“Yes, of course, I—”
Rohan’s hand darted out and took the phone from her. Kim wasn’t sure what she’d been about to say, but Rohan seemed to know before she did that it wouldn’t be the right thing. He held her phone screen pressed flat against his chest. He was breathing harder, Kim could see. So was she. She could barely hear the engine over the pounding in her head.
As she watched, Rohan slowly put his foot down on the accelerator. He glanced once at their baby sleeping in the back seat, then to her disbelief, lifted his remaining hand from the steering wheel. Kim’s heart leaped in her throat so hard she nearly gagged.
“Please. Rohan—” She formed the words but not the sound as the road zipped past the window, her lungs squeezed tight.
“You still there?” Charlie’s voice sounded far away on the other end of the line.
Painstakingly slowly, Rohan raised the hand that had been controlling the steering wheel and put his finger to his lips. He looked again in the rearview mirror at Zoe, then at Kim. The car skidded a little.
Kim nodded, her heart drumming, her pulse catching in her throat. Rohan held her gaze for a long moment. A sense of understanding passed between them, although Kim couldn’t quite have said exactly what she was agreeing to. Finally, so slowly, Rohan placed his hand back on the wheel. He took the phone away from his chest and passed it back. Kim breathed out the air she had been holding in, the release itself burning and painful. Rohan was talking, sounding so disturbingly ordinary that Kim struggled to take in the words.
“Hello? Can you hear us now?” Rohan had raised his voice half a notch, then dropped it again. “Sorry, guys, this is all a bit hard with Zoe right here. Look, could we just agree Zara should go tonight? Have fun. We’ll work something out for another time.”
“Great. Okay,” Zara said quickly.
“I—” Kim took a breath before she could change her mind, but Charlie was already talking.
“Hey, listen. Why don’t you stop by the festival instead?” he was saying. “We’ll all be there.”
“Well—” Kim knew instinctively how Rohan wanted her to answer. Her palm was slick against the phone. Forget what Rohan wants. What does Zoe need? Her daughter needed to be somewhere very safe. The festival? It was always busy, not just with tourists but with locals, too. Kim would know a lot of people there.
“Yes. Okay, then.” She found the words fast, before Rohan could stop her. “We’ll come to the festival.”
Her husband shot her a look she had never seen before.
“I’m catching up with my parents tonight.” For the first time, Kim thought Rohan sounded tense. “But yeah, we could maybe swing by.”
“All right,” Charlie was saying. Did he sound a little—what? Suspicious? Uncertain? Kim wasn’t sure. On the screen the fixed smile was back. “Good. Well, we’ll see you three there.”
“Okay. See you there.” Kim could feel Rohan’s eyes on her. She lifted the edges of her mouth into as much of a smile as she could manage and gently bit the tip of her tongue. Zoe was so small in the back seat. They were expected at the festival. The town was not far away. This was nearly over. She was nearly home.
“Great. Bye, Mum.” Zara sounded distracted. “Love you.”
“Bye, Zara.” Kim wanted to look at her daughter’s face, but instead she could see only the fabric of Zara’s top as she leaned toward the screen. “I love you—”
She was gone. The call went dead.
Kim looked at the silent phone in her hand. Rohan reached out fast and palmed it, placing it carefully back in the center console where he could see it. Kim wiped her hands on her jeans and made herself concentrate.
They were only thirty minutes from Marralee. They would arrive. They would go to the festival. Kim could picture it. A fragile bud of relief unfurled. She would find Charlie there. She would ask if she and Zoe could come home with him, and Charlie would say yes, because of course he would, because she and Charlie had always looked after each other. The bushland was thick around her. All that she needed was waiting at the end of this very long stretch of road.
Then Rohan slowed, and put the indicator on.
35
“Kim was never at the festival.”
Falk spoke as quietly as he could over the clamor of the rides and music. He waited then, as Sergeant Dwyer simply stared at him for a long moment. The officer slowly tilted his head and raised his eyes upward to the ferris wheel. Next to him, Raco did the same. Falk didn’t need to. He had seen enough. The ride creaked and groaned overhead. Gone before she was gone.
Falk said nothing else, giving Dwyer the same space and time he’d needed himself to let the implications fully wash over him.
Falk wasn’t sure how many minutes he’d stood fixed in that spot, staring up at the wheel as his thoughts tumbled in a new unsettling direction, but it had been long enough for Raco to notice. He had left the others queueing for a children’s ride farther up the path and wandered back to Falk, concerned. They had talked then, urgent, distressing words passing between them. This, here. This is what we were missing. The two men had looked at each other, then Raco had pulled out his phone and called Dwyer. The sergeant had made his way over from across the festival grounds, then stood in the shadow of the ferris wheel himself, arms folded and face set, as he listened to what Falk had to say.
“There were sightings of Kim.” Dwyer dropped his gaze from the wheel now, his voice low. “I’m not talking just one, either. I’ve got a string of people who reckon they spotted her.”
“No. Saw someone like her, maybe.” Falk shook his head. “Medium height, medium build, dark hair. There’d have been a hundred women here that night who would match that description. But no one who actually knew Kim saw her, or spoke to her.” He watched Dwyer closely. The sergeant wasn’t disagreeing. “You said it yourself, mate, something seemed off there, and you were right. We all see what we expect to see. A dad holding two ice creams, standing outside the women’s toilets, chatting to friends going in and out. Of course his wife’s inside. Why wouldn’t she be?”
Dwyer didn’t reply immediately, instead glancing pointedly once more to the top of the wheel and then back to Falk. “And here?” he asked neutrally.
“Eva Raco made me wake up to it. Something she pointed out as obvious. This is a small-town festival. Strangers wave at strangers from rides. Because it’s what they do. It’s fun.” Falk held out his hands. He wished he could go back, do things differently, but he wasn’t going to make the error worse by trying to dodge it. “Okay, I didn’t know Kim, but still. I shouldn’t have taken what I saw at face value. That’s my fault.”
Dwyer frowned now. “So Rohan—what? Parks the stroller with Zoe inside, then wanders over here and finds a couple of tourists who have no idea what his wife looks like?”
“Yeah.” Falk nodded. “I think so. If he picks someone who wouldn’t know Kim up close, they’re always going to take his word for it at a distance in the dark. Rohan gets chatting to the Queensland family, looks up at the ride, finds a woman with a resemblance to Kim and rolls the dice and waves, because why not? If she doesn’t wave back, no harm done. But how bloody handy if she does?”