Leighton was driving quickly along the winding road out of the city. If he had been calmer he might have noticed that the roads were much quieter than usual, but his mind was so focused on the road that he almost didn’t notice when Angela Blanchette – who had seemed almost catatonic – started to speak.
‘I knew life could hurt when David left us,’ she said as if to herself, ‘we had all been good at the start. Every Friday he would bring me flowers – yellow roses – they were my favourite. But then he stopped doing that and spent more and more time away from me and Tina. It kinda hurt even then, but there was the two of us locked together. And when he left, I reckon I hurt more because of what it meant for Tina than for myself.’
‘That must’ve been tough,’ Leighton said.
Angela continued to stare out of the window. ‘It felt like a pinprick compared to this,’ she said.
‘Yeah,’ Leighton nodded. ‘I can only imagine your pain. My daughter is everything to me.’
‘Is she with her mother?’
‘No, my wife died sixteen months ago.’ Leighton glanced sideways at the road edge to avoid meeting Angela’s gaze.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘You’ve done nothing wrong. Annie is staying with her grandparents for a couple of days.’
‘Will she like that?’
‘I think so. They’ll spoil her with gifts and make sure she has better food than the pizza and ice cream I give her.’
Angela smiled and Leighton noticed. ‘What’s funny?’ he asked.
‘One summer, Tina got a taste for mint choc chip ice cream. She’d tried it a neighbour’s house and convinced me to buy her a couple of pints. Anyway, she got up one morning saying she didn’t want her breakfast waffles and was too sick for school. When I asked her if she had eaten anything the previous evening she just shrugged. But when I went to throw her breakfast in the trash I found an empty ice-cream carton.’
‘Midnight feast?’
‘Yep, and she never touched the stuff ever again.’ Angela smiled sadly and gazed through her window.
Leighton followed her concerned gaze toward the horizon where thick columns of smoke rose from the surrounding hillsides. Leighton had noticed them too and was glad that, under these particular circumstances, Annie was staying with her grandparents.
‘Please hurry,’ Angela said. There was no need to explain that if they didn’t make it in time, the smoke would be just as effective as any other killer.
‘We’re almost at the place where I think I saw her,’ Leighton said.
Up ahead, a fire officer dressed in tan coloured protective clothing was standing in the middle of the road waving both arms to halt Leighton.
After braking to a stop, Leighton rolled down his driver window as the firefighter approached the car.
‘Excuse me, sir, this area is in the red zone; you’re going to have to turn around quickly.’
‘I’m a cop!’ Leighton said as he held up his badge with one hand, ‘I really need to get through.’
The fire officer shook his head. ‘Doesn’t matter if you’re the police commissioner, the fire chief told all units that nobody’s getting through! The fire is spreading in all directions and we’re evacuating all homes in a six-mile radius. This whole place might be ash by morning. So, you have to move out!’
‘Fair enough, I guess,’ Leighton said with a shrug.
‘What?’ Angela’s eyes widened in horror. She turned and stared at Leighton in disbelief.
‘Okay,’ the fire officer said as he tapped the roof of the car, ‘you can turn around here and head back the way you came. Most roads back to the city should be clear.’
‘Sure, thanks,’ Leighton said and rolled up his window.
‘What the hell!’ Angela looked at Leighton with tears in her eyes. However, rather than say anything, he simply reversed his car at ninety degrees until it was facing the exact spot where Tina had vanished five days earlier, then accelerated as fast as he could into the countryside.
The roar of Leighton’s engine caused the fire officer who had been walking away to turn around. His eyes widened in horror, and he attempted to run after the vehicle, but it had already been swallowed by a wave of white smoke.
The car shuddered and clattered as Leighton drove through the smoky landscape. Bushes had caught in his wheels, making a sound like dried fingers scratching on the underside of the car.
‘Look at the map,’ Leighton said as he reached into his pocket and pushed the folded piece of paper towards Angela. ‘Look at this. You see that area circled in red?’
Angela unfolded the map and then nodded.
‘Well that’s a place I found written down in Craven’s trailer. It’s too much of a coincidence that he’d be writing the name of a place that’s so close to where I saw Tina. If Tina’s not with him – and I don’t think she is – then I figure that’s where he thinks she is.’
‘How far is it?’
‘Ten – fifteen minutes, maybe. Depends if this smoke thins out a bit.’
‘How would she have gotten so far out here?’ Angela asked.
‘Walked most probably. I think he had her in his car, was driving towards his trailer, and she escaped somehow. This is where she ran to.’
Hot tears began to slide down Angela’s face as she thought of her small, scared daughter alone in this place. Her emotional pain and sense of guilt was so strong that it threatened to overwhelm her, but it was, of course, eclipsed by another thought – one that gave her power rather than took it from her. Angela Blanchette imagined what she would do to the man who did this to her child.
‘Hopefully the spreading fires mean that Craven won’t still be in the area and we can focus on finding Tina.’
‘I hope he is still around,’ Angela said with a voice that Leighton barely recognised.
Leighton and Angela continued driving through drifting pockets of smoke until eventually they found themselves at the bottom of a tree covered slope. Leighton slammed on the brakes, knowing that the trees were too close together for the car to fit through. The car lurched to a stop.
‘We’ll have to walk from here,’ Leighton said, but as he turned to see if that was okay with Angela, he discovered she was already climbing out of the vehicle.
Hurrying after Angela into the hazy wilderness, Leighton had to brace himself against the choking smoke that was thickening around them. He caught up with Angela who was coughing loudly as she scrambled up the dusty slope.
‘The air should be clearer at the top,’ he said.
Angela nodded, and together they made their way up the crumbling slope.
Leighton’s theory proved to be correct – the air seemed to clear as he and Angela neared the top of the ridge. It was as they reached the summit that Leighton and Angela found themselves looking down on the cluster of old orchard buildings. The hill they stood upon curved around either side of them like a crescent moon.
‘I think we should split up and take a side each,’ Angela said.
‘We’d be safer together.’
‘She could be on either side,’ Angela said. ‘If we split up then we have a better chance of finding her.’ What Angela did not say was that if Tina was dead, then she didn’t want anyone else to be there if she found her. That would be her undoing and she couldn’t face that with an audience. In her back pocket was a packet of pills. If it turned out that Tina was there, and she was dead, Angela did not intend to return from this trip.
‘Okay.’ Leighton nodded. ‘But I want you to take this.’ He reached to his holster and realised in horror that he had left his utility belt and gun back in his locker.
‘Shit! I’ve no gun.’ Leighton kicked at the dry ground.
‘It’s okay,’ Angela said. ‘I’m going anyway.’
‘Well, you shout out if you see anything. Okay?’
Angela nodded and then vanished down the slope. She wasn’t even thinking, but Leighton couldn’t blame her. He would be exactly the same in that situation.