“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m not here to find you. Tell her, Flipp.”
“He isn’t.” Flipp backed him up. “I don’t know why you think he is.”
“Well…obviously because…” She turned around to check on the little crowd, moving closer to the pair, keeping this part of the conversation private. “Haven’t you heard? Hasn’t it been in the paper yet? Surely by now…”
“Listen, I think we need to talk,” Rocky said. “Let me buy you breakfast up at the complex. Nice and open up there, plenty of people around. You’ll feel safe. Yeah?”
“Okay.” Michelle grudgingly accepted before turning on the onlookers and yelling, “Don’t you know it’s rude to stare?”
They trudged off, muttering amongst one another, cheated of their hoped-for spectacle.
“But first,” Rocky said, heading back into the supermarket, “I need to see the local rag.”
He bought a copy of the Gazette and swore explosively at its front page, which depicted a large photograph of Cordwainer beneath the headline The Godfather of Goldsands.
“You knew about this?” he spluttered, shaking the paper in Michelle’s direction when they were out in the car park again.
“What? What is it?” Flipp plucked eagerly at the newspaper, but Rocky held it out of her reach.
“That breakfast?” Michelle seemed alarmed at Rocky’s demeanour, but surely she knew nothing could happen to her out here in the open or in the crowded cafeteria inside the complex. If Rocky was a problem, she could simply call the police. Flipp couldn’t see that she had anything to worry about. It wasn’t as if Cordwainer was here in person.
Huddled at the corner table with their plates of congealing bacon and egg and toast, the trio pored over the newspaper, spread open in the centre of the red Formica.
“Jeez,” muttered Rocky, his face contorting into new expressions of awe and dismay with each sentence he read. “I picked the right time to leave.”
“You don’t work for him anymore?” Michelle stopped pushing bits of frilly caramelised egg white around her plate and stared.
“No. Quit three days ago. But I didn’t exactly hand in my notice.”
“You’re—are you in hiding? Here?”
Flipp and Rocky looked at each other, as if agreeing the level of secrecy required, then both nodded.
“So am I.”
“You aren’t running the Fairhaven anymore?”
“No. Cordwainer, um, we split up. And when I found out about his plans for the nature reserve, I wanted to do something. He needed to be stopped. Don’t you think?”
“So it was you who went to the press?” Rocky raised his eyebrows and blew out a breath. “That’s quite a risk to take. I wanted out, but I would never have gone that far. I know his connections. He’s not a man to cross, Michelle. I hope you’re going to be okay.”
“I hope so too,” she said, palpably nervous. “But the Gazette man promised he’d take care of me. He seemed very sure he could take Cordwainer down.”
“Of course he seemed sure—to you. He wanted your story. But Cordwainer knows a lot of people.”
“Yes, but now it’s in the public domain, he can’t get away with it, can he?” Michelle’s tone was pleading. Rocky squeezed and relaxed a fist around the salt cellar, ruminating.
“He’ll take me down with him,” he said. “Flipp, we’re going to have to get away today, I think. The fall-guy look doesn’t suit me. If Cordwainer doesn’t find us, the police will.”
“Okay.” A subdued Flipp had little appetite for the plate of food in front of her. She gulped at her coffee instead.
Michelle turned curious attention to Rocky’s companion.
“You worked in the arcade, didn’t you?”
“Yeah. For my sins.”
“I always thought Cordwainer had an eye for you. I thought you were going to be my replacement.” She chuckled mirthlessly. “Hard to believe that I was jealous of you for that.”