Page 5 of The Square

“It’s not Alec, it’s me. Alec is… missing.”

There’s a long silence on the other end of the phone.

Eliza is his sister. They’re a crew of five. Eliza, Russell, Theo, and the twins, Brenden and Charlie.

“Why don’t you just ask Christine?”

“I already told you, she’s keeping a secret.”

“Yeah, well… sorry, Fortnight. Can’t help you there.”

I think about that for a moment.

“Anything else?” he asks.

“You haven’t seen him, have you?”

“Alec? No. Been a couple years, actually.” I’m silent again so he says, “What’s going on, mate?”

“I don’t know.”

“I find that highly unlikely, Danny. It’s your lot. You know more than nothing. Tell me and maybe I’ll try a little harder to scrounge up whatever details you’re missing.”

“Is Eliza there?”

“Bru,” he says, mimicking Alec in a way that hurts me. “Already said, not gonna say. But I’ll tell you what. Give me a contact number and I’ll look into Alec’s, uh, whereabouts. With the understanding that if I find anything, the price for the information will be what you stole from us.”

Two hundred and fifty grand. It’s not a lot of money in the grand scheme of things. Not to him, not to me. And it’s not like I didn’t know he was gonna ask for it back when I made this call. But it feels kinda wrong for some reason. Like I’m betraying Alec and Christine by giving it back.

“Done,” I say. Because I really have a bad feeling about this whole thing. What could possibly make Christine turn on Alec the way she did? What?

“Brilliant,” Russell says. “Where can I reach ya?”

“Same way as always,” I say.

“I’ve tried that a few times,” he says. “Never worked out.”

“It’ll work next time, don’t worry.”

“Right then,” he says. “I’ll let you know.”

“Right. I’m gonna be out of touch for the next week or so, but if you miss me, I’ll call you back at this number when we reach port.”

Russell tsks his tongue. “Fuckin’ Triangle. Jesus. Never changes. Just get a bleedin’ jet, mate.”

“Later,” I say, ending the call.

I don’t know if I trust the guy. We did steal money from them. But they’ve stolen from us too. And yeah, to most people this is a big red flag. But stealing on our level is more of a gentleman’s sport than a crime. I mean, everything we stole from each other was already stolen in the first place, so it’s not personal.

“Danny?” I turn to find Christine looking at me, perplexed. “What are you doing?”

“Making dinner reservations. Remember that place we went to last time we were here?”

She crinkles her nose. Yup. She remembers.

“I didn’t make them there.”

She tries to hide a smile.