Bleeding Hearts. Lindy Cameron
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greatly relieved to be rescued herself, even if it was by Kit.
"I should go and find out," Rhonda suggested.
"No, it's fine. I think they're about to finish up," Kit lied. "We wouldn't want to make any noise in there now."
"Of course not," Rhonda agreed anxiously.
"You must be very proud of Darian," Kit said, taking a seat opposite her.
"Oh yes."
"How long have you two been an item?"
"Three years. We met in Adelaide when he was on hols. I actually accosted him on the street," Rhonda smirked, "coz he looked like, um, like someone I knew. He thought I was chatting him up. And now with the baby almost here and the book being so successful everything's, like, wow."
"I imagine it is," Kit said.
"Yeah, like wow," Sally agreed, as she rolled her eyes disdainfully.
"So, are you a writer too, Rhonda?" Kit asked, ignoring Sally's incredulous look.
"Oh god no! One in the family is enough. I'm a nurse, or I was before I got knocked-up, I mean before the baby. Oh look, they have finished. Excuse me." Given that she looked like she was about to drop sextuplets any second, Rhonda was up and gone in a flash the moment Darian appeared at the back door.
"What a relief!" Sally exclaimed. "Honestly, she is one of the most idiotic and boring women I have ever met."
Kit smiled as she stood up to return to the house. "Never underestimate what you can learn from the boring idiots of this world."
"What? Are you saying you learned something from that?" Sally sneered.
"Enough to raise a suspicion," Kit hinted.
"What, for heaven's sake?"
"I deal in facts gained from investigating suspicions not gossip generated by them, Sally."
"Oh tosh!"
Kit shrugged. "When I know for sure, I'll pass it on. If it's relevant."
Kit sat in her driver's seat and waited until the camera, sound and lighting team, and a gofer called Barnaby, had crammed into the Heart and Soul van and driven off, before she started her own engine. Rebecca opened the passenger door and climbed in beside her and Sally took her sweet time fiddling with an armful of stuff before she got in the back. Kit wondered what her problem was.
"Sally tells me you found something out about Darian," Rebecca said, casually snapping her seat belt into place, "but you won't tell us."
"Yet," Kit finished, as she pulled out from the curb. "I won't tell you yet. At the moment it's just an anomaly in the space-time continuum, it may mean nothing at all."
"Does it have something to do with my letters and your case for me, or the man himself?"
"Himself" Kit repeated. "Nothing to do with you, as far as I know."
"OK. So what about him and me? Do you think he's writing the letters?"
"I think he's a born story-teller Rebecca, but not the kind he's pretending to be. In my opinion he's a liar and an impostor; one of your art world charlatans. I seriously doubt he lived the life he's claiming, but I don't think he's sending you death threats."
"You got all that from that piddly little chat with Rhonda?" Sally asked.
"No, I got all that from listening to Darian Renault," Kit said, glancing at Sally in the rearview mirror. "And I'll make you a bet: if that's his real name then I'll change mine to Boadicea."
"How come you can slander Darian but you can't tell us what you learned from his girlfriend?"
"Not can't, Sally. I won't tell you," Kit explained.
"But we're paying you to find stuff out and tell us," Sally insisted. "I mean, tell Rebecca."
"Yeah," Kit acknowledged. "That's true, if it has something to do with the threats against her. On the other hand if, during the course of my investigation, I discover 'stuff' about someone else then I'll use my own discretion to decide who, if anyone, I tell. If it's something that I think Rebecca will use responsibly, then she might get lucky." Kit cast a smiling glance at Rebecca who flashed a very charming 'go on, you can tell me' look back at her.
"This is something you could have uncovered yourself, Rebecca," Kit teased. "You're already digging, and I'm sure even an arts journo knows how to get the real dirt. Although, maybe it's the sort of thing you'd normally delegate to a PA, if they hadn't already thought of it themselves."
"Oh, ha!" Sally said snidely. "And I suppose you can tell us how it's done."
"Our jobs are essentially the same," Kit shrugged, waiting for the lights to change so she could turn onto Hoddle Street. "If you want to get the lowdown on someone you don't go to them for the answers, you ask the spouse or partner who washes their socks or pays their bills. You want to know something about a writer - or anybody who doesn't live a solitary existence - you ask the person who makes the coffee for them while they work. You give that person some attention, put them in the spotlight for a change. After all, how many writers would admit that they drink too much, that they can't spell Popocatepetl, or that they can only write with a pair of jocks on their head."
"Or that they are trying to pass fiction off as truth. Is that what you're implying?" Rebecca asked.
Kit waggled her head. "Or someone else's fiction off as their truth; or someone else's truth off as their semi-bio-fiction; or any combination of the above," she said, making a right turn into Victoria Parade towards the city centre.
"Ooh, this is intriguing," Rebecca grinned. "Come on, Sally, you were there. What did she say?"
"Buggered if I know," Sally said. "I switched off when she started talking about fluid retention."
"Not Rhonda, silly. What did Kit say?"
"She asked that moron if she was a writer."
"And?" Rebecca demanded, as Kit reached towards her CD player. "What was her answer?"
Melissa Etheridge's Yes I Am drowned out Sally's response and Rebecca's laughter.
Five minutes later Kit pulled into the sweeping drive of the Sofitel on Collins Street. Sally did a lot of harrumphing while she gathered her stuff together and got out. Kit figured she'd have stormed off in a huff had she not dropped the same thing three times on her way to the hotel lobby.
"Is it just me, or did Sally graduate from the College for Grouchy Assistants?" Kit asked.
"I'm sorry Kit, just ignore her," Rebecca said. "She's worried about me and it's making her crabby. Really crabby. Sally is my treasure and I would be truly, truly lost without her. But she thinks we should go home so she's taking her disapproval of my decision to stay, out on you. I will speak to her and ask that she at least be polite."
"No, don't worry about it Rebecca," Kit reassured her. "My contract is with you. Sally can be as cranky and disagreeable as she likes, as long as she doesn't mind me biting back."
Rebecca laughed. "I will tell her that. Under normal circumstances I take her advice on most things of importance, but I just don't agree with her on this. I refuse to be bullied by someone who doesn't have the guts to present their grievance face to face, or the sense to be more specific so I can do what they want - if I feel like it."
"I doubt you really want to come face to face with this bully," Kit stated.
"And you don't think it's Darian?"
"No. As non-specific as the letters are, they do imply that you have, or have taken, or you want something that belongs to the person who's writing them. Or, factoring in another aspect of your card-carrying whacko, he or she thinks whatever it is belongs to them."
"It's beyond me what it could be," Rebecca growled in frustration. "So, what next?"
Kit