‘Tom?’ she squeaked.
She heard a voice calling, gruff and angry. Not Tom.
She fled down the wallaby trail, towards Fisherman’s Hut. She swung the rifle over her shoulder and turned her torch back on, smothering the beam with her hand, leaving enough light to show the twisting roots and erosion holes.
The trail opened onto a clearing of rocks and soil and leaf matter.
Someone was already at the hut.
Her torch beam lit up the figure, who stood in front of the hut’s open door, back towards her, silhouetted in the rain. She dropped the torch from her numb fingers and it rolled on the ground, lighting up the trees, lighting up the figure. It turned and look at her.
She screamed. The figure was tall and dark as oil, with a head far, far too big for its body.
Terror flooded her. The person had no face.
A person as big as a bear . . .
She screamed again and reached for the rifle. A noise came from the figure, dark and deep and inhuman.
She backed away, levelling the rifle with shaking hands.
‘Stay away from me!’
The figure moved towards her, raising its arms, and at the same moment footsteps crashed down the trail right behind her.
Eliza fired.
The sound was like thunder.
The figure clutched its side and dropped to the ground. Eliza spun and pointed the rifle at whoever was chasing her down the path.
‘Stay back!’
Torchlight shone into her face, blinding her.
‘Eliza!’ It was Murphy’s voice. ‘Don’t shoot!’
Her knees buckled.
He caught her around the shoulders and eased the rifle out of her grip. ‘Eliza! What happened? Are you alright? Are the girls here? Tom said you thought —’
She heard muffled shouting from the hut behind her. Murphy snatched up her torch from the ground, far stronger than his phone’s flashlight. She saw the figure on the ground . . . its abnormally large head . . .
It was someone in motorcycle leathers and a matte black helmet.
‘Oh no,’ gasped Eliza.
‘Badenhorst! Down here!’ roared Murphy. ‘Jack’s been shot.’
‘Jack?’ whispered Eliza. ‘Oh no . . . oh no, oh no, oh no . . .’ She slumped and Murphy held her upright.
Detective Con Badenhorst came crashing out of the wallaby trail, his own torch in hand, his white linen shirt torn. ‘What happened?’ he shouted. Not waiting for an answer, he ran to Jack, easing the helmet off his head.
All the overlapping torch beams made the scene shift and dance, making crazy shapes in the trees around the clearing. Eliza couldn’t believe what she’d done. ‘I’m so sorry, Jack. Oh no, oh no, I’m so sorry, Jack, no . . .’
Con clamped his phone between his shoulder and his ear. ‘Gabriella, call an ambulance. Jack Michaels has been shot, down by Lake Mackenzie. We’re off the road. We cannot afford to lose him.’
‘No,’ Jack groaned. ‘Don’t bring anyone else . . .’
Con grabbed Jack’s hands and pushed them against his side. ‘Keep pressure on here, mate. We need to get you out of the rain. Murphy, help me take him into the hut.’
‘No,’ groaned Jack. ‘Don’t . . .’
Murphy helped Eliza to her feet. ‘Shine the torch for us.’
‘I shot him!’
‘Yeah, and I’ll congratulate you later, but right now, we need to get him stable, so can you light the bloody way?’ shouted Murphy.
Eliza took the torch from him, her whole body shaking uncontrollably. Murphy and Con lifted Jack through the hut’s open door in a chair carry. Eliza followed, the rifle in one hand and the torch in the other, lighting the way for them as best she could. She saw Jack’s dirtbike, resting against a tree nearby, hidden from view.
The hut was as she remembered it. Timber slats for walls, a rotten timber floor that slanted down to a rocky hollow dug out at the back. The camping mattress was still there and it brought her a strange lurch of sickening nostalgia. The men lowered Jack onto it.
Her torch beam found two large hiking backpacks propped against the wall, packed to the brim. One yellow, one pink.
‘What happened, Eliza?’ said Con, his hands over Jack’s, keeping the wound tight.
‘I . . . I saw him standing there, and in the rain, with his helmet, he looked so . . . I just . . . Murphy crashed through the bush behind me and I just lost my head.’ Hot tears spilled down her cheeks. ‘I’m so sorry, Jack.’
‘What the hell is this?’ said Murphy. He unzipped the pink backpack and pulled out girls clothes, tent pegs, protein bars and ramen noodles, a first-aid kit . . .
‘Don’t, Murphy,’ said Con sharply. ‘It’s evidence. Don’t touch it.’
Murphy put the pack on the floor. He turned, his hair wet, his face fierce. He raised himself to his fullest height, voice filling the hut. ‘What are you doing out here, Jack? Why do you have a backpack full of girls clothes?’
‘Don’t, please,’ said Eliza, moving to stand between him and Jack. ‘Wait for the ambulance.’
‘Where is Jasmine?’ bellowed Murphy.
‘Gone,’ groaned Jack, shivering. ‘I dunno where.’
‘What do you know?’
‘Murphy, now’s not the best time,’ said Con through gritted teeth, pushing down on Jack’s wound as hard as he could.
‘They set it up, Murphy.’ Jack winced. ‘Need to know . . . the girls set it up.’
Eliza held her breath. Relief rushed in through the fear and guilt.
The fight. I’ll have to tell them now.
‘They set up what?’ said Con.
‘Madison’s . . . idea . . .’ Every breath seemed to bring Jack agony.
‘You’re lying,’ snarled Murphy. ‘Jasmine wouldn’t do anything that stupid.’
‘She would . . .’ said Jack. ‘If she thought . . . best thing.’ He gasped in pain. ‘Something went wrong . . . Georgia . . . her and Bree’s backpacks . . . Jasmine and Cierra’s backpacks gone . . . they were supposed to . . . they left before I got here . . . Bree . . . girls must have been taken . . . only reason. Someone took them.’ He dropped his head to the side and spoke no more, falling into fitful moans.
They all looked at each other.
‘It’s impossible,’ said Murphy.
‘You don’t know Madison like I do,’ said Eliza, feeling sick. ‘She’s capable. But some of it . . . it doesn’t make sense.’
‘Oh, you mean like how Georgia fucking died?’ said Murphy.
‘They set it up themselves,’ said Con, his voice giving nothing away. ‘But if they were going to wait for him . . . surely they wouldn’t have left for no reason.’
‘And who attacked me, up on the mountain? One of them?’ said Eliza. She wiped the sweat from Jack’s forehead. ‘Jack, you sweet idiot, what were you thinking?’
Con was back on his phone. ‘Gabriella, are you there?’ He put her on speaker for the others’ benefit.
‘We’re waiting at the top of the trail. An ambulance is on its way, but the commander has ordered a chopper from Launceston: if we lose Jack, we lose the girls. How’s he doing?’
‘Tell them to hurry,’ said Con. ‘And call in Forensics. We have evidence here, the last place the girls might’ve been.’