The Price of Everything by Giles Ward

Author:Giles Ward [Giles Ward]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781907605246
Publisher: Impress Books
Published: 2011-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

1 week, 1 day after Jocelyn Thwaite’s death

He had been asleep for over fourteen hours, jet lag and emotion conspiring to pull him down into a deep untroubled sleep. He rolled from the bed and rubbed at his dry eyes. The sound of hushed, urgent voices wafted from the open windows and he felt his way out onto the balcony. Danny leant over the rail and peered down at the pool below. Its surface rippled gently as though someone had recently thrown a blue silk sheet across its full length. Stacey dangled her feet at the edge, her back to the house. Danny watched her thin, tanned shoulders rise and fall with the kick of her legs. Behind her a youth in oversized khaki shorts, hung low at the crotch, paced up and down. He occasionally lifted his head to look at her between scratching his long greasy hair and peering at his scuffed baseball boots. Unlike Stacey, the boy had yet to outgrow the awkward gait of the pubescent. He crouched down on his haunches beside Stacey and said something Danny couldn’t hear. Stacey shrugged in return. He stood up and shuffled away, his head bowed and his feet scraping the pool’s smooth tiled edge.

“Good morning,” Danny called down over the rail and Stacey looked up over her shoulder.

“Oh, you’ve not died then?” she scoffed. Paulita appeared at the sound of voices and held a large crystal jug aloft.

“Orinj, Senor?” Danny nodded and reached for one of the new shirts waiting for him in the wardrobe.

By mid-morning the sun already glowed white in the azure sky. The tiles beneath Danny’s bare feet were blistering hot and he was forced to tiptoe to the pool’s edge. He thrust his grateful feet into the water beside Stacey.

“Who was that?” he asked.

“My boyfriend.”

“I didn’t know you had a boyfriend.”

“I haven’t.”

Danny stared at her blankly. Stacey grinned mischievously. “Well Taylor thinks he’s my boyfriend. And his Dad does own nearly half of Santa Monica, so I’m just keeping my options open.” He shook his head ruefully – she wasn’t joking.

“Well, he seems like a nice lad,” he said. Stacey laughed.

“What are you, my Dad? A nice lad?”

She kicked the surface of the water and it spat droplets onto her bare knees. She rubbed them with her palms, moisturising her dry skin. Stacey looked at Danny with something almost resembling sincerity.

“He’s a dork. But I’ll probably marry him,” she said, with more than a passing note of resignation.

“Well, surely you don’t have to if you don’t want to.” A single small dark cloud appeared in the sky, toyed with the idea of blocking the sun, thought better of it and floated westwards. Stacey smiled again – that insincere, plastic smile was back.

“I need to be kept in the style I’ve become used to, you know.” Danny nodded. He supposed so.

“So, how come you’re here – I thought you lived with your parents?”

“I do,” she replied, leaning back on her hands and exposing her middriff. Danny let his eyes fall to the smooth skin ratcheted taut across the bone of her ribcage.

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