Chapter 23
This is what happens to rule breakers.
I know what everyone thinks, Hannah’s mum hisses, but her death wasn’t an accident.
Was Hannah an abalone poacher, too?
I hear myself saying, “Hannah Striker was taken by a great white in Kangaroo Bay in the late nineties…” I pause. “Something came for her, too. Shark jaws. Her mum always believed her death wasn’t an accident.”
“My God,” Deb mutters, pressing a hand to her throat, sinking hard onto the bed. “Are you sure it’s her?”
This is what happens to rule breakers.
“I think so.” I stare at the screen. “Did Rachel ever mention that the girl was Hannah?”
“No,” Deb says, frantic now. “If she’d known who it was, she wouldn’t have gone back to that damn town…” She trails off, stares at the sign on the door. “Tell me about that night. You said it was an accident.”
“It was,” I say, thrown. “I saw it…” I add guiltily, “She was alone in the water. We were the first on scene. It truly was an accident.”
Blood burns in my ears. I reach dully for my phone: 2:21 p.m. I need to text Colleen, need to head home. But I can’t get up.
“Have you shown this to police?”
“Only you.”
“You didn’t show Chris?”
“Who?”
“The other journo,” I mutter, looking up. “Chris Cooper. From the Daily.”
You know. The boy with the brick hair and milky skin. Freakishly clean. Snobbish. Smiles at my fish puns and pretends not to.
She shakes her head, dazed. “I haven’t heard from him.”
I grip the bed. “He called you the other day…” I trail off, trying to remember when that was. “He told you he was coming here to talk to you. Today.”
She just stares at me.
“He called you,” I repeat.
“Yeah, he called me. But he never showed up.”
Blood whooshes behind my temples. I stare at the drooping wattle on the nightstand, thinking.
“He hasn’t messaged you since?”
“No.”
I get to my feet, vision blurring. Everything is moving and shifting, and none of it makes sense. I fumble for my car keys. “If he calls you, let me know. Please.”
My car is steaming hot. I sink into the seat, wincing when the belt buckle brands my hip. I swipe at the sweat trickling down my collarbone, wind the window down.
I’m heading home now.
I don’t wait for Colleen to message back. I call Chris again.
Straight to voicemail.
I end the call and ring again.
And again.
And again.
—
The sky is the ocean. Blue-black and roaring.
I race down the highway, watching the sky darken.
Rain falls in scattered drops. There’s a stillness, an unnatural quiet.
I clench my teeth and wait for my father.
He’s in the wind, bending the branches of the blackwood trees.
He’s the jagged streak of white-hot light. And he’s the roar that follows.
I stare at the sky, wondering how much of my father is in me.
My mother looked at the ocean and saw the hand of God. She was calm there in a way she never was at home. What a savior we have, Minnow. Before we even call him, He answers.
To my father, the ocean was violence. Death and life and death again. The dark heart of it calling and calling. You can hear it, too, can’t you, Min?
Sometimes I hear two calls.
I still wonder who I’ll follow.
The rain falls in torrents, drenching the sunburned fields. Sheep huddle together like bloated clouds as the wind howls around them. Some shelter under a lone ghost gum, heads lowered, wool dripping, bleating at the blackened horizon.
The road is flooding, and the windshield wipers struggle to keep up with the punishing downpour.
I slow the car, squinting through the blurry glass, but I can barely make out the lane markings.
I grip the wheel as the wind picks up, shoving the car from side to side as headlights glow faintly in the mist illuminating a road sign:
Violet Town 5 km
Rest Area 1 km
I pull slowly into the rest area—too slowly, apparently, because some asshole beeps me from behind.
I flinch, heart thudding as I steer the car into the parking lot, tires lurching over puddled potholes.
The air’s cooler, drying the sweat on my skin.
I shudder when the breeze slips through the window crack.
I kill the engine. I’m still four hours away from Kangaroo Bay, and I feel it badly. Flashes of lightning split the sky. Rain hammers the roof, gushing down the windows. It’s so loud, you’d have to yell over it. I feel like I’m underwater.
I clench my jaw, remembering the dream.
I’m stretched so tight that if I don’t bend, I’ll break. I’m waiting for something. Someone. But this time, it’s not Dad I’m waiting for. It’s Chris. I call him again, swearing when he doesn’t answer.
The wind finally calms, the rain eases. Ahead are the flickering lights of a toilet block, the harsh, bright glow illuminating the chipped concrete. I step out the car, shivering when the wind hits my skin. There’s only one other car in the lot, parked at the farthest end.
The toilet door creaks when I push it open, revealing a poorly flushed toilet, graffiti on the lid:
Don’t Blink.
I pee quickly. The soap dispenser’s empty, the mirror’s missing, muddied water pools in the corners.
Don’t Blink.
Uneasy, I peer over my shoulder, tuck my hands into my pockets. Outside, the rain’s stopped like it never even started. But the air’s heavy, thick with that post-storm atmosphere. The sheep remain under the ghost gums, matted and dripping.
The other car is still there, silent and grave as the air itself. It’s parked under a tea tree, the white bonnet covered in crescent-shaped leaves.
I stop walking.
It’s an Audi. White.
And it’s missing hubcaps.
I stumble forward, running. The pavement’s slick, water splashes up my ankles. Don’t trip, don’t trip. I’m breathless when I reach the driver’s-side door and lunge for the handle. Locked.
I peer in, terrified I’ll see Chris in there. Terrified I won’t.
But he’s not in there. The car is empty, silent. Abandoned.
I peer desperately through the back window. How long has it been sitting here? I snatch my phone, call him again, sweeping my gaze through the car. Breathlessly, I wait, praying I’ll see his phone screen illuminate.
But the car sits quietly, crescent leaves stuck fast to the bonnet, dirt spraying the roof and license plate like nature itself is trying to swallow it. If Chris saw the state of his car, he’d race to the nearest car wash and frantically scrub it.
Chris.
My eyes water, the back of my throat burns. I lean heavily against the driver’s-side door.
—
I charge into the Violet Town petrol station.
A tired-looking attendant leans on the register with a magazine in his hand.
He barely glances up as I stalk forward, asking if he’s seen Chris.
I pull up his Daily photo and the attendant squints, scratching his stubbled chin.
He gives me a slow shake of the head and I thank him, heart squeezing tight.
I race home on the darkening highway. The sky is the color of eggplant, and looming shadows race with me, chasing me down.
My eyes fix on a charred tree trunk and a shadow crouched beside it, staring hungrily at a bleating lamb.
Fox. I speed up, the hum of the engine lost in the cicadas’ hateful chorus.
The sky darkens, the highway feels endless. And Chris is out there somewhere, lost in this great dark.
It’s 9 p.m. when I finally make it back to Kangaroo Bay. I shouldn’t have worried. Heath’s car isn’t in the driveway. He’s not waiting for me.
But something else is.
I pull onto our front lawn, headlights cutting through the darkness.
I wish they didn’t.
The beams light up our porch, the pickle-green awning and the front door. At first, it seems like a trick of the light, but my eyes focus, and it becomes too clear. There’s something on my doorstep. Waiting in the dark.
I climb out my car, headlights flickering as I step around them, headed for my front door. The world falls silent as I stare at what’s waiting there.
I crouch slowly, reach for the two triangular-shaped objects left on my doormat. They’re bigger than my palm, and they gleam in the night, the serrated edges as sharp as a knife.
Shark teeth.