of a rental car in Sydney with Rabz. Martin’s hand resting at the small of her back. A gesture I knew well. Rabz’s face thrown up to the sky as she was laughing. Him grinning. Light dancing in his eyes. Sunlight gold on his hair. I drew one of the images closer. Martin and Rabz kissing. In what appeared to be an underground garage. Another photo captured them entering a hotel, his arm around her shoulders. Another had snared them eating ice-cream cones as they strolled near the Sydney Harbour Bridge, the iconic opera house in the background. I picked up a print that had been shot from outside a building, clearly with a massive telephoto lens. Through the hotel window Martin and Rabz could be seen in an intimate embrace. Rabz partially undressed.
I swallowed and set the photo down. “So . . . Rabz also went to Sydney.”
“I’m sorry, Ellie.”
I inhaled deeply.
“At least you know, El.” Emotion glittered in Willow’s pretty blue eyes. Her jaw was tight. “At least you have proof.”
I moistened my lips, trying to realign everything in my head. The puzzle pieces, the odd little niggles—they were all slotting tightly into place, and the big picture emerging was terrifying. He’d been gaslighting me, no doubt. Was he trying to kill me—or trying to make me kill myself? Was that his endgame—some final plan before he left for the Cape Verde islands in two weeks?
“There’s something else, Ellie.”
“What?” My voice came out papery.
“The PI also learned that Rabz has sold the Puggo. The new owner is taking over next month.”
I put my face into my hands and rubbed hard. “He used me, Willow. He’s taken everything from our bank account. He’s fleeing with the presales deposits. He’s mortgaged our house. He’s totally sucked me dry, and he’s going to leave me holding the bag of this Agnes Holdings mess. I could go to prison. And she’s going with him?” I surged to my feet, began to pace. “That’s what the sale of the Puggo must mean. Rabz is going to the Cape Verde islands with my husband. There’s no extradition treaty there, I bet. I—”
“What did you say?”
“I said there’s no extradition—”
“You said Cape Verde islands?”
“I found two plane tickets in his office. Departure date is in just over two weeks. To the Cape Verde islands. I also found a rental agreement for a luxury villa.”
“Are . . . are you sure?”
“Yes I’m fucking sure!” I paced faster, rage fueling me. Martin had beaten me down. He’d nearly stolen my identity—my very concept of self. But not quite. I was still here. I’d found this stuff in time. I now stood at a fork in my own road. Two choices faced me: Collapse and concede. Or get him. Get him back. Show him he should not have dared cross me.
I spun to face Willow. “I could kill him. I so badly want to kill him.”
She sat there, deathly pale. “I cannot believe this,” she said quietly. “Rabz? He’s running off with her? She’s like a fixture in Jarrawarra—I can’t believe she’d do this.”
“I should have taken that knife and plunged it in properly.” I raised an imaginary knife into the air and brought it down repeatedly in a stabbing motion. Stabbity, stabbity, stabbity.
“Ellie—” She surged to her feet and took hold of my arm. “Stop it. Stop now.”
“Fuck off, Willow. Don’t touch me.”
Shocked, she stepped back.
I came to my senses at the sight of her face. I was breathing hard. I unclenched my fist and pushed my hair off my face. “I mean it,” I said more quietly. “I’m going to get him. I’m going to nail him so hard he’ll be sorry I ever tripped into his arms.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Fight back. And you know what else? If he did this to me . . . this level of a long con like this—my bet is he’s done it before. He had to have built up to this kind of brazen act. There have got to be more victims out there. Victims in all sorts of ways. For starters, all those people who put down significant presale deposits for Agnes Marina land that’s never going to be developed, for a project that is doomed by environmental standards. And now their money is gone? I’m going to war, Willow. I’m going to rally a goddamn army and bury that bastard.” I pointed to the photos on the table. “And those—those are going into my portfolio