Gabriella blinked. ‘Pardonne-moi?’
‘Effective as of yesterday. And Agatha is on her way here, so I can’t even hide it.’ His voice turned into a pleading whine at the end. ‘I’m sorry, Gab, I have —’
She drew herself up. ‘You’re taking me off the case?’
‘No, I’m not. The commander is. You’ll have to go past the station and sign your gun in until you’re reassigned. Go home, Gabriella.’
‘Did you fight for me?’ she demanded. ‘Did you fight for the girls?’
‘Of course I did,’ he said, stung.
‘Not very hard, obviously,’ she said waspishly. ‘I wonder if she’d be willing to keep you on if she knew what you’d been up to? The locks you picked last night, for example. Without a warrant! Oh, look at me, so noble and successful, Mr Post-Traumatic Stress But I Still Get to Keep My Job Because Everyone Ignores What a Liability I Am.’
‘Hey,’ said Con, face red, voice rising to match hers. ‘It’s not my fault you called out a teenage girl on her own live stream. What the hell made you think that was a good idea?’
‘Instinct, Badenhorst,’ she hissed, her cheeks burning, obviously ashamed for her comment but too proud to back down. ‘All good detectives have it.’
‘You acted like you were still in high school, and look at what it got you – kicked off a case that could’ve made your career,’ said Con. ‘Worse, it’ll turn everyone against me, the professional who still has to try and solve this case.’
‘Oh no, “I’m the hero of the Jaguar case, I need everyone to love me.” Not everyone likes you? The horror!’
‘Why are you getting angry at me? It’s not my fault.’
‘Why are you yelling at me?’ she shouted.
‘I’m not!’ he shouted.
‘You think you can solve the case without me? Fine. Good luck, dickhead.’ She stormed out of the room.
The unfairness of it made Con bristle. It was made worse by the fact she was right – it was good instinct on her part.
He turned to head after her – he wanted to give her another serve, he wanted to make sure she was okay, he didn’t know what he wanted – then pulled up short. He’d forgotten something.
He ran back to Jack’s ward. The young man was being wheeled out of his room, unconscious and with a breathing tube down his throat. Nurses and doctors buzzed around him.
‘What’s going on?’ said Con, even as he squeezed against the wall to allow them past.
The nurse from Jack’s room spoke to him. ‘He’s on his way to surgery. There may be more internal damage than we thought.’
Con felt a stab of guilt that he angrily pushed aside: the harsh questioning had been necessary. Three girls’ lives were hanging in the balance.
‘What about the other woman? Eliza – blonde, glasses. Did you see where she went?’
The nurse shrugged, already catching up to Jack’s bed. ‘Haven’t seen her.’
Con watched them go, then headed for his car.
Should he call Gabriella or the commander first?
He called Gabriella.
She rejected his call.
He swore and called the commander.
‘Cornelius,’ she said. ‘What do you have to tell me?’
CHAPTER 28
ELIZA
Eliza gripped tightly to Darren’s back, the search controller’s jacket rough against her cheek, the seat of his dirtbike worn and hard. They raced down the track past Lake Mackenzie, hugging the sandy shoreline, which gave a full view of the cold alpine lake, its dull sage green and navy blue tones, reflecting sky and mountain peak.
If Madison had her way, this would be Eliza’s last chance to join the search. Her last chance to guide the search towards where Georgia had seen that figure and maybe, just maybe, find something that’d find the girls, and maybe stop Madison before Wren’s life was ruined.
Inflatable orange dinghies bobbed over the waters of the lake, police divers occasionally surfacing. Above was the chopper in the blue sky, darting in and out of view. At least two-thirds of the search party had already relocated to this area, here on the shores of Lake Mackenzie but also all around it. If the motorbike wasn’t so loud, she knew she’d hear their cooees and shouts of ‘Jasmine! Bree! Cierra!’
She’d instructed Darren to ignore the turnoff for the wallaby trail that led to the hut and instead continue further on the four-wheel-drive track. He explained that because Jasmine and Cierra’s packs had been taken, they knew they’d made it out of the bush they were now riding into, back up the mountain, but she had insisted.
They came to a stop and Darren switched off the motor. ‘Well? This is the place, right?’ He untied their hiking packs from the bike, handing Eliza’s hers.
They were on a rise in the trail, beside a small grove of twisted white gums, their roots wrapped around large blocks of pale grey dolomite. Aside from this grove, the landscape was largely open: plains of low shrub with rocky points and small lakes. In the distance was the moody-blue haze of Ironstone Mountain. Insects buzzed, crickets chirped.
‘You know where we are?’ said Darren. He watched her with a stranger’s intensity now.
‘I think so,’ said Eliza.
‘I know what happened with Jack last night was . . . difficult. But what’s really changed from the last time we tried this?’ said Darren. His tone was polite and curious, but his sharp eyes gave away his suspicion.
I shot someone last night. I thought he was a bear-man. I felt that same terror.
‘It brought back a lot of feelings,’ said Eliza. ‘And with that came some patchy memories.’ She pointed towards Ironstone Mountain, then drew her fingers back towards a nearby ridge. ‘But I’m sure that Georgia thought she saw someone up there.’
Perhaps 500 metres distant, a stark sandstone ridge jutted out of the land like the fin of a sailfish. On top of it was a single large white gum, its leaves reaching to the sky. It was so large and out-of-place that Eliza was sure it was the same one.
Darren surveyed the ridge. ‘You remember the ridge where Georgia saw the figure?’
‘I remember the tree. I remember the fin of rock.’
‘There are a lot of trees and ridges around here,’ said Darren.
‘I remember Ironstone Mountain in the distance. I remember we’d not long passed the trail to Penny Royal Hut. I remember Lake Nameless being somewhere to our east. And I remember that large white gum on a fin of rock, because Georgia claimed whatever she saw was hiding behind it.’
‘Then we should’ve brought more searchers,’ said Darren, pulling his satellite phone from his pocket.
Eliza put her hand on his to stop him. ‘The less people here, the better: if Georgia truly saw someone, whoever it was has managed to avoid the searchers all this time. That means we’ll have to be quiet. Plus . . . I mean, if he’s . . . what Georgia saw —’
‘This isn’t something we can go rogue on, Miss Ellis.’
‘That’s not what I’m saying,’ she said, a hint of exasperation in her voice. ‘Look, don’t you want to be the one who finds the Hungry Man? For your sister, Rose?’