8

I leapt into the Corolla and turned the key in the ignition. It didn’t start. I turned it again. No go. I waited a moment and then tried it again. Finally, the engine fired. By the time I turned out of the car park, Jacinta’s Honda was long gone.

I drove around the streets of Hustle, looking everywhere. No sign of Jacinta or her Honda. I didn’t even know where she lived. Bugger.

The sun was low in the sky, the light growing dim. I pulled out my phone and dialled Gary Kellett.

‘Gary, was Natalie friendly with someone called Jacinta Thomas? Works in Hustle, not sure where she lives exactly.’

‘Never heard of her,’ he said, the man whose daughter told him everything. I said goodbye and hung up. Tapped my fingers on the steering wheel. A thought. Jacinta’s sister Taylah worked on the desk at the retirement home. Right, I’d make a little social call on Ernie tomorrow: maybe Taylah could somehow help.

Not much of a sunset: the rain started as I left town, spattering at first, tickling the car roof and the ground. It grew heavier, a drumming, music on the windscreen. I wound down the window and sucked in a lungful of rain-scented air.

I peered through the smeary windscreen. Grey sky, brighter grey in the distance. Grey-white striped wheat paddocks. My windscreen wipers squeaked. I’d have to get the rubbers replaced. Another thing requiring money I didn’t have.

I passed a blown-out tyre by the road. Glanced in my rear-view mirror. Visibility wasn’t the best, but was the car behind me kind of dark in colour? Brown? Possibly a Fairlane? The left-hand fog light cover was missing. I squinted, but couldn’t make out the number plate.

Up ahead, I saw a road sign, a turn-off to the left. I took the turn and headed down the gravel road. Checked the mirror again. The car behind took the turn as well.

OK, that confirmed the bastard was following me. I’d turn my car around, get a good look at the driver as I swung by him and then head back to the highway. Phone Dean with a full description.

My car engine stuttered and then died. The Corolla rolled to an apologetic halt.

I turned the key in the ignition. Nothing. I tried again. No. Pumped the accelerator, tried again. Shit.

I flicked a look in my mirror. The car behind was a dark shape in the gloom. It pulled over beside the road, only a couple of car lengths away.

I grabbed my phone. No signal. My heart thudded in my chest. I scanned through my windscreen, thinking fast. The farm around here sold a while back; I had no idea who owned it now. But there, ahead, across the gloomy wheat paddocks, I could see a light. Someone was home. Maybe they had a working phone; maybe whoever lived there was kind and strong and helpful.

Or a toothless, axe-wielding maniac.

I tore briefly at a fingernail. Well, no point sitting here waiting for my doom. I flung open my car door, ran over to the fence and wriggled under it. Not electric, thank God. I stood upright quickly, and then ran like hell across the damp wheat stubble.

The only sounds were my panting and the crunching sound of my feet against the stubble. Painful bloody stuff, wheat stubble. It scratched and tore at my ankles. The rain grew heavier, the wind driving needle-sharp water droplets into my face. I heard a car door slam. I glanced behind. Was that someone behind me, back there in the gloom?

I ran faster, my breath choking out in gasps. My legs burned; my hair and clothes were saturated. The house grew closer; I could see movement across a lit-up window. Another fence. Bugger, this one was electric: tell-tale orange sheep netting. On or off—that was the question.

I slowed and glanced over my shoulder. A shape running towards me; slightly lopsided, limping. Getting closer. I sucked in a frantic breath. Sprinted the last few steps towards the fence and took a leap up, up, over the netting, my best effort for high-jump gold.

Agh. Not high enough. My foot trailed against the fence top just as my other foot touched the soil; the kick of the electric current jolted through my body. I crashed to the ground, face-first in the mud. Lay there a second, my breath juddering.

A goat mehh-ed at me. I groaned, then crawled to my feet. My left foot squelched, shoeless. I spent a frantic, fruitless moment looking for the shoe.

Just a few steps now to the house. A dog started barking. I ran across the gravel yard towards the back door. Flew up the three concrete steps. My socks full of mud. I’m fond of rain, but not when it’s in my shoes. Shoe.

I banged on the door; leaned, hard-panting, against the frame.

The door opened. A tall bloke; blond hair gleaming in the light.

‘Cass?’

Unbelievable. It was Leo Stone.