The Art of Misleading

“You’d be amazed how much lying you can get away with if you’re holding a wine glass and look slightly disappointed.”

Holding my brown bag of lovelies securely under one arm like a precious parcel of calm, I raised my free hand and knocked assertively on Luke’s front door. The sound echoed far too loudly in the still afternoon air, each rap on the timber reverberating through my already fraying nerves. The knot in my stomach twisted tighter, a clenched fist of anxiety beneath my ribs.

Please tell me you got the message, Luke. Please don’t open this door like a golden retriever greeting Jehovah’s Witnesses. The thought alone sent a chill down my spine. I could already imagine the scenario: Luke, bleary-eyed, answering with an armful of something nothingness, saying the wrong thing before his brain caught up. He was many things, but sometimes, subtle was not one of them.

I waited.

Silence.

A slow breath escaped my lungs, and a brief flicker of relief passed through me. The door stayed shut. No Luke. No bumbling, ill-timed interruptions. For now.

Behind me, footsteps scraped across the path—the detectives were closing in, their movements deliberate, expectant. I turned to meet them, every neuron in my body scrambling for a plan, for anything that might buy me another few minutes of control in a situation that was rapidly slipping through my fingers.

"Well, that's a bit odd," I said, pitching my voice with carefully calibrated confusion, the kind I imagined well-meaning neighbours might use on daytime crime shows. "There doesn't appear to be anybody home. I wasn't gone that long."

My eyes flicked to Jenkins and his partner, searching their faces for the smallest sign of suspicion. Jenkins remained stone-faced, unreadable. The woman behind him, though, had that thin-lipped look of someone who didn’t buy what I was selling, but hadn’t quite decided whether to bother arguing about it.

Inside, my thoughts churned like wet laundry on spin cycle. Luke’s absence was a godsend—unless they decided to start opening cupboards. Then it’d be a crime scene with wine pairings.

The female officer huffed loudly, contempt flaring with the subtlety of a foghorn.

"But you have a key, don't you, Gladys?” Jenkins' voice sliced clean through the tension, his gaze laser-focused on the keys in my hand. I followed his eyes, and sure enough, there they were—Jamie’s keys, dangling stupidly in plain sight like a guilty conscience on a keyring.

"Oh yeah," I said with a forced laugh, holding them up with exaggerated nonchalance. They jingled a little too eagerly. "How silly of me." My grip on the brown paper bag tightened, the familiar clink of the bottles like a warning bell inside a chapel. Don’t drop the wine. Don’t drop the bloody wine.

"Well, aren’t you going to invite us in?" Jenkins said, his tone so smooth and insistent it barely needed the question mark.

I stared at him, fighting the instinct to run—just leg it down the driveway, bag and all, and let them sort it out. Instead, I gave him my best pleading look, the one I usually reserved for late-night taxi drivers or wine clerks who refused to check the storeroom.

"Wouldn't that be a bit rude of us to enter his house if he wasn’t home?" I blurted out, scrambling for logic. It sounded weak even to me. Straw. Clutched.

Jenkins gave a smile that belonged on a different kind of man entirely—smug, knowing, the kind that made your skin itch beneath your clothes. "I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t have given you his keys if he didn’t want you being here."

Behind him, the second officer snorted loudly, then covered her mouth as if she hadn’t meant for it to escape. I turned and glared at her, disbelief prickling under my skin. Unprofessional and annoying. A two-for-one deal.

Feeling cornered, outmanoeuvred, and thoroughly fed up, I muttered, "I guess so," and turned back to the door with a resigned shrug.

The keys slipped into the lock with an ease that betrayed my dread. The sound of the mechanism clicking open was loud in my ears. My pulse pounded behind my eyes as I pushed the door open, the wine tucked under my arm like a strange emotional support animal.

I stepped over the threshold, walking blindly into the next chapter of this slowly unravelling farce.

Please be empty. Please just be walls and dust and nothing to report.

But I knew better. Nothing in my life came that easy anymore.

And the further I stepped into Luke’s house, the louder the question rang in my head: What in God’s name am I going to say when they ask where Jamie is?

I set the brown bag of wine on the kitchen bench with exaggerated care, as though it were a vase of orchids and not my last emotional defence against spiralling chaos. The clink of the bottles felt grounding—comfortingly real in a moment where everything else was lurching into absurdity. I ran a hand over the crumpled top of the bag, almost reflexively, like I was patting it for luck. Or courage. Or both.

The detectives remained in the living room, their presence a lead weight in the air. I could sense them loitering behind me, listening, watching, waiting for a slip-up. Their silence wasn’t passive; it was poised.

Straightening my shoulders, I started up the hallway with a deliberate, casual pace—carefully choreographed to look like someone simply checking in on a friend. “Jamie?” I called, pitching my voice high, casual, performative. It bounced softly off the walls and vanished into the stillness.

The absurdity of the situation wasn’t lost on me. I knew, with the same certainty I knew how many bottles were in that paper bag, that Jamie wasn’t here. But the show must go on. If the detectives needed a pantomime, I’d give them one. Apparently, I’d become the understudy in someone else’s disappearance.

My heartbeat quickened as I passed each door. The hallway felt longer now, distorted somehow under the weight of their gaze. I imagined their eyes following me, dissecting my movements like seasoned critics at an amateur performance. Every glance back toward the kitchen was another act in the farce.

“Jamie, you here?” I called again, the words hollow in the empty space. It echoed faintly—mocking, almost. The illusion of a search when both of us knew exactly what wasn’t going to be found.

I passed into the master bedroom and lingered by the doorframe, as though waiting for a response. I wasn’t really looking for Jamie anymore—if I ever had been. Somewhere beneath the layers of performance, I was hoping to stumble upon Luke. A note. A voice. A clue. Anything that could help explain this away, or at least buy me time to come up with a better lie.

“Jamie?” I repeated, more out of obligation than belief, my voice quieter now. Even the air seemed to disapprove of the charade.

The final room lay ahead—the one with the broken window and the growing mound of rubbish bags. My steps slowed instinctively, as though my body already knew to tread lightly. That room had always made my skin prickle, like it had a memory of its own—an old, unspoken presence clinging to the walls, watching. It smelled of dust, old air, and something faintly metallic. Forgotten things. Forgotten truths.

My heart thudded harder in my chest—not just from nerves, but from the creeping sense that this was where things could finally, irrevocably, go wrong.

I cast a glance back down the hall. The doorway angled just enough to keep me hidden from view. Thank God for blind spots. It was a small, sacred mercy in a situation otherwise devoid of grace.

I slipped into the room like a shadow, heart hammering. With each step, the weight of everything pressed heavier—my breath shorter, my limbs taut. It was as though the air itself had thickened, wrapping around me like wool soaked in cold water.

And then—

"Luke! What the fuck!" I hissed, nearly leaping backwards as his figure emerged from the shadows near the far wall. His face was tense, his eyes alive with urgency.

He started to speak, but I was quicker. My hand shot out and pressed against his mouth. It was impulsive, driven by sheer reflex and panic. I leaned in close, my breath shallow and fast. “There’s two detectives in the living room, waiting for me to return with Jamie,” I whispered, the words tumbling out in a rush, barely controlled.

His eyes widened. "Karl Jenkins?" he asked, the name like a trigger pulling something inside him taut.

“Yes,” I confirmed, a jolt of curiosity cutting through the fear. “You know him?”

The room seemed to shrink around us as the implication hung there. The clutter, the broken glass, the cold seeping through the window—it all closed in, heavy with tension.

“Yeah,” Luke muttered, the word wrapped in something dark. He stopped speaking mid-thought, his eyes drifting—not toward me, but somewhere far beyond the walls, as if he could see through the plaster into some old memory.

“I caught him snooping around here the other day.”

“Did he see you? Did you talk to him?” I asked quickly, latching onto his words like they might anchor me.

“No,” he said too fast. Too firm. My stomach twisted, but there wasn’t time to press him.

"Do you know the detective with him?" Luke’s voice held a thread of urgency now, matching my own.

I shook my head, painting the image from memory like I was sketching it on fogged glass. “No. She’s a little taller than me, long, black hair, and quite attractive, really.”

The description slipped out almost apologetically. It felt ridiculous—talking beauty standards in a room that reeked of mildew and panic—but it was all I had.

Luke’s eyes narrowed with sudden clarity. “Sounds like Sarah Lahey,” he said, his brow furrowing with the unmistakable weight of strategy. “Befriend her.”

I stared at him.

Befriend her?

The words landed like a slap of cold water, jarring in their audacity. "Befriend her?" I echoed, my tone straining under disbelief and something dangerously close to hysteria. He couldn’t possibly—

“Yeah,” he said, utterly unfazed. As if it were the simplest suggestion in the world.

“What? Why?” I pressed, the panic rising again, thick and sour at the back of my throat.

“We need to find some allies. My gut tells me that Sarah might help us,” Luke replied, calm and deliberate, like he’d spent nights lying awake, turning this over in his mind. His eyes didn’t flinch. He meant it.

The silence that followed was heavy, suffocating. My thoughts whipped into a frenzy. Allies? For what? How would a detective possibly help us? What game was he playing—and why was I the one being handed the dice?

“To cover up the disappearances?” The words escaped before I could catch them, whispered and raw, dredged up from the depths of my dread.

Luke’s reaction was immediate—his hands grabbing me gently but firmly, steering me back towards the door. “You’d better get back there,” he urged, his voice low but charged. “They’ll be getting suspicious if you don’t get back there.”

My pulse thundered in my ears. “What do I tell them?” I asked, panic leaking into my voice, brittle and loud.

“I really don’t know,” he said, brow drawn in a helpless shrug. “Just don’t tell them about me.”

The door clicked softly shut behind me.

And just like that, I was alone in the hallway again. My hand hovered over my chest, trying to still the fluttering panic within. Befriend her? The idea clanged around my mind like a loose cog in a broken machine.

I wiped my sweaty palms on my jeans as I moved back towards the living room. The corridor felt longer now. Heavier.

Damn you, Luke, I thought bitterly.

My steps dragged, the dread returning in full force. I had no script, no plan—just the echo of his last words and a bottle of Shiraz somewhere in the kitchen, still unopened.

As I crossed the threshold into the lion’s den, I tried to summon something—poise, wit, bravery—but all I had was trembling hands and a very bad feeling.

Stepping back into the living room, the air felt heavy—thick with unspoken questions and veiled scrutiny. It clung to my skin like damp wool.

“Jamie doesn’t appear to be here,” I said, aiming for a tone of mild surprise, like someone discovering their cat had somehow slipped out the window again. I added a subtle frown for effect, though my face felt stiff, like it had forgotten how to lie convincingly.

Detective Jenkins watched me with that same unnerving stillness, his gaze flicking over every movement like he was already three steps ahead. “Does Jamie live alone?”

“Um. No,” I replied, glancing towards the kitchen as if physical distance might somehow buffer the interrogation. I began walking in that direction, each step a grasp at composure. “He has a partner.” My voice trembled just enough to sound honest, but not enough to sound rehearsed.

“Oh,” Jenkins responded, raising an eyebrow. His tone feigned polite curiosity, but there was a flicker—something knowing behind his eyes. “Is she about?”

She? The word pinged inside my skull like a tiny bomb. My stomach dropped. A cold, prickly wave crawled up the back of my neck.

What the hell is he doing? He knows. Of course he knows.

I swallowed, throat dry as a sun-cracked riverbed. Was this a test? A trap? Or just a sick little game?

“I’m sorry I’ve embarrassed you,” Jenkins added, his voice lower now, almost sympathetic. But it wasn’t sympathy. It was theatre. He was watching me squirm, reading every twitch like it was a footnote in a case file.

I forced a smile. Thin. Brittle. The kind of smile that cracked if you looked at it too long. “His name is Luke,” I said, finally. “But they’ve been having a few personal troubles lately, and Luke’s gone to Melbourne for a few weeks to think things through.”

As the words left my mouth, my heart gave a pitiful lurch. Shit. Luke had told Louise it was Jamie who went to Melbourne. I'd reversed it.

They won’t know that, I reassured myself, a tiny internal gasp of hope. They can’t know that. Unless they already did. Unless this whole thing had been a stage set for my inevitable stumble.

“Oh, I see,” Jenkins said, his expression unreadable, calm to the point of eeriness. Then he cleared his throat—softly, but deliberately. A pivot was coming. “May I use the bathroom, please?”

“Sure,” I said quickly, too quickly, my eagerness to redirect painfully obvious. I gestured down the hallway. “Just down the end, on the left.”

He nodded and disappeared down the corridor, leaving behind an emptiness that immediately filled with a new presence.

Detective Lahey.

She had barely spoken since entering, content to remain the decorative gargoyle to Jenkins’ lion. But now, with him gone, she shifted—barely—but enough to signal the start of something new.

“So, what was it you said Jamie was cooking again?” she asked, her voice calm but with a blade beneath it. Her fingertips traced the edge of the kitchen island—an island that, unfortunately, might as well have been a sterile operating table for all the evidence of domestic life it displayed.

Fuck.

I turned slightly, angling my body away from her to hide the flush blooming on my cheeks. I could feel it—hot and damning.

The kitchen was spotless. Too spotless. Not a pot, not a spoon, not even a suspicious speck of flour. If Jamie had been cooking, he'd been doing it in the astral realm.

I reached for the brown bag of wine like it was a life raft.

“Would you like a glass of wine?” I asked, breezily—too breezily—wrenching open the cupboard and extracting a wine glass that was at least attractive enough to momentarily distract from the lie hanging between us. I clung to the routine of it, the strange comfort of ritual. Pour, swirl, sip, pretend nothing’s falling apart.

Lahey’s eyes narrowed just slightly. “No,” she said, curt and flat as concrete.

I gave a shrug, part surrender, part deflection. “Suit yourself.”

From the bag, I selected the bottle with the deepest hue and the fanciest label—as if good design could somehow dignify the situation—and poured a generous glass for myself. The sound of the liquid glugging into the glass was oddly soothing, almost meditative. Like rain on a tin roof. Or the ticking of a clock marking the countdown to my inevitable arrest.

I took a sip. The wine was excellent.

And utterly useless.

Still, I held the glass like armour and leaned against the bench as if I had all the time in the world.

Inside, my nerves were flailing like cats in a sack.

Get it together, Gladys, I warned myself, swallowing another mouthful—just enough to give courage a nudge, but not enough to need the breathalyser again.

The charade wasn’t over. Not even close.

Lahey’s persistence was unwavering. “You still haven’t answered my question,” she pressed, her eyes narrowing into a suspicious glare that seemed to bore into me like a surgical laser.

Of course I haven’t, I thought, suppressing the urge to roll my eyes. I raised my wine glass with slow, deliberate defiance. “Oh, haven’t I? I’m sorry. What was your question again?” I asked with affected innocence, taking a generous sip. The wine hit my tongue like an old friend slipping me a note under the table: Hang in there, sweetheart. You’re doing great.

“What is Jamie—” she began, but her words barely had the chance to gain traction before I cut her off with a sudden, exaggerated gasp.

“Did you hear that?” I blurted, clutching the moment like a lifebuoy thrown into stormy seas.

Without waiting for her reply, I turned and bolted down the hallway, precious glass in hand. My heart was thumping like mad, each step echoing louder in the silence than the last. I could feel her eyes on my back, her suspicion now fully ignited—but I had bigger problems than a nosy detective. Like the other one, for instance.

“Hey! What the hell are you doing in there!” I shouted, my voice catching on the jagged edge between panic and fury.

There he was—Detective Jenkins—brazenly hovering at the spare room door, his hand on the handle. My stomach lurched. Behind that door lay Luke, the broken window, and a pile of bin bags full of secrets. If he opened it, the game was over.

Gathering every last shred of courage, I squared up to him. “I think you better leave,” I said, steady as I could manage. The words felt like they had to punch through molasses just to leave my throat, but somehow, they made it out.

Jenkins turned to face me, the glint in his eye sharpening. He took a step back, not out of compliance, but calculation. Overhead, the lights flickered—typical bloody timing—and in that brief, unsettling strobe, the room shifted into something more dangerous. More alive.

Then came the static burst of his radio. Jenkins’ head snapped toward it, eyes wide. That’s when I knew—Luke was making his move.

“You bastard!” Jenkins roared, spinning on his heel. His shoulder slammed into the door with a thud that made me jump. Wood splintered, the door cracked against the wall. The noise exploded down the hall like a starting gun.

“Karl!” Lahey’s voice cut in, sharp with disbelief. “What the hell are you doing!?”

“He’s here!” Jenkins snarled back, manic now, like a dog on scent. “Luke is here!”

Correction: was, I thought grimly, biting my lip to keep from saying it aloud. Jenkins, clearly unaware of the tense he should be using, shoved deeper into the room with a zeal that was both frightening and almost laughable.

Lahey surged past me, professional and precise, drawing her gun with a smooth, terrifying grace. The gun's muzzle caught the hallway light as she swept into the room like a soldier clearing a combat zone.

“Go, I’ve got you covered,” she said to Jenkins, her voice a soldier’s bark, her eyes locked on shadows that danced against the far wall.

Meanwhile, my legs—traitorous limbs—refused to follow. They froze, rooted to the carpet like I’d stepped in quicksand. Jenkins hurled the door shut behind him with such force that it whooshed past my nose, missing by inches.

I stood outside it, heart battering my ribs, lungs half-working, and mind splintering in a dozen different directions.

My hand, trembling violently, found its way back to the wine glass. The rim clinked against my teeth as I took a long, shaky gulp. Liquid courage? Hardly. But it was better than nothing. The wine slid down like molten velvet, dulling the serrated edges of the moment.

“I know he’s here!” Jenkins’ voice, now muffled, bellowed from behind the door.

Then came a thump. A sharp cry. Scuffling.

Oh god.

I took another gulp. The wine was losing its flavour—just a whisper of grapes and dread now—but I drank anyway.

And then… silence.

The door creaked open. Jenkins emerged, jaw tight, eyes darting wildly as though still searching for someone who had vanished like smoke. He didn’t look at me—just brushed past, the air around him bristling with rage and failure.

He stomped down the hallway, every step like a nail in his own coffin. The front door banged shut behind him with such finality, it left an echo in my chest.

I let out a breath I hadn’t realised I was holding, the glass still clutched in my shaking hand. I stared at the now-empty hallway and wondered if the house would ever feel quiet again.

Then I raised the glass in salute to no one and whispered, “You absolute legend, Luke.”

And took another drink.