Page 100 of Last Shot

I’m here.

But she wasn’t. All he had was her voice and the memory of her hands on his chest, bringing him back.

He had to stay here. For her. He had to remember her.

‘Max!’

That was when he tripped over the first body.

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Max

Max had never been anywhere this rich. She felt so palpably out of place – an op-shop dress on a rack of Vera Wang gowns. But in this disguise she had a newfound superpower; she could speak to people without that itching self-consciousness crawling over her. She wasn’t herself so there was nothing to be self-conscious about.

Except for: which one of these guests was a potential killer? And the fact that she’d just had her heart stomped all over by the over-shined dress shoes of the Barbaranis’ Fixer. She could practically see her insides left behind in his footsteps as he’d stormed away.

Compartmentalise. Beetroot in the sandwich.

Heart on the floor.

It’s not like you actually told him how you felt.

Thank god.

Her mind was whirring with the memory of his hands, his mouth. She scanned the crowd, trying to stop looking for broad shoulders and brown eyes that could carve out your sense of time and place and sanity and—

Where the fuck was Kaine Skinner? And was that ... Raphael?Why was he carrying a tray of food? Max may have never had the social clearance to attend an event like this but even she knew that Arnold Schwarzenegger would be on the list of replacement waiters beforeRaphael.

The La Marca barman looked over his shoulder as he ducked through the crowd. Max’s old instincts hadn’t rusted enough in her months in Semperdom to miss the haste in his steps: an animal sensing danger, but not wanting to alert predators to his position.

Max discarded the un-drunk champagne glass she’d grabbed in her blind rush out of the mud room onto the tray of an actual Barbarani waiter and followed Raphael’s shiny hair through the camouflage of wealth and intoxication he’d disappeared into.

If I find Kaine Skinner, I will deliver him to Greyson myself.That’s what Raphael had said back at the La Marca winery, wasn’t it? He reminded Max of Rumpelstiltskin from the fairytale – speaking in riddles and hanging loopholes around her neck like a noose.

Was there a chance Raphael had seen her watching him? She remembered the warmth of his hand on her back, the way he observed her through his long lashes and hooded eyes. The fact that he admitted she was the reason he’d spoken to Grey in the first place.

Did he want to be followed?

‘You KNEW!’

Max lost sight of Raphael momentarily as Nella Barbarani launched at her, eyes wild, breath tinged with red wine, brandishing her phone like a weapon. Max could make out the caller ID under the picture of a round-faced woman with two strawberry blonde braids.

Eliza.Max recalled the name of the Bindi Bindi town vet.

‘Nella, I—’

But Nella wasn’t talking to her. She shoved past, her gaze on someone beyond Max’s periphery. Annoyed, Max twisted, losing sight of Raphael, only to come face to face with Quinton, the wildlife vet.

‘Is everything all right?’ Quinton looked bewildered as the oldest Barbarani girl stabbed him in the chest with a midnight blue acrylic nail.

‘Tell me the truth!’ Nella demanded. ‘What happened to my cat?’

‘Arnold’s fine, Nella. I told you, the atipamezole—’

‘I called the real vet!’ People were starting to stare now. ‘And I know what you did!’

‘QuintonsavedArnold, Nella.’ Jett had arrived, placing himself between Nella and Quinton, clearly more for the vet’s sake than anything else. ‘Emotions are just a bit high right now.’

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