“Oh, thank God.” It’s barely audible.
I tuck my arm under myself and retrieve what I can now see is the phone I was searching for. I shift my eyes to the screen. It’s not cracked, and there’s still power. The battery bar reads twenty-eight percent. Two thin bars fill the service section.
My eyes grow wide. My heart accelerates. I press my finger against the digits I can now see clearly. 000.
“Fire, police or ambulance,” the automated voice says.
My need to cry grows strong. It may only be an automated voice, but it’s the first I’ve heard apart from the wolf’s in days.
“All units.” My voice trembles.
Ring, ring, ring.
“What is your emergency?” His voice is soft, tender.
I sob. “Morgan Banks. I’m Morgan Banks. Help me. Help!”
“Morgan, what is your emergency?”
The line goes dead.
Noooooooo. The word screams in my head, but I don’t dare shout it aloud.
I punch in ten numbers, ten numbers that can bring me help. Ten numbers that will lead to someone who knows I’m not where I’m supposed to be.
“Reid, pick up. Pick up the goddamn phone.”
Reid
The sun is bright. I dip my chin so I’m looking towards the gravel. My legs and arms warm to the point I rub one hand over my wrist to alleviate the burn.
Kylee reaches out her arms, wrapping them around my waist. We stand in an embrace beside West’s car in the hospital car park, as sweat drips from my brow.
“It wasn’t our girl. It wasn’t our girl,” Kylee cries against my chest.
I stroke my hand over the top of her hair repeatedly. Pain constricts the flow of blood to my heart as images of the woman who West said wore my wife’s clothing plays on a loop. If that’s what he did to her, then what has he done to Morgan?
Ring, ring, ring.
A vibration tingles against my thigh. The sound coming from my pants is enough for me to force myself from Kylee’s embrace. I fumble the phone inside my pocket and then bring it to my ear.
“Where’s my fucking wife?” I scream down the line before he even has a chance to say a word.
“Reid, help me.” Her voice is soft, yet croaky.
“Morgan!” I screech.
“Help me,” she cries.
West marches toward me.
“Baby, where are you? Tell me where you are?” I plead.
Kylee clutches my free arm. “Mumma’s here,” she yells.
“I’m here,” Ronald hollers.
“Mum. Dad,” Morgan cries harder.
“Morgan, where are you?” I shout. I don’t mean to yell, but I’m scared, I’m so bloody scared.
“Trees.” She puffs. “Bushland. Lots of bushland.”
“Bushland.” My throat stings from the tears filling my eyes.
West snatches the phone from my grip. “Morgan, I’m Detective Astin West. We’re trying to find you. We need your help. Do not hang up.” He pauses. “Good girl,” he says. “How are you? What condition?” He stops speaking, and it feels like an eternity until he says, “How bad?”
He pauses. “Okay. We can get you help, but you need to help me find you. What can you see?” He’s listening intently. “A rock wall … Good work. Okay, what else?” He pauses again. “Your children are fine. They’re fine, I promise.” He stops speaking. “Morgan.” There’s a long pause. “Morgan, Morgan.” He waits. “Morgan! Morgan, can you hear me?” His tone oozes desperation. “Morgan, answer me if you can hear me.” He stomps his foot to the ground. “Shit.” He drops his arm and then his head.
“No,” I spit.
West stretches out his arm toward Gleaton, still holding my phone. “Roland, call the techies now. See if that line is the line we’re tracing. Tell them if it’s not to try and track the GPS on the number that Morgan just called from. I’ll text it to you from Reid’s phone. Meet me back at the house.”
“On it.” He nods.
“Prospect. Maloney. You two hit the road and do a sweep of the house before we get there.”
“Yes, sir,” Maloney says with a military response.
“Reid, Kylee, and Ronald, you’ll ride with me. Let’s go.”
Ring, ring, ring.
West stops mid-stride. “Hello,” he says hesitantly. “Morgan. You’ve got bad service. The battery is dying. Okay, you’re doing a good job, but I need more information from you. What can you tell me about the people who have you? Is it one person or two or more?”
I’m stiff as a board. My fingers seize in a claw and my jaw tenses, shooting pain through my temples.
“Okay. Good job. Have you somewhere to hide?” He begins to pace. “Go there. Stay there. Don’t come out. We’re doing everything to find you. Save the last of the battery so you can turn the GPS on, and we will try to track your position. I need you to make sure the GPS is turned on. Do you know where to look?” He stops dead in his tracks. “Yes, yes, that’s right.” West tilts his chin upwards, looking at the sky. I’m not sure why. Is it something Morgan said?
“Okay, Morgan. Hang on.” He jogs straight toward me and presses the phone against my cheek.
“I love you,” Morgan says, weakly.
“I love you, Morgan. I love you so much. I promise we’ll find you, baby—just hang on for me. Fight for us! Morgan, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry."
She’s sobbing. “Bye, my love.”
The line goes dead.
The Wolf
Nothing is going as planned. The long stretch of road does nothing to decrease the searing anger hell-bent on keeping me livid. I close my eyes, blinded to possible oncoming traffic, and ask myself if I need to get Winston’s night-vision headgear, or if I can find Morgan before sunset with what I’ve got. Time is of the essence.
My work phone chimes. I flick open my eyes and reach down to the console. Private number flashes across the screen.
“Hello.”
“What phone have you lost?” It’s a worried tone.
“None,” I reply, as smooth as butter.
“Sure of that?”
“Yes.”
“Bullshit. Morgan has a phone, you fucktard, and she’s made contact with her husband.”
“What?” I think hard. “Oh, shit! My emergency phone was in my pocket.” I reef the steering wheel in one hard pull and drive to the side of the road. The tyres of my ute go sliding through dirt until I reach a dead stop. “My emergency phone,” I repeat, patting down my pockets. It’s not there. “That fucking bitch.”
“Do you have this under control or do you need a plane ticket out of here?”
“I’ll sort it.”
“What’s on that phone? Is it the one you’ve been calling Reid on, or …”
“It’s the one I take out to the bush with me. There’s nothing on it.” I pause. “Oh shit, there is.”
“Will she figure it out?”
“She’ll come close.”
“How did she—”
“Stabbed me in the fucking back with scissors.”
“Shit.” A tense growl follows.
I hear voices.
“I have to go.”
The line goes dead.
“Fuuuuuuuck,” I roar, but then I stop. I close my eyes. I think. I can track the GPS. My lips tug into a smile. It looks like this may turn out to be the best outcome under the circumstances I’ve found myself embroiled in.
“I’m coming for you, Red,” I breathe, yanking the steering wheel and completing a U-turn.
I need to find Morgan, now.
“There’s a wolf in the dark, in the dark,
Turn around, don’t be blind, you can find him.
There’s a house in the dark, in the dark,
There’s a light on the hill … STOP! Look behind you.
Never stop running. Never stop searching. Or the wolf will destroy you.”
My mother’s voice is singing the song of “The Wolf” in my mind—the song she sang to us each morning from the age I turned five. It’s a tune created to teach us to run if we were scared as evil is always behind you.
I laugh, a bellowing laugh. I never run. I never get scared. I was the wolf in the making, and my mother was blind to the monster she herself had created.
Hooooonk! Hoooonk!
A glimpse of a white cattle truck catches the corner of my eye.
I rip the steering wheel in a hard left, bouncing over the rough terrain on the side of the road. Holy shit. I didn’t see it coming. I raise my hand in an offer of apology to the driver of the small cattle truck that continues past me.