Chapter 8
Victoria Police: Missing Persons List
I’m lying on my single bed with Jessie, scrolling through my phone.
My mum is officially listed as a missing person, but the truth is she had a habit of leaving.
I used to whine endlessly, cross-legged at the front door, waiting for her to come home.
She’d leave for a few days, stay for a few months.
I never knew where she went. But as I got older, her absence became more common than her presence.
There she is. Mum. Danielle Greenwood. Soft blond hair falling over her forehead. Spooked look in her brown eyes. A cheap sterling-silver chain hanging from her neck and a Christian fish pendant resting on her green T-shirt. I’d bought it as her Christmas present.
Merry Christmas, Mum!
Love, Minnow
Then she pulled me into her arms and cried.
“I love it, darling,” she told me later, patting my cheek. She always had the softest hands. “I just wish…” She looked out the window, eyes far away again, and I knew I’d lost her. “I just wish I deserved it.”
I think I understand now. How some gifts feel like wounds.
She wore it for me, I think. Never took it off. I wonder if she’s still alive. Wonder if she’ll ever come home.
Mostly, I wonder if she even wants to. Even when she was here, most of her was missing. That’s what abuse does.
Don’t let them turn you into a ghost…
I rub my thumb over her precious photo.
He’s gone now, Mum. He’s gone.
I wonder what the odds are of being the child of not one but two missing persons. Luke said that once. Doesn’t look good for you two, he cackled. You got somethin’ you wanna confess?
I scroll down, hover my thumb over Dad’s picture. Black hair, shark eyes, mouth that seems to sneer, Just hurry up and take the farken picture, will ya?
Peter is the owner of the fishing charter Deep Sea Fishing…
And Peter Greenwood pissed off a lot of people in town, which is why they neither mourned him nor looked too hard after he disappeared.
I scroll past Dad’s photo. Women, men, a handful of teenagers. And one face that I still see in nightmares.
Donny Granger, 28.
Easy smile. Short black curls falling over his forehead.
Lumberjack beard, drowsy eyes. He looked like the sort of guy who hung out at the pub most nights, and dipped out every twenty minutes for a quick smoke.
Friendly. Unmemorable. That’s how I’ve always imagined him.
Not that I really know. I only saw him. Once.
Missing since late July 1998: Donny Granger.
Donny left his home in Warrnambool in a white Mitsubishi Sigma in mid-July. He was believed to be traveling to South Australia to stay with a friend, but he never arrived.
I quickly send Donny’s profile to Chris, then I turn the phone face down because I can’t stand to see him a second longer. Can’t stand that I never said a damn thing about what happened.
Sweat gathers at my forehead, and my chest feels too tight. I roll onto my back and pull the covers up to my shoulders. It’s hard to breathe.
Donny had a son. I found that out later. A young son with the same curly black ringlets and open smile. Aaron. He’d be mid-thirties now. Fatherless because I left his dad to die.
I hear them again as I drift off. Blackbirds clambering up and down a ghost gum as I hide in the tree’s shadow. Every twig crack feels like a warning. Something is moving through the underbrush, deliberate, dragging. A gust of wind stirs the eucalyptus leaves high above. I don’t dare move.
Then, a scream. It rips through the bush, echoing off the trees, bouncing between the trunks. The blackbirds scatter, black wings slicing the air.
Then another scream…shorter this time. Choked.
Cut off.
Then silence.
—
I wake up to the phone ringing. Jessie lifts her head, disapproving, before settling back to sleep. I grab the phone and note the time: 1:07 a.m.
“Chris…” I say, voice hoarse. “What the hell?”
I rub my eyes. I bet he’s spent the last few hours researching Donny’s disappearance. Not that he would have found any new information. The case has been cold for years.
I clear my throat. “You found a new place to stay?”
“Yeah,” he says distracted, “Airbnb on Parson Street, Pine Bay.”
“Good, got a job lined up for me yet?”
He sighs impatiently. “I can’t just—”
I end the call.
Heath must be home now, but I didn’t hear him come in. I’m wondering if I should get up and peek in his room when the phone rings again.
“Look…” Chris huffs, not even saying hello. “I could go to the police with this right now, you know.”
“With what?”
I can feel him bristle on the end of the phone, and I find myself grinning in the dark.
“You know how to use WordPress?” he asks wearily.
“Yep.”
“Great, you’re hired. Trident mag needs another content writer. Freelance. Eight hundred to a thousand words, two hundred bucks a story.” He pauses, adding, “You’re welcome.”
“Three hundred?”
He snorts, “No.”
“Two fifty?”
“No.”
“But—”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake. Fine, yes, I’ll get you two fifty.”
“What sorta content?”
“Oh, you’ll love it!” he says brightly, and I know he’s taking the piss. “The art of sliding into someone’s DMs. Why an eight-thousand-dollar TV is worth the spend.”
“How many pieces a week?”
“As many as you want,” he says impatiently. “You know what it’s like. They churn these things out in droves. Just remember—”
“A-C-C-I-D-E-N-T-A-L-L-Y,” I spell out before he can rib me again.
“Gold star for you.”
I rub my forehead, and he adds, “Oh yeah, don’t use your real name by the way…Or your other one.”
I don’t answer.
“Melanie?”
“Yeah,” I say finally. “I’ll take it.”
“Delighted to hear it.”
There’s a heavy air of expectation on the line. I think of the water. The missing people. Donny Granger. The darkness in this town. All of it rushing together like a wave about to crash.
I speak quickly. “Meet me at four a.m.”
His voice drops. “Where?”
Can’t breathe. Can’t breathe. “The end of Soldiers’ Road. The woods.”
“…Why are we meeting there?”
I end the call.