by Sarah Barrie
‘You think she got up?’ Riley straightened and turned in a circle. ‘I didn’t think she could.’
‘She didn’t get up, Riley,’ Tess said flatly. ‘She died. Passed away.’
Riley’s face dissolved in pain. ‘No! She wasn’t that bad! She wasn’t!’ Then, ‘Do you think he came back, killed her?’
‘No. I was with her. No one got to her.’ At least, not again.
‘But they were just burns! Painful and infected, but how could she die? How?’
‘Shock? Sepsis? Organ failure? Something else? I don’t know enough to give you the right answer. I’m sorry.’
Jai and Riley held each other, heartbroken and scared. Tess walked away. Anger and bone-deep sorrow had already emptied her from the inside out. She’d never felt so helpless, so alone. So tired. But the others were looking at her to lead them, to stay in control. Was she still capable of it?
She walked aimlessly towards the river. She wanted to scream, to yell, to hit something. Fedder, the gunmen, Aaron, now this? It was too much. She couldn’t handle anything else. She wanted to crawl into a ball on the ground and be swallowed up by oblivion. As she thought it, she stared into the water and her eyes were drawn to a smeared imprint in the mud by the water’s edge. A boot print. Her eyes swung further around. There was another behind it. Her sense of survival once again kicked in.
‘Jai!’
He appeared at a run, Riley at his heels. ‘What? Are you okay?’ he asked, his red eyes darting around, scanning for danger.
‘Is this yours?’ She pointed to the heavy print.
Jai didn’t answer, just stepped beside it. When he lifted his foot, the mark his boot left was smaller, different patterns cut into the muddy surface.
‘It’s him,’ Riley whispered. ‘The killer, he’s—God, that’s him. It’s actually him! He was here. He was—’
‘Watching us through the night,’ Tess said. An icy trickle of apprehension slid up her spine and adrenaline snatched away the fog of grief. She welcomed it. She needed it. Now was not the time for self-pity.
Libby and James were expecting them to be here when they returned with help. If they returned with help. She didn’t want to think that terrible thought, the one where Libby and James might not have made it, but she had to be practical. She wasn’t spending another night out here hoping for the best. She couldn’t wait around for whoever was doing this to make his next move.
‘Okay, that’s it. Pack up.’
‘Agreed,’ Jai said with relief.
‘We’re just going to leave her? What about Chris? We can’t!’ Riley cried.
‘They’re dead, Riley!’ Tess snapped.
‘No. You don’t know Chris is dead! You’re just scared.’
‘Even if he is alive, we don’t know where to look,’ Jai said quietly. ‘We need to get help. We need to stay alive and get teams of people out here to find him. Come on, Riley, you need to pack up your stuff. Now.’
Instead, Riley sank to the ground. ‘What’s the point?’ She glared at Tess. ‘If you really believed Libby and James were getting help you’d stay put. You reckon they’re dead too, don’t you? I think—’
‘Stop it,’ Tess ordered as firmly as she could manage. ‘Stop falling to the ground in a heap, stop whining and crying and giving up! You don’t have to think, you just have to follow instructions. When all this is over you can fall apart, but you don’t get to do that yet. Now get up!’ She bit down on the tremble in her voice and stalked back to camp to pack up.
They walked out of camp like a funeral procession, each one looking back more than once, but as soon as the campsite and Jasmin’s tent were out of sight, Tess forced every thought from her mind except what had to happen next and spurred them on. ‘We’re going to move as fast as we can. When we come across water we’ll fill up, keep going. We’ll camp when it gets dark, wherever we happen to be. It’s not going to be easy. Pick up the pace.’
They headed off through coastal forest, trekked down into a muddy gully and waded through a wide creek before beginning a long and difficult ascent up the Ironbound Range. The rainforest was thick with mud and vegetation. They walked, climbed and crawled for kilometres up a near-vertical trail riddled with tree roots, deep mud holes, jutting rocks and clinging vines.
Tess looked around often but saw no one. Were they being followed? She had to assume they were. The footprint kept reappearing in her head. Someone bigger than Jai, heavier. The tread of the boot was one she’d seen many times before, like the ones Aaron always wore. Or did they all look like that? Jai’s hadn’t. She should have taken a photo of the print for the police. She wasn’t thinking logically, but one thought struck home. There are always consequences for our actions, Tess. Aaron’s words. Taunting her.
Aaron. He was the last person she wanted to be thinking about right now. The photo of her and Jared and the gun barrel flashed into her mind. Jared’s case, Jared’s bad guy. There’d been other photos that had had nothing to do with her. Aaron’s threatening behaviour on the side of the road after her breakdown still gave her the creeps, but Indy had decided after looking at the car that the radiator crack could have occurred for a number of different reasons; there was no way to pin it on Aaron. Besides, he might have been acting like he’d lost the plot, but he wasn’t some sort of mass murderer. Was he? No, of course not. Her mind was wandering too much. She needed to stay alert.
When they finally broke through to the grassy heights of the Ironbound Ranges, it was to buffeting gales that pushed and pummelled, knocking them from the track more than once and making progress slow, close to impossible at times.
‘Take a break!’ Tess shouted over the thundering winds. Beneath them the coast stretched out to show off magnificent views, but what caught Tess’s attention was the weather coming in off the ocean. It looked like hell was about to descend upon them. She took a thorough look around. The vegetation was low here, the track exposed. No one was close by.
‘I can’t keep going,’ Riley said, puffing heavily. ‘I feel like I’m going to get blown right off the mountain! How much further is it?’
‘You’ve gotten through the worst of it. Rest for a minute.’
They sat and drank from their water bottles, caught up in the wilderness around them and the urgency of escaping it.
‘How are we going for time?’ Jai asked.
‘We’ve knocked a couple of hours off what the guidebook says,’ she said with a tight smile.
‘What are those mountains?’ he asked, pointing north.
She followed his gaze to the outline of jagged, ancient mountains, where one peak in particular dominated the skyline. ‘The Western Arthur Range and Federation Peak.’
‘Federation Peak. It’s incredible. That’s where you …’
‘Yeah. That’s it,’ she finished for him.
He looked at the sky. ‘The wind sounds like jet planes flying over us. It’s so loud!’
‘It’s the roaring forties. Grown men with full packs have been picked up and flung off the track. We should start heading down. Are you okay, Riley? Can we get moving?’
‘Yep.’ Riley got to her feet, had some trouble lifting her pack back onto her shoulders but she managed.
‘We’re going downhill,’ Tess told her. ‘It’s steep. Most of the nine hundred metre descent is done in about five k’s. Use your hiking poles to steady you against the worst of the wind. Hopefully we can beat the weather and the darkness to Louisa River.’ She looked all around them as far as she could see. ‘And keep an eye out for anyone who might be coming behind us.’
‘Goes without saying.’ Jai pressed his lips into a thin line and looked back down the track as far as he could see. ‘Stay in the middle, Riley. Let’s go.’
CHAPTER
41
Jared stood with Indy at the reception desk of the fifth caravan park they’d visited that morning, while yet another park manager denied having anyone by the name of Paxton Orvist renting accommodation. He wasn’t
surprised. Orvist would have to be an idiot to use his real name.
‘He may have used an alias,’ Indy said, slipping Orvist’s photo across the desk. ‘This is the man we’re looking for.’
The manager, who, according to his gold name badge, was Matthew, squinted at the picture and shook his head. ‘No, can’t say I’ve seen anyone like that.’
Jared’s phone rang so he stepped outside and answered. ‘Denham.’
‘Any luck?’ Emily asked.
‘Not yet. We’ve got two more after this to check. What’s up?’
‘I’m sending you something,’ she said, and a moment later the ping came through on his phone. ‘The first picture is Madison Wilde’s ring, the second is the design Wharton bought from the jewellery shop. They’re similar but there are notable differences, right?’
Jared looked at the photos closely. ‘Yeah, hard to tell though,’ he said.
‘Right, now I’m sending a screenshot of an Instagram post I found. It’s on Riley’s account.’
He saw a photo of the group of hikers, Riley holding up her left hand to show off the ring. Underneath was the caption: Crappy weather, a backwards trip and, oh yeah—I’m engaged! Wish us luck. Riley had set the location as South Coast Track.
‘Now in blown up form …’
Another photo came through.
‘This is the ring Riley Finlay was wearing at the start of their trip.’
‘Riley’s wearing Madison’s ring,’ he said.
A teenager with a halo of blonde curls and a sunny smile stepped around him and into the office.
‘Yeah,’ Emily said. ‘And I thought I should let you know straight away because she’s told everyone where they’re going, when and in what direction.’
‘Good call. I’ll let Indy know and—’ His attention was drawn to the door when Indy strode out, lips pressed together, eyes alerting him something was up. ‘Em, I’ll call you back. Thanks.’
‘The girl who just came in works for the manager. Said she thinks she knows Orvist. He checked in as John Smith. This is his second stay. Paid in cash. Van forty-two at the far end of the park. Said that other than at check-in, she hasn’t seen him.’
‘Let’s go take a look.’
‘Jared, this guy’s not going to come quietly. We should call for backup.’
‘He might not even be there. Em just called. Riley is definitely wearing Madison Wilde’s ring and she’s posted it and all the details of their hike on Instagram. If he’s not here, he could well be there. How much time do we want to waste?’
Indy considered that, her cheeks puffing as she blew out a breath. ‘All right, but we let Em know to get everyone on alert. Then we’ll check it out. If he’s in there, we do this properly. If not, we’ll put it under surveillance while we go find Tess.’
‘We’re going out there,’ he said with relief.
‘If there’s a chance he’s on the track, we need to be out there too. Let’s just hope he’s home.’
The caravan was tucked away in a bushy corner of the park, away from the pretty waterfront cabins and larger, more modern, accommodation options. There didn’t seem to be anyone in the surrounding vans and Jared guessed most would be out and about enjoying the sunshine and nearby towns at this time of day. Because the curtains to Orvist’s van were closed, he took the chance of getting up close for a better look, while Indy kept an eye on the road. He tried to see inside. He could hear something—a television or a radio—but couldn’t see in. He crept around the front. A crack in the curtains there had him cautiously peeking inside. He looked past a sink and cabinets to a bench seat that divided the tiny kitchen from the rest of the van. On the wall behind it was a television. Just over the top of the seat he could see the back of a head, reclining, feet up on the table in front of him. Orvist. A half-empty stubby of Tooheys Extra Dry sat next to his boot.
Heart pounding, wanting nothing more than to burst in, Jared reluctantly made his way back to Indy, waiting behind the next van.
‘He’s in there. Watching the bloody football with his feet up. Indy, we can take him.’
But Indy was shaking her head, phone already in hand.
At least he wasn’t out in the wilderness chasing after Tess and her group, Jared thought as he tapped his foot, waiting impatiently for the rest of the cops to arrive. His vest was on, his hand resting lightly over his gun, his eyes trained on the door. He tried to will Orvist to come out, to show his face. To get this done. But he knew the guy wasn’t going to. He wouldn’t wander around out here in the daytime when people might see and recognise him. He was good at going to ground. At hiding. But not good enough.
Armed police came in stealthily, surrounding the van in various sheltered positions and waiting for further instructions. Jared got the nod from Indy and they approached the door. He knocked. He didn’t announce he was police, knew that was sure to end in a gunfight or some other disaster. He wanted to catch Orvist off guard, if possible, have him down on the floor before he had a chance to react.
When there was no answer he knocked again. Nothing. ‘Any movement inside?’ he asked quietly over the radio.
‘None,’ came the reply.
That was odd. Orvist might have been suspicious but he should have got up, should have wanted to check. He stood back from the door anyway, just in case, and quietly tried the handle.
The door exploded with the crack of a gunshot, and something whizzed past his face, sending him tumbling back to the ground with Indy. Shots erupted around them, along with shouting and the movement of police towards the van. The door swung open and Jared saw the barrel of a shotgun aimed in their direction. He was about to drag Indy back again when he noted it wasn’t held by Orvist, but had been rigged to the doorhandle.
Police swarmed into the van, shouting orders and warnings. Jared leapt to his feet.
‘Detective?’ an officer said as he stepped up into the entry. Two other officers moved out of the way to give Jared a look at what they’d found. Indy came in behind him. He heard the oath under her breath and followed it up with one of his own.
CHAPTER
42
The river came into view just on dusk as the first spots of rain began to fall. Tess found a sheltered spot, dropped her pack and rolled her shoulders, watching the tannin-stained river running fast and wild.
‘Do you think we should cross it before this next lot of rain hits?’ Jai asked.
Leaves spun and dipped in the water. On a regular hike she would have waited it out. But there was another, more serious threat to worry about and the closer they got to Melaleuca, the more desperate she became to get them there. She was doing her best to keep her own fear in check, but it was eating away at her, affecting her thoughts, her decisions.
‘It’s higher than I’d like but if that storm out to sea hits it’s going to get worse. So yeah, I do. We’ve got maybe an hour of light left but how much further we get will depend on the weather and how much more you can take,’ she said. She was fit and used to long treks, but bone-deep tired. She could only imagine how they were feeling.
‘Riley?’ Jai asked.
Riley looked exhausted: she was pale, her features drawn. ‘Sure,’ she said, earning a big dose of respect from Tess. ‘Let’s keep going.’
‘Undo your packs and use the rope to steady yourselves. You know how this works by now. See those dead trees tangled up in the shallows against the other bank? Be careful getting over them. You don’t want to trip and go for a swim. I’ll go first, just in case.’
She took hold of the rope slung between the two banks of the river and edged carefully into the water. The speed of the flow together with the high water level gave it a good tow but they wrestled their way across its freezing expanse.
At the far end Tess stepped between two large logs, got caught on another submerged branch and tripped and fell forward. Water and mud soaked into her clothes as she crashed into the rocky bottom.
‘Tess!’ Riley said from behind her. �
��Are you okay?’
She struggled against the pull of whatever she’d gotten caught up in, couldn’t quite get her feet under her. Something was in the way. Jai stepped around Riley and offered his hand. She accepted it.
As she pulled her leg free, a long, pale arm and limp hand emerged with it to stick out of the water as though waving.
Riley screamed and Tess felt her own lock in her throat.
‘Libby!’ Jai gasped, staring down into the stirred-up water. ‘It’s Libby!’
‘She said she didn’t care how she died.’ A man stepped out from a cluster of trees just ahead of them. He was huge, and dressed in camoflauge gear like a soldier. He wore a large knife on one hip, a handgun dangled from his right hand. ‘As long as they were together forever, right? Now they are. You’ll fall over him once ya step over her.’
‘Pax?’ Riley whispered in confused terror. ‘What?’
Tess backed away, shocked into silence. This was the guy who’d been killing them and Riley knew him? Libby’s arm disappeared back into the water. He must have gone straight after them. They never stood a chance.
‘Hi, Riley, ya mean ya boyfriend didn’t fill ya in?’ The man Riley called Pax looked at Jai, amused. ‘Thought you were smarter than that, pencil dick. Who’d ya think it was?’
‘Why not just come after me then?’ Jai demanded. ‘What have you done with Chris?’
‘Chris? Oh, boredom guy. Right.’ Pax’s face turned nasty. ‘That was a tough one. Had a bit of an accident. Broke his legs. Then of course he had nothing to do but sit around waiting to die. That’s as boring as it gets. Didn’t take long though. Ya know how fast shock and exposure can kill a person out here.’ He pointed his gun at them. ‘But enough chit-chat. I want the ring.’
‘I …’ Jai staggered back a few steps to where Riley was still clinging to the rope mid crossing. ‘Riley, give me your ring.’
‘What?’ Riley looked at it. ‘I—I don’t want to let go of the rope. I don’t understand.’
‘He wants the ring. Give it to him. I’ll get you another one.’