Chapter 1
JULIABennett had been the Brenthill Police Station’s IT person, or “computer girl” as she was still often called, for over a year. IT was a thankless job at the best of times but most days it seemed like Brenthill was striving to be voted “Least Technologically Capable Organization in Human Existence.”
There were old cops who longed for the days of notepads, young cops frustrated by the outdated technology, general computer illiteracy, and some sexism thrown in for fun. Today alone she’d taught an old geezer how to use a wireless mouse, uninstalled more malware than she’d thought possible to download, and been bailed up by a shifty-looking constable who wanted to make his Internet history disappear. The cop tried to pass off the incriminating searches as investigative, but they both knew he was lying. Three years she’d spent getting her Bachelor of Design, another two earning an Advanced Diploma in Professional Game Development and this was how she spent her days; deleting weird porn in the same backwater town she’d grown up in.
Her mother, when she wasn’t totally poached in wholesale Russian vodka, used to say Brenthill was like quicksand; it smelled bad and it sucked you down. The older Julia got, the truer that statement became. Her responsibilities kept her from throwing her belongings into her car and booking it toward the nearest airport, but on days like today it was tempting to do what Old Momma Bennett had done and get the fuck out of Dodge. It didn’t help that it was six o’clock on a Friday and her workday hadn’t ended.
Ordinarily Julia cut and ran at five like everyone else, but she’d fallen afoul of Henrietta Stokes. Henrietta was one of those aggressively cheerful women who fluctuated wildly between sweetness and anger. Julia had no techniques with which to deal with her brand of demanding syrupiness other than to immediately agree to anything she asked. Synch up her phone, laptop, and tablet? Done. Convert her holiday photos into a slideshow with which she could bore others to death? Done. But today’s request was a whole new breed of bother. Henrietta had come into the break room, taken her mug of nitrogen-strength coffee away and said, “Please organize the entire computer section of the Brenthill Evidence Room and have it done by yesterday. Thanks.”
Julia should have said no. She should have put her foot down. Instead she’d crumpled like a cheap suit.
The Brenthill Evidence Room was about the size of a garage. Much like a garage, it was packed with a lot of useless junk: soggy backpacks, rusty bicycles, and tangles of fake gold jewelry. Brenthill wasn’t exactly the criminal hub of Australia. The cheap government housing attracted a lot of bad behavior but it came in the form of graffiti, domestic violence, and domestic violence’s mean old daddy—drunk and disorderly. When Henrietta said “computer section,” Julia expected a couple of busted monitors and a USB cord. She was wrong.
Three years ago the cops had busted a guy collecting trailer-loads of computers from the tip. His goal was to build a CPU capable of overthrowing the government. The man was batshit—he couldn’t have overthrown a kindergarten—but the cops seized the would-be doomsayer’s “assets” and instead of chucking them back in the tip where they belonged, they became an almighty mountain of evidence. What Henrietta assured her was a “quick job” was, in fact, a war of man versus machine. Julia scraped herself four times on exposed copper wires as she untangled dirty cords and slid heavy monitors onto shelves. She spent two hours bagging floppy disks.Floppy disks. And they wereblank.
Initially, Henrietta had been supervising—i.e. chatting with passersby—while the trusty computer girl took care of business, but then her daughter was stung by a bee and, overwhelmed with maternal responsibility, she’d fled, propping the door open with a copy of Encyclopedia Britannica and begging Julia to finish the job.
She shouldn’t have agreed. Brenthill might have a lax “this is a country town, let’s play lawn bowls” attitude but she wasn’t authorized to mill about the property office. If the station inspector found out she’d been in a position to steal all the weed and floppy disks, she and Henrietta could get sacked. The whole situation had her on edge.
As she wrestled with a tangle of headphones, all of which wanted to strangle her, a burst of masculine laughter filtered into the office and she felt a familiar tumbling sensation in her gut. She knew it wasn’thim, his voice was lower, but her body tingled at the mere possibility. She stopped packing evidence and listened.
“Why not Italian? The last time we had Thai my curry had a hair in it.”
A woman laughed. “That was your own hair and you know it. I want roti bread. We’re doing Thai.”
“Anything else we’ll be doing tonight?”
It was Constable Greg Ford and Senior Constable Melanie Bastow. After six months of flirting, it appeared they were finally getting it on. It made sense: cops tended to screw, date, and marry other cops. Presumably, it was easier to be with someone who understood the hours and the stress. That’s whathe’ddone. Married a policewoman, bought a nice place, and probably had loads of sex using genuine police handcuffs as props.
Julia cringed and forced her mind to return to the computer cables. Nightmare Fantasy Land was not a place worth visiting on a Friday night. Or ever. She began working on the last of the fractured mainframes when her phone vibrated in her pocket. She pulled it out to see her sister’s face, tongue protruding, blue eyes crossed, flashing up on the screen. Julia smiled. “Hey, Ash.”
“Hey, girly. Why aren’t you home?”
“I got asked to stay back in the evidence room, which is incredibly unlawful considering the heroin I could lay my hands on right now.”
Her sister laughed. “Good luck with that. Anyway, Blake invited us to a two-day thing on his property, kicking off tonight. You keen?”
Julia pulled two half-melted cords apart with a snap. “I dunno, I’m kind of tired.”
“Liar. You want to sit at home and scribble pictures for your game.”
Julia frowned. “Fine, you got me. The pitch needs to be done by the end of the month and I need to work. And they’re not scribbles.”
She could practically hear Ash rolling her eyes. “Woman, all you ever do is work. You need to get laid. How long has it been? A month? Two months?”
“An irrelevant amount of months. Scarlet Woman is my boyfriend and she needs all my love and attention.”
“You can’t screw a video game. I hope you know that.”
“No, Ash, I didn’t know that. I’m breathlessly awaiting the day Scarlet Woman gains a physical body and drills me against a wall.”
There was a short pause and Ash sighed. “Are you coming to this party or not? Because that hot dreadlocks guy is gonna be there and I want to have sex with his face.”
“Then have sex with his face. You don’t need me there for that.”
“He’s a gamer and having a computer genius there will be a great icebreaker—”
“I am not a computer genius. Stop saying that.”