address so I know where I’m going. I’ll ask Shanni to phone you when I get there.
‘When did she go?’ he whispered.
‘We don’t know,’ Abby whispered back. ‘I woke up and her bed was made so I went to see the boys.’
‘I felt her sheets,’ Donald said. ‘They’re cold.’
Dear God. The bottom seemed to sink out of his stomach. He stared at the surrounding children and saw his reaction mirrored in their eyes.
Wendy. The reliable one.
Walking to Sydney?
He dropped the note and reached for his jeans. ‘Blake! Nik!’ He erupted from the bedroom, bellowing for his brothers. Behind him, Bessy stirred into instant wakefulness and started to roar.
He couldn’t pay her heed. What were brothers for?
‘Get the hell up. Blake. Nik. Olga!’ By the time he reached the foot of the stairs, he’d hauled his windcheater over his head. He was groping in the pile of shoes habitually left in the porch as his brothers stuck sleepy heads out of the rooms where they’d been sleeping. Olga appeared from down the hall, wreathed in curlers.
‘Is it a fire?’ Nik demanded. Then a worse thought struck. ‘You’re not heading out to milk cows, are you? Cos if you are, there’s limits to brotherly love.’
‘I’m going to find Wendy,’ Pierce said, and he was already heading for the door. ‘She’s trying to get to Sydney. Hell, it’s impossible. Look after the kids. Kids, I’ll be back the minute I find her. I promise.’
‘Do you have your phone with you?’ Blake was awake enough now to lurch forward and grab his brother by the windcheater. ‘Where’s your mobile phone?’
‘He doesn’t carry it cos work rings up when Bessy’s crying,’ Donald said from the top of the stairs. ‘It’s in the charger. I’ll get it.’
‘She’s out there…’
‘Yeah, and if someone finds her and brings her home we need to be able to tell you,’ Blake said. ‘Nik, go with him.’
Nik was wearing boxer shorts, a stunned expression and nothing else. ‘I’m not waiting,’ Pierce snapped.
‘Okay, tell Nik where to look. Do we know where she was heading?’
‘Shanni’s.’
‘Does Shanni have a phone?’
Did Shanni carry a phone? Hell, how would he know? She’d still be with…Jules. Or Ruby? ‘Maybe…’
‘I’ll ring Ruby and find out,’ Blake snapped. Donald hurtled down the stairs and handed him the phone. He tossed it to Pierce, who took off towards the car as if he’d just been handed the Olympic baton.
‘Where will you look?’ Blake yelled.
‘She’ll be out on the highway. This is a dead-end lane. If she’s out there…’
‘Okay, bro, go. Head for the highway towards town. Nik will double check the lane and we’ll search here. And answer your phone when it rings.’
‘Will do,’ Pierce yelled. ‘Bessy needs changing.’
He was gone.
The drive from the farm into town was one of the longest journeys of Pierce’s life. There was no other way to get to Sydney-Wendy would know that. She’d have to walk into town to reach the highway. It would take her hours to get there.
Had she had hours?
And then what? There were buses, but she didn’t know the timetable. She didn’t have any money. Or did she? Surely she wouldn’t have taken…? He pulled over and rang home.
‘Check my wallet,’ he demanded.
‘Where?’
‘Bedside table.’
‘It’s full,’ Blake reported seconds later. ‘A hundred and fifty bucks in notes.’
It hadn’t been touched. So she was broke. Pierce drove on, feeling desperate. The closer to town he got, the sicker he felt. She couldn’t have walked this far. She couldn’t have called a cab-there were no cabs out here anyway.
Maybe she was hiding, but this was open country. Huge red gums in undulating paddocks. Clear verges. Nowhere a child could duck to hide from a passing car.
By the town boundary he was feeling just about as bad as it was possible to feel. And then some.
His phone rang.
He stared at it. Almost afraid to answer.
He pulled over and picked it up like it was poisonous.
‘She’s safe,’ Blake said, and the air in Pierce’s chest whooshed out like he’d been hit in the small of the back.
‘Safe.’
‘She’s at the police station, boyo,’ Blake said. ‘A milk tanker driver saw her with her thumb in the air. Hitch- hiking. He’s a family man, and he had enough sense to take her straight to the cops. She’s waiting for you there. She’s safe.’
‘Shanni?’
Shanni was sound asleep in Ruby’s spare room. She was asleep because she’d paced until five a.m. It took more than half a dozen rings before she realized her mobile phone was ringing.
‘Hi,’ she said, still half asleep.
‘Shanni?’ A deep male voice she didn’t recognise.
‘Yes?’
‘It’s Constable Bob Lester here, from the Craggyburn Police. You remember you gave me your number a few weeks ago?’
‘Yes,’ she said, trying to focus. Oh, great. A policeman waking her at dawn to ask her for a date. ‘Um…what can I do for you?’
‘I have someone here who’d like to talk to you,’ the policeman said gently. ‘Here you go, Wendy. She’s all yours.’
Wendy was sitting in the back of the police station, in a lounge the officers used during breaks. She was drinking hot chocolate, her eyes enormous over her mug.
The constable opened the door and she cringed.
Pierce thought his heart would break, right then and there.
‘Wendy,’ he whispered, and she put her mug very carefully on the table and lifted her chin. Defiant. Only it didn’t quite work. Her chin wobbled and sank again. She was still a very little girl.
‘Are you mad at me?’ she whispered, and it was enough.
He was over at the table, kicking a chair aside as if it was presumptuous enough to get in his way. He was hugging her, holding her tight against him, burying his face in her lovely short curls. Damn it he was weeping.
‘She’s okay,’ the police constable said from behind him, and he fought a bit for composure, hugged Wendy a bit more and then managed to put Wendy far enough away from him so he could see her face.
It was as tear stained as…well, as his must be.
‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered.
‘There’s no need to be sorry. We have you safe.’
‘She’d been walking for hours,’ the constable said with a hint of reproof. ‘No one uses that road at that hour of night. The milk tanker starts at six and he found her on the first run. She had her thumb up like a real hitch-hiker. Then, when he stopped, she ran away.’
‘He…I was…’ Wendy tried to make her voice work, but failed. She was terrified. Her whole body was shaking. This child had learned the hard way that men weren’t to be trusted.
‘He didn’t know what to do,’ the policeman said. ‘But he thought, well, he chased her and caught her and brought her here. By the time he brought her in he had her calmed down a little-apparently he has a kid in her class at school-but she was scared witless.’
‘Hell, Wendy…’
‘I wanted to go to Shanni.’
