Force of Nature (Aaron Falk #2)(4)

‘Let’s keep moving,’ Falk said. He took the keys from Carmen and climbed behind the wheel of her battered maroon sedan. He started the engine. It felt instantly familiar. ‘I used to have a car like this.’

‘But you had the sense to get rid of it?’ Carmen settled into the passenger’s seat.

‘Not by choice. It got damaged earlier this year, back in my hometown. A welcome-home gesture from a couple of the locals.’

She glanced over, a tiny smile. ‘Oh, yeah. I heard about that. Damaged is one way to put it, I suppose.’

Falk ran his hand over the steering wheel with a pang of regret. His new car was okay, but it wasn’t the same.

‘This is Jamie’s car anyway,’ Carmen said as he pulled away. ‘Better for longer distances than mine.’

‘Right. How is Jamie?’

‘Fine. Same as usual.’

Falk didn’t really know what the usual was. He had met Carmen’s fiancé only once. A muscular guy in jeans and a t-shirt, Jamie worked in marketing for a sports nutrition drink company. He’d shaken Falk’s hand and given him a bottle of something blue and fizzy that promised to enhance his performance. The man’s smile seemed genuine, but there was a touch of something else in it as he took in Falk’s tall thin frame, his pale skin, his white-blond hair and his burned hand. If Falk had had to guess, he’d have said it was mild relief.

Falk’s mobile beeped from the centre console. He took his eyes off the empty road to glance at the screen and handed it to Carmen. ‘That sergeant’s sent an email through.’

Carmen opened the message. ‘All right, he says there were two groups on the retreat. One men’s group, one women’s, both doing separate routes. He’s sent the names of the women in Alice Russell’s party.’

‘Both groups from BaileyTennants?’

‘Looks like it.’ Carmen took out her own phone and opened the BaileyTennants website. Falk could see the boutique accountancy firm’s black and silver lettering on the screen out of the corner of his eye.

‘Okay. Breanna McKenzie and Bethany McKenzie,’ she read out loud from his phone. ‘Breanna is Alice’s assistant, isn’t she?’ Carmen tapped her screen. ‘Yep, here she is. God, she looks like she could advertise vitamins.’

She held out her phone and Falk glanced at the beaming staff headshot of a girl in her mid-twenties. He could see what Carmen meant. Even in unflattering office light, Breanna McKenzie had the healthy glow of someone who jogged each morning, practised yoga with intent and deep-conditioned her glossy black ponytail religiously every Sunday.

Carmen took her phone back and tapped. ‘Nothing’s coming up about the other one. Bethany. Sisters, do you think?’

‘Possibly.’ Perhaps twins even, Falk thought. Breanna and Bethany. Bree ’n’ Beth. He rolled the sounds over his tongue. They sounded like a pair.

‘We can find out what the deal is with her,’ Carmen said. ‘Next is Lauren Shaw.’

‘We’ve come across her, haven’t we?’ Falk said. ‘Middle management something?’

‘Yeah, she’s – Christ, that’s right, strategic head of forward planning.’ Carmen held out her phone again. ‘Whatever that means.’

Whatever it was, Lauren’s thin face gave nothing away. It was hard to estimate her age but Falk guessed mid-to-late forties. Her hair was a medium shade of brown and her light-grey eyes gazed straight into the camera, expression as neutral as a passport photo.

Carmen turned back to the list of names. ‘Huh.’

‘What?’

‘It says Jill Bailey was out there with them.’

‘Really?’ Falk kept his eyes on the road but the bead of worry that had been lodged in his chest since the previous night pulsed and grew.

Carmen didn’t bother pulling up Jill’s photo. They were both familiar with the chairwoman’s heavyset features. She was turning fifty that year and, despite her expensive clothes and haircuts, looked every day of it.

‘Jill Bailey,’ Carmen said, scrolling further through the sergeant’s message. Her thumb stilled. ‘Shit. And her brother was in the men’s group.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yep, Daniel Bailey, chief executive. It’s here in black and white.’

‘I don’t like that at all,’ he said.

‘No. I don’t like any of it.’

Carmen clicked her fingernails lightly on the phone as she thought. ‘All right. We don’t know enough to form any conclusions,’ she said eventually. ‘That voicemail is completely without context. In every sense – realistically, statistically – it’s most likely that Alice Russell has come off a trail by mistake and got lost.’

‘Yeah, that is most likely,’ Falk said. He thought neither of them sounded convinced.

They drove on, the radio stations dwindling to nothing as the scenery whipped by. Carmen fiddled with the knob until she found a crackly AM wavelength. The news on the hour faded in and out. The Melbourne hiker was still missing. The road gently swung to the north and suddenly Falk could see the hills of the Giralang Ranges on the horizon.

‘Have you ever been out here?’ he said, and Carmen shook her head.

‘No. You?’