Page 27 of Repluse

I check it anyway. Nothing. I’m not even a little bit surprised, but just a few seconds later, Frankie’s name appears on the dash screen as a call comes through. Sam answers it with a tap on the steering wheel.

“Where the fuck are you?” His voice echoes throughout the car.

“In my car.”

“She with you?”

“Yep.”

“You bringing her here?”

“Nope.”

“Why the fuck not?”

“You know why the fuck not.”

“Olsson, I’m fucking?—”

“You’re fucking what? You know what you need to do. We’ll be at my place on the peninsula in forty minutes. I’ll give you an hour to get there.”

“Sam…”

“No, Frank. Not fucking listening. And if you could see what those cunts have done to her, you’d understand why.”

Sam ends the call, and Dave Gahan’s voice fills the silence as Depeche Mode sing about having their own personal Jesus.

“You gonna tell me what the fuck’s going on?” I ask.

“Nope,” Sam snaps without looking at me, turning up the music just to make it clear that’s the end of our conversation.

Almost immediately, my phone vibrates with a text message from Frankie:I’m sorry. Please don’t listen to anything he has to say till I get there. I’m leaving now but tell him to wait if I don’t make it within the hour.

I don’t reply. Instead, I tuck my phone between my legs, support my broken wrist on my good arm, and turn to stare out the window.

“That Frankie?” Sam eventually asks.

I ignore him.

“You gonna talk to me?”

“Nope.”

Aside from the playlist of absolute British alternative bangers, we drive for the next forty minutes in silence.

I havea feeling of absolute dread deep down in my belly as Sam taps the code into the security gates outside of his property. My stomach churns as I watch them slide open, revealing a stunning double-storey house with a wraparound veranda on the second floor.

We turned off a graded road onto a dirt track to reach the place, which, I would imagine from its position, has sweeping views of Port Philip Bay from the upper level. I don’t know thisarea very well, so I’m unsure of where I am exactly. Portsea. Maybe Sorento or Blairgowrie. Somewhere on that part of the peninsula.

I look over my shoulder as the gates close.

“You look like you want to run, Mils.”

“I do… I think. You’ve brought me here with no explanation. I’m about to enter a property in an undisclosed location, with a man I barely know.” I turn to face him. “So excuse me for being nervous.”

“A man you barely know?” He raises his brows.

“We’ve fucked.” He narrows his eyes at my bluntness, but I continue anyway. “We might know each other intimately, but I know nothing about you personally, and here I am, about to enter a property in bum fuck nowhere with you.”

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