The Recipient

  A cursory check of her watch reminded her that she had to be back at the apartment soon. Her father was likely there already, taking over her kitchen and revelling in his “newfound love of culinary artistry,” as he called it.

  Casey smiled wistfully and lifted her head towards the descending sun. Her father was retired now, though he kept himself busy with various pursuits that included running errands like grocery shopping for Casey, especially on days like today when she had been rushing to her many appointments.

  Well, most of them.

  The discarded appointment card on the sand in front of her tumbled away on a gust of wind that kicked up, pushing it closer to the water.

  Good riddance, Casey thought acidly.

  The sun’s ellipse was hovering closer to the horizon now and, as it finally touched the edge of the sea, Casey slowly rose to her feet and collected her shoes and bag from the sand.

  Time to go play nice with Dad.

  ___

  As she had predicted, upon opening the warehouse door, Casey was greeted to rich aromas that wafted from her kitchen courtesy of the tall, middle-aged man who hovered over a wok on the stove while referring to an open recipe book that lay on the bench nearby.

  Peter Schillinge turned as Casey stepped in and he smiled broadly at his daughter.

  “G’day,” he greeted cheerily. “You’re just in time. Do you want to set the table?”

  Casey grinned wearily as she set down her bag and keys and placed a kiss on his cheek.

  “Happy birthday, sweetheart,” Peter said lovingly as he leaned into his daughter’s kiss.

  “Thanks, Dad.”

  She cast a cursory glance at the wok on the stove and salivated at the sight of numerous plump chicken pieces sizzling away there.

  “That smells amazing,” she complimented eagerly, inspecting the luxurious chicken concoction he was nurturing. She drew in the fragrant aromas: a fusion of lemon, coriander, pepper and something else she couldn’t quite put her finger on.

  “What on Earth have you got going on in there? Cinnamon?” Casey asked as she set about retrieving dinner plates and cutlery, setting them on the centre bench.

  “You bet,” Peter confirmed as he chugged a mouthful from a nearby beer bottle. “And not that grocery store garbage either. This is real Kerala cinnamon that I picked up from the market just this weekend. Costs a small fortune.”

  Casey smiled as her father worked the ingredients around the wok with something of a theatrical flourish. “I reckon I have just about perfected this baby. I’ve been working on it for weeks but I wasn’t satisfied with the results I was getting until I got this proper cinnamon. I’ll just finish it off with my own, homegrown bok choy as an accompaniment and I’ll be done. People’d pay big money for this in a restaurant.”

  “Whatever, Dad,” Casey sneered as she fetched a beer from the fridge and used the nearby bottle opener to flick the lid off.

  Peter’s eyes flicked from the beer bottle in her hand to her face and then away quickly. He hoped she hadn’t seen that momentary flash of concern in his expression. But she had.

  “Don’t even,” Casey snapped, but only half-seriously. “After the day I’ve had, I’ve well and truly earned this.”

  Peter grasped his bottle and held it out towards hers in a peace-offering gesture, to which Casey offered hers and clinked it against his.

  “Cheers,” she said.

  “I heard the Burnley tunnel was a nightmare,” Peter offered, changing the subject as best he could. “Truck breakdown?”

  Casey nodded, lifting herself up so that she was sitting in the bench adjacent to him.

  “It wasn’t so bad. I came through on the tail end of it so I wasn’t delayed very much at all. I still felt like losing my shit though.”

  Peter chuckled as he concentrated on the wok while glancing at his daughter. He noticed a few telltale granules of sand on her feet.

  “Stopped by the beach, huh?” he ventured happily.

  Casey nodded and tilted her head. “It was quiet, just nice. Old Barney and Claude were at it again, dissecting the footy instead of catching fish. I really don’t think they’ve ever caught anything off that jetty.”

  “It’s nice that you can still go there, you know, without feeling overwhelmed by the outdoors.”

  Peter caught his daughter’s gaze for a long moment and he held it, concerned that he might have overstepped. He knew that Casey was acutely embarrassed by her agoraphobia. “Mentone has always been a friend to me,” she smiled.

  Peter flashed a wistful smile of his own. “I remember when you were a little tacker, we could never get you or your brother off that beach, especially when your grandfather was around.”

  Turning to the stove, Peter began serving up his culinary creation.

  “We were difficult to keep a leash on,” Casey responded lyrically. “Pa was as bad as we were. He was the one who encouraged us to keep playing cricket until well after sunset when we could hardly see. God, that seems like such a long time ago.”

  Peter frowned then, pausing with a full plate in his hand.

  “What do you mean, a long time ago? You’re only twenty-six now.”

  “It’s not the years though, Dad,” Casey said laconically, tapping the centre of her chest with a balled fist. “It’s the mileage.”

  ___

  They sat together at the counter laughing and chatting as they ate their meal, which was indeed a culinary triumph. They shared a bottle of Riesling that complemented the dish perfectly, a treat that Peter brought with him each week.

  Jazz music, Peter’s favourite, played on the stereo system. The last remnants of stress from the day had been neutralised by the time Casey took her last mouthful and she sat back on her stool, nodding approvingly.

  “That was a master stroke, Dad,” she declared. “Very well done.”

  Peter nodded as he finished and gathered their plates together. “Not bad for a birthday meal?”

  “Not at all,” Casey agreed, raising her glass.

  “So, twenty-six, eh? Three full years since the change-over,” Peter remarked, as he finished loading the plates into the dishwasher. “How does it feel?”

  Casey shrugged then grinned at his reference to the transplant.

  “Like it’s twenty-six? I don’t know. How am I supposed to feel?”

  Peter considered her question for a moment and then shrugged.

  “I dunno. Like any twenty-six-year-old I suppose. I’ve forgotten what it was like being twenty-six. I think I read somewhere that it is the first year that you can legitimately call yourself an adult. Anything before that doesn’t count.”

  “Gee thanks, Dad. I think,” Casey chuckled. “So I guess that means it’s all downhill from here.”

  “Not at all. I haven’t behaved like an adult for thirty years and I don’t intend to start now.”

  “Retirement seems to agree with you,” Casey observed.

  “Now that I’ve got you kids off my hands and have commandeered the house the way I’ve always wanted to, I’m enjoying something of a renaissance. Edie’s fears about me becoming a whinging old fart have been turned on their head, well and truly.”

  The mention of her mother’s name caused Casey’s smile to fade and she nervously sipped from her glass to conceal herself from her father.

  Peter, pretending he hadn’t noticed the sudden change his daughter’s disposition, stood and ferried the dinner plates and cutlery to the dishwasher.

  “How is she?” Casey asked, realising now that she couldn’t avoid the proverbial elephant in the room.

  Peter thought about his answer for a long moment.

  “She’s good,” he answered curtly. “Still doing legal aid stuff for Slattery and Gerard. Their immigration work seems to be kicking along quite a bit. I swear, it’s like she’s keeping longer hours than I did when I was working.”

  Casey didn’t offer anything more and Peter went on stacking the dishes. Eventually he returned to th
e bench and sat down across from Casey. His expression was tinged with concern. “She asked after you.”

  Casey set down her wine glass, agitated, and circled the rim with her finger.

  “Did she.” She responded flatly to her father’s white lie. Peter gulped, knowing that his daughter had caught him out. He was a terrible fibber.

  “Look, love. She cares about—”

  “Don’t, Dad,” she growled warningly.

  Casey flashed an icy glare at her father which stopped him in mid sentence. “I know what Mum has been up to. Who she’s been speaking to. Fedele told me today that she had been in touch with him.”

  Peter held himself, taking a sip from his own glass, as he thought about what he was going to say next.

  “She just worries about you, Casey,” he began. “I worry about you. You can’t keep abusing your body the way you do, especially after that scare. You can’t expect us to stay silent.”

  Both Casey and Peter were surprised by the sudden vigour of his observation and both of them blinked in the middle of the silence that followed.

  “You don’t go anywhere or see anyone,” he continued, emboldened. “You never come to the house; there’s three months worth of mail piling up there, including potential job offers. Instead you hole yourself up here for weeks at a time, working ridiculous hours for God-knows-who. I mean, when was the last time you had any sort of time off?”

  Casey clutched her wine glass and glared at her father, unable to respond. Peter sat back, withdrawing from a potential confrontation.

  “Your mum just wants you to be okay,” he continued, adopting a more gentle tone.

  “Well then, why doesn’t Edie tell me that herself?” Casey challenged, her facade cracking.

  “Because she—” Peter began.

  “Because she doesn’t approve of my life,” Casey pressed, answering her own question. “She doesn’t approve of where I choose to live or the work I choose to do or the people I choose to associate with. She would rather I be back at home, in my sickbed where she can be in control. She’s hasn’t come to grips with the fact that I have carved out a life for myself, that I can take care of myself now and I don’t need her to care for me 24/7!”

  Peter sat silent across from Casey, digesting her defence, but unsure of what to say next. He knew that she was at least partly right about her mother.

  Sensing her father’s awkwardness, Casey softened her expression. “Look, I’m good, Dad. Really good,” she said. “I’ve just finished a big contract and I’m going to take some proper time off.”

  “A legitimate contract?” Peter probed, cocking one brow for effect.

  Casey levelled her own brow into a frown. “Yes, Dad,” she retorted. “A very legitimate contract.”

  “It’s just that…Prishna Argawaal has been sniffing around again,” Peter said solemnly. “She thinks you’ve been involved in some illegal stuff.”

  Casey paused in the middle of lifting her glass and studied her father.

  On more than one occasion, Casey’s reputation on both sides of the cyber fence had aroused suspicion within the ranks of the Victoria Police—despite the fact she was one of their most valuable assets in an ongoing war against cyber-crime.

  The mention of Argawaal’s name was enough for her to grind her teeth.

  “She would say that. Look, Prishna’s just shooting blindly because she’s got a problem finding a real bad guy.”

  “So…you’re not involved in anything untoward then?” Peter ventured.

  Casey narrowed her eyes. “Dad. How many times do I have to reassure you? I don’t do clandestine anymore. I gave that up. You’re starting to sound like Mum.”

  Peter smiled and shook his head. “All right, all right. I’ll let it go. But if Prishna is going to keep bugging us, you know?”

  Casey nodded confidently. “I’ll deal with Prishna. I’ve given the Cyber-Crime Unit more assistance than just about any other consultant out there. I think I’ve proven myself more than enough with them.”

  Though his doubt lingered, Peter chose to let it go. Reaching for the wine bottle in the middle of the counter, he poured himself another glass.

  “How has your sleep been?” he asked.

  Casey blinked at the sudden change in subject.

  “It’s okay,” she stammered. “It’ll be better now that I’ve finished this job.”

  Her response was unconvincing. She saw his concern and she looked away. There was no doubting how well Peter knew his daughter.

  He reached into his pocket, fishing around until he clasped a pair of keys. He lay them down on the counter and slid them towards Casey.

  “Take these. Drive yourself up to Hambledown and hide out at the beach house for a couple of weeks. Go see your grandparents. Get some fresh air into your lungs again.”

  Casey regarded the keys in front of her and managed a weary smile at her father.

  She got up from the bench, rounded it and planted a tender kiss on her father’s forehead.

  “Thanks, Dad. I am okay. I will be okay.”

  He nodded, even though there was a clear sense of doubt etched into his features.

  Casey turned to one of the kitchen drawers behind him, opened it and took out a familiar red box containing a deck of UNO cards.

  She tossed it to her father, who quickly caught it.

  “Best of ten?” she challenged, taking up her seat once more.

  Peter chuckled at the sight of the cards and he took the deck out as Casey sat down in front of him and rubbed her hands together eagerly.

  “Best of ten,” he echoed as he began shuffling. “But we’ll play for real this time around. Moneybags.”

  CHAPTER 5.

  In the depths of night, Casey ran at a steady pace on her treadmill. Her eyes were closed in concentration as she exercised her arms and legs, tuning her mind to her muscles while she balanced her body in full stride. She listened to her breathing, regulating her respirations in time with her strides so each intake of air filled her lungs and emptied out in a satisfying, effortless rhythm.

  The heart pumped in synergy with the rest of her body, receiving blood from her extremities, pushing it on to her lungs, where it was re-oxygenated before returning to the foreign cardiac tissue. The heart beat, ejecting her blood back out and into her body once more; the perpetual cycle that sustained Casey.

  She was in tune with her body. Yet, she felt incomplete. An unnerving darkness clung to her from within.

  She fought to ignore it. But, no matter how hard she tried, the beating of the heart pounded in her ears, carrying with it a taunt that demanded her attention. It was as though nothing could compete with the sound of the foreign organ beating inside her, and it angered her. Without realising it, Casey had dramatically increased the intensity of her exercise. She ran harder and faster. The machine responded to her effort. The longer she ran, the more intense her anger became.

  Already, Casey was regretting her decision to take a self-imposed vacation. It had only been a week and she hated not having anything to do, no work to keep her mind engaged. A restless mind like Casey’s was a dangerous thing.

  She’d looked for any activity she could find. She’d started out by moving all of her furniture and stripping the timber floors of her apartment, re-lacquering them and moving temporarily downstairs into the garage while she waited for them to dry. After moving everything back in, Casey turned her attention to her computer hardware.

  With the precision of an army sniper, she stripped the machine down to its component parts then rebuilt it. She rewrote the customised operating system—her own design—and loaded it, spending hours testing and retesting it, losing herself in the code.

  She cooked. She cleaned. She rearranged. She watched old movies she had seen a dozen times before. She ran on the treadmill. But there were only so many times she could repeat these tasks.

  Though Casey considered it, she hadn’t taken up her father’s offer of the beach house. The thought of l
eaving the protective cocoon of her apartment was too much. Her fear of driving, of being on the open road in the wide open spaces beyond Melbourne’s urban sprawl gnawed at her. Her agoraphobia had gotten the better of her before she’d even challenged it.

  All the while her thoughts played upon her. Her fears. The most worrying of them was the apparent silence from her clientele.

  She had put it out there, via her usual lines of communication, that she wouldn’t be available to take on any new work for a month or so. Casey didn’t expect that they would take her at her word. They hadn’t in the past. When she had gone off the grid, she would still find herself bombarded with requests for her services. This time, her inbox remained starkly empty. Her smartphone remained quiet. The message boards she frequented were strangely silent. It worried her. Casey had begun to think that her last job had put off a lot of her regulars. The intensity of it, the nature of it, the hours she’d had to devote to it at the expense of additional work was now, seemingly, returning to bite her on the arse.

  The worry fed her anxiety and her anger and all she could do was to focus that into her exercise. Casey wasn’t just jogging now. She was running at a speed that verged on sprinting. She was running on automatic. Then, she realised what she was doing and it shocked her. Shaking herself back into the present, Casey fought to refocus on her activity. She immediately dialled down the intensity on the treadmill controls, wincing as her muscles ached in protest. Slowly but surely, she returned to a jog, then a walk, breathing long and hard. Grabbing the handlebar of the treadmill, Casey lowered her head as sweat dripped from her brow. Finally she stopped, exhausted and spent.

  Casey felt the need to close her eyes and rest. As she stood on the now stationary treadmill, her head resting on her arms, the temptation to give into that need became increasingly pronounced. She could feel herself drifting on the very edge of sleep. But something made her flinch and she whipped her body into an upright position, blinking the sleep from her eyes.

  “No,” she muttered through quickened breaths and a surge of adrenaline.

  She could not submit to sleep. Not now. Not here.