Chapter 25 Joe

Chapter 25

?Joe

Joe looks at the blank screen of his phone as he drives along the ridge road winding from the harbor out toward Pond Bay. She has not tried to call him back.

He's pretty sure he's doing the right thing, driving out there. She seemed nice—well, more than nice, great, which even Joe is aware isn't the most eloquent description of the incredibly interesting, funny, intelligent, and yeah, sure, very rich British woman he met earlier that day.

Her message wasn't a booty call, or at least it didn't seem like any he's had in the past—and being an islander, he has experienced plenty of booty calls. Hell, most of his relationships have been, essentially, just protracted booty calls.

But then she invited him over, just hours after meeting him—that sounds impulsive. But then he is coming, so what does that say about him? Joe wonders if he gets himself into situations like this deliberately. If there is something innate in him that means this is all he is good for relationship-wise.

He tried to reply to the voice message but quickly remembered the whole no-signal situation in the new builds across the island—she wouldn't necessarily get the message that he is on his way. But he can always leave if it turns out she's changed her mind and all is well. He tries not to think how embarrassing it would be that he traveled all the way out just to check on her after one lunch, but hey, the good thing about island visitors is that they don't tend to hang around to remind you what a disposable person you apparently are.

He shakes off the thought. She isn't like that, she's nice. No, not nice, great, she's great.

—

The gatehouse is shuttered when he arrives. He pulls his car tight into the curb and locks it up before heading over to investigate.

The intercom doesn't seem to be connecting to the main house when he presses the button. He tries Nina's phone number again—it is unavailable.

He checks the time of her last message; it was over two hours ago now, though he'd only listened to it as he was leaving the harbor about half an hour ago. Perhaps she changed her mind. He tries to peek over the gates but it isn't possible.

He steps back and reassesses. He notes the camera mounted high on the gatepost above, trained down on him, and reasons that her "call for help" constitutes mitigating circumstances—a phrase slipped in on the two occasions Joe has had minor brushes with local law enforcement as an island-bound teenager to explain his potentially gray-area behavior.

He squints at the gate, head cocked. It's probably, what, ten feet? That's industry standard anyway. He is six foot two, so if he climbs over and drops, he won't likely break anything. And again, if he is caught on camera, it's her house and she invited him and it seemed like an emergency. He pauses a second, remembering the last time he slightly misread a situation, but he argues internally that that situation had been a booty call, and this is most definitely not. Non-sexually-threatening company is what has been requested. Joe pauses again. Does that mean sexual company was requested, just not threatening sexual company?

"Fucking hell," he mutters to himself. Things are hard these days. And the annoying thing is, he isn't even that bothered about sex. Well, of course he's interested in it, but, like, in a normal way. Jesus! He just likes her. He just wants to see her again and chat to her because—because she's great.

He shakes off his concerns and instead runs full-tilt at the gate, finding a foothold on a hinge halfway up the left gatepost and heaving himself up to straddle the wooden gate top. He looks up at the hill visible beyond, and memories of his brief time working on the site flood back.

He shivers in spite of himself at the memory of the floor plans from earlier that day, the idea that the house at the top of the hill goes down into the rock is creepy in a way he hadn't conceived of at the time.

Joe swings his legs over the gate, lowers himself as far as arm's length, and drops the final distance to the ground.

No alarms sound, no attack dogs are released, and so he dusts himself down and makes his way toward the steep stone staircase leading up to the house.

Halfway up the ascent the house comes into view. He hasn't seen the finished article; he and his father's company were only required for the excavation stage of construction. They hauled and removed the tons of rubble necessary to hollow out the cliff in which the property nestles. Now that he can see it, he stops in his tracks. It gleams in the sun, an unexpected jewel carved out of the rock.

It's sophisticated and minimalist. A lot of the luxury properties on the island are not. It looks like her in a way, the house, Joe thinks, then he grimaces at the stupidity of the thought and continues to ascend. It's a building; it doesn't look anything like her.

He is definitely putting too much on all this, he reasons. He should just get on with it, help her with whatever, and go home.

When he reaches the top of the steps the full experience of the house hits him: the terraces, pools, beach, the breeze rolling in from the ocean view. He pauses again.

Yeah, he thinks, he should definitely not read too much into this. It's unlikely that a university professor who owns a house like this would be interested in anything other than a booty call from someone like him. Not that he isn't a thinking, feeling, emotionally intelligent guy with—

Joe stops. All thoughts put on hold as a woman in a long flowing black dress emerges through one of the terrace doors. She is beautiful, but she isn't Nina.

"Hello," she says, a polite level of surprise in her voice—but perhaps not quite enough surprise given the fact she has just found a complete stranger on her secured property. "Who are you?"

Joe opens his mouth to speak and then stops. Has he vaulted the wrong gate? He thinks back through the last twenty minutes and then frowns. No, this is definitely the place.

"Joe. Nina asked me to pop over."

It is the woman's turn to frown now. "You're here for Nina?"

Her surprise is so genuine that Joe is suddenly certain this is all a joke. Perhaps this woman is Nina's friend or a sister playing a trick on him? He looks past her into the open-plan living room beyond and there sure as anything is Nina's handbag resting on the counter.

Joe cracks an amused smile and nods his understanding. He thinks he gets it: Nina wanted company, and obviously she didn't just message him. Her friend arrived before he did and she's got it covered, and now, apparently, the friend has been told to get rid of him.

"Okay, fair enough. Just tell her hi, okay. No pressure: she's got my number. Tell her I'm around if she wants to grab a coffee or something next week."

The woman tilts her head appraisingly. "You like her? Nina?" she asks, her tone curious, objective.

Joe suddenly feels something is off. Something about Nina's friend doesn't quite fit; he can't quite picture them together. But he answers truthfully, interested to see where this conversation might take him.

"Er, yeah. Yeah, I do."

"But you don't really know her, do you?"

Joe frowns in spite of himself. That's what Nina said of herself only this afternoon. In a sense it is true, and yet he does feel like he innately knows Nina. He knew her from the moment he saw her.

"I think I've got a pretty good sense of her. People like to think they're fairly complex but I find my first feel for someone tends to hold true. You can see the good and bad pretty much straightaway—and sometimes one outweighs the other. So yeah, to answer your question: I know her; I like her," he concludes, watching carefully to see how the sentiment lands on the woman in front of him; the woman he absolutely does not trust, even though he clearly doesn't know her either.

He watches her easy charm tense, almost imperceptibly, as she flashes an amused smile, but its edges are a little tighter than perhaps she is aware.

She doesn't like the response, Joe sees that. She is hiding it well, but he is good with people and she doesn't like what he just said one bit.

And it suddenly dawns on Joe that perhaps this woman isn't Nina's friend. This woman is the reason Nina asked for his help. Whether she is Nina's bizarre note leaver or the woman who pretended to be her, it's impossible to tell, but she is most definitely not Nina's friend.

"Well, that's good. Interesting philosophy," the woman muses, her gaze drifting out to the view. "But I'm afraid Nina isn't here right now. You're welcome to come in and wait? She should be back soon."

Joe looks down at his phone. If Nina is out, she would have a signal, but he just tried her number and it wasn't working. Joe looks back at the woman, hoping to buy himself a little thinking time. Behind her through the terrace doors, an immaculately clean living room and kitchen and there on the counter Nina's handbag. Odd that she would leave it behind.

"Where did she go?" Joe asks.

The woman gestures for him to enter the house. "She's just gone for a walk, to clear her head; it's been a tough few weeks: a death in the family."

Joe looks out across the terrace toward the stairs. He hadn't thought of that, that she might just be on the beach. No one needs a handbag on the beach.

"Oh yes, of course. I forgot. Nina's father. Are you part of the family too?" he asks with an appropriate level of sensitivity.

"Me. No, gosh, no," the woman says delicately.

He wonders now if perhaps he has misread the situation. And with that thought he lets the woman usher him inside. He will go in and wait and perhaps Nina would still like to see him when she gets back.

And as he enters the house, he catches sight of something odd through a half-open doorway leading off from the living room. Dread fizzes through him. The mirror in the room beyond is smashed, the floor beneath it swept but the facts crystal clear that something bad has happened.

But before Joe can turn to confront the woman, who is now calmly in the process of gathering her loose hair up into a neat chignon, a sudden flash of pain shoots through the back of his skull, turning everything into darkness.