My Brother's Keeper - By Donna Malane Page 0,17

At the back entrance were two car parks designated for the directors. Justin’s silver BMW was parked in one of them. A sky-blue version of the same model kept it company in the other.

There were no surprises with the layout of the gym: a warehouse of equipment with low ceilings and mirrored walls. No surprises with the colour decor of Apricot either. The music was loud and vibrating. Sweating bodies pounded the treadmills. At nine-fifty on a Thursday morning the place was packed with penitents, feverishly working off their lifestyle sins. Who needs it? Give me a rosary or Stations of the Cross any day. Gym clothes, sweatbands, dietary supplements, health products, nut bars and probably the phone number of the cute guy working out beside you were all available from the reception area. No sign of Salena. A kitted-out twenty-something with a perfect body, hair and skin, smiled a perfect set of teeth at me. I grimaced my imperfect bag of tricks back at her. A boy of about five playing on an iPad gave me the briefest of glances. Presumably this was Neo, Sunny’s half-brother. The Matrix had a lot to answer for. My phone beeped a text alert. It was from Jason, wanting assurance my dangerous dog wouldn’t be at the house during the pre-open home inspection at one o’clock. I replied, All good. No dog and got a smiley face in return. Jesus.

I looked up from my texting as a middle-aged man approached.

‘You Diane?’

I could handle the oiled chest on display above his low-necked singlet — just — but did my best to avoid looking at the eye-wateringly tight baby-blue Lycra shorts. ‘Mr Bachelor said to take you up to his office when you got here.’

With that he turned and walked away. He had the classic gait of a body builder, arms forced outwards from his body to accommodate the bulk of water-wing biceps. I followed his muscular balloon butt up the narrow wooden stairway. We didn’t say a word. What can you say when you’re faced with a butt like that? Outside the office door he held his hand up like a traffic cop and peered at his watch, lips silently counting down the seconds until ten o’clock. Oh please, what drama. So Justin had a tame gorilla, big deal. He knocked once, opened the door and nodded in the direction he wanted me to take. I wasn’t going to argue with him.

Sunny sat cross-legged in the middle of a blood-red sofa, a foot in one hand, the other holding her hair back from her forehead in a gesture of frustration. Justin hovered over her, his neck blotchy with emotion. They had been arguing. I pretended not to notice and spent a few minutes enthusing over the ultra-cool office space of brick walls and four-metre-high sash windows. The ceiling had been removed to expose kauri structural beams and a high arched roof cavity. Very nice. Signage and clothes samples lying around the place suggested this was where Justin ran the merchandise division of the gym business. One corner of the room was sectioned off by a bamboo-framed silk screen. Posters of disturbingly young girls in skimpy gym gear adorned the walls like hunters’ trophies.

Sunny unfolded herself and padded barefoot to a coffee machine in the far corner. She was wearing a tiny pleated skirt that only just covered her bum. The sleeveless cut-away T-shirt was emblazoned with the word ‘whore’. I hoped this was what she and her father had been arguing about.

‘Coffee?’ she asked, casually tilting her head over one bony shoulder. ‘I do an okay cappuccino.’

I couldn’t help but admire her bravado. ‘Great. Thanks,’ I said.

Justin glared at me. Meaningfully, I suspect. I followed Sunny, partly to get Justin out of my line of sight. He followed.

‘Da-ad,’ she protested. ‘Leave us alone!’ The habitual cry of the teenage girl.

‘I checked you out,’ Justin said, pumping his fists open and closed like he was preparing for a blood donation. I hoped it was his blood he was planning to donate.

‘Good,’ I said. ‘It’s what I expected you to do.’

After a brief respite his neck and chest had mottled up again. Just looking at him made me feel tired. How boring it would be to live with someone whose first and only response to everything was anger.

‘Word is you’re legit. If you weren’t, I wouldn’t have let you in the door.’

Sunny rolled her eyes theatrically. ‘Da-ad, you promised!’ She turned her impossibly fragile little neck