When he arrived outside the Town Tattler office, a printing press above the smallest library the world had ever seen—if it could even be called that a library—it was all he could do not to kick the door open, film detective style, and confront his nemesis number two. "Brady Moriarty!"

But alas, Hector wasn't that cool, so instead he knocked, like a sane person. When no one answered, on the account that it was only eight o'clock in the morning, he sat down on the floor and waited for the man like a bored little child. According to the opening hours on the faded, yellowing A4 paper stuck to the window, Brady should be along, oh, in an hour!

A minute passed into two passed into three and so forth until his bum went numb and the watch ticked only half-past eight. So much for urgency.

He abandoned his post then and ran down the stairs to grab a cruddy coffee from Pete's Pie to kill time. His eyes trained on his phone screen, skimming the latest discourse on the #DeviDhungelsalive matter—thanks to Chaya for showing him how to use one of the Apps where the hashtag was 'trending,' a word that made Hector feel as an old man trying to catch up with the world.

With his head down and distracted, naturally, he walked straight into someone stepping out of their car right at the bottom of the stairs, forcing the poor thing to fall back into the car with their legs flying up and sending Hector tumbling forward.

He did that dance one does when one is trying to regain one's balance while also trying to save their dastardly—and yet, expensive—little device one couldn't live without these days. The smartphone.

The panicked thought in Hector's mind was, No, not again, as he dove toward the concrete in time to save it. He'd only had a new screen replaced just a few months before. He did not want to drive a couple of hours, into the nearest big town, to get the screen fixed again so soon.

"Fuck me. Watch it, Heck!" Brady-fucking-Moriarty barked from behind Hector, obviously after having righted himself to his feet.

Hector caught his phone just before it hit the ground, the hand cushioning its fall grazing against the rough concrete sidewalk. What was it with him and bumping into Brady as often as he did?

"You scared me." He came up, glad the phone was okay before eyeing his bleeding knuckles. "Shit."

"I scared you?" Brady looked indignant with a hand to his wide chest. He eyed Hector up and down. "What are you doing here?"

"I came to see you." Hector winced as he took some grit out of his skin. "I have a bone to pick with you."

"Oh, sounds naughty!" Brady leaned in through the open passenger window of his car and grabbed his satchel. "Come up then to pick your bone and while I take care of that hand of yours."

Cringing at Brady's words, Hector eyed the empty streets quickly before following him up and into the Town Tattler office. Something he never thought he'd do again. Not since they were thirteen, back when they were still friends and hid there after stealing one of Mr Moriarty's hand-rolled cigarettes to bum. Little had they known, it was no ordinary ciggy.

Those memories flooded back now, uninvited. They'd been good friends. Close friends.

Hector shook those feelings off. He wasn't here to relive their friendship or figure out when exactly they'd started drifting apart. Perhaps it was that night, come to think of it, while everyone partied away, welcoming the new year on the street, the two of them stole away—unknowingly—with contraband.

"Here, give us a look." Brady appeared then out of the bathroom, carrying a first aid kit. He set the kit by the table next to Hector and took his hand. While turning his hand around, he asked, "So, what brings the elusive Hector to my doorstep this morning? Placing an announcement in the bulletin declaring how much you love Dr Chen?"

"What? No." Hector winced as Brady cleaned the grazes with an ample helping of iodine. "I need to know if it was you."

"If what was me?" Brady dabbed at the hand.

Hector didn't really know how to ask what he had been burning to ask, all the way to the Tattler this morning: Are you the man behind @notaDeviDhungelfan?

"Well?" Brady looked up, puzzled. "What is it, Heck?"

Hector chewed his lips before bringing out his phone and showing Brady the latest threads and discourses surrounding Devi Dhungel. "Devi's freaking out. Someone knows she's alive other than us."

Brady took a moment to skim through some comments before glaring at Hector. "And you think this idiot is me?"

Hector could only shrug.

That's when Brady shoved his phone back into Hector's stomach with a disgusted look. "If that was me, I'd have come up with a better handle!"

"So it's not you?"

"No, of course, not. But"—Brady threw some gauze Hector's way, practically saying 'Help yourself.'

"But?" Hector caught it but made no move to wrap his wounded hand.

"Since cat's out of the bag, you won't mind if I run my article?" There was a glint in Brady's eyes. "It's the biggest news at the moment and I'd love to be the one to break it to the world."

"Ma said you'd salivate at this!" Hector shook his head. "A woman's in my house, half scared to death that this will reach the person who tried to kill her, and you're itching to print it? For what? Fame?"

"It's business, and business is slow." Brady shrugged. "If you were me, you'd understand."

Hector shook his head again. "I can't have media and randos turning up at Ma's house, Brady. You promised to give me time."

"And you promised me exclusivity!" Brady pointed at the phone in Hector's hand. "That right there tells me you blabbed to someone other than me. Or someone in the loop has betrayed you, and that person isn't me."

The words shocked Hector to his core. What? Someone in their midst betrayed them? Why? What did they stand to gain from it?

"You're seriously telling me it hadn't occurred to you that person could be any people who know about Devi and where she is?" Brady laughed. "Oh, this is precious! You're so ready to pin the blame on me, but you haven't thought about the possibility that"—he threw his hand up in and 'I don't know,'—"that this could be someone from the hospital, or Sydney, or Devi herself."

"Devi?" Hector narrowed his brows. "Why would she do this?"

"Oh, I don't know, Hector." Brady sneered. "Why do celebrities do outrageous things?" When Hector didn't respond, he gloated, "To get in the limelight. To promote shit. She's a shining literary star no longer—was almost obsolete. Relegated to the past."

The floor beneath him might as well have opened up then. Hector turned, leaned on the desk, and tried to collect his thoughts. Could Devi do this? Yes. Would she enjoy the attention it brought her? Yes. She'd probably lavish it up like a Labrador.

But why now, when they were so close to figuring out who attacked her? Why risk it? What would she gain from that?

He recalled the sheer terror on her face then. The terror that was real. "No." He shook his head. "It's not her."

"Well then, you better figure out who it is, or the who-dun-it, asap!" Brady said behind him. "I'll give you a few days. If I get a whiff that this is going to go wide, that someone's about to steal my thunder, I'll print my article, Hector. And I won't apologies to you for doing my fucking job. And considering what you've just told me, about this social media frenzy, I'll be dropping in at your Ma's sometime today. To get my exclusive and you won't turn me away. Not if you want me to nip this in the bud for a while until you're done."

"You'd do that?"

"It's what you would have done for me once." Brady shrugged and shuffled some papers on his desk. "But this won't die down now. Shit's about to hit the fan. You better get your brolly ready, because I'm not letting this opportunity slip by ... I need this, Hector. I need this more than you know."

Hector swallowed. He'd never heard Brady sound so dejected, so vulnerable before, and he recalled what Stoive had said about the guy. "Everything okay at home?"

Brady's flickering smile said it all. No. "Whoever this is, whether or not it's Devi—it's personal. They're looking for attention. And people looking for attention rarely have any patience, Constable Martinez. I'd hurry off and figure this out, if I were you."

#

When he arrived back at the farm with his tail between his legs, he met Eve, blocking his way onto the porch, arms tightly folded in front of her, her gaze hard as if looking at a criminal. "You will stop this now."

"What?" he felt like he had the energy to word so that is all he said, shoulders slumped, eyes on the gravel driveway.

"You and her!" Eve spat. "I won't allow it. You could easily be her son's age!"

Hector peered up then, having all but forgotten this morning's events. What? "Who?"

"Devi!" His ma glared at him with burning eyes. "It's disturbing, Heck. It's downright disturbing. What will Hilde think, you cheating on her with ... with ... with a woman twice your age?"

"She's not twice my age, Ma."

Eve stepped closer to him, her voice dropping to a hiss. "I won't have it, Heck! You're a young man with your entire life ahead of you, and if you solve this thing, a great career. You have a wonderful girlfriend who's accomplished and beautiful ... and"—she pointed at the house—"and you do that! Like father, like—"

"Enough!" Hector yelled. What was the world coming to? Being compared to his father and by his ma too? He could have melted into a puddle on the ground from exhaustion then. Why was he being heckled from all sides suddenly? "Who I sleep with is none of your business, Ma." Unable to think up anything else, he tried that tactic. Fool!

His ma huffed, indignant. "Poor Hilde!"

"Hilde is a lovely girl, Ma. Lovely. But she's not my girlfriend. We're pretending so she can check on Devi without raising suspicions—for whatever good that's done us."

Eve's chin quivered then, and she crossed her arms again, pouting. "I won't do it. If you keep doing this ... with her, I won't lend you the money for the yacht. I won't. I won't be a part of this."

"I have money, Ma, and that"—Hector eyed the house. "That was one time," I'm sure. Though a part of him ached at that dark thought. Whatever last night had been with Devi, it had meant something. Her eyes had been vulnerable as she'd watched him atop her. There's been a sense of deep trust and longing. Something he'd never felt with Hilde, though he knew he'd tried.

"I ... I ..." Eve, lost for words for once, tried to block her son as he attempted to walk around her and into the house. "This is not right, Hector. This is all fucked up."

It was odd for Hector to hear swear words come out of his ma's mouth in that fashion, but the way the entire morning had gone, he too had little fucks to give. "Everything's fucked up anyway or will be, as Brady says. It wasn't him, by the way."

With a lump of dread the size of Titanic sitting at the bottom of his stomach, Hector strode into the house to break the not-so-nice news to the woman who had his feelings all tied in a knot.

Do I like her? Do I not? Am I in love? I can't be? It's the case. It has to be. They always warn us about getting close to our witnesses ... Yeah, that must be it ... But then again, why do I want to kiss her again? Why do I want last night to happen again?

"Devi, if we're doing this yacht thing, it has to be now," he called out, walking down the corridor towards Devi's room, trying to neutralise his feelings—she's a witness under my protection. That's why we did ... that's why we've ... drawn close—and failing.

"I also need you to throw Brady a bone, give him an exclusive interview, or else he's threatened to blow the whole thing up. It'll buy us some time while the rumour mill churns ..." He entered the room to find her nurse taking a needle out of Devi's arm, who opened her drowsy eyes, looked at him, then closed them back up again.

"Sorry, Hector. I didn't know you needed her right now. I'm afraid she's out for a few hours." The look Chaya gave him made his stomach turn.

"What happened?" he asked, approaching the bed and the sedated Devi.

"Another post dropped, while you were gone, and it named the town."

"It named the town?" Hector blanched at those words.

"Mystery Cove." Chaya discarded the needle into the sharps bin she'd brought. "They didn't even wait the twenty-four hours they said they would. I had to give her a sedative to calm her down. This is getting serious ..."

And wasn't that the truth! Things were getting serious and Hector Martinez had so few options left. If he was going to do this—solve it, save Devi, land a promotion, get out of dodge—he had to take matters into his own hands.

"Get me as soon as she wakes up." He about turned out of the room. He had things to do; plans to put in place; invitations to send out, now.

There was no time to lose. Whoever this @notaDeviDhungelfan was, it sure wasn't Devi—which was a slight relief. But it meant, someone was out there, in Sydney or in Mystery Cove itself, was watching their every move. His move. And dammit if they were going to know what he was up to next. This was a matter of life and death, Devi's, and he wasn't about to lose his first witness or the case.

From now on, Hector was going to go off the books and keep his cards close to his heart. The only people who would ever know anything would be the people living under that threatened roof and he intended to keep it that way.