Page 54 of Last Shot

‘Thank god the driver’—Vittoria nodded towards the garage where Jett was still inside with Grey—‘came back early and by chance heard her screams. If he hadn’t ...’ Vittoria’s hand fluttered to her chest.

‘That’s why Grey left the army?’ Max asked, her chest tightening. ‘He felt like he should have been there?’

Vittoria surveyed her shrewdly and Max suddenly wished she’d kept that observation to herself. It felt like she’d conceded something. ‘That’s what he told Giovanni’s children,’ she said.

Max baulked at the phrasing.Not ‘the children’, or ‘our children’. Giovanni’s.

Vittoria continued. ‘He lied to them because I asked him to. But he told Giovanni and me the truth. He was dishonourably discharged.’

Dishonourably discharged. The term was leaden and heavy, a chunk of metal in her gut, tearing through her organs. A weight, a shape, that did not fit with what she thought she knew about the Fixer. But then again, what had the character witnesses said about Evan?

A family man. A great guy. Top bloke.

Max knew better than anyone how easily some men could slip into the skin of the Nice Guy. Not that Grey fit the description of ‘nice guy’. Broody Guy, maybe. Everything Annoys Me Guy. Look at All My Stupid Muscles that I Don’t Even Need to Use Guy.

But notDishonourably Discharged Guy.

What had happened after the bomb went off when Grey had ... gone somewhere? Was that connected to why he was forced to leave the army?

‘Other men might have lied,’ Vittoria said, ‘but Greyson told us the truth. He trusts us. He trusts my husband, but if he wants to keep us safe, I don’t know if he should.’ She paused. ‘Someone put this on my husband’s pillow. Someone let an enemy into our house.’

Vittoria’s hand shook as she took a folded piece of paper from her handbag. Max didn’t recognise the brand so she knew it was probably worth more than her monthly rent on the Freo apartment.

Max tried to stop her hands from matching Vittoria’s as she opened the note.

Forgive us all.

‘That is not my husband’s handwriting,’ Vittoria said, crushing her cigarette under her heel.

‘When did you find this, ma’am?’

‘After.’ Vittoria nodded towards the flat ground Max now knew concealed the secret passageway out of the cellar.

Max did a mental recall of everything Vittoria had said, and everything she hadn’t. ‘You believe someone, who is not your husband or your children, broke into your house and put what looks like a murder-suicide note on your husband’s pillow?’ She tried to keep the incredulity out of her voice.

Vittoria sniffed. ‘That’s right.’

‘You think this was attempted murder, disguised as a mass suicide?’Looks like someone’s been swappingReal Housewives of Melbournefor a few too many episodes ofCSI: Miami.

‘Do not show this to Greyson. Do I have your word, Ms Conrad? I need you to promise me or I shall have you escorted off this property within the next ten seconds.’

‘I—’

‘You realise what I’m saying, don’t you?’

Max nodded. ‘You’re saying you don’t trust anyone who works for you. But you just said I work for the Barbaranis, so I don’t see how I am different to Greyson. Except that you don’t know me at all.’

Vittoria raised her chin. ‘No one else knows about the note. Whoever wrote it assumed I would be dead, and someone else – the police, perhaps – would find it on Giovanni’s pillow and come to the same conclusion you did. You saw the backpack, you got us out. If you were the one who left the note, why would you have saved us?’

‘But ma’am, you don’t honestly believe Grey—’

‘Greyson is blinded by duty, but he’s also been blinded by something far more dangerous in the past.’ Vittoria licked her teeth again, lips still pursed. ‘Next time you speak to him, perhaps you should ask how Sophie is doing.’

‘Sophie?’ Max’s stomach dropped. The name was familiar, but where had she heard it before? She was certain she hadn’t been introduced to anyone on the property by that name.

Vittoria had already moved on. ‘What I know, Ms Conrad, is that my husband did not write that note, and you did not know there was a bomb waiting for my family in the wine cellar.’

Max drew a shaky breath. She felt the same way she did every time before she used to yell ‘POLICE!’ and burst through a door – never knowing what was on the other side, or if this moment would be the last one she’d ever taste. ‘There’s only one reason you could say with absolute certainty, ma’am, that your husband did not write this note. And that’s if you wrote it yourself.’

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