AT FIRST, WHITT tried to get through it one second at a time. Tick, tick, tick. He set his features, cleared his mind, nodded, and did what he had to do, his hand on his phone in his pocket, waiting for the safest moment. All afternoon he directed the techs as the bodies were removed and the evidence and photographs taken, standing beside Vada as she took reports from the teams searching for Regan in the local area. As evening descended, senior officers arrived from Bombala and surrounds and took over some of the required duties, cordoning off the street and keeping the neighbors and press who gathered on the nearby lawns at bay. When he was convinced it was safe, Whitt walked in the dark toward his car. With apprehension sitting sharp and heavy like a rock in his stomach, he glanced back toward the house, where he had left Vada supervising the crime scene, and dialed.
Pops answered on the second ring.
“I was just going to call you,” Pops said before Whitt could speak. “I’m chasing down what I can on the Regan Banks CIR file. I feel like we need to take a different angle on this. The answers are right here. I just need to find them.”
Whitt drew a deep breath, tried to keep his voice steady. He couldn’t think how to respond to Pops’s comments about the files, had hardly heard them. He closed his eyes and let the words come.
“Harry’s been shot at,” Whitt said.
There was a pause. Whitt heard the older officer’s strained intake of breath.
“She’s been shot?”
“Shot at,” Whitt corrected. “I don’t think she was hit. She ran off. We’ve got a new crime scene here in Bombala. It’s Regan. Harry showed up. Regan must have told her where to go. My partner discovered her, and she shot at her, and I don’t know where Harry is now.”
Pops was speaking, but Whitt’s head was pounding so hard, he couldn’t focus. He held the car for support, felt adrenaline rush through him, the Dexedrine responding to his terror.
“I think Vada should be called back to Sydney,” Whitt said. “She’s a good officer. But I think she’s in the wrong frame of mind about Harry, and—”
“Vada who?” Pops thundered. “Who the fuck is this person?”
Whitt felt his skin grow cold.
“Vada Reskit,” Whitt said. “She’s from North Sydney metro. Woods assigned her.”
More silence. Whitt’s jaw was clenched so tight, his teeth clicked.
“She said you’d approved the assignment,” he offered.
“I’ve never heard of her,” Pops said. “I didn’t approve the assignment of any new officers to this case. What did you say her name was again?”
Whitt was about to answer when the phone was taken from his hand. He turned and watched Vada end the call, her features sharp and pale in the light of the screen. He would have reached out to stop her, snatch the phone back, but the gun in her hand was pointed right at his belly.
She lifted her eyes to him, and they were the tired, sad eyes of someone well-versed in betrayal.
“Get in the car, Whitt,” Vada said.