by J. M. Peace
Candy bit her lip. She didn’t want to cry, but the first sob welled up inside her. Gavin must have seen the heave of her chest as she struggled to keep the tears inside. He stepped back and turned to the side. He took a deep breath and when he spoke next, the anger was under control. The irritation and dislike were still obvious.
‘What are you doing here?’ he asked, shaking his head a little.
‘I just wanted to say sorry. That I’m worried and scared and never ever meant for anything like this to happen. Sammi was going to catch a taxi straight home. I don’t know what went wrong.’ She hung her head. ‘I’m sorry. It doesn’t mean much but I wanted to say it. To you.’
Gavin shrugged. ‘OK, you’ve said it. You can go now.’ His tone had only softened slightly.
Candy started to say ‘sorry’ again, but stopped herself. She couldn’t think of anything else. She started the car, pulled the door shut and drove slowly away. She glanced into the rear-vision mirror. Gavin was already at his front door, disappearing into the house.
Candy drove just far enough so that Gavin wouldn’t be able to see her car anymore. Then she pulled up on the side of the road and bawled.
Saturday 1:32 pm
Sammi had tucked herself behind a big tree in some thick brush. She could look through the branches to the creek. The barman wouldn’t yet realise she had parted ways with his tracking device, wouldn’t be looking for her anywhere except the creek. Despite this, Sammi could still feel her body tremble as she forced herself to stay and watch rather than turn and run. She was far enough from the creek to give herself a head start if he looked like he was coming for her. The sound of the motorbike, intended to torment her, had now become useful. She listened for his approach.
As she crouched and waited, she had a brainwave. The motorbike was still a little way off. The slow, taunting chug of the engine would get much louder before he was close enough to see. She dashed back to the creek, and bent down to scoop up a mouthful of water. She retreated back to her hiding spot behind the tree and swept the leaves and twigs away to bare a patch of earth. She spat the water onto the dirt and mixed it through with her fingers. She then rubbed the mud on her face and arms. She couldn’t tell what her face looked like, but it seemed to work on her arms, dulling her pale skin. She tried the same on the red shorts too, wiping muddy fingers down the front. Her shirt was already stained with sweat and dirt and she added some brown patches. Anything was better than nothing.
He didn’t ride up to the creek bank. Sammi couldn’t see him – he was obscured by the undergrowth – but she heard the drone of the motorbike move away from her as he headed down the creek. If she couldn’t see him, he wouldn’t be able to see her. Although she knew that made sense, she was terrified he might somehow spot her. She peered around the tree she was hiding behind and when there was no sign of the motorbike slowing or stopping, she carefully started moving downstream. She thought of her little boat, hoping it was still afloat. The further they got from the junction where her path had met the creek, the safer it would be for her.
Both kept going for about ten minutes, the hunter now in the lead, oblivious to his prey creeping along behind him. Then the motorbike stopped. Sammi immediately dropped to the ground and combat-crawled behind a bush. She wriggled around until she had a fairly clear view down the creek. Had her boat snagged on something or sunk? She still couldn’t see the barman.
‘Saaaaa-man-tha!’
Her heart stopped at the sound of her name on his lips. Had he seen her? No, he was teasing again, like he had the last time he had caught up with her.
‘Is the water cold?’ he called.
Good, he thought she was in the creek. Sammi strained to make out the words.
‘Have you had fun? I have. But it’s getting late now. The game is over.’
With those words, the barman appeared in view, moving to the creek bank. Sammi shuddered as she saw the hunting knife in his hand. The dog was next to him, following its master.
The barman stopped and looked around. Sammi pressed herself flat on the ground. She heard him talking again, quieter now. She guessed he was giving the dog some sort of command. She raised her head slowly, just enough to peek through the leaves. He had something in his hand – a phone, maybe? He was studying it intently. The dog moved around him, sniffing here and there. Now the barman came right to the edge of the creek, his head swivelling back and forth, searching.
It took him a moment, but then he had her boat in his hand. He fished his device out. He cursed loudly enough for Sammi to hear. He smashed the bark to the ground, and kicked at the pieces. He gave one long whistle as he straddled the motorbike. The dog came running and only just had enough time to jump on to the tray at the back. The barman didn’t stop to look around any further. He revved the motorbike loudly and rode off at high speed.
He was right. The game was over. But Sammi had won.
Sammi realised she was holding her breath. She exhaled loudly, hardly daring to believe her plan had worked. Sure enough, the sound of the bike was getting further away and at speed. Sammi jumped to her feet and started to run. Once again, adrenaline coursed through her body, making her tingle right down to her toes. Her heart was pounding but a sense of relief and reprieve started to soak through the fear.
It had worked: he was headed upstream, away from her. His Plan A had failed, and he had no Plan B. He never considered the possibility that she might find the device. He was not a hunter, he had simply followed the blips on a screen to find where she was. That increased her chances right now. If he needed to cheat to hunt her down, surely that meant he couldn’t rely on his own tracking skills?
What would his next move be? Sammi doubted that he would just turn his back on her and go home. There was too much at stake for that. If she survived and found help, he would spend the rest of his life behind bars. She knew who he was and the crimes he had committed. It was her life against his now.
The reprieve put wings on her feet. She stopped stumbling and staggering through the bush. Her goal was clear now – to put as much distance between herself and the killer. Every step away from the drone of the motorbike was a step towards safety. She leapt over fallen logs and hurdled low bushes. The weariness and the pain were momentarily forgotten. Maybe she could survive this nightmare.
Saturday 4:15 pm
Gavin felt useless. There was nothing he could do, but how could he do nothing? He wanted to sit in the police station, eavesdrop on every phone conversation, find out what they knew, because they weren’t telling him everything. He guessed they were trying to protect him, only giving him facts, not speculation if there was nothing to back it up. But he was desperate for any scrap of information so he could weigh it up and evaluate for himself.
He knew he was part victim, part suspect.
And he wasn’t sure he’d be welcome at the station right now. In his mind, the dynamic had changed. Sammi’s colleagues, people he had considered friends, might think the worst of him.
Damn that fight they had before she left. It had been meaningless and stupid, but now tinged everything else with its anger and innuendo. More than that, Gavin was scared that those harsh words yelled in anger might be the last he ever said to the woman he loved.
A phone call made all the difference. He grabbed his mobile on the second ring. Tom was at the other end.
‘Mate, barbecue and beers at the station. Do you need a lift?’
Gavin hesitated. ‘Really? I’m invited?’ he asked.
‘Gavin, mate, you’re one of the crew,’ Tom replied.
‘OK. Thanks. I’ll find my own way down,’ Gavin replied, pleased not just for the diversion, but also to be included.
He showered quickly and dressed in jeans and a T-shirt. He grabbed a jacket on the way out. It was meant to be cold tonight.
It was only a couple of minutes’ drive to the station and he felt apprehensive the
whole way. He could no longer tell how much of the anxiety he felt was from Sammi going missing and how much was from the situation he’d been thrust into. As soon as he walked up to the back of the barracks, he was greeted and slapped on the back by half a dozen people, and the tension in his chest dissipated a little. Shane had been right – they were on his side.
It was a sombre and muted affair, compared with what usually took place. The barbecue at the back of the barracks, with the drink fridge handy, had hosted many of these types of get-togethers. Sometimes they were planned in advance, catered for by the wife of one of the sergeants and paid for by the station social club. Sometimes, like today, they were impromptu gatherings, where the station staff just needed to be together. If there was a major incident, like a fatal accident or a house fire, they would call it a ‘debrief’ and talk while they drank.
It wasn’t just Gavin who missed Sammi. The thought that something evil might have happened to her drew them together. How could anything bad happen if they could still have a drink and a snag like any other night?
These were the people who knew the answer to ‘What if?’ These were the people who had seen the bad, the mad and the evil. Where any other person might say ‘that will never happen’, police could often say, ‘I’ve seen it.’
Staff slowly filtered in, like moths drawn to the light. It was a family affair – it always was. Wives, husbands, partners and children all came along. Everybody knew Sammi. The evening crew drifted over from the station, police radios turned on and clipped onto their belts.
As the beers flowed and the children started laughing and playing, the ugly thoughts were pushed back a little and the mood lightened. Someone had brought a football and a couple of the blokes started kicking it with the kids. Someone else put some music on through a window of the barracks and the smell of sausages cooking wafted through the air. Everyone avoided talking about what had happened to Sammi, or at least had the decency to talk about it out of Gavin’s earshot. Everyone was kind and supportive, and he was grateful to Tom for inviting him and providing the much-needed distraction.
As the evening drew on and the greasy food and cold beer started to take effect, Gavin felt unbearably tired. The stresses of the day and lack of sleep the night before, together with the alcohol, meant he could hardly keep his eyes open. Tom noticed and ushered him towards the barracks.
‘Just have a kip on my bed,’ he said. ‘I’ll wake you if we hear anything at all.’
Gavin nodded gratefully. Despite the party going on outside the window, he soon fell into a heavy sleep.
Saturday 5:57 pm
Shadows lengthened and grew darker as afternoon turned into evening. A new peril was emerging for Sammi. Without the heat of the sun, the temperature was dropping under the clear evening skies. Sammi’s clothes were pitiful against the creeping cold. She’d relinquished her jeans for the elastic-waisted shorts. And not even underpants. She had a bra on, and a figure-hugging singlet top. Her shorts had dried out since her run in the creek, but that was the only thing going in her favour. Between her exhaustion and the decreasing temperature, it was going to be a new fight for survival when night came.
She made her way down to the creek bank and kneeled at the edge to take a few sips of water. Quickly. She was positive the barman was still somewhere in the bush, looking for her. She moved back into the scrub, close enough to still take her bearings from the water but far enough away that she wouldn’t be obvious to anyone walking along its banks. She was having trouble concentrating. The task at hand was simple – keep moving forward, pay attention to sounds or any movement out of the ordinary – but even that was proving difficult. Her mind wandered constantly, dreaming of hot meals and even hotter showers.
A memory of her first trip to the snow sprang from the recesses of her mind. Someone – was it a ski instructor? – had told her that you lost most of your body heat from your head. There had been suggestive jokes about going skiing nude except for a balaclava, and the mental images had stuck. She pulled her shirt over the top of her head, lining up the neck hole so her face poked through. She tucked the singlet in on itself, trying to cover her ears and neck. Now her midriff was exposed but if the theory about loss of body heat was correct, this would have to be a better option. She hiked the shorts up as high as they could go. She was grateful for the socks. Sammi hoped if she kept her blood pumping, her own body heat would sustain her.
Don’t think about the night ahead, Sammi told herself. Just keep going. One step at a time. One more step.
Saturday 7:55 pm
It had been a long day since the start of her shift, but there were still so many things to do. Janine was eating a soggy burger at her desk as she continued to tap away at the computer. She’d had to tag and lodge the property seized at the raid. She’d completed the correspondence associated with the search warrant. Then there were great wads of information to read through – Intel reports and profiles, possible links to the Corbett case.
The Op Echo room was quiet now, just a murmur of phone conversations and clicking of keyboard keys. A couple of new staff had started for the evening shift. Bill had introduced them to Janine before he had left, but their names had disappeared in the mass of information roiling around her head.
Janine was also having a running email conversation with the head of the Media Liaison Unit. She had discussed it with Bill. It was time to put out a press release. It was now an absolute priority to find the barman, and if that meant putting some information out to the public, then that was how it had to be. It was a big decision, but if a member of the public provided a vital clue to Sammi’s whereabouts, it was worth the hassle of dealing with the media.
No more treading carefully in case of a false alarm. There was no doubt now that Sammi was in trouble.
Sammi had been missing for about fifteen hours; there was no telling how far he had taken her. The BOLO, for officers to Be On the Look Out for Sammi, had already been emailed to all officers in Queensland and some interstate. It included details of the barman, the car and the circumstances.
The night-work crews would see it at the start of their shifts, but Janine held little hope for any developments through the night. The morning crews would get it about the same time as restricted details were broadcast on the morning news bulletins. They had already rostered on extra staff at the Crime Stoppers office to deal with the masses of new leads that would come in and need following up, if previous cases were anything to go by.
The maps they had found at the barman’s house also interested Janine. One was a fold-out map of southeast Queensland. Large parcels of state forest had been circled, and aerial photos had been printed out from Google Maps. One particular state forest the barman seemed to have concentrated on was Captain’s Creek, about 150 kilometres north of Tara – an enormous parcel of undeveloped bushland, the perfect place to go if you didn’t want to be disturbed.
Janine knew a few maps with circles on them was not enough to start a search. She had a strong feeling about it, though.
Although she had never met Sammi, Janine felt like she knew her. Sammi could easily have been one of the colleagues she had a drink with after work, or one of the uniform staff she chatted with in the office. Janine took it personally. She would fight for her.
So much had happened and there was still so much to do, so many potential witnesses to talk to. And she was certain the barman would turn up soon – at home, or somewhere else. She wanted to be there when he did. She wanted to see what he looked like, know what he said. Whether he blinked or swallowed or cleared his throat when he was asked about Sammi.
Even though the assignment now had little to do with her division, Janine was too pivotal to walk away from it. Both she and Jake were rostered for an 8 am shift the next day. She had already decided to base herself at the Op Echo room. Jake was going to start at 8am at Inala and head down to Op Echo after checking in there.
>
Jake had left an hour earlier, urging Janine to call it a day too, as he edged out the door. It was Saturday night after all, and judging by his frenzied texting, Janine was quite certain Jake had already stood up some poor girl. It was a sign of his commitment to his bachelor lifestyle that he would still make it out on the town after the day they’d had. Tomorrow would be an early start and doubtlessly another long day, however the investigation unfolded.
Her desk phone rang. It was Bill.
‘Go home,’ he said without preamble. ‘You’ll need a good night’s sleep before tomorrow.’
‘I feel like I’m abandoning Sammi,’ Janine said.
‘You’re not. There’s other coppers on this case. Just because you go and have a sleep doesn’t mean we’re not still looking for her. Promise me you’ll go home now.’
Janine sighed. ‘OK,’ she said. ‘Goodnight.’
She looked up to see one of the staff standing in front of her desk, a young-looking constable.
‘Sorry to bother you. There’s a message for you,’ he said.
‘Oh?’ Janine said.
‘Someone from your home station called. They didn’t want to talk to you, just asked me to pass on a message.’ He glanced at the piece of paper in his hand. ‘Michelle Lewis called. Don Black has failed to turn up for his shift at 7 o’clock.’
Janine looked blankly at her messenger. Then the name clicked. It seemed like days since they had sat in her dingy kitchen when it was only this morning.
‘Does that make sense?’ he asked. ‘That’s all she said. It sounded like she was just passing on a message too.’
‘Yes. Thank you,’ she said.
That was important, thought Janine. The barman was missing now too.
Saturday 8:59 pm
Her watch had a luminous dial so even when the canopy of trees blocked the moonlight, Sammi had no trouble seeing what time it was. She latched onto the time as a way of anchoring herself. She set herself a goal. She would walk for four minutes, then rest for one minute. If she did that twelve times, she would be an hour closer to safety. The numbers jumbled in her head, but she walked on with a little more purpose, glancing as the minute hand slowly but surely moved around. It worked. It gave her something to focus on and a reason to take the next step. She tried not to rest for more than a minute. She began to shiver as soon as she stopped walking.