Page 92 of Last Shot

‘I’ll be armed,’ Max assured her. ‘If I wear that’—she pointed at the dress—‘I can hide weapons in all sorts of places.’

‘Just make sure you get rid of them before the cops show up,’ Nella said, but she was looking at Frankie, not Max.

‘Can youstop?’ Frankie glared. ‘I had to protect myself!’

Max pretended to examine the heel of one of Nella’s riding boots, but she couldn’t help herself. This was almost starting to feel like a tipsy night with Jackie and their other friends from uni. ‘What happened?’

Frankie looked furious. Nella turned back to her wardrobe, almost definitely to hide her smirk.

‘Frankie’s a felon.’

‘Am not!’

‘Don’t worry,’ Max told her, ‘so am I.’

Frankie looked sheepish. ‘Yeah, I know. Sorry – I googled you.’

‘You and the rest of the country. Don’t worry, you’re taking it way better than Grey did.’

Nella made a strange noise that sounded like a bird hitting a window. Max figured she had a sixth sense about these types of things and had probably only invited her up here so she could grill her about her overnight stay with the Fixer. But at least Frankie was regarding Max with slightly less suspicion now.

‘I’ve been arrested a few times,’ she said, quite proudly. ‘One time, yeah, I had a weapon.’

‘Did Grey make that go away?’

‘Ha!’ Nella squawked. ‘Even Captain Blackmail doesn’t have that much power. Her darling sister’s law firm does though.’

‘She made me pay back every last penny,’ Frankie grumbled.

Well, it’s not like you couldn’t afford it.Max bit her tongue. ‘What were you protesting?’ she asked carefully. She pictured Grey’s face and the very real possibility that either of these women could turn on her in a minute and commit double murder with the heel of Nella’s lethal shoes.

‘They tried to burn down a slaughterhouse,’ Nella said, her lips tight. She threw Max the red dress and the coathanger hit her painfully on the collarbone. ‘Put it on then.’

‘Threatened,’ Frankie amended. ‘No one was hurt.’

‘Except my pride,’ Nella said, ‘taking on your pathetic arse.’

‘They targeted me because of Dad,’ Frankie said. ‘They wanted to make an example. They just didn’t like that I don’t fit the bill of rich, spoiled brat heiress – that I’m actually trying to make a difference.’

‘Get off your high horse, Frank.’ Nella smirked. ‘They wanted to punish you because you’re a Barbarani and you were putting blue-collar workers’ lives at risk. The people who work at the slaughterhouse are just trying to put food on their table – they don’t have the luxury of being able to chain yourself to a building to stand up for what you believe in. They can’t afford tochooseto be vegan.’

‘Well, I’m sure they’ll be very happy they still have a job once our planet burns to the ground and we can’t even breathe in the air.’

Nella shook her head. ‘On the topic of burning to the ground, you forgot to mention theotherabattoir ETR targeted, where three peopledieda few days later from complications from smoke inhalation.’

‘I wasn’t there!’ Frankie said, but Max could see tears burning in the corners of her eyes.

‘Yeah, only ’cause you were already locked up from the first one!’

‘They never would have given the go-ahead if they knew there were people still inside! And you can drop the high and mighty act – your firm single handedly made sure that children’s hospital didn’t get built.’

‘Yes, how selfish of me, not wanting a children’s hospital built on potentially hazardous land from an abandoned air force base.’

‘Your rich-ass developer client didn’t seem to mind when it got him the green light for his apartments!’

Something brushed against Max’s ankle as the sisters continued to snap at each other. ‘Glad you didn’t die,’ she whispered to Arnold Schwarzenegger as she slipped into a corner of the dressing room to try on the dress. She thought both sisters had a point. As she breathed in the scent of Nella’s woollen coats and leather jackets, she listened to their bickering – now Nella was yelling something about Quinton and Frankie was howling back. To Max’s horror, her eyes stung with tears at the simplicity of it. It had been so long since she’d felt so comfortable with someone she could just say whatever she thought, fall into that easy banter that gave her a spark of life even when everything around her was dreary and dull.

Well, ithadbeen a long time. Until yesterday.

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