Page 68 of Last Shot

Max barked out a laugh. Alexandra must be tired.

‘I don’t trust Libby.’ The warden sat down behind the desk.

‘That’s part of the job, isn’t it?’

‘You know what I mean. She hates the Barbaranis, Conrad. Why would she be helping you?’

‘Because she hates Skinner more?’

Alexandra pursed her lips. ‘You remember theFarmer Wants a Wifefinale?’

Max’s blood went cold. She tried not to think about that night in the prison TV room – the night she’d been about to tell Grey about before Alexandra had escorted them into the visitors’ room. She couldn’t remember what the headline had been as the Barbaranis’ faces flashed across the too-bright screen – at this point, without the crack down its centre. Perhaps the hotel announcement, perhaps Luca’s altercation with Forrest. She remembered the tall shadowy figure shielding them from the camera, shoulders taking up half the screen. Now, of course, she knew that had been Grey, but his identity hadn’t mattered back then because of what happened next.

‘He killed my son!’ Libby had screamed as she launched herself at the TV. The image frozen on the Barbaranis’ headshots. The guards hadn’t needed to intervene; the inmates had no intention of letting so much as a scratch deface the Farmers’ faces. ‘That Barbarani boy killed my son!’

It wasn’t just pity that had spiked through Max that night as the inmates piled on top of Libby to protect the precious TV, it had been a cold understanding, dripping down her like water on her back. She had been Libby once when she saw the driver who’d T-boned her parents’ car leaving the courtroom in handcuffs.

Those handcuffs hadn’t been enough. The one man wasn’t enough. Max had wanted everyone to pay – his girlfriend for breaking up with him, the meth dealer who’d sold him the drugs, the people who’d made the meth, the P-plater who’d seen him cross the double line ten kilometres earlier and hadn’t called the cops, the architect of Toodyay Road, the designer of their car’s airbag system ...

Max knew Libby’s belief in the Barbaranis’ guilt could only be because of relativity. They were rich, they were alive, while Rocky was not.

Guilt stabbed her with its serrated blades. Should she have told Grey about Libby screaming at the TV? Would he have cared? Or just dismissed it as the hysterical ravings of an incarcerated madwoman?

Like Max had.

Don’t you forget, Mr Barbarani Man. The fucker who killed my son’s gonna get what’s coming to him tomorrow night.

This was starting to feel like close to out of her depth.

‘You right, Conrad?’ Alexandra’s voice brought her back.

‘Just tired.’

‘Look, I’m not supposed to tell you this, but I owe Greyson, and I suppose I owe you too.’

Max figured she could only ask about one. ‘How do you owe me?’

Alexandra ignored her. ‘Let me just say Libby’s been popular with visitors lately.’

‘Kaine Skinner’s been here?’

Alexandra shook her head. ‘Two others,’ she said. ‘A man and a woman. On separate occasions.’

‘Can you tell me—?’

‘Absolutely not,’ Alexandra said, ‘but you need to be careful.’ She picked up a shard of icing from the plate and stuck it on her tongue. ‘Don’t trust anyone.’

‘I already don’t.’ And they don’t trust me.

That’s a lie. Grey did. But you fucked it up, like you always do.

Alexandra coughed. ‘I’m glad you’re out, Conrad.’

‘I’m not,’ Max said. ‘I loved it here.’

Alexandra frowned. ‘I had to explain the use of my taser once, in front of a panel.’

Max went cold as though the air-conditioner had started up again.

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