Force of Nature (Aaron Falk #2)(63)

Beth shifted, feeling a little claustrophobic. She could see one edge of the mattress in the other room. ‘I’m going to take a look around outside.’

‘I’ll come,’ Bree said. ‘I need the loo.’

Lauren stirred herself. ‘Me too.’

Outside, the air was crisp and damp. As Beth pulled the cabin door shut behind her, she heard Alice mutter something inaudible to Jill. Whatever she’d said, Jill didn’t reply.

Bree was pointing across the small clearing. ‘Oh my God, is that literally an outhouse?’

The tiny shack stood some distance away, its roof rotted and one side open to the elements.

‘Don’t get your hopes up,’ Lauren said. ‘It’ll be a hole in the ground.’

Beth watched her sister pick her way through the overgrowth to the ramshackle structure. Bree peered inside and recoiled with a squeal. The sisters caught each other’s eye and laughed for what felt to Beth like the first time in days. Years even.

‘Oh, God. Just, no,’ Bree called.

‘Shitty?’

‘Spidery. Don’t do it to yourself. Some things can’t be unseen. I’ll take my chances in the bush.’

She turned and disappeared among the trees. Lauren managed a smile and tramped off in the opposite direction, leaving Beth alone. The light was already fading, the sky turning a deeper grey.

They had been lucky to find the cabin at all, Beth realised now the rain had cleared. There were two or three gaps in the trees that might once have been trails, but nothing that encouraged visitors to discover the clearing. Beth felt suddenly edgy and glanced around for the others. They were nowhere to be seen. Birds cried to each other above her head, high-pitched and urgent, but when she looked up they were all hidden from sight.

Beth reached into her pocket for her cigarettes. She’d found the pack submerged in a puddle after Alice had thrown it. It had been ruined, soaked through by the dirty water, but she hadn’t wanted to give Alice the satisfaction of admitting it.

Her fingers wrapped around the edge of the box, the sharp corners now soggy, and she felt the clamouring call of nicotine. She opened the pack and checked yet again that the cigarettes were beyond saving. The damp smell of tobacco sparked something in her and all at once it was unbearable to have them so near and yet so far. She felt like crying. Of course she didn’t want to be an addict. Not to the cigarettes, or to anything else.

Beth hadn’t even known she was pregnant when she’d miscarried. She’d sat in the sterile room in the university’s medical clinic while the doctor explained that it was not uncommon within the first twelve weeks. She probably hadn’t been very far along. And there was very little she could have done to avoid it. Sometimes these things happened.

Beth had nodded. The thing was, she’d explained in a small voice, she’d been out drinking. Most weekends. Some weekdays. She had been one of the only girls doing her computer science degree at the time and the guys on the course were good fun. They were young and smart and they all planned to invent the next big dot com thing, become millionaires and retire by thirty. But until that happened, they liked to drink and dance and take soft drugs and stay out late and flirt with the girl who, at age twenty, still looked a lot like her eye-catching twin sister. And Beth had enjoyed those things too. Maybe, in hindsight, a little too much.

She had confessed to all her vices that day under the bright lights of the sterile clinic room. The doctor had shaken his head. It had probably made no difference. Probably? Almost certainly. But not definitely? It had almost certainly made no difference, he had said and handed her an information pamphlet.

It was for the best anyway, she’d thought on the way out of the clinic, clutching her pamphlet. She had dropped it in the first rubbish bin she passed. She wouldn’t give it another thought. And there was no point telling anyone. Not now. Bree wouldn’t understand anyway. It was fine. It wasn’t like she could miss something she hadn’t even known she’d had.

She had planned to go straight home, but the thought of her student flat seemed a bit lonely. So she’d got off the bus and gone to the bar, met the boys. For one drink, then a few more, because it wasn’t like she had a reason to avoid alcohol or the odd narcotic, was it? It was a bit late for that now, wasn’t it? And when she’d woken up the next morning, and her head was aching and her mouth was dry, she hadn’t really minded. That was the one good thing about a decent hangover. It didn’t leave much room to feel anything else.

Now, Beth looked out at the surrounding bushland and squeezed the damp cigarette packet in her hand. She knew the group was in the shit. They all knew they were in the shit. But as long as Beth had been able to smoke, it had felt like a thread linking her with civilisation. And now Alice had ruined even that. With a rush of anger, Beth closed her eyes and hurled the cigarette packet into the undergrowth. When she opened her eyes, it was gone. She couldn’t see where it had landed.

A gust of wind blew across the clearing and Beth shivered. The sticks and leaves around her feet were damp. No easy firewood there. She thought back to that first night, when Lauren had checked around for dry kindling. Beth scratched her palm, empty without its cigarette packet, and looked back at the cabin. It had a lean to it, with the tin roof jutting out at one side more than the other. It probably wasn’t enough to keep the ground dry beneath, but it was the best chance she could see.