‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ said the auctioneer, a good-looking young man in a super-tight navy suit. ‘We are getting ready to kick off the auction!’

The chatter of the guests at the garden party died down.

He went into his spiel about the ‘blue-chip’ area, the good schools, the shops nearby, the proximity to the city and the Botanic Gardens. Tully looked around the lycra-clad crowd. Who was going to bid? she wondered. Around these parts, people did bid on houses while wearing lycra. Around these parts people had the kind of money that meant they could decide to buy a house on a whim on the way to the dog park. It wasn’t beyond the realms of possibility, at least.

The auctioneer had been quite enthusiastic when he talked about sales prices the first time they chatted. In fact, some of the numbers mentioned would have been enough to wipe out most of their debt and put them back on the path to starting again. But as the open-houses went on, the numbers had grown more and more conservative. By this morning, when they were trying to agree on a reserve, the numbers were looking downright depressing.

‘The market has softened in the past few weeks,’ the real estate agent had said. ‘We need sellers to be realistic.’

‘I understand,’ Tully had said at the same time as Sonny had asked, ‘How realistic?’

The auctioneer’s introductory spiel took a comically long time, leaving Tully to wonder how many of these the guy did per day. Did he ever get the houses mixed up? Or did he refer to all the properties as being located in blue-chip areas with great schools? After an eternity, he finished up by reminding everyone that a house of this calibre didn’t come up very often before asking for opening bids. Tully squeezed the rabbit foot so hard that if it hadn’t been already been detached from the rabbit, it would be now.

The silence was deafening.

The auctioneer had warned them that this would happen. No one ever wanted to make the opening bid, and they’d likely have to offer a vendor bid in order to get things going. And that was exactly how it went. Except the vendor bid didn’t get things moving either.

Tully didn’t dare look at Sonny.

The auctioneer seemed unfazed. He just continued with his spiel like the cocky little fucker he was, throwing in a few words about the marble benchtops, custom cabinetry, double garage and heated swimming pool. But at the end of it, when he called for bids – crickets.

‘Come on,’ Sonny said under his breath, sending Tully’s anxiety into a tailspin. If Sonny was getting anxious, it meant things were bad. Even the cocky, tight-suited auctioneer was looking a little dejected. Then, just when Tully thought her anxiety couldn’t get any worse, she realised where she knew the woman standing by Celia from. She owned the little shop up on High Street . . . Sophie! She was the woman who’d caught Tully stealing from her shop. Tully made the connection a split second before Sophie raised her hand and made a bid on Tully’s house. Not a great bid, mind you. An insultingly low bid, in fact. But fifteen minutes later, it was the bid that bought their house.