Never trust first impressions.
– Ep 8: Who’d Have Dunk It
At the end of class, I noticed Lisa was dawdling, chewing her lip as she waited for me to pack my books in my bag.
“What’s up?” I asked. “You okay?”
“Can I ask you a favour?”
I nodded, intrigued. We were at the favours stage? Totally a friendship!
She rooted around in her blue tie-dye handbag and came up with a fluffy pink keyring jam-packed with keys. She shoved it into my hand. “Hang on to these for me.”
“Sure, okay.” Pretty easy as favours went, I had to admit. I was going to nail this friendship thing.
“I might be heading off soon. If you don’t hear from me by tomorrow night, can you go to my place and take care of Ramona? I’ll call you if it’s all good and I can do it myself. I’ve still got your number from when we had that group assignment.”
We both shuddered at the horrible memories of being forced to do a group project. It would have been okay if it had been pairs, but we’d been stuck with three other students. They all quit the class not long after. You can judge for yourself whether the events were related.
“I have to go. Thanks for this, babe.” She gave me a quick hug and a peck on the cheek before powering off at the kind of pace that surely would have made the bottoms of her feet burn. (Seriously, that girl needed some shoes.)
I put the keys in my bag, watching her walk away with my brow furrowed. It seemed kind of weird that she’d leave her keys with me given we weren’t all that close, but I figured she mustn’t have many friends here. She was pretty new to town, after all. I hoped she was okay. She’d seemed a little off.
As I wandered out of the classroom, I realised too late that I’d forgotten to ask who Ramona was. Ah well. Probably a cuddly pet of some variety. I was sure I’d figure it out. Anyway, I might not even have to visit her place. No reason to worry about it yet.
Deep in thought about Lisa, I didn’t notice the ambush until it was too late.
I’d exited the building and descended the steps when a giant of a man stood from a nearby bench and gave me a little wave. “Keely South, right?”
“Cash Khorsandi,” I replied. I was annoyed that he was here, but he did get points for approaching me slowly and from the front. Plus he was maintaining an appropriate amount of distance between us. He was fairly polite for a stalker.
He grinned, showing off twinkling eyes the colour of black spiced rum – a drink which was, somewhat ironically, brown. “You recognise me?”
“From the wanted posters.”
He laughed. It was a warm, familiar sound. Although we hadn’t met, I listened to his podcast so often his voice was as comforting as a close friend’s. This was a problem. I didn’t actually know him, and according to Jed, this guy was at best a nuisance, at worst the kind of man he could see me falling for. That was a red flag so big you could use it as a bedsheet. As previously mentioned, my taste is not to be trusted.
The last guy I’d, uh, dated? Yeah, sure, that’s what we’ll call it. We had sex in a caravan that I’d found out later wasn’t even his. He’d broken in. To a stranger’s caravan. For sexual activities. On a stranger’s sheets. Which were not even made. Meaning they were dirty. And could have been literally anyone’s.
When it comes to men, discerning I am not.
So you can see why I was cautious around this guy, despite the nice smile and the sweet shirt and the overall hot dad vibe he had going on. That zing of attraction? That was the kind of thing that ended with you breaking into someone’s caravan a second time to make their bed with the new sheets you bought them because of your poor decisions earlier that day, then getting busted and having to explain to Keith, the lovely fifty-five year old grandad of two caravan park manager, why the hell you were stealing used sheets from a stranger and that yes, technically it was a sex thing, but not that kind of sex thing. And then being banned from Cockatoo Heights Caravan Park for life.
And then having to get a lift home with Keith, who spent the whole trip explaining to you that you were better than that and you needed to find a nice man who’d at the very least spring for a rent-by-the-hour hotel room.
“Are you stalking me?” I demanded.
“Of course not.” Cash had the manners to at least seem shocked by my accusation. (It was the ones who were chill about being called a stalker that you had to watch out for.)
“Then how did you find me here?”
“Coincidence.”
“It was the email address, wasn’t it?” I groaned. “Undone by my tette yet again.”
Cash laughed. Ugh, I wished he’d stop doing that. The fact that the guy thought I was funny was undermining my attempts to hate him. My ego loved it, and if I didn’t watch out I’d be undressing him in an RV in no time. “I promise I didn’t come here looking for you. I studied Italian in high school and I’ve been meaning to pick it up again.”
“A likely story.”
“Although when the teacher said your name, combined with your reply, I figured it was a pretty good chance it was you. Glad to finally meet you in person.”
“I’m not taking the job.”
Cash’s podcast, Down in the Dunks, was a murder-mystery-based true crime show. My buddy Jed had taken over as town forensic pathologist a couple of months ago, and he’d been much less free and easy with handing out confidential details than the last guy. Hence Cash’s sudden interest in me.
Cash put out an episode every week, and the killers of Dunkerton generally made sure he had fresh material. (Or rotting material, depending on the crime scene.) If there happened to not be any slayings one week, Cash could always put out a new episode about the Emu, the aforementioned town serial killer who’d never been caught. People lapped that up. Though putting together the show was probably more work without the local forensic pathologist slipping you a cheat sheet.
You may be asking – and it’s a valid question – why live here at all? If the killer sitch is that bad, why not move to a town less blood-soaked? Truth was, I liked most parts of living in Dunkerton. Sure, the downside was that you might get murdered, but housing was marginally less extortionate than other parts of the country. (Especially if you lived free of charge on your bestie’s sofa.) There was a beach with an awesome cocktail bar and a cafe right on the sand. The pace was chilled out and my family and friends lived here and really, at least if you had it in the back of your mind that you were likely to be murdered, you knew to be on the lookout. It was hard to surprise a woman who’d grown up in Dunkerton.
I’m aware that climbing into a caravan with the aforementioned scuzzo might make me seem like I’m not super vigilant about the company I keep, but as I was still alive it seemed to me that I was pretty good at staying out of situations where I was likely to, say, end up chopped into little pieces and fed to a bull shark. Yes, that was a real case. No, I don’t know why he bothered with the chopping up part either. Surely the bull shark had the body disposal covered. But whatever. The bull shark twist meant I could end the Tuesday afternoon tour right down on the beach near Brandy’s, so Charles the Chummer had kind of done me a favour.
There was a chance life in Dunkerton may have hardened me a little.
“I called your work earlier today hoping to talk to you,” Cash informed me. “I got your boss, Phil, instead. Entirely unprompted, he gave me your phone number, home address and estimated cup size. I can see why you’re so keen to continue working for him.”
“It’s not that I want to work for him. It’s that I don’t want to work for you. Though I admit I’m not thrilled he handed my address over to my stalker just like that.”
“It was nice to meet you. I’m not stalking you. And so you know in advance, Phil upsold me when I called and I’m going to be taking your tour tomorrow morning.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Sounds like something a stalker would do.”
“Surely a stalker wouldn’t give you forewarning.”
“Who knows what’s going on in your head?”
He smiled. “This conversation has been very entertaining, but I think I should go now. If I leave first I can prove I’m not following you.”
“Sounds good. Have a nice night. I’m never agreeing to take that job.”
“I’ll win you over eventually.”
I watched him walk away, my arms crossed, and huffed. If he was going to be this friendly, it would make it a lot harder to keep turning the job down. I’d been expecting him to be more of an arsehole. Maybe Jed was wrong about him.
Ha.
A big, hearty HA.
Because as I would discover in less than twenty-four hours, Cash was the biggest arsehole ever to walk this earth.
Tall Drink of Slaughter is out now! Grab your copy.
Want to keep reading? Here’s Chapter Three.