The Assassin Drone, Part 9
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Although Scott, or whatever his real name was, had explicitly forbidden her to do anything special before he arrived that evening, such as cleaning or changing sheets, Olivia still had to go shopping after work. She'd already planned red lentil balls for supper, one of her favourite dishes that she rarely made anymore because Owen had decided he didn't like lentils and made gagging noises every time he saw them. She wondered what those men were feeding Owen there, wherever he was. Hopefully, they were giving him something he liked, but not letting him stuff himself with fast food. Then she grimaced. Why was she worried about that when she ought to be more worried about the men killing both her and Owen? Maybe it was because she was starting to trust Scott that they'd be able to catch the terrorists without getting anybody killed, thrown into prison, or just plain sacked.
Was Scott a lentil-hater, too? She hoped not. Funny, she thought, if she'd known yesterday, after that dreadful arm-twisting incident, that he'd be moving in for a night and that he didn't like pulses, she'd be going out of her way to include them in every dish she offered him. But he'd apologized so nicely this morning, with flowers, no less! Olivia couldn't remember the last time anybody had bought her flowers. Probably Andy had, sometime before his death, but it was so many years ago. And Scott had complimented her about her creativity, and encouraged her during her moments of weakness, and they'd worked so well together all day. He deserved something nice.
Stop it, she told herself firmly. He's just doing his job. And anyway, lentils are nice. It's just Owen who doesn't like them.
With a sigh, Olivia reached for the package, but then swerved her trolley around to the freezers and picked out some ice cream as well, just in case.
At home, once she'd put the shopping away, Olivia went out into the back garden and picked up the drone. She glanced around guiltily as she did so, half-expecting armed policemen to emerge from every direction and arrest her for treason, or theft at the very least, but except for the wind, there was no sound and no movement, and she returned to the house unaccosted. Her heart thudding in her chest, she went upstairs and placed the drone on the desk in her room where she already had most of the parts for the one she'd been planning to assemble. If she got through this whole thing alive, with Owen, she'd have to give the parts back, but she could worry about that later. There was enough going on to-night and to-morrow, what with the arrival of her "brother," picking up the memory stick, then the actual handover and getting Owen back.
The doorbell rang at quarter past six, just as Olivia had finished eating and was about to pack up the remaining lentil balls for another day. She'd been waiting the entire afternoon for the sound of the bell, but still found herself jumping in surprise when it actually came. Scott stood there with a suitcase and a carry-on bag, dressed in more casual clothes and looking radically different than he had at work earlier that day. How had she ever thought he had a big nose? Why, it looked positively noble, if not downright Aquiline – and was he wearing an earring?
"Hi, sis, how about a little visit from your favourite brother?" he asked cheerfully, sticking his foot in the door before gathering up his luggage, and practically barrelling his way in.
Olivia followed him into the living room, not sure how to answer as he dumped his things in the middle of the floor and glanced around. The only phrase that came into her mind was the one she'd practiced earlier that afternoon, but it didn't seem to fit now. If she hadn't known he'd been in London earlier that day, she would have believed, if from nothing else, then from the label on his suitcase proclaiming YYC YYZ LHR, that he'd truly come straight from Calgary. How had he done that so fast?
"Speechless with joy?" he went on, sounding more sarcastic than joyous. Even his accent seemed different, less Southern and more like her own. Olivia took a deep breath and said, "Scott, I'm not talking to you."
"You don't have to talk. I'll only be staying for a while. Just until I can find my own place. We can get along until then, right, sis? One month, maximum."
"A month?" Olivia asked faintly, and then thought to add, "Scott, what are you doing here?"
"It wasn't my fault, but those bloody ungrateful ba—bosses said it was either leave or be sacked," Scott said, and his voice was realistically bitter. "So I thought I'd see if Tarla wanted my engineering skills instead. How's that sound, sis? You and me, working together in the same company? Oh, don't make that face!"
Olivia glanced at him in surprise, not having been making any face at all, except perhaps awe at his acting skills. He went on without skipping a beat. "Have you got anything to eat? Something smells good, and I'm starved. The plane had to circle around Heathrow for ages before they let us land, and then it was a nightmare trying to get my luggage."
"Red lentil balls," she said, and as he adopted the exact same expression that Owen always did when she suggested pulses, she wanted to tell him, And don't make that face. Her courage failed her, however, and she remained silent.
"Vegetarian? Well, if it doesn't kill me, it can only make me stronger, right?" he grumbled, and pushed by her, headed for the kitchen. "You got any beer?"
"I don't keep alcohol in the house, because of Owen," Olivia said, following. Grunting with disappointment, Scott sat down at the table, and Olivia picked up the plate of lentil balls to put them in the microwave.
"Where is Owen, anyway? It seems awfully quiet around here," Scott asked.
"He's … away," Olivia said. "Visiting a friend." She searched frantically for a better excuse, and said the first thing that popped into her head. "At Legoland."
"Legoland?" Scott repeated.
"It's half term," Olivia lied, and opened the drawer for clean silverware. "They're taking a little holiday, seeing Windsor Castle and all that, too."
"Nice friends."
The microwave beeped, and Olivia took out the plate, then put it on the table in front of him. "So you can sleep in his bed until he gets back, I guess, and then we'll have to see."
"Right." Scott stopped talking to eat, and didn't say another word until he'd finished everything on the plate, including the lettuce and parsley decorations. Olivia thought he must have liked it until he asked, "How about bangers and mash to-morrow, sis?"
"You can buy whatever you want," Olivia stated, firmly deciding not to offer him any ice cream after such an ungrateful comment. Scott smirked back at her.
The thought of him sleeping in Owen's bed reminded her that he might not want to spend the night under Bob the Builder sheets, and though Olivia struggled a little with the desire to make him do so anyway, and even throw in a handful of Lego bricks, she finally went upstairs to hunt through her linen supplies for a more neutral set. Finished, she came down again to find Scott in her living room, sitting in her favourite chair in front of her television, watching the news. Politics bored Olivia, and so she took the mobile phone from its place on the coffee table and went into the kitchen to clean up. The closer it got to seven o'clock, the more often she glanced to the phone, until she was finally sitting at the table, staring intently at it and waiting for it to ring.
As soon as it did, Olivia snatched it up, but barely had time to say hello before Owen protested, "Mum, we still haven't gone to Legoland!"
"Are you all right otherwise?" she asked quickly, not knowing how much time they would let her have to speak to him. Seeing Scott come through from the living room to listen, she turned away from him. "What did you have for lunch to-day?"
"A Big Mac, and I ate the whole thing!" Owen reported proudly, but then his voice changed back to something close to a whine. "We had to eat here at the house, though, and they won't even let me play in the garden!"
"I'm sorry," Olivia said. She could hear a voice in the background, and then Owen said, "No, I want to talk to Mum!" Her heart twisted and she called his name, but the next voice she heard was the man again, gently admonishing her. "Really, Olivia, we aren't starving him. We're treating him well. How are you treating our project? How's it coming?"
"Fine," she reported.
"Will it be ready by to-morrow night?"
"Yeah," she said, thinking of the fully functional drone upstairs on her desk. She glanced at Scott, but he'd picked up the notepad she kept in the hall on the telephone table, and was writing something on it.
"Ten o'clock?"
"Guaranteed," she snapped. Scott shoved the notepad at her and she read the words Meet where?
"Excellent," the man said. "And remember what you have to do if you ever want to talk to Owen again."
"I remember!" Olivia cried. Scott waved the page a little, and she quickly added, "And, uh, where do you want to meet—?"
But the man interrupted her before she could finish her question. "We'll call you to-morrow," he said. Disappointed, Olivia switched the mobile off.
"Who was that, your lover? You meeting someone while you've got Owen out of the house?" Scott asked.
Olivia gaped at him in hurt astonishment, unable even to summon the magic words she'd practiced. Scott, I'm not talking to you.
"Aw, come on, sis, it was just a joke." Sensing perhaps that he'd gone too far, Scott softened his tone. "I'm sorry, really. I know there hasn't been anyone else for you since Andy died."
Olivia was still unable to answer, and after a moment, Scott asked plaintively, "Livvy? Please?"
"Don't call me Livvy," she hissed. How dare he come in here and make such accusations! Why was he acting so mean now when he'd been so nice to her at Tarla?
"Olivia. I'm sorry," he said again, but even as he bent down to write something on the notepad, he added, "Look, I'd better get out of your hair for a while, huh? Where's the nearest pub?"
When he held the page up for her to see, Olivia read, Is this your phone?
Confused at the sudden change of topic, she shook her head, and saw him put a finger to his lips before she could open her mouth. Instead, she reached for the pen. He held it out, but reminded her, "Pub? Beer? Come on, Olivia, you won't have to talk to me if I'm not here."
Awkwardly, she gave him directions to a pub that she drove by each day when taking Owen to school, then scrawled simply, They gave it to me.
"Right." Scott nodded, then ripped the pages from the notebook and crumpled them into his pocket. Recovering slightly from the shock, Olivia thought about why he'd been writing notes in the first place, which reminded her of the drone, and the memory stick that she still had to pick up. "Actually, Scott, I have to go out this evening. You can stay here if you want."
"No, that's all right," he said breezily. "I want a good beer, not that Canadian swill. Have you got a spare key, in case I get back before you do?"
"Yeah," Olivia said, and went out into the hall. She kept a second set of keys on a hook above the telephone, and handed them over.
"You're a good sis," he said. "Olivia." With a smile, he pocketed the keys, and Olivia saw that he was holding the mobile phone in his other hand. She didn't ask why he was taking it, and he didn't say anything, just went out. After he'd shut the door behind him, the house was oddly silent .
Olivia went slowly upstairs to detach the helicopter's battery from its recharger and return it to where it was needed, then placed the helicopter in the carrier bag and took it out to the car. She passed Scott on the street, but he didn't wave, and neither did she.
She'd already noticed the wind that afternoon, but now it was worse, and Olivia could see black clouds rolling in from the west. The good weather would be over soon, she thought randomly, not that it mattered. The only important thing now was getting the memory stick, handing over the drone, and getting Owen back. The stiff breeze made her worry, however, and she trained her binoculars on the Tarla building. The plastic bin liner was waving wildly, but at least it was still attached to the metal pole. Olivia started up the helicopter and sent it on its way, acutely aware of every gust that shook the light machine and nudged it just that little bit off course.
When the helicopter had reached the roof of the Tarla building, Olivia had to wait out two successive blasts of wind before deciding it was safe to make it descend. She only needed a minute, just one single minute without a breeze, but her prayers were not answered. Just as she was lining up the helicopter's hook with the handles of the plastic bag, an especially forceful gust of wind knocked the helicopter diagonally towards the side of the building. One of the rotors hit, folding immediately under the force, and making way for the other two to slam into the brick as well. The helicopter fell, taking the metal pole and the plastic bag down with it.
"No," Olivia whispered, too shocked to scream. "Oh, no!"
She aimed her binoculars lower, but there were bushes and other things at ground level, and she couldn't tell where the wreckage had landed. One thing she could see, however, was a camera at the corner of the building, pointing at the pavement, and she realized that, with her bad luck, the helicopter's crash would have been visible on CCTV. Highly visible. Olivia stuffed the binoculars and the remote control piece into the carryall, then hurried back to her car.
Owen, she thought as she ran. They were going to kill Owen because of her mistake, because of her stupidity. There wouldn't be a second chance to get the memory stick out of Tarla, not now that security had seen how she'd done it. The drone was useless without the software, so they'd probably kill her as well, and Scott. Scott! She'd have to tell him somehow that the operation was off, there was no point in him accompanying her and getting killed for his pains. He'd just have to let her go alone.
She came to her car and got in, working the controls automatically as she planned ahead. She wouldn't tell the men on the phone that she didn't have the software. She'd wait until she saw Owen one last time. Maybe there'd be a chance to hug him, or at least to say sorry and good-bye. Then she'd confess, and take the consequences. As long as she and Owen were together, she wouldn't mind so much.
Olivia didn't remember the drive home, or her entry into the house. The next thing she was aware of was checking the living room to see if Scott had come back yet, which he hadn't, and then going upstairs to her desk. Knowing she wouldn't be able to call her mother to say good-bye, she sat down to write an explanation. The men had said they were watching her e-mails and her post, but she told herself that if she wrote it by hand, she could simply leave it in the house for her mother to find, later. As she wrote, the words simply flowed, detailing everything that she had experienced since Tuesday morning, including the helicopter crash, but every so often, she would stop and wonder why she wasn't crying. She should be grieving, she thought, not coldly making arrangements like this, but the tears did not come.
Just as she was finishing, she heard the door open downstairs and Scott call out her name. She didn't answer, just continued to write, and eventually, he came upstairs. "Oh, there you are."
"Here I am," she said. She'd included a paragraph about Scott and how she wasn't going to get him killed as well, and now she offered him the pages to read. "I was just working on … a few things."
It seemed to take forever for him to peruse her account of how she hadn't been able to get the memory stick, but finally, he said, "Olivia, I don't know what to say."
"It doesn't matter," Olivia said, turning away with a shrug.
"This is really good," Scott went on. "Are you going to submit this somewhere? Because seriously, you should consider becoming a writer in your spare time!"
What on earth was he talking about? Olivia shot him a confused look, and Scott indicated the ceiling, then put a hand to his ear as though listening. Of course! He was spinning a story for the bugging devices.
"I know you're thinking, what spare time? But Owen will get older," Scott said. "Things won't always look the way they look right now."
Was he trying to tell her something? Olivia searched his face for clues to what he meant, and he smiled encouragingly.
"You could consider it, anyway. Mills and Boone would be lucky to get someone like you," he said, then yawned quite realistically. "In the meantime, I'm going to unpack. Jet lag is catching up with me."
He went out. Normally, Olivia would have been insulted by the Mills and Boone comment, but now she found she couldn't care less. Folding the pages twice, she stuffed them into an envelope, and wrote her mother's name on it. She was still trying to decide where to put it when Scott shouted in frustration, then came back into her room. "I don't believe it!"
"What?" she asked dully, because she knew he expected an answer, not because she was interested in whatever he had to say.
"I forgot my sponge bag! It's got everything in it – my razor, my toothbrush, toothpaste, shampoo, everything! I know I had it in the bathroom right before I went to the airport – I must have left it there! Can you drive me to the nearest shop that's open?"
"You can take my car." Emotionlessly, Olivia handed over the car keys and gave him directions to the Safeway on King Street. With a cheery, "Thanks, sis!" he went out, leaving Olivia still sitting at her desk. Eventually, she remembered that she had wanted to return the parts for the spare drone, and went downstairs to find a bag to put them in. Once she'd finished, she wrote Please return to Tarla Industries and tell Mr Blaze I'm sorry on a piece of paper, then taped it to the bag and put it by the keyboard of her computer.
Unwilling to spend the last night of her life cleaning or doing anything else that could be classified as domestic, Olivia thought of the latest batch of photos she'd taken of Owen, and went downstairs to find them. They were still in their envelope from the film company, but she took them out and began to set them into Owen's album, using the little stick-on corners to hold them in place, and wrote captions underneath. Halfway through, she realized that the album would be a good hiding place, and put the note to her mother just inside the back cover.
Although she wasn't much of a photographer, she thought that one or two of the photos had turned out quite well. She could see glimpses of Andy in Owen's face, and found herself comparing every picture of her son to the portrait of her husband on the wall. She'd never doubted there was a heaven, and that Andy was in it. They'd be seeing him again soon, she thought, and hoped he'd be proud of Owen, and of her for doing her best to raise him alone.
When she'd finally finished, she tucked the negatives between the first two pages, in case her mother or anybody else wanted copies, then left the album in plain sight on the coffee table and went back upstairs. She had just finished getting ready for bed when she heard Scott come in. Opening her bedroom door, Olivia waited as he climbed the stairs.
"Nasty weather!" he said. "But here, I got you this."
He came over to where she was standing and handed her a box of chocolates with a memory stick balanced on top.
"What's this?" Olivia asked, holding up the stick in utter bafflement.
"Exactly what it looks like," he said with a smile. "Cadbury's Milk Tray. For putting up with me. Sweet dreams, sis."
Unable to believe it, Olivia went to her desk and patted the functional drone, looking questioningly at him. He nodded and gave her a thumbs up sign, then went out again. Sinking down on the bed, Olivia felt the eerie calm she had experienced all evening shatter. A myriad of emotions welled up inside her; confusion, relief, hope, and gratitude, but also a strange sense of letdown and even a touch of disappointment that she wasn't going to see Andy again as soon as she'd thought. Unable to do anything else, she burst into tears and quietly sobbed until she fell asleep.
Part 10
Although Scott, or whatever his real name was, had explicitly forbidden her to do anything special before he arrived that evening, such as cleaning or changing sheets, Olivia still had to go shopping after work. She'd already planned red lentil balls for supper, one of her favourite dishes that she rarely made anymore because Owen had decided he didn't like lentils and made gagging noises every time he saw them. She wondered what those men were feeding Owen there, wherever he was. Hopefully, they were giving him something he liked, but not letting him stuff himself with fast food. Then she grimaced. Why was she worried about that when she ought to be more worried about the men killing both her and Owen? Maybe it was because she was starting to trust Scott that they'd be able to catch the terrorists without getting anybody killed, thrown into prison, or just plain sacked.
Was Scott a lentil-hater, too? She hoped not. Funny, she thought, if she'd known yesterday, after that dreadful arm-twisting incident, that he'd be moving in for a night and that he didn't like pulses, she'd be going out of her way to include them in every dish she offered him. But he'd apologized so nicely this morning, with flowers, no less! Olivia couldn't remember the last time anybody had bought her flowers. Probably Andy had, sometime before his death, but it was so many years ago. And Scott had complimented her about her creativity, and encouraged her during her moments of weakness, and they'd worked so well together all day. He deserved something nice.
Stop it, she told herself firmly. He's just doing his job. And anyway, lentils are nice. It's just Owen who doesn't like them.
With a sigh, Olivia reached for the package, but then swerved her trolley around to the freezers and picked out some ice cream as well, just in case.
At home, once she'd put the shopping away, Olivia went out into the back garden and picked up the drone. She glanced around guiltily as she did so, half-expecting armed policemen to emerge from every direction and arrest her for treason, or theft at the very least, but except for the wind, there was no sound and no movement, and she returned to the house unaccosted. Her heart thudding in her chest, she went upstairs and placed the drone on the desk in her room where she already had most of the parts for the one she'd been planning to assemble. If she got through this whole thing alive, with Owen, she'd have to give the parts back, but she could worry about that later. There was enough going on to-night and to-morrow, what with the arrival of her "brother," picking up the memory stick, then the actual handover and getting Owen back.
The doorbell rang at quarter past six, just as Olivia had finished eating and was about to pack up the remaining lentil balls for another day. She'd been waiting the entire afternoon for the sound of the bell, but still found herself jumping in surprise when it actually came. Scott stood there with a suitcase and a carry-on bag, dressed in more casual clothes and looking radically different than he had at work earlier that day. How had she ever thought he had a big nose? Why, it looked positively noble, if not downright Aquiline – and was he wearing an earring?
"Hi, sis, how about a little visit from your favourite brother?" he asked cheerfully, sticking his foot in the door before gathering up his luggage, and practically barrelling his way in.
Olivia followed him into the living room, not sure how to answer as he dumped his things in the middle of the floor and glanced around. The only phrase that came into her mind was the one she'd practiced earlier that afternoon, but it didn't seem to fit now. If she hadn't known he'd been in London earlier that day, she would have believed, if from nothing else, then from the label on his suitcase proclaiming YYC YYZ LHR, that he'd truly come straight from Calgary. How had he done that so fast?
"Speechless with joy?" he went on, sounding more sarcastic than joyous. Even his accent seemed different, less Southern and more like her own. Olivia took a deep breath and said, "Scott, I'm not talking to you."
"You don't have to talk. I'll only be staying for a while. Just until I can find my own place. We can get along until then, right, sis? One month, maximum."
"A month?" Olivia asked faintly, and then thought to add, "Scott, what are you doing here?"
"It wasn't my fault, but those bloody ungrateful ba—bosses said it was either leave or be sacked," Scott said, and his voice was realistically bitter. "So I thought I'd see if Tarla wanted my engineering skills instead. How's that sound, sis? You and me, working together in the same company? Oh, don't make that face!"
Olivia glanced at him in surprise, not having been making any face at all, except perhaps awe at his acting skills. He went on without skipping a beat. "Have you got anything to eat? Something smells good, and I'm starved. The plane had to circle around Heathrow for ages before they let us land, and then it was a nightmare trying to get my luggage."
"Red lentil balls," she said, and as he adopted the exact same expression that Owen always did when she suggested pulses, she wanted to tell him, And don't make that face. Her courage failed her, however, and she remained silent.
"Vegetarian? Well, if it doesn't kill me, it can only make me stronger, right?" he grumbled, and pushed by her, headed for the kitchen. "You got any beer?"
"I don't keep alcohol in the house, because of Owen," Olivia said, following. Grunting with disappointment, Scott sat down at the table, and Olivia picked up the plate of lentil balls to put them in the microwave.
"Where is Owen, anyway? It seems awfully quiet around here," Scott asked.
"He's … away," Olivia said. "Visiting a friend." She searched frantically for a better excuse, and said the first thing that popped into her head. "At Legoland."
"Legoland?" Scott repeated.
"It's half term," Olivia lied, and opened the drawer for clean silverware. "They're taking a little holiday, seeing Windsor Castle and all that, too."
"Nice friends."
The microwave beeped, and Olivia took out the plate, then put it on the table in front of him. "So you can sleep in his bed until he gets back, I guess, and then we'll have to see."
"Right." Scott stopped talking to eat, and didn't say another word until he'd finished everything on the plate, including the lettuce and parsley decorations. Olivia thought he must have liked it until he asked, "How about bangers and mash to-morrow, sis?"
"You can buy whatever you want," Olivia stated, firmly deciding not to offer him any ice cream after such an ungrateful comment. Scott smirked back at her.
The thought of him sleeping in Owen's bed reminded her that he might not want to spend the night under Bob the Builder sheets, and though Olivia struggled a little with the desire to make him do so anyway, and even throw in a handful of Lego bricks, she finally went upstairs to hunt through her linen supplies for a more neutral set. Finished, she came down again to find Scott in her living room, sitting in her favourite chair in front of her television, watching the news. Politics bored Olivia, and so she took the mobile phone from its place on the coffee table and went into the kitchen to clean up. The closer it got to seven o'clock, the more often she glanced to the phone, until she was finally sitting at the table, staring intently at it and waiting for it to ring.
As soon as it did, Olivia snatched it up, but barely had time to say hello before Owen protested, "Mum, we still haven't gone to Legoland!"
"Are you all right otherwise?" she asked quickly, not knowing how much time they would let her have to speak to him. Seeing Scott come through from the living room to listen, she turned away from him. "What did you have for lunch to-day?"
"A Big Mac, and I ate the whole thing!" Owen reported proudly, but then his voice changed back to something close to a whine. "We had to eat here at the house, though, and they won't even let me play in the garden!"
"I'm sorry," Olivia said. She could hear a voice in the background, and then Owen said, "No, I want to talk to Mum!" Her heart twisted and she called his name, but the next voice she heard was the man again, gently admonishing her. "Really, Olivia, we aren't starving him. We're treating him well. How are you treating our project? How's it coming?"
"Fine," she reported.
"Will it be ready by to-morrow night?"
"Yeah," she said, thinking of the fully functional drone upstairs on her desk. She glanced at Scott, but he'd picked up the notepad she kept in the hall on the telephone table, and was writing something on it.
"Ten o'clock?"
"Guaranteed," she snapped. Scott shoved the notepad at her and she read the words Meet where?
"Excellent," the man said. "And remember what you have to do if you ever want to talk to Owen again."
"I remember!" Olivia cried. Scott waved the page a little, and she quickly added, "And, uh, where do you want to meet—?"
But the man interrupted her before she could finish her question. "We'll call you to-morrow," he said. Disappointed, Olivia switched the mobile off.
"Who was that, your lover? You meeting someone while you've got Owen out of the house?" Scott asked.
Olivia gaped at him in hurt astonishment, unable even to summon the magic words she'd practiced. Scott, I'm not talking to you.
"Aw, come on, sis, it was just a joke." Sensing perhaps that he'd gone too far, Scott softened his tone. "I'm sorry, really. I know there hasn't been anyone else for you since Andy died."
Olivia was still unable to answer, and after a moment, Scott asked plaintively, "Livvy? Please?"
"Don't call me Livvy," she hissed. How dare he come in here and make such accusations! Why was he acting so mean now when he'd been so nice to her at Tarla?
"Olivia. I'm sorry," he said again, but even as he bent down to write something on the notepad, he added, "Look, I'd better get out of your hair for a while, huh? Where's the nearest pub?"
When he held the page up for her to see, Olivia read, Is this your phone?
Confused at the sudden change of topic, she shook her head, and saw him put a finger to his lips before she could open her mouth. Instead, she reached for the pen. He held it out, but reminded her, "Pub? Beer? Come on, Olivia, you won't have to talk to me if I'm not here."
Awkwardly, she gave him directions to a pub that she drove by each day when taking Owen to school, then scrawled simply, They gave it to me.
"Right." Scott nodded, then ripped the pages from the notebook and crumpled them into his pocket. Recovering slightly from the shock, Olivia thought about why he'd been writing notes in the first place, which reminded her of the drone, and the memory stick that she still had to pick up. "Actually, Scott, I have to go out this evening. You can stay here if you want."
"No, that's all right," he said breezily. "I want a good beer, not that Canadian swill. Have you got a spare key, in case I get back before you do?"
"Yeah," Olivia said, and went out into the hall. She kept a second set of keys on a hook above the telephone, and handed them over.
"You're a good sis," he said. "Olivia." With a smile, he pocketed the keys, and Olivia saw that he was holding the mobile phone in his other hand. She didn't ask why he was taking it, and he didn't say anything, just went out. After he'd shut the door behind him, the house was oddly silent .
Olivia went slowly upstairs to detach the helicopter's battery from its recharger and return it to where it was needed, then placed the helicopter in the carrier bag and took it out to the car. She passed Scott on the street, but he didn't wave, and neither did she.
She'd already noticed the wind that afternoon, but now it was worse, and Olivia could see black clouds rolling in from the west. The good weather would be over soon, she thought randomly, not that it mattered. The only important thing now was getting the memory stick, handing over the drone, and getting Owen back. The stiff breeze made her worry, however, and she trained her binoculars on the Tarla building. The plastic bin liner was waving wildly, but at least it was still attached to the metal pole. Olivia started up the helicopter and sent it on its way, acutely aware of every gust that shook the light machine and nudged it just that little bit off course.
When the helicopter had reached the roof of the Tarla building, Olivia had to wait out two successive blasts of wind before deciding it was safe to make it descend. She only needed a minute, just one single minute without a breeze, but her prayers were not answered. Just as she was lining up the helicopter's hook with the handles of the plastic bag, an especially forceful gust of wind knocked the helicopter diagonally towards the side of the building. One of the rotors hit, folding immediately under the force, and making way for the other two to slam into the brick as well. The helicopter fell, taking the metal pole and the plastic bag down with it.
"No," Olivia whispered, too shocked to scream. "Oh, no!"
She aimed her binoculars lower, but there were bushes and other things at ground level, and she couldn't tell where the wreckage had landed. One thing she could see, however, was a camera at the corner of the building, pointing at the pavement, and she realized that, with her bad luck, the helicopter's crash would have been visible on CCTV. Highly visible. Olivia stuffed the binoculars and the remote control piece into the carryall, then hurried back to her car.
Owen, she thought as she ran. They were going to kill Owen because of her mistake, because of her stupidity. There wouldn't be a second chance to get the memory stick out of Tarla, not now that security had seen how she'd done it. The drone was useless without the software, so they'd probably kill her as well, and Scott. Scott! She'd have to tell him somehow that the operation was off, there was no point in him accompanying her and getting killed for his pains. He'd just have to let her go alone.
She came to her car and got in, working the controls automatically as she planned ahead. She wouldn't tell the men on the phone that she didn't have the software. She'd wait until she saw Owen one last time. Maybe there'd be a chance to hug him, or at least to say sorry and good-bye. Then she'd confess, and take the consequences. As long as she and Owen were together, she wouldn't mind so much.
Olivia didn't remember the drive home, or her entry into the house. The next thing she was aware of was checking the living room to see if Scott had come back yet, which he hadn't, and then going upstairs to her desk. Knowing she wouldn't be able to call her mother to say good-bye, she sat down to write an explanation. The men had said they were watching her e-mails and her post, but she told herself that if she wrote it by hand, she could simply leave it in the house for her mother to find, later. As she wrote, the words simply flowed, detailing everything that she had experienced since Tuesday morning, including the helicopter crash, but every so often, she would stop and wonder why she wasn't crying. She should be grieving, she thought, not coldly making arrangements like this, but the tears did not come.
Just as she was finishing, she heard the door open downstairs and Scott call out her name. She didn't answer, just continued to write, and eventually, he came upstairs. "Oh, there you are."
"Here I am," she said. She'd included a paragraph about Scott and how she wasn't going to get him killed as well, and now she offered him the pages to read. "I was just working on … a few things."
It seemed to take forever for him to peruse her account of how she hadn't been able to get the memory stick, but finally, he said, "Olivia, I don't know what to say."
"It doesn't matter," Olivia said, turning away with a shrug.
"This is really good," Scott went on. "Are you going to submit this somewhere? Because seriously, you should consider becoming a writer in your spare time!"
What on earth was he talking about? Olivia shot him a confused look, and Scott indicated the ceiling, then put a hand to his ear as though listening. Of course! He was spinning a story for the bugging devices.
"I know you're thinking, what spare time? But Owen will get older," Scott said. "Things won't always look the way they look right now."
Was he trying to tell her something? Olivia searched his face for clues to what he meant, and he smiled encouragingly.
"You could consider it, anyway. Mills and Boone would be lucky to get someone like you," he said, then yawned quite realistically. "In the meantime, I'm going to unpack. Jet lag is catching up with me."
He went out. Normally, Olivia would have been insulted by the Mills and Boone comment, but now she found she couldn't care less. Folding the pages twice, she stuffed them into an envelope, and wrote her mother's name on it. She was still trying to decide where to put it when Scott shouted in frustration, then came back into her room. "I don't believe it!"
"What?" she asked dully, because she knew he expected an answer, not because she was interested in whatever he had to say.
"I forgot my sponge bag! It's got everything in it – my razor, my toothbrush, toothpaste, shampoo, everything! I know I had it in the bathroom right before I went to the airport – I must have left it there! Can you drive me to the nearest shop that's open?"
"You can take my car." Emotionlessly, Olivia handed over the car keys and gave him directions to the Safeway on King Street. With a cheery, "Thanks, sis!" he went out, leaving Olivia still sitting at her desk. Eventually, she remembered that she had wanted to return the parts for the spare drone, and went downstairs to find a bag to put them in. Once she'd finished, she wrote Please return to Tarla Industries and tell Mr Blaze I'm sorry on a piece of paper, then taped it to the bag and put it by the keyboard of her computer.
Unwilling to spend the last night of her life cleaning or doing anything else that could be classified as domestic, Olivia thought of the latest batch of photos she'd taken of Owen, and went downstairs to find them. They were still in their envelope from the film company, but she took them out and began to set them into Owen's album, using the little stick-on corners to hold them in place, and wrote captions underneath. Halfway through, she realized that the album would be a good hiding place, and put the note to her mother just inside the back cover.
Although she wasn't much of a photographer, she thought that one or two of the photos had turned out quite well. She could see glimpses of Andy in Owen's face, and found herself comparing every picture of her son to the portrait of her husband on the wall. She'd never doubted there was a heaven, and that Andy was in it. They'd be seeing him again soon, she thought, and hoped he'd be proud of Owen, and of her for doing her best to raise him alone.
When she'd finally finished, she tucked the negatives between the first two pages, in case her mother or anybody else wanted copies, then left the album in plain sight on the coffee table and went back upstairs. She had just finished getting ready for bed when she heard Scott come in. Opening her bedroom door, Olivia waited as he climbed the stairs.
"Nasty weather!" he said. "But here, I got you this."
He came over to where she was standing and handed her a box of chocolates with a memory stick balanced on top.
"What's this?" Olivia asked, holding up the stick in utter bafflement.
"Exactly what it looks like," he said with a smile. "Cadbury's Milk Tray. For putting up with me. Sweet dreams, sis."
Unable to believe it, Olivia went to her desk and patted the functional drone, looking questioningly at him. He nodded and gave her a thumbs up sign, then went out again. Sinking down on the bed, Olivia felt the eerie calm she had experienced all evening shatter. A myriad of emotions welled up inside her; confusion, relief, hope, and gratitude, but also a strange sense of letdown and even a touch of disappointment that she wasn't going to see Andy again as soon as she'd thought. Unable to do anything else, she burst into tears and quietly sobbed until she fell asleep.
Part 10