Smoke wisped under the door that led to the lounge room, the crackle of flames louder. Thankfully, it seemed Max or Keith or whatever his name was hadn’t laid a line of petrol into the kitchen, so the flames hadn’t come rushing in. But they would. She could see the flicker of them under the door. They were about to come in and when they did, this place would go up in a few seconds. She couldn’t let Cherry stay here and be killed too. ‘Cherry, Cherry, stop. You have to go. Leave me. Save yourself.’
‘Not bloody likely.’
‘Cherry.’ The name was almost a sob. She couldn’t be responsible for her friend’s death. ‘Go, tell them what happened. Tell them it was Carter’s father. He can’t get Carter. They have to catch him. It was him. All him. He wanted the money.’
‘Stop moving. I don’t want to cut you.’
The flames licked under the door. ‘Cherry. Go.’ It was a screech.
Cherry shook her head and kept cutting.
Prita blinked back tears, unable to do anything, the roar of her death rushing towards her at any moment. Oh god. Carter. Flynn. Papa. She wanted to tell them she loved them, that she wanted everything good for them.
‘Tell them yourself when you get out of here.’ The knife slipped and cut her arm, but she didn’t flinch and Cherry didn’t apologise. She just kept sawing as the flames licked under the door.
***
‘We found Mac. He’s alive,’ Detective Constable Bryce Harrington, an old mate from schooldays, came running up to the ute as Flynn hopped out.
‘Prita?’
The detective shook his head. ‘She’s not here.’
‘Did Mac say anything?’
‘He’s received a severe head injury. Constable Bruce is calling the air ambulance. He needs treatment. Do you want to see him?’
‘I have to find Prita.’
‘You go door to door, Flynn,’ John said. ‘I’ll stay with Mac until the ambulance gets here.’
‘Call Mum.’
John nodded as he disappeared around the back, leaving Flynn with the detective. ‘You go up the end. I’ll start down here,’ Flynn said, ignoring the fact that this was a police investigation and Bryce should be calling the shots. His old mate didn’t argue though, just took off down the long street to start at the shops and houses at the other end. Flynn ran from door to door to ask if anyone had seen anything. Reid and Diarmuid arrived and went to the middle of the street. People were calling around.
Nobody had seen anything. There was nothing.
Then Sally and Ned Lion pulled into the front of their fish and chip shop. ‘What’s going on?’ Ned asked him as he hopped out of his car.
‘Prita’s missing. We think she’s been kidnapped.’
‘What? But we saw her car turn into the back road at CoalCliff, the one that led directly to the cottage.’
Flynn grabbed Sally Lion by the shoulders. ‘When?’
‘About an hour ago. We were coming back from Traralgon and tooted, but I don’t think she saw us.’
‘An hour?’ But it was a ten-minute drive between that road and here.
‘We took Steph to Walhalla for a treat at the lolly shop.’
He didn’t stop to hear the rest of the story, just started a running limp towards his ute, yelling at them to go tell the detective, and seconds later, was fishtailing out of there, driving like a madman to CoalCliff
He rounded bends, barely slowing down, ignoring the scream of his knee as he used the clutch. He had to get back to CoalCliff. Had to.
An hour. The bastard had her there for over an hour. What could he do in that time?
His tyres spun out on the gravel as he turned into the road that led to the cottage, but he didn’t slow down. He could smell smoke. Then he saw it, through a gap in the trees as he crested the rise that led down to the cottage—smoke drifting up into the blue of the sky.
The cottage was on fire.
He almost stopped, but his need to find Prita drove him on.
He’d not told her he loved her. She’d said the words. But he hadn’t. He’d admitted his love without saying the words. Why hadn’t he said the words?
The road looped around the side of the cottage and he pulled up short, skidding across the dirt road so as not to hit her car which was parked out the front. Smoke poured out the front door of the cottage, the orange of flames flickering through the windows, licking up the ceiling.
No. No.
There was movement at the corner of his eye and he turned, hope alive in his chest, thinking it was her, that she was outside and safe and it was only the cottage they were going to lose. But it wasn’t Prita. It was a man running into the bush on the other side of the cottage, two red containers in his hands. He didn’t turn back, so Flynn didn’t think he’d been seen by the man as he ran down the track that led to the gully and the road there, but Flynn recognised him.
Max Smith. The man who always seemed to be hanging around Prita. Who was supposedly starting up a candle business—although, when he’d knocked on the door of that shop and peered through the windows earlier, the place had been empty, like nobody had ever been there.
Why would he be after Prita? What reason would he have for setting the fires? Prita had done nothing but been kind to him, treated him a few times as a patient. It didn’t make sense.
Not that it mattered. The cottage was really going up now and Prita was inside. He had to do something.
He hopped out of the ute and made it a few limping steps forward, but the heat and smoke came at him, freezing him in place. He tried to step forward, but everything swayed and he was going
