The Crone's Stone Read online

was a tiny female dog. Swearing: the insult of the unimaginative. I waved through the glass. She aimed a gobbet of spit at me that got the window, there being no caviar available, and then stomped off along the path.

  I repressed the things she’d told me about Smithy. Surely, after everything he’d said last night, dirtying himself to such a degree was not on. What other explanation was there for her presence? I resolved to embrace the calm Zen philosophy and be the immovable mountain. I would get lost in some overdue exercise and not obsess on things I could not control. It was the best approach for every aspect of my situation.

  The pool occupied the entire ground floor, deep blue tiles and lazy spirals of steam beckoning. Music pumped, the salt water a balmy temperature as I breaststroked my way through my fifth lap. Something brushed my toes. The pool was laser cleaned, so vacuum hosing wasn’t likely. I stopped, floating in the deepest section, and squinted down. Circling on the spot, there was just a clear expanse of tile. I was so sure I’d felt something, but I was utterly alone. Great! My hallucinations had gone tactile.

  I resumed swimming, progressing not more than two arm rotations before a firm hold on my ankle alerted me to the presence of a comedian. I spun to share that I didn’t get the joke and was abruptly wrenched under, the pressure on my foot real and unbreakable. Unprepared for immersion and out of breath, I choked on a mouthful. The water burned my throat and blocked my nose. My traumatised airway protested and I kicked out with all my strength, clawing upwards for the shimmering surface as it steadily receded.

  Towed to the bottom of the pool, I would surely drown without even sighting my killer! I stopped thrashing to yank at my pinned leg. Even though my goggles were full and my eyes stung, I stared through a blue haze directly at the place of the vice-grip and nothing anchored me. Yet, I could not get free.

  Hysteria took hold and I fought for my life, windmilling my arms to no avail. The pressure to inhale gained urgency and would be impossible to resist for much longer. The glittering dome above made a pretty tomb, my oxygen-starved brain supplied. White lights bloomed in my vision and my head throbbed. I could not stop my from gulping in death, just like a fish on dry land. Liquid flooded my lungs.

  My ankle fused in its invisible shackle. It hurt where I’d rubbed it raw and I was so tired. Time to let go and enjoy the bursts of colour and the euphoria that filled my mind. The peace consumed …

  Ten

  And suddenly, so did the pain – an agonising weight on my chest that jarred my ribcage.

  “Breathe, Winnie! Breathe!”

  My chest was thumped repeatedly. No! Take me back to the other place, the tranquil one decorated with rainbows. It was so cold here and I forgot to do something essential. It nagged at me.

  “Oh man, Winnie!” A frenzied voice. “Come on! I know you want to live. Breathe! Goddamn you!”

  Ah, that was it. I’d forgotten to inhale. I tried to suck as much air as possible in a single breath. And gagged, expelling a bucketful of the judge’s expensive pool water. It spewed from my mouth and nose, as I writhed on hard tiles coughing viciously. My eyelids flew open in time to see Smith hovering millimetres from my face, eyes shut and lips parted, ready to give mouth-to-mouth.

  “Whoa!” I rasped. Apparently, water was not meant to travel down the trachea. I spluttered and retched, weakly batting him away. “Surely two women in a twelve hour period is greedy. Even for you, Smith.”

  “Thank all that’s good!” He gathered my sodden form to his broad chest. I was aware of his muscles and bare skin against my cheek, even in my less-than-optimal state. “What the hell happened to you!” he shouted, squashing me to him. Talk about mixed messages!

  “Easy. I nearly just died.”

  “Yes! I was privy to that.”

  “Stop yelling, it’s my lungs that are injured, not my ears.”

  “Well?”

  “Er, cramp?” I lied. Mentioning weirdness out loud just seemed to confirm the lunacy infecting all I did, so sharing was out of the question.

  “I had to lever you from the floor of the pool! You wouldn’t come free. It was bizarre, like you were fixed to the bottom. And …” He gaped at my leg. “You’re bleeding!”

  He shrugged off his soaked shirt without dislodging me. It was suspiciously already unbuttoned. He blotted the blood with the costly fabric. His tailor would have an aneurysm. Any soreness lessened with his touch, but I should not think this way. Vegas had another girlfriend. Of sorts. He was obviously partial to wolverines. His loyalty remained questionable, so I resisted being sucked in, regardless of the courteous way he acted. Zen: Mountain!

  Meanwhile, I grappled more with not ogling Smithy’s body than with determining the origins of my aquatic bondage. It was clear: I’d had an out-of-body experience due to a soon-to-be-discovered brain tumour. Neurosurgery would be required and I would be bald for a while, which would be frosty in the winter, but then beanies were fashionable right now.

  I dragged my eyes from his amazing washboard tummy, working to disregard firm curves begging for the touch of unhurried fingertips. The physical impact he had on me was similar to plummeting over a sharp drop. I would not give in to the temptation of his closeness. Even if he hadn’t chosen someone else, mental patients made poor girlfriends and I could not inflict that upon him.

  “Maybe you should lie down.”

  “Maybe we should see if I can sit on my own?”

  Smithy gingerly let go of me, his hands extended to catch me in case I collapsed. He shuffled backwards on his bum in sodden undershorts decorated with jellybeans. He shook the water from his hair. Watching this was a reward beyond measure. I thought about making a habit of nearly drowning – or even better – of finding ways to drown Tiffany without earning a murder rap. I stayed upright. He removed his hovering hands.

  “Whoa!” It was Smithy’s turn to take a breath. He blinked and averted his eyes to inspect the adjacent wall, swallowing hard. “Um, you might want to …” he flickered a hand in my direction, “make an adjustment.”

  I looked down. Oh, how I envied my A-cup sisters! The macramé Fortescue purchased in lieu of decent swimwear had crawled apart, leaving transparent cotton suctioned to me like wet t-shirt night at the pub. My cheeks flamed red, igniting my anger. There would be consequences for my tenuously employed butler!

  “Do something, for pity’s sake, Bear! I still have peripheral vision.”

  “If you do not keep your eyes fixed on that area over there for the next two minutes, you will be living without them! Clear?”

  “Crystal,” he said gruffly. I tramped over to my towel, dried as much as possible, and attempted to readjust the stubborn strips of Lycra. “Do you need a hand? Or two?” Smith aimed for witty but achieved hopeful.

  The hide! I clung to the riled facade so as not to say Yes, please! As many hands as you want. “If you dare act on that dumb saying of yours, ‘I’d rather ask for pardon than permission,’” I mimicked, “I will tell Bea!”

  “That’s harsh. You made me sound like Goofy.”

  “Goofy is as goofy does. Just pretend that crack in the wall is Miranda Kerr. Naked!”

  It was a low blow, objectifying a member of my own sex like this. But I needed the ordeal to be over, to run and hide in my room. After giving Fortescue the roasting he deserved.

  “I’d rather it was you,” he said, so softly, I almost didn’t catch it.

  It was the last straw. He was turning into his father, chasing an assortment of women at any given time. I would not be a party to it. The man from my fantasy did not share himself about like a song on LimeWire.

  “I’m going!” I double-wrapped myself in the towel. It was all I would be leaving with – my dignity remained by the pool. “Thank you for saving me.”

  “I was joking, Bear! Have breakfast with me? You can wear another one of my shirts,” he said. “I didn’t really see that much. Are you sure you can walk?”

  I could probably also raid his collection of lacy bras from s
ome past fling! I hobbled out of the judge’s building before his son could make further appeal. Dripping wet and fed up, I crossed the alley into the warehouse, firmly ignoring mysterious, vanishing crime scenes.

  My head hurt from more than just a near-drowning at the hands of an invisible assailant. I grappled with so many unexplained dead ends that defied logic; I could no longer distinguish reality from illusion. Had I been attacked last night? Had Hugo really committed homicide? There was not a shred of evidence.

  Big deal if I fantasised some guy called Seth, who whispered poetry at me in the night. There was most likely a dumb Freudian interpretation about sexual frustration or teenage hormones run amok. It would definitely get worse since the breathtaking vision of Vegas in sopping shorts branded my brain. I limped towards Bea through the maze of display cabinets. She wore white gloves and was holding a dust brush as she knelt at the foot of a giant, winged skeleton tall enough to project three stories into the atrium void.

  “I demand to know who Seth is!”

  She removed the gloves and secreted them in the voluminous pockets of the pinafore she wore over her clothes. Her cats stretched nearby, cleaning themselves. Normally, she rose with a well-oiled ease that would turn other sixty-year-olds green. But today she struggled to her feet, gratefully accepting my hand and leaning heavily upon me.

  “Mike’s not sick is he?” I asked. It seemed an