The Chase by Candice Fox

Author:Candice Fox [Fox, Candice]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781760896812
Publisher: Penguin Random House Australia

Keeps slid into the passenger seat and Celine climbed behind the wheel. They sat watching as Trinity Parker pulled away from the kerb in her silver Mercedes and disappeared into the morning. Celine felt a strange, unspoken tension between her and Keeps, as though a line had been crossed, not when she recruited him as her fellow fugitive hunter but when she fell asleep in his presence. She imagined herself drifting off there beside him, and him wondering whether to disturb her, rouse her or try to move her, the self-professed conman and criminal who had talked his way into her life now completely and truly alone with all of her world laid out in front of him. How vulnerable that made her.

Keeps took the lid off the reusable coffee cup she had filled for him and sipped the brew. He gave a small snort and she followed his eyes to the house across the road.

‘What?’

‘That outdoor setting there,’ Keeps said. ‘In the yard.’ Celine looked through an open gate and could see the outline of a six-seater wooden setting under a pergola.

‘What about it?’

‘That’s a Jacqueline setting,’ Keeps said. ‘Six seater, solid oak with UV and water-resistant Texteline and cotton-blend cushions.’

‘You’re an outdoor furniture connoisseur now?’ Celine frowned.

‘Yeah,’ Keeps sipped his coffee again, staring out the window. ‘I got that way. Used to be when I needed a quick buck I would slip into a nice neighbourhood like this, have a look around, find a house with a big ole expensive outdoor setting in the yard. I’d hop the fence, take a picture of the furniture, put it on the internet at a ridiculously low price. You’d have people turning up within a half an hour with a trailer to haul it away.’

‘How much would you get for a setting like that?’ Celine asked.

‘It retails for about three grand.’ Keeps said. ‘You’d list it for four hundred. Get people climbing over the top of each other to get to you.’

‘Don’t even have to break into the house,’ Celine said. Keeps didn’t seem to register her tone.

‘It’s a good play.’ Keeps shrugged. ‘Not the best.’

‘What’s your best?’

He thought for a moment.

‘The Burn and Return.’ He gave a smile, remembering. ‘It’s simple and it’s fast. You can play it anywhere, and it doesn’t require a huge set-up.’

‘How does it work?’ Celine asked.

‘You buy an electrical device – say, a waffle maker – from a department store. You don’t spend much. Twenty bucks. You take it somewhere, set it on fire. When it’s peak hour at the store, you bring it back and get hysterical with the manager that the thing almost burned your house down. You either demand a top-of-the-range, ultra-expensive replacement, which you then go and pawn, or you demand cash for your trouble.’

‘And you’ve done that?’

‘Plenty of times. When I was young and stupid.’ Keeps nodded. ‘I’d use my girlfriend sometimes, maybe, if I had one. She’s there screaming that she’s going to sue the franchise, she’s going to call CNN.

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