Charliee

Chapter 1

For the first time in six months, it was still daylight over the endless concrete freeway at 6:30 in the evening, and Thomas Rayleigh was grateful. If there was one thing he was tired of, irrational though it may be, it was driving home from work day-after-day in darkness. He thought about the street lights near his house, how the collection of red lamps reminded him of one of the demented computer games the new interns had shown him on over lunch. It had been called the ‘Demon’s Dungeon,’ and the resemblance was striking. But those days, like the unending winter, were finally behind him.
Thomas worked for an architectural firm that specialled in water-front construction. They had projects all around Port Phillip Bay, from Geelong where Thomas lived, up through Werribee and back down the other side towards Mornington. It was there that the latest project was slowly coming together. Normally, he ran his team via computers, telephones, and anything else that reduced the distance to a series of beeps and alert bubbles. Inevitably though, once or twice a month, he’d have to visit the sites in person, just to make sure things were progressing as reported. As usual, everything was going according to plan, with nothing really for him to do or say but to congratulate the on-sight team, fill in the required paperwork and go home. He was about half way back this time, still heading west and nearly at the point in the journey when he normally logged online to find a good hotel for the night. He decided another half hour of sideways glances at the laptop on the seat next to him ought to do it.
When he finally did pull over, Thomas let the laptop rest for a few minutes, reaching instead into the top pocket of his shirt. Inside was a business card, and on it in sickly green letters was the name of a man he’d been having lunch with several times over the last week or two. The man’s name was Rice Harrison, a rep from a firm out in Adelaide. Relatively new but growing, Harrison’s company wasn’t likely to threaten Thomas’ anytime soon, and probably not ever. Harrison made it clear that competing with Thomas’ employers was not the ideal situation; rather they were pursuing a harmonious division-of-interests. The one thing they did need was men with experience, and they were willing to pay for it – big. Thomas turned him down at first, but eventually, Harrison had gotten him to agree to meet him one more time. Since then, they’d continued to have lunch and discuss what kinds of projects Thomas could be running. He had to admit it: they were good projects.

Thomas had one hand on his laptop when he heard the tapping on the passenger window. Looking across, he saw the face of a young woman smiling at him through the glass, waving.
‘Hi!’ she cried out. ‘Thanks for stopping!’ She was young, about his age, with wild hair, un-brushed but naturally straight, brown but glowing in the fading light. Her eyes were bright blue. They seemed to take everything in and leave nothing behind. Thomas stuttered a reply then reached unthinking for the window controls.
‘Can I help you?’ he finally managed to ask when the window was down.
‘Yeah, you can let me in,’ she replied, manner-of-factly. There was a measured absence of tone in her voice: no disapproval, no impatience, nothing. Thomas wondered if he’d ever heard anyone talk like that before.
‘Why would I do that?’ he asked back. Briefly the idea of restoring the window crossed his mind.
The girl’s smile faded slightly. ‘I was standing over there waiting for someone to give me a lift, and then you pulled over. Isn’t that right?’
The misunderstanding dawned on him. In the end, he felt guilty for not noticing her standing there when he brought the car over to the side – it wasn’t her mistake.
‘Where are you going?’ he asked, trying to imagine what he’d say if he’d actually intended to get into this mess.
‘I don’t care, as long as we get away from here,’ she answered.
Typical, he thought. What are you running from? Then he had another idea.
‘I need to get to Geelong. I was going get a hotel but if you drove I could save some time and get there a lot sooner.’ He wasn’t entirely sure if he trusted this stranger with his car, or if she even had a license… these were the things he would have to resolve first. But the thought of making it home without having to stop for the night was just too good to pass up.
‘Perfect!’ The smile was back, wider than ever. ‘Now can you let me in? It’s freezing!’
Thomas unlocked the door and felt the cold air rush in. She was right: winter was definitely not yet over, despite the late sunlight. He moved the laptop waited as she sat down next to him. She was wearing khaki shorts and a top that ended at the shoulders, and no coat. She was carrying a large backpack which she made to move to the backseat, until a quick glance informed her it was full of various kinds of luggage. Not for the first time Thomas considered one day learning how to travel lighter. Graciously she made herself comfortable with the bag on her lap, even though it took up most of the space between her and the dashboard. The girl fixed her eyes on the road in front of them and spoke without turning around.
‘So, Geelong is it?’ she said. Thomas recognised the cue, and for the second time that night, he was grateful. ‘Yep,’ he answered softly, and started the engine.