Page 54 of Beneath the Sapphire Sky

She choked down the sob that forced its way up her throat.

Her mum. She was who Belle had to focus on now, not Dante.

No matter what she’d said.

Chapter Twenty

Dante scrubbed athis face and swirled a mouthful of water around his teeth. The night creatures that made the national park their home fell silent as searchers approached them, but he could hear crickets and other bigger things in the distance, including other searchers.

“Jem! Jemima Davis!”

Dante glanced at Mick to his left. They’d been at it since joining the group they’d been assigned to had left at midnight. He tapped his phone screen.

Four-thirty AM.

He could see the trees and rocks taking more shape beyond the bright beams of their LED torches, the tall eucalypts and pines delineated against the rapidly paling pre-dawn gloom. He had no reception out here; the wildly folding landscape of cliffs with sheer drops falling hundreds of feet into impossible-to-traverse ravines, then shooting up to immense mountains, did not allow mobile phone signals to penetrate.

Each group had UHF radios, and a satellite phone to talk to base.

They all had scratches and scrapes, despite the thick material of the bright orange with reflective stripes, standard-issue SES long-sleeved shirt and pants. A few of them had taken tumbles over the smaller rocks and branches not seen properly underfoot.

He was one of them. His knee throbbed even now, hours after he’d face-planted in front of everyone. No one had laughed,though, the seriousness of the waning hours not lost on any of them.

If Mrs Davis was out here, they had to find her soon. While it wasn’t freezing, the mountain air had a crisp note to it that wouldn’t be kind to an unwell, aging woman with no jumper.

Ewan, the senior SES unit leader of their group, stopped them and talked for a moment, then pointed off in front of the group of searchers. “Spread out a little, but make sure you can see clearly. Don’t leave any gaps.”

Dante nodded and moved off to his right. He turned at a tap on his shoulder. Mac’s lips twisted in the semblance of a smile. He’d come out with them, unable to stay behind at the tent a moment longer.

“She didn’t mean it, you know.”

Dante looked away into the now not-so-gloomy distance. There was no use pretending he didn’t know what Mac was talking about. Half the SES command centre had heard.

… For something that isn’t real.

Even now, hours later, it shafted pain deep inside to twist and claw where his heart should’ve been.

Maybe even more so than when she’d said it.

“Sure felt like it.”

“She’s desperate, Dante. She was just lashing out. She saw you and, I don’t know, it must have finally hit her. Don’t they say we always hurt those closest to us?”

Dante scrubbed at his eyes and moved to the outside of the line of twelve volunteers. He looked over and gauged how far apart he and Mac should be and started moving forward with the rest.

Random shouts calling out Jem’s name were interspersed with a bated silence, hoping against all the mounting odds that someone would hear a response.

He didn’t want to talk about it, not here and not now. Besides the fact that they had to stay quiet to hear any possible sounds from Mrs Davis, he wasn’t in the mood to dissect it with Mac.

The worst part was, she was right.

Neither he nor any of his brothers had long-term relationships. Barring Angel, and that had ended badly. He hadn’t thought about it much, if he was being totally honest. It wasn’t like he was a serial dater or anything like that. More often than not he was alone.

Or rather, he was with Belle.

That was something she apparently hadn’t considered. He’d been in the constant company of a girl, then a woman, since he was five.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want a girlfriend.

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