Force of Nature (Aaron Falk #2)(44)

The path rose steadily steeper and Jill could hear the breathing around her grow heavy. The sloping land to their right fell away at a sharper angle until it was a hill, and then a cliff side. Jill kept her eyes straight ahead, pushing up one step after another. She had lost track of how high they’d climbed when, almost without warning, the path levelled out.

The gum trees gave way and they came face to face with a magnificent vista of rolling hills and valleys, stretching out beneath them right to the horizon. Shadows from shifting clouds created an ocean of green that rippled like waves. They had reached the top and it was breathtaking.

Jill dropped her pack on the ground. The five women stood side by side, hands on hips, legs aching, catching their breath as they surveyed.

‘This is incredible.’

Almost on cue, the clouds parted, revealing the sun hanging low in the distance. It touched the very tips of the uppermost trees, engulfing them in a blazing watery glow. Jill blinked as the welcome golden light blinded her, and she could almost imagine she could feel the heat on her face. For the first time that day, she felt a weight lift from her chest.

Alice had taken her phone from her pocket and was looking at the screen. She was frowning, but that was all right, Jill told herself. Even if they had no signal, it would be okay. They would get to the second campsite, they would get dry, they would work something out with the shelter. They would get some sleep, and everything would look better in the morning.

Jill heard a dry cough behind her.

‘Sorry,’ Beth said. ‘But which direction are we walking in again?’

‘West.’ Jill looked over.

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes. Towards the campsite.’ Jill turned to Alice. ‘That’s right, isn’t it? We’re going west?’

‘Yep. West.’

‘So we’ve been walking west the whole time?’ Beth said. ‘Since we left the river?’

‘Christ. Yes. I already said.’ Alice didn’t glance up from her phone.

‘Then –’ A pause. ‘Sorry. It’s just – if this way is west, then why is the sun setting in the south?’

Every face turned, just in time to see the sun drop another notch below the trees.

That was the other thing about Alice, Jill thought. Sometimes she could make you feel so bloody betrayed.





Chapter 12



The light was starting to go by the time Falk and Carmen left Jill Bailey in the lounge, alone with her thoughts. They headed back along the path to the cabins with the early calls of the evening chorus echoing around them.

‘It gets dark so early up here.’ Carmen checked her watch, the wind catching her hair. ‘I suppose the trees block the light.’

They could see vans pulling up outside the lodge and weary rescue workers climbing out. Their breath formed clouds in the air. Still no good news, judging by their faces. The skies were quiet now; the chopper must have landed. Hope was fading with the day.

Falk and Carmen reached their cabin doors and stopped.

‘I’m going to take a shower. Warm up a bit.’ Carmen stretched and Falk heard her joints crack beneath the layers. It had been a long couple of days. ‘Meet for dinner in an hour?’

With a wave she disappeared inside. Falk unlocked his own door and turned on the light.

Through the wall, he heard the sound of running water starting up.

He sat on the bed and ran over the conversation with Jill Bailey. She had an alertness about her that her brother didn’t. It made Falk feel uneasy.

He rummaged through his backpack and pulled out a paper file containing his notes on Alice Russell. He thumbed through them, only half-reading. He already knew the contents well. At first, he wasn’t sure what he was looking for, but as he turned the pages, it slowly became clear. He was looking for something that would ease the guilt, he realised. Some hint of reassurance that Alice Russell’s disappearance was nothing to do with him. That he and Carmen hadn’t trapped her in an impossible position that had forced her into making a mistake. That they hadn’t made a mistake themselves. That they hadn’t put Alice in danger. Hurt her.

Falk sighed, and sat back on the bed. When he got to the end of Alice’s file, he went back to the start and pulled out her bank statements. She’d shared access to them voluntarily, if reluctantly, and like everything else, he’d been through them before. But he found something comforting in the way the orderly columns of figures and dates ran down page after page, documenting the everyday transactions that kept Alice Amelia Russell’s world ticking over.

Falk ran his eyes down the numbers. The statements were monthly, with the first entry dated about twelve months earlier. The most recent was on Thursday, the day Alice and the others had set off for the retreat. She had spent four dollars at a motorway convenience store. It was the last time her bank card had been used.

He examined the incomings and outgoings, trying to flesh out his impression of the woman. He noted that four times a year, like clockwork, she spent several thousand dollars at the David Jones department store two weeks before the change of each season. That she paid her cleaner an amount that, depending on the hours worked, seemed suspiciously below the minimum wage.

Falk always found it interesting what people deemed valuable. He had breathed out in surprise the first time he had seen the five-figure annual sum that Alice parted with to enable her daughter to follow in her footsteps at Endeavour Ladies’ College. And it seemed the cost of a top-shelf education didn’t end with fees alone, he noticed now, with Alice making a significant one-off donation to the school six months earlier.