Hide Me. Ava McCarthy

you’re saying he was killed by paramilitaries? Which ones?’

      ‘Take your pick. He seemed to work for them all at one time or another.’

      ‘Where’d you hear this?’

      ‘I poked around. Stepped on a few toes, exceeded my jurisdiction.’

      ‘I thought you were meant to be keeping your nose clean.’

      ‘I am. But somehow, you keep getting in my way.’

      Harry bit her lip. Hunter’s career had almost imploded the previous year after he’d had an affair with a suspect in a fraud case. He’d worked hard to toe the line ever since, but playing by the rules didn’t suit him any more than it did Harry. They’d knocked heads on the case that had taken Harry to Capetown, but he’d seemed inclined to trust her in spite of the lies she’d spun. That hadn’t played out well with his superiors.

      He never spoke about the fraud case or the woman he’d slept with, and Harry often found herself wondering what she was like. Someone once said Hunter had a weakness for women who told lies. When she’d put it to him, the look he’d turned on her had been speculative and intense.

      Pages crackled on the other end of the phone. He was probably rummaging through a jumble of files, his shirtsleeves rolled up on lightly tanned forearms. She’d told him more than once he should never have been a cop. A demolition expert, maybe, or a war correspondent. Something that required helmets and nerve and a healthy dose of rage. He hadn’t disagreed.

      She smiled into the phone. ‘Thanks for digging, Hunter. I mean that. But don’t get your ass in a sling on my account.’

      Hunter grunted, barely listening. His first name was Jack, but for some reason Harry never used it. That alone should have told her something about their arms-length relationship. If a relationship was even what they had. Sometimes she wondered if the electricity between them was mostly being generated by her.

      ‘I lucked out on Chavez,’ he said at last. ‘Couldn’t find anything on him. But I did get hold of some background on your client, Riva Mills. Seems she has a juvie record.’

      ‘So I’m told.’

      Hunter clicked his tongue. ‘You have a real talent for picking crooked clients, you know that, Harry?’

      ‘Hey, don’t get too sanctimonious. Your track record for sound judgement’s no better than mine, remember?’

      He let that one slide. ‘Her home life was no picnic. Mother moved around a lot, ended up in a place known as The Bottoms, some hard-knock neighbourhood along the Ohio River. Riva slept rough half the time, whenever the mother was on the rampage. Got picked up on a couple of minor charges.’ He paused to digest a little more. ‘Jesus. Mother sounds like one crazy bitch. Arrested for assaulting Riva with a meat mallet. Christ.’

      Harry’s eyes widened. Could a mother really hate her daughter that much? At least with Miriam, it wasn’t hate. Indifference was more her style.

      She recalled suddenly how she used to sit next to her mother as a child, watching her sister claim Miriam’s lap. Somehow, it was never Harry’s turn to be cuddled. But Amaranta was different. Mothered and motherly. She used to complain that Harry was no good at playing dolls, but the fact was, Harry didn’t know how. How could she mother a doll when she’d had no role model to copy?

      She listened to Hunter whipping through his report, and wondered why she always pulled away from him. Her lessons about love had come from her mother, and she’d grown up confused about how it was meant to feel. As a child, love had seemed like something angry and cold. Something painful. The psychobabble would have you believe she preferred men who echoed her mother’s low opinion of her. Harry rolled her eyes. Not everything could be her bloody mother’s fault.

      Hunter’s voice cut back in. ‘That’s as far as I’d got on Riva. But you don’t need this now anyway, do you?’

      Harry picked at a fraying thread on her duvet. ‘I suppose not. But I’ve got a few more names. If you had the time, it might be interesting to find out about them.’

      ‘What for? You said you weren’t going to do it.’

      ‘And I’m not. You were right, one dead hacker’s enough. But it doesn’t stop me being curious.’

      Hunter was silent. The line crackled with unspoken suspicion, and Harry rushed on, giving him the names of Chavez’s crew.

      ‘Zubiri doesn’t seem to know too much about them. I shouldn’t really tell you any more, but if you can find anything out, I’d be interested.’

      The silence stretched on, like a taut rubber band straining to snap. Eventually, Hunter said,

      ‘How long will you be out there?’

      Harry wound the fraying thread tightly around her thumb, choking off the circulation till her fingertip turned white.

      ‘Only a few more days.’ She glanced at the map on the bed beside her, eyeing the red-inked route. ‘There’s just something I need to do before I leave.’

      Chapter 11

      ‘I just cannot understand what you’re doing over there. It’s totally bizarre.’

      Harry, resisted the urge to make faces into the phone. Her mother had uncharacteristically initiated the call, and so far had used the word ‘bizarre’ three times.

      ‘I mean, San Sebastián, Harry. Why on earth?’

      ‘I’ve already explained.’ Harry rounded a bend in the path, her calf muscles knotting against the steep climb. ‘I’ve taken a job here.’

      ‘In your father’s hometown?’

      ‘Is there a problem with that?’

      ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

      Harry heard the testy snick-snick of a lighter as her mother fired up a cigarette. She pictured her mouth puckered like a drawstring purse around it, the sunken cheeks accentuating her dramatic bone structure. Her mother was one of the few people who could still smoke with an air of vintage Hollywood.

      Harry tugged her map out of her jeans. She’d been walking uphill for the past half-hour, and by her calculations she had to be almost there. She glanced over her shoulder. The road wound away from her in serpentine loops, the traffic now a distant sigh. She continued along the climbing path, the morning sun toasting her bare arms.

      Her mother exhaled a hard, impatient puff. ‘It’s quite a coincidence, though, wouldn’t you say? Ending up there, of all places?’

      ‘Maybe.’

      ‘What kind of answer is that? Is it a coincidence or isn’t it?’

      Harry winced, and considered dodging the question, but what would be the point? Like a bullet from a machine gun, there’d be plenty more where that one came from.

      ‘The job’s just one of the reasons I came here,’ she said.

      ‘Oh?’

      Harry closed her eyes briefly. The urge to duck the conversation was overwhelming. She tightened her grip on the phone.

      ‘It’s really not a big deal, Miriam.’

      She’d been calling her mother by her Christian name since the day she’d turned eighteen. Her mother had never objected. In fact, she’d seemed relieved, as if she’d never really liked being called Mum. Not by Harry, anyway.

      ‘If it’s not a big deal,’ Miriam said, ‘then why all the secrecy?’

      ‘There’s no secrecy. Look, I just thought I’d take the opportunity to do a little digging, that’s all.’

      Miriam sucked hard on her cigarette, the line almost crackling with the hiss of flaring embers.

      The Martinez lineage never had much airtime when