of goodwill.”
“Something more, darling,” goaded Melito.
Without saying another word, I turned to face Mitchell who was standing behind the jeep. In a move that the Greeks would never have predicted, I pulled the gun and slyly aimed it at to the left of him.
Not a single force on earth could’ve stopped the trembling of my hand as I pulled the trigger. A single shot rang out and Mitchell fell to the ground.
Even over the sound of the plane engine, I heard one of the vile men behind me gasp.
“Bravo, Shiloh,” praised Vincent.
I turned back to face them. “Loyal enough for you?”
Melito stepped aside and outstretched his hand. “Welcome aboard, darling.”
Mistake
MITCHELL
Somewhere along the line, my quiet life on the beach had morphed into a story straight off the pages of a spy novel.
Just a few hours after peeling myself off the hot desert floor, I was picked up at Mimi’s house by a bloke called Reyo. I assumed he was one of Shiloh’s gangster mates, but didn’t care enough to ask.
“Dan sent me,” he vaguely explained.
Getting into cars with strangers has never rated highly on my list of things to do, but I was downtrodden and off my game. Reyo wasn’t the chattiest bloke I’d ever met, but nothing about him seemed threatening. The one time he did speak was to tell me that I looked unwell. “You should drink Kaimte tea,” he said, glancing across at me. “The sweeter the better.”
“Thanks,” I muttered. “But I’m not a fan of sweet things.”
“Not even sweet women?” he asked.
“I wouldn’t know,” I replied. “I don’t know any.”
***
The plane that had been sent to pick me up looked nothing like the Greek’s fancy leer jet. The little twin-engine prop plane looked barely capable of taking off, but I climbed aboard as if I had no choice, and perhaps I didn’t.
Reyo handed me some papers. “These are your connecting tickets,” he explained. “All the way through to Hobart.”
“Where is this plane going?” I asked as he clambered through the open door.
“Johannesburg.” He turned back and grinned. “Safe travels, my friend.”
He then forced the door shut, effectively closing the book on my Kaimte life. I had mixed feelings about the finality of it. Through no fault of my own I’d somehow lost the lot.
***
The person who arranged my flights back to Australia must’ve been a sadist. Thanks to three unnecessary layovers, it took me four days to get there. By the time I arrived in Melbourne, I’d all but lost the will to live.
The queue at customs was brutally long, and even after lining up for half an hour, I still didn’t get through. As the customs officer scanned my passport, a burly AFP officer appeared at my side and demanded that I follow him.
I didn’t ask where we were going as he led me out of the crowd. I was travelling from Africa. For that reason alone, I’d probably been flagged for interrogation.
I was shown through to a small windowless office. Without being asked, I sat down at the empty desk. “If you want to search my luggage, you’ll have to find it first,” I told him. “I haven’t collected it yet.”
“I’ll find it for you,” he offered, one hand on the door handle. “Just wait here. Someone will be in shortly.”
As soon as the door shut, I put my elbows on the desk and rested my head. I was probably close to sleep when it opened again, but pepping myself up took no effort at all.
Shiloh was standing there, looking nothing like the girl I’d let go of just days earlier. She’d always been straight-laced and neat, but now she looked even more rigid. Her long hair was pulled back into a tight ponytail, and the black skirt suit she wore was prim and formal. She looked like a schoolteacher or a librarian…. or a police officer.
The light bulb in my head went off with a bang.
“You’re a cop,” I choked out the words as if they were hard to pronounce.
Shiloh closed the door. “I wanted to tell you a hundred times.”
“Just once would’ve been enough.”
Looking totally dejected, she pulled out a chair and sat down. “I couldn’t tell you, Mitchell.”
“You could explain it to me now, Shiloh.” I spread my arms. “The floor is yours.”
“I still can’t tell you much,” she quietly replied. “The investigation is ongoing, but the Greeks were taken into custody as soon as the plane landed in Belgium. Glen is locked up too so they’re all out of action.”
“Congratulations,” I replied, cocking my head to the side. “A job well done.”
There was no mistaking the hurt in her eyes, or the wretched feeling that came with knowing that I was the cause. Being angry and sarcastic wasn’t the fairest approach, but I couldn’t change how I felt.
“You lied to me, Shiloh,” I told her, drumming my finger on the desk. “Every single day.”
“Never about the important stuff.”
“How do I know that?” I snapped out the bitter question. “For all I know, you could’ve been using me from the start to get close to the Greeks.”
Moving in next door to Melito and Vincent would’ve been a great way to scope them out on a daily basis. That made me the perfect mark. Just thinking about it made me feel stupid.
“You give me too much credit, Mitchell. I’m not the ace federal agent you think I am.” She sounded totally beaten down and defeated. Wickedly, I felt relieved that the damage was mutual. “I am a small town police constable,” she said, staring straight at me. “I had no idea what I was doing in Kaimte, and I had no clue who the bad guys were until they revealed themselves.”
The desk between us might as well have been a brick wall. She felt miles away from me, and I wasn’t hopeful of closing the distance. I was furious and hurt and she was defensive and hurt. There was no room in that mix for reason and understanding.
“What are we even doing here?” My eyes darted around the small room. “What were you hoping for, Shiloh?” r />
She kept her eyes low. “I just wanted a chance to make things right.”
The tough conversation was halted by a knock at the door. To me, it felt like a reprieve.
Shiloh cleared her throat, pulling herself together. “Come in,” she called.
The same bloke who’d picked me out of the custom’s line poked his head around the door. “Your luggage is here when you’re ready,” he said.
I nodded. “Thanks.”
He turned his attention to Shiloh. “Will there be anything else, Agent Brannan?”
Fatigue was getting the better of me. For a moment, I wondered who he was talking to. Then my brain snapped into gear leaving me to wonder who I was talking to.
“No,” she replied. “Thank you.”
With a nod of his head, he pulled the door closed and disappeared. The tension that filled the room had now become palpable.
“Brannan?” I spat out the word. “That’s your name?”
“Yes,” she whispered. “Shiloh Brannan.”
There weren’t words to describe the frustration I felt. I pushed my chair back. “We’re done here.”
“Mitchell, wait.” In total contrast to anything I’d shown her, her brown eyes were soft and so was her voice. “Just so you know, I never lied about how I felt. I treasure every moment I spent with you.”
“We have a problem then.” I reached for my phone, swiped the screen and set it down on the desk. Shiloh looked down, studying the picture of herself that I’d taken just a few days earlier.
“Because I’m in love with this girl.” I pointed at the screen. “I don’t even know who you are.”
My hand was on the doorhandle by the time she spoke again. “I’m sorry,” she said gently. “Truly.”
I turned back to face her for the very last time. “Don’t be sorry, lady,” I replied, shaking my head. “It was my mistake, not yours.”
***
My plan of having my mother collect me from the airport in Hobart quickly fell by the wayside. When I called her from Melbourne, she and my father were in Singapore, two weeks into a three-month cruise.