Breaking Through Read online

  ‘He never lived long enough to see his reputation fall apart,’ Simon replied.

  ‘But fall apart it did, and I intend to keep mine long after I’m in the ground.’

  ‘With all due respect, that’s what my last employer said.’

  Roe raised a brow. ‘And with all due respect, Mr Reeve, you were stupid enough to take a job with the white-trash royalty of Scarborough.”

  Snap and retreat.

  Simon had had enough. He stood and draped his coat over one arm.

  ‘I’d think about it if I were you,’ he said casually, even as his throat burned. ‘Everyone thinks they’re bulletproof until someone comes along and shoots a big hole in the middle of their forehead – speaking from experience.’

  He shot Roe a venomous smile and left the office.

  One he was in the elevator, he closed his eyes and tipped his head back.

  Prick.

  Then again, he knew Roe was a prick when he took this job. He knew right from the start that Roe was hell-bent on destroying Murray’s bid for the leadership – and any chance of him becoming the next leader of this country – at any cost.

  Michael Roe was a bastard. It hardly made him an anomaly in politics, and usually the vote came down to one bastard or another, but every so often you’d get someone like Matthew Murray. Someone young and fresh and friendly who would make the entire country fall madly in love with him.

  He undid the button of his jacket and, as it popped free, he burned with the reminder that it wasn’t the same size he wore a year ago, and neither was the flesh beneath it. He’d traded a steady diet of cocaine and whiskey for drive-thru in front of the television and kissed goodbye that dream of having washboard abs again.

  A fucking snake in the grass for a bastard like Michael Roe, a black hole of debt that didn’t seem to be getting any smaller, and now to top it all off I’m getting a fat ass.

  He sighed and forced himself to think about the task at hand.

  Roe was right. No closet was empty, and with someone as young as Murray there wouldn’t be skeletons but fresh corpses. It would be easy to follow the stench of decay.

  Simon Reeve had been a damn good bloodhound once. He still was, he told himself daily, ignoring the fact that the last year had watered down much of his bloodlust.

  He’d get it back, he swore right there in the elevator. He’d get it back if he had to tear Matthew Murray apart with his bare hands.

  * * *

  ‘No, damn it! You cocksucker!’

  Miranda didn’t see any reason not to have a full-blown tantrum as the bus motored onto the overpass. The next bus wouldn’t be along for another half-hour and she’d run like hell from work to make it to the stop on the other side of the parking garage in time.

  She was soaked through and through, and as she stamped her foot she felt the leftovers from the last three puddles squishing from the soles. Every filthy word she could conjure spewed out of her, burning a hole in the centre of her chest until nothing more came out.

  For once she hadn’t been running late. For once she had felt in control and confident that she’d make it home in time to share a bite to eat with Juliet before her sister headed off to the pubs.

  But no, because the goddamn buses in this city were apparently running on a clock set by the Mad Hatter. Miranda had lost count of the number of times she’d had to run for one that left too early, or sit and stew while the minutes ticked by as the driver played games on his bloody phone.

  And there wasn’t even a shelter at this stop next to the parking garage. There was just a damn pole in the sidewalk and a view of the overpass. If it had been payday she might have given up and called a cab, but every cent left in her bank account was spoken for. She’d just have to wait it out, but she’d be damned if she did it in the rain.

  As the wind picked up and whipped rain in her face, Miranda ran again, this time uphill, until she reached the entrance to the parking garage. She was frozen as she headed towards the side that overlooked the bus stop she’d run from, but at least she was spared the needle-sharp torrent that had stung her bare legs.

  As she settled against a concrete ledge, she pulled her phone from the soggy depths of her bag and swore as the touchscreen did nothing. Her hands were too cold and too wet, and it took another minute of blowing on her fingers before she was able to punch in her passcode and get to her contacts.

  ‘Don’t tell me,’ Juliet answered, ‘you missed the bus.’

  ‘I missed the fucking bus and I’m soaked,’ Miranda growled. ‘I’ll be home by nine, but no pizza for me.’

  ‘Too late, I already ordered it. I’ll leave it in the oven for you.’

  ‘Did he get his bath?’

  ‘Yeah, I put him in a puddle in the driveway with a bar of soap. He loves it.’

  Juliet laughed after she spoke, but there was a hint of acid to her words. Juliet was great with their toddler nephew and didn’t so much as flinch when it came to a shitty diaper or a vomit-soaked onesie, but she wasn’t the most reliable person when it came to remembering to bathe Eddie before putting him to bed. More than once Miranda had checked in on him to find his face and hands caked with whatever he’d been given for his supper, and had had to wipe him down while he squirmed and shrieked out his exhaustion.

  Given some of the shenanigans Juliet had gotten up to these last few months, Miranda supposed she should consider the poor little bugger lucky that his other aunt remembered to feed him.

  ‘You want me to see if I can have someone pick you up?’

  ‘No, it’s only half an hour.’

  ‘Are you soaked?’

  ‘A little. My jacket seems to be keeping my tits from marinating.’

  ‘If you change your mind, call me back and I’ll see if Tim can pop up for you.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Miranda said and hung up, but made a face as she tucked her phone back in her purse. She’d rather walk home in a blizzard than get a ride with one of Juliet’s creepy friends. The last one who had picked her up had spent the entire ride talking into her tits and accenting every point he made by squeezing her thigh.

  She shivered and looked towards the North End of the city. One of the two suspension bridges that crossed the harbour was barely visible in the rain that wrapped the entire downtown, and the fog devoured the second bridge and the city of Dartmouth on the opposite side.

  She supposed that the weather forecast had predicted this soggy mess, but Eddie had had an upset stomach that morning and, between cleaning him up and shouting for Juliet to get her ass out of bed, Miranda didn’t give the weather a second thought until she heard it hit the window behind her cubicle.

  She thought of that other Miranda, the one who lived in the future and had her shit together, who took coffee to work in an aluminium flask and wore heels to work instead of comfortable flats. Other Miranda would have tucked an umbrella in her huge purse and maybe owned a stylish raincoat and some cute rubber boots.

  Then again, Other Miranda knew how to drive and rode a comfy sedan from her waterfront cottage in the country, and didn’t work in a call centre because she made a tidy living selling her paintings online.

  In real life, Miranda wrung the moisture out of her hair and busied herself with braiding it into a long rope.

  She jumped as the car nearest her chirped and flashed its lights, and moments later a figure followed the thump of footsteps on the pavement. Miranda kept her eyes on the view before her, but her body went on alert as the car’s owner appeared on the periphery. She reached into her purse and wrapped her fingers around her keys, something she often did when she shared a bus shelter in the dark, then relaxed as the slam of the car door echoed through the concrete shelter and moments later the vehicle coughed and hummed to life.

  The momentary worry – that she’d end up a corpse in the trunk of that shiny silver sedan – having passed, Miranda resumed her mundane task, pulling her braid loose and starting again.

  ‘Hey, you need a ride somewhere?�
�� a man’s voice called out to her.

  Miranda turned and prepared to make a grateful but firm refusal. Her stomach flopped as she saw who was in the driver’s seat.

  Of course, it was the Bathroom Blowjob Guy.

  Her spiel of thanks-but-I-have-someone-waiting-he-should-be-here-any-minute vanished, and when she spoke to him it was to say, ‘Are you serious?’

  He stared back at her for a moment, then nodded. ‘Yeah, you got me. This is my thing. I ask women caught in the rain if they want to get into my fancy ride, and when they say yes I floor it and laugh like hell all the way home.’

  She wasn’t sure if he was trying to be funny or merely sarcastic. Either way, his remark did nothing to change her mind.

  ‘Thanks,’ she said, her voice as flat as her humour, ‘but I have someone waiting. He should –’

  ‘If you did, you would have had him pick you up at the entrance.’

  She crossed her arms over her chest. ‘Why would I get in a car with a stranger?’

  ‘Well, if you want to get technical, we’re not exactly strangers.’

  ‘I can’t tell whether you’re referring to the fact that I caught you getting a blowjob in the ladies’ room, or the fact that you decided to brag about it to me later on. Either way, you’re not doing anything for your case. If you’re trolling for a handjob while you drive, you’re talking to the wrong woman.’

  He chuckled, a sound that grated up one side of her and down the other. ‘Listen, darling, I know you have no reason to think I won’t stick my dick in any wet hole, but trust me when I tell you I can do better than a drenched rat with raccoon eyes.’

  Miranda’s sense of vanity overcame her need to be a hard-ass. With a horrified squeak, she reached up to rub her fingers beneath her eyes.

  The man produced a can-shaped package of moist towelettes. ‘By all means, walk around the city terrorising old people and small children while incubating a nasty cold if you would prefer that over my heated seats.’

  Miranda knew that the last thing in the world she should do was accept a ride from a stranger, let alone this one, but the chill was setting into her ass and she could feel the heat radiating from the car.

  She could practically hear her sister advising opportunistic imprudence: Don’t be such a pussy. Get in the car and let him stare at your tits for a few minutes if it gets you out of the cold.

  Hell, Juliet would have talked this guy into buying her dinner in addition to the ride.

  ‘One second,’ she said, and strode to the back of the car. She dug into her bag and pulled out her phone, and as she snapped a picture she saw the man adjust the mirror.

  She came back around to the driver’s side where he waited with a smirk and started to type on her phone. ‘I’m sending this to my sister. If I end up floating in the harbour, they’ll know who to look for.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ he said, and she heard the click of his power locks. He gestured to the trunk. ‘There’s an emergency kit in the back with a poncho inside. Lay it on the seat before you sit down. I’m trying to be chivalrous, but this car has less than twenty thousand kilometres on it and I’d rather you not fuck-up my upholstery.’

  She’d accepted his ride, but she wasn’t about to dissolve into graciousness just yet. She plucked the plastic wrapper from the emergency kit, and once she was at the passenger side she didn’t drape the poncho over the seat but stripped off her wet denim jacket and covered herself with the poncho before getting inside.

  ‘I’m a little impressed,’ he said as she placed her plastic-wrapped ass on the seat. ‘I never thought of asking you to put it on.’

  ‘I already look hideous with my mascara running down my face, I might as well look pathetic dressed like a gas-station sandwich.’

  He handed over the towelettes and locked them in. ‘Where to?’

  ‘Agricola Street, just before you get to the brewery,’ she told him as she pulled down her visor and saw what he had seen.

  He hadn’t been kidding about scaring small children and old people. She looked like the monster from a Japanese horror movie.

  ‘Is that in the South End?’

  ‘No,’ she said with a laugh and pulled out a towelette.

  He glanced at her. ‘Isn’t that where all the students live?’

  ‘Yeah, but I’m not a student and I haven’t been for about five years. OK, you know where the grocery store is on Young Street?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘The television station?’

  ‘Sorry.’ He grinned at her as they neared the exit of the parking garage, but this time he looked sheepish. ‘I’ve only lived here for about a month. I know how to get to the office and I know how to get to the highway. Otherwise I have to Google everything.’

  Her face less frightening, she crumpled the towelette in her hand and her gaze slid to the GPS device on the dash.

  He laughed. ‘Broken. I ordered a new one but it hasn’t arrived yet.’

  ‘What are you, some kind of dinosaur?’

  She grabbed his iPhone, docked next to the GPS. A few taps and a female voice announced that he should turn left onto Cogswell Street.

  ‘I never even thought of that,’ he admitted as she returned the phone to its cradle, then held out the hand closest to her. ‘Simon.’

  ‘Miranda,’ she replied, and gave him her clammy hand.

  His was so warm that she wanted to take possession of it and tuck it against her, but instead she slipped her feet out of her flats and wriggled her toes under the heat coming from the vent.

  ‘So, Simon, I’m not one to ignore the white elephant in the room, but about getting sucked off in the bathroom …’

  He let out a bark of laughter and followed the voice instructions to go straight through the intersection. ‘What do you want to know?’

  ‘What’s a grown man doing getting his dick sucked in a public washroom? I thought that was something a man grows out of once he gets over the bar scene.’

  ‘Getting sucked off is never something a man grows out of, and he’ll take his cock out wherever he can. When he’s in a nursing home pissing in a bag he’s still hoping some hot nurse will come along and wrap her lips around him.’

  ‘That’s really gross.’

  ‘It’s true. Look, I’m sorry you walked in on it and I’m even more sorry I was an asshole to you about it. It’ll never happen again, at least not in that bathroom.’

  ‘So, you do it often.’

  ‘You know, for someone who made it pretty clear she’s not interested in my dick, you’re doing a lot of talking about it.’

  Miranda shrugged, the plastic around her shoulders crackling as she moved. ‘Like I said, I’m not one for ignoring the white elephant in the room. It just so happens that your dick is the white elephant in the room.’

  ‘Thank you for the comparison.’

  He kept his eyes on the road as they reached the star-shaped intersection at the base of the hill that dominated the downtown, then shook his head.

  ‘What the fuck? Who designed these roads?’

  ‘You’re in the wrong lane,’ she said. He cursed with his merger and made a left. ‘Where are you from?’

  ‘Toronto.’ He shot her a sly look. ‘Go ahead.’

  ‘Go ahead and what?’

  ‘Make some comment about my being from Toronto. Everyone does it. You might as well get it out of your system.’

  ‘I don’t have anything against Toronto. Great shopping and great music scene.’

  ‘Unfortunately I didn’t get to do much of either. I travelled around a lot with my last job. I grew up in Montreal, though. Talk about a great music scene. Am I on the right street?’

  ‘Just keep going straight until you get to the bridge. Why are you here? Kind of a downgrade, isn’t it?’

  He shook his head. ‘I needed the change. My last job was hell, and I’m too old to keep running across the country at the drop of a hat.’

  ‘Let me guess: you were a Bay Street trader falsel
y accused of white-collar crime, and now you’ve come out East to fulfil your dream of building a boathouse and retiring from the grind of daily life.’

  Simon laughed. ‘That’s pretty good. About as far off the mark as you can get, but pretty creative. No, I work for Michael Roe. You know who he is?’

  ‘The MLA with his office on the top floor?’

  ‘That’s the one. What about you? Let me guess this time – you’re a graphic designer.’

  ‘What makes you think I’m a graphic designer?’ she asked, surprised that while he was off the mark in terms of her career, he had somehow intuited her creative streak.

  ‘You’ve got that way about you?’ He met her scowl with a grin. ‘Artistic types who spend all day in front of a computer have a thin filter when it comes to speaking their minds.’

  ‘Is that your way of calling me an asshole?’

  ‘No, not at all. I like it. I wouldn’t have asked if you wanted a ride if I didn’t think you’d be good company.’

  Miranda hated to admit it, but she was enjoying his company as well. She liked that she could dish it and he’d dish it right back at her. And she liked that they’d been in the car together for almost ten minutes and he hadn’t tried anything funny.

  ‘I’m not a graphic designer. I work at the call centre on the fourth floor, but I am an “artistic type” – I paint in my own time. I had a stall at the farmers’ market when I was just out of high school, but now I sell my stuff on the Internet.’

  ‘Good money in that?’

  ‘Did you miss the part where I said I work in a call centre?’ she retorted with a laugh. ‘It does make a difference, though. One day, hopefully before I’m dead, but right now it’s just a way to make a few bucks on the side.’

  ‘Beer money?’

  ‘Baby money.’ He looked to her with surprise, prompting a bubble of laughter from her. ‘Not mine. My sister’s. She died last year, and so my other sister and I are raising her son.’

  He shook his head. ‘Jesus, I’m sorry, about your sister, and for thinking you were –’

  ‘Some vapid slut who would suck a dick in a public washroom if you bought me a beer?’