Chapter 14 #2
She flicks an eyebrow up, exhaling, like she hasn’t been asked that for a very long time.
The ceiling fan whirs while we wait for her response.
When I’m sure she’s not looking, I jerk my head at Chris, give him a sit down on the bloody couch motion.
He grimaces at the dog, sidling past it, and sits so close to me that his knee touches mine.
“She was always up for adventure,” Kat finally says. “Bit of a handful, to be honest. A rule breaker. She loved the water, swimming, kayaking, diving. Full of life, she was.” She pauses, eyes darkening. “Nobody deserves to die like that.”
I spent last night reading about Hannah’s attack. The word that kept coming up was horror.
The beaches across Kangaroo Bay will be closed this week after a swimmer died from “catastrophic injuries” in a horror shark attack.
Remains of the swimmer were later found, including half a wet suit, in what police describe as a horrifying scene…
No one witnessed the attack. Her car was found abandoned at beach 4 on July 4, 1998. My mum went missing a month later.
“What brought her to Kangaroo Bay?” Chris asks. “It’s not exactly the nicest area.”
“Why’s that?”
Chris nudges me.
“It’s a fishing town,” I explain. “Insular. Lots of grizzled old men, drunken brawls on a Friday night. The streets aren’t safe.
But the beaches…the beaches are worse. In areas where there’s a lot of fishing activity, there tend to be higher rates of shark sightings and attacks.
Because when the fish get caught on lines, the vibrations bring the sharks in. ”
Her eyes are absent, mouth grim. She says something low under her breath; I don’t catch it.
“There’s a lot of beautiful beaches between here and Kangaroo Bay.” I lean forward and try to say the next part as tactfully as I can. “It’s a strange place to swim alone and at night.”
Chris pipes in, “Hannah was traveling by herself, wasn’t she?”
“On that trip, yes,” she says. “She’d made a bunch of new friends through her diving club. I called them her Water Mates. They were always surfing or diving up and down the coast. Lakes Entrance, the Mornington Peninsula, Phillip Island,” she lists. “Warrnambool.”
Donny left his home in Warrnambool in a white Mitsubishi Sigma in mid-July…
I bolt to my feet, and the dog lifts its head. I crouch over Kat, thrusting Donny’s picture in front of her face. “Do you recognize this man?”
She squints at the photo, leaning closer and closer until her nose actually bumps the screen.
“I need my glasses,” she mutters, fumbling for the side table. Her elbow juts out and a dusty candle goes flying, an empty vase wobbling like a bowling pin. I could scream.
She slips her reading glasses on and snatches my phone, bringing it to her chest. I dart a glance at Chris, who sits rigid on the couch, sweating.
“Yes. I recognize him.”
Slow motion. I see myself turning back to Kat, my mouth falling open.
“I mighta met him once or twice,” she mumbles, chin dipping low to her chest, still staring. “A friend of Hannah’s.”
“A friend since when? Had they known each other long? When was the last time you saw him?”
I hit her with questions as hot blood rushes in my ears. Hannah knew Donny Granger. Hannah was killed in a horrific attack. My father killed Donny. Mum was murdered.
My father is missing.
Kat passes my phone back, lowering her glasses to the bridge of her nose. “He was one of her Water Mates, I think. One of the new crowd.”
“Was he meeting her in Kangaroo Bay on that trip?”
She frowns, sucks her teeth again. “I don’t think so.”
Chris speaks slowly, but I can feel he’s as frantic as I am. “Are you sure? You said they met up with each other along the coast…and Kangaroo Bay isn’t the sort of place a girl would travel to alone.”
She’s already shaking her head. “You didn’t know Hannah. She often traveled alone. Even camped in her car by herself. We—” She breaks off, looks down. “We had a few tiffs about it.”
The Jack Russell scoots closer to Chris, panting, showing nubs of yellowing teeth.
“This guy,” I finally say, gesturing to my phone. “Do you know that he went missing, too?”
“I heard,” she murmurs. “Few months after Han. I’m not that surprised.”
It wasn’t a few months after. They went missing at almost at the same time. Chris gives me an urgent look that I ignore.
I’m not that surprised.
I look up. “Why weren’t you surprised he went missing?”
“Some of these Water Mates of hers…” She tucks her glasses back into their case. “They were a bit, I dunno. Dodgy?”
“How?”
She shrugs. “Just a feeling, you know? The check your purse after they leave sort of feeling. I didn’t like them coming ’round here. I wish I’d spoken up more. Wish she’d listened.”
Has there been an update?
“Can’t stop accidents from happening,” I murmur, eyes boring into hers.
She stares at me levelly. “It was no accident.”
“They…found her, though?” Chris says, uncomfortably. “Injuries consistent with a shark attack.”
What was left of her anyway.
“It wasn’t an accident.”
“I think—”
“I know what everyone thinks.” She hisses the last word. “But something came for her before she died. Dropped off on the bloody doorstep.”
Chris and I exchange looks. “What?”
“Follow me.”