Shattered by Gabrielle Lord Read Free Book Online

seedlings.
    ‘What are you growing?’ Gemma asked, bending to pull out a grass runner as Naomi picked up her trowel again.
    ‘Don’t know,’ shrugged Naomi, digging around the base of the mound. ‘I got them half price because there was nothing on the punnet.’
    They worked together for a few minutes. ‘So how’s business?’ Gemma asked.
    ‘Okay,’ said Naomi. ‘But nothing to bring the house down. Enough work for me, and Robyn comes in a couple of times a week.’
    ‘Same as me,’ said Gemma. ‘I’m pretty well running my business myself these days.’
    ‘I’m still studying,’ said Naomi. ‘Fine Arts part-time. Degree course. I can’t believe I got my HSC finally.’
    ‘Congratulations. I know you studied hard.’
    ‘Heard from Steve?’
    Naomi, whose ability to read silences had undoubtedly saved her life on occasion, got it in seconds.
    ‘Don’t tell me you’re still not seeing each other?,’ she said, sitting back on her heels.
    Gemma nodded.
    ‘Oh, Gemma. That’s so sad!’
    ‘I didn’t handle things well. I was jealous. We had a fight. Or rather, I couldn’t stop having the same fight with him, over and over. Eventually, he had enough.’
    ‘But we’ve had this conversation before,’ Naomi pointed out. ‘And didn’t he come back last time?’
    Gemma shook her head. ‘Not really,’ she said. ‘Well, that’s not quite true. We did go out for dinner to talk things over, but I started on him again. I can’t seem to help it. It just takes me over.’
    ‘That’s crazy,’ said Naomi, shaking her head slowly. Her ponytail swung over her shoulder, a wave of golden brown reminding Gemma of her dead friend, Shelly.
    ‘You straight girls,’ Naomi was saying. ‘You just don’t – or won’t – get it. Going to bed with a woman can mean absolutely zero to a man. And a woman too. I should know! You were way too tough on him!’
    ‘Steve was too tough on me!’ Gemma snapped, aware of tears not far beneath her words. Abruptly, she pulled out the envelope with Maddison Carr’s school photograph in her pocket and opened it.
    ‘This is the photograph you wanted to show me?’ Naomi asked.
    ‘Yes,’ said Gemma, passing it to her. ‘Have you seen this girl anywhere round?’
    Naomi wiped sweat off her forehead with the back of her glove, smearing a line of dirt across her nose, then she frowned at the photograph of the tall, fair schoolgirl, hair tied back, wearing a prefect’s badge on her collar, squinting against the sun in her green and white uniform complete with blazer and hat, a slight frown hiding her eyes under heavy brows, the habitual downturn of her full lips already in evidence. It was clear to Gemma that Maddison Carr was not a happy seventeen-year-old.
    ‘Who is she when she’s not being the good little prefect?’
    ‘Maddison Carr,’ said Gemma. ‘That’s about all I know of her. Her father is a doctor, a cardiac specialist. He’s a difficult man – very superior, authoritarian. Reminds me a bit of the Duke of Edinburgh. According to him, she was living this perfectly happy, idyllic life until one day on her way to school – where she was top of the class in every subject – she got off the train at Kings Cross and never came home.’
    Naomi peered closely at the photograph. ‘Perfectly happy and idyllic, eh? She does look kind of familiar with those Brooke Shields eyebrows. And is that all the information you have?’
    ‘Yup. The railway security cameras picked her up getting off at Kings Cross. She used an ATM and the last sighting anyone had of her was walking down Darlinghurst Road towards St Vincent’s. Then she seems to have dropped off the screen.’
    Naomi studied the photograph a little longer before holding it out to Gemma. ‘I could have seen her around. But I can’t be positive. Girls come and go.’
    ‘You keep that,’ said Gemma. ‘Show it around and see if any of the girls have seen her.’
    ‘Sure,’ said Naomi. ‘And I’ll