My Brother's Keeper - By Donna Malane Page 0,82

as if I might have him hidden in my clothes somewhere.

‘He’s with Sunny,’ I answered evasively.

Satisfied with that answer, she removed her impossibly high heels and hauled herself up into the back of the ambulance.

‘Salena, listen,’ I said. ‘Ring Justin and tell him to meet me here as soon as possible. It’s important.’ She hesitated and then reluctantly reached for her phone. The driver closed one of the back doors. I leaned in before the other door was closed. ‘And while you’re at it, you might want to tell him who took the photos of Sunny.’

The attendant closed the other door before she could respond.

I only had enough time to grab my jacket, splash cold water on my face and take a couple of paracetamol to quieten my whistling-kettle head problem before Justin burst in the door.

‘What the fuck’s going on? Salena said there’s an emergency and then she just hung up on me. Where’s the kids?’

I thought it would be wise to start with some good news. ‘Justin, you’ve been cleared of taking the photos of Sunny.’

He stared at me. ‘What the fuck?’ I saw the hope ignite. ‘For real?’

‘Yep. The person who took the photos has confessed.’

‘You’re shitting me.’ He lowered himself into a chair, a smile tempting his lips as he processed this piece of information.

‘That’s the good news,’ I added and then mentally started counting to ten.

At the count of five he suddenly shot to his feet. ‘Who did it?’ Bingo. ‘Who took those photos of Sunny? I’ll fucking kill him!’

I took a deep breath. ‘Salena.’

‘What?’ It made no sense to him. ‘Salena?’

I nodded.

‘Bullshit. Why would Salena take dirty photos of Sunny?’

I took an even deeper breath. ‘Okay. Well, that’s more bad news.’ He waited. There was only one way to do this — quickly. ‘Salena and Ned have been having an affair. I don’t know for how long, but long enough for them to decide to set you up so that you’d be out of the way and they’d have access to Sunny’s inheritance.’

‘What?’ he said again. I didn’t think I could repeat it. I was about to say I was sorry but then that unidentifiable bruised organ of mine reminded me it hadn’t yet forgiven him for being rammed against the bridge post.

Justin was looking at me like I was some kind of dangerous nutcase, which, given the strange whistling brain event I was still experiencing, might have been a reasonable assessment. ‘What have you done with my kids?’

I swallowed. ‘Sunny drove off in Salena’s car. She has Neo with her.’ His face drained of colour. ‘But I’m sure she won’t have gone far.’

Justin sank to his knees. ‘No, no, no!’ He rocked back and forth, hands holding his head in an eerie mirror image of me earlier. I knew this was definitely in the bad news category, but his reaction was worse than I had expected.

‘She can drive, right? She’s a smart girl. She’s driven Salena’s car before?’

He just stared at me, his face fallen in ashen folds, his mouth open.

‘It’s an automatic,’ I added weakly.

I hadn’t been all that worried about Sunny until confronted by her father’s all too real panic. He was staring at his mobile.

‘Does she know?’ He looked up at me. I saw the hope in his eyes. ‘Does she know it wasn’t me took the photos?’

I shook my head. ‘Not yet. But you can tell her.’

‘I can’t ring her,’ he said. ‘Not until she knows. She won’t answer if she sees it’s me’

He was right, of course, but I couldn’t help. A good percentage of my mobile was presently speeding towards Auckland Hospital embedded in Ned’s face, and Norma’s land phone was on Fanshaw’s desk in Wellington. Or more likely in Fanshaw’s rubbish bin.

‘Ring Neo.’

He pressed Neo’s speed-dial number and waited. I could hear the ring tone from where I was standing. After just three rings Justin looked close to breaking down. Then he let out a yelp of relief.

‘Neo! It’s Dad. Where are you? Neo? Neo!’ He brought the phone round close to his face, and stared at it. ‘She cut me off. She grabbed the phone off him and cut me off.’ He dialled again but we both knew it would go to voicemail.

‘It’s okay, Justin. They’ll be okay. We’ll find them.’ His reaction still seemed disproportionate to me but his fear was infectious.

He turned his face to me. It was bleak and grey. ‘We’ve got to ring the cops,’ he said.

‘Okay. We can do that.’