Force of Nature (Aaron Falk #2)(82)

Alice looked up at that. Her words slid out, slow and deliberate, cutting through the dark like glass. ‘Shut up, you fat bitch.’

‘Alice, enough!’ Jill barked. ‘Beth isn’t the only one here on thin ice, so watch yourself or there’ll be trouble when –’

‘When what?’ Alice sounded genuinely curious. ‘When your magical rescue party appears?’

Jill had opened her mouth to respond, when, with a spike of panic, she suddenly remembered the phone. She had slipped it into her jacket pocket before the scuffle and she groped for it now. Where was it? She felt light-headed with relief when her hand closed around the sleek rectangle. She took it out and examined the screen, reassuring herself it was intact.

Alice was watching her. ‘You know that belongs to me.’

Jill didn’t reply, and slipped the phone back into her jacket.

‘So what happens now?’ Bree said.

Jill sighed silently. She felt wholly exhausted. She was damp and hungry and in pain and repulsed by her moist and grimy body. She felt invaded by the other women.

‘All right. First,’ she said, in as measured a voice as she could muster. ‘We are all going to calm down. Then, I want everyone to get out their sleeping bags, and we’re going to agree to draw a line under this. For now, at least. We are going to get some sleep and we are going to work out a plan in the morning when we’re all feeling a little more clear-headed.’

No-one moved.

‘Everyone do that now. Please.’

Jill bent down and opened her backpack. She pulled out her sleeping bag, breathing out in relief when she heard the others follow her lead.

‘Put your sleeping bag next to mine, Alice,’ Jill said.

Alice frowned but didn’t argue for once. She unrolled her bag on the ground where Jill pointed and got in. Bree was the only one who bothered going outside to brush her teeth with rainwater. Jill was glad Alice didn’t try to do the same. She hadn’t decided if she would have to accompany her.

Jill climbed into her sleeping bag, grimacing as it clung to her like a wet plastic sack. She felt the phone in her jacket pocket and hesitated. She didn’t want to take her coat off, but she knew she wouldn’t sleep well in it either. The hood and zips had tangled and pinched when she’d tried the night before and it was going to be hard enough to get any rest as it was. After a moment, she slipped it off as quietly as she could, tucking it in next to her in the neck of her sleeping bag. She thought she could feel Alice watching her, but when she glanced over, the other woman was lying on her back, staring at the tin roof.

They were all overtired, Jill knew. They needed to rest, but the atmosphere in the room felt toxic. Her head throbbed against the hard floor and she could hear the creak of bodies shifting uncomfortably. There was a movement from the sleeping bag next to hers.

‘Go to sleep, everyone,’ she snapped. ‘Alice, if you need to get up in the night, wake me.’

There was no reply.

Jill turned her head. She could see almost nothing in the dark. ‘Okay?’

‘It’s like you don’t trust me, Jill.’

Jill did not bother to reply. Instead, she put her hand on her jacket, making sure she could feel the hard edges of the phone beneath the fabric folds before she closed her eyes.





Chapter 23



Falk was glad to get out of the cabin. He and Carmen followed King into the clearing, where they all stood blinking a little in the natural light.

‘The trail the women followed out runs along there.’ King pointed behind the cabin, and Falk craned his neck to look. He could make out no trail, only a wall of trees with the occasional spot of orange as searchers delved in and out. They seemed to appear and vanish with every step.

‘We’re working through as fast as we can, but –’ King didn’t finish, but he didn’t have to. The bushland was dense, and dense meant slow. Dense meant some things were easy to miss. It meant some things never resurfaced at all.

Falk could hear hidden voices in the trees call out for Alice, then wait for a response. Some of the pauses seemed short and perfunctory. Falk didn’t blame them. It had now been four days. A searcher emerged from the trees and beckoned to King.

‘Excuse me a minute,’ King said, and headed away.

Alone, Falk and Carmen looked at each other. The plastic sheets lying at the officers’ feet rippled in the wind.

‘I really hope it’s Sarah Sondenberg under there,’ Carmen said, nodding at the larger sheet. ‘For her parents’ sake. Having to beg Kovac for information is the kind of thing that would haunt a person. At least the other families got a funeral.’

Falk hoped it was Sarah Sondenberg as well. He didn’t know what to hope for if it wasn’t.

He turned and surveyed the cabin. It had probably been well made when it was first built, but now it looked lucky to still be standing. It pre-dated Martin Kovac, he was sure, judging by the state of the wood. Who had built it? A long-forgotten ranger program? A nature lover who wanted a weekend bolthole, put up when legislation around parks was lax? He wondered if it had always seemed quite so lonely.

He walked over and tested the door, swinging it open and shut a few times. The hinges were so rotten they barely creaked. The wooden frame seemed to merely give way.

‘Not much noise. It would probably be possible to slip out without waking anyone. Or for someone to slip in, I suppose.’