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The darkness hid Leilah’s flush of embarrassment. She fingered the ruined lace and soil stained padding. The label fluttered from the strap, dusty but still newish and she swallowed. It went missing just after Mari bought it for her, condemning Leilah to the worn bra which chose that moment to dig into her ribs as though reminding her of its inadequacy. Feminine and lacy, she’d loved the new one but worn it for one week only. It drove her secret boyfriend crazy and she remembered the sensation of his fingers fumbling the clasp. Mari refused to believe it went missing from the washing line beneath the carport, assuming Leilah didn’t like it and acting offended. She hadn’t bought another and Leilah dare not ask. Hector cringed at the mention of female paraphernalia and left all girly matters to Mari, so she couldn’t ask him for money to replace it herself. Catch twenty-two, with Leilah trapped in the middle and her boobs bursting out of her underwear. She knew it hadn’t blown away. The carport protected the washing from direct wind and anyway, she’d searched the paddocks behind.
Mystified, her brow creasing in confusion, Leilah shoved the bra into her skirt pocket and continued her search. It protruded from the aperture, the under-wire digging into her thigh. She refused to let it distract her, keeping one hand over it to stop the supplejack snatching at the dangling straps while wielding the torch in the other. The dogs reappeared, Patch looking fed up and Moss trailing behind, his eyes glazed and his tongue dangling from one side of his mouth. “Don’t suppose you fancy finding the knickers that match this bra?” Leilah asked him. The dog gave a dramatic sneeze, the spray hanging in the torchlight before drifting onto Patch’s rear end. Leilah froze, the fragments of thought cohering into a nasty picture.
The dogs paused, both looking up at her for direction. Patch’s uneven ears cocked, one bending in half at a jaunty angle. Leilah bent double, a feeling of nausea running rampant. She dropped to a crouch amid supplejack vine and ground ferns. “Malcolm stole my underwear,” she breathed. “Kevin said he watched me. That’s what he meant. Which means Hector or my boyfriend killed him.”
Patch took a step forward, sniffing Leilah’s fringe and offering a lick of comfort to her cheek. Wet and unpleasant, though well meant, it reminded Leilah of her task. She rose on wobbling legs and forced herself forward, recognising the landmarks from Horse’s side of the gully and picking up speed. The craggy tree still hung in place over the gully and Leilah edged around it, trying not to disturb the ragged ground at the foot of its trunk. Shining the torch on the spot where she’d seen the scrape marks from the other side, she squinted in confusion at the length of supplejack covering the area. “That’s not right,” she breathed, following the vine back to where it looped through a knot of roots. It looked odd, sprawling at right angles from the rest and plunging over the bank towards the water. “Someone put this here to hide the scrape marks.” A prickle of foreboding ran along her spine. “After we left and before I came back.”
At the sound of her voice, Moss bounded forward with an expectant expression and danced between and over the vines. Leilah sighed as he obliterated the remaining evidence of Malcolm’s death. Dust billowed up to make her cough as claws raked across the hard packed ground.
No sign of surprise crossed Leilah’s pinched features as she reached out to inspect the overhanging branch and found the thread gone. Her jaw ground against her cheek and she turned away, the sense of betrayal cutting deep into her soul. One of the boys had removed the incriminating thread and made a poor attempt at covering their tracks. After telling her to leave it alone, they’d done the opposite. The question was, which one of the boys and why?
Leilah made it her mission to find out. Swearing carried her down the mountain, Patch stalking next to her. Silent tears took her past the grazing cattle and onto the lower slopes. The male dog rediscovered his mojo and had another go at sewing his wild oats. By the time she reached home, Leilah felt frayed around the edges. She shut the tired dogs into their kennels, shaking her head as Moss flopped down against the interconnecting wire with a sigh and made hopeful moon eyes at Patch. Abandoning her dusty trainers on the porch steps, she crept through the silent house. She slipped out of her clothes, falling asleep as soon as her head touched the lumpy feather pillow.