Page 73 of Bay of Plenty

I took a screen shot of the DOC map that showed the two huts. Kui gave me instructions to meet her cousin down the street. My pulse seized, my breathing on edge thinking about it.

Declan turned up with our teas. I checked to ensure the police officers were talking, opened a few doors, then steered Declan into a cleaning closet and told him what had happened.

“I can’t let Kingi be arrested for a crime he didn’t commit.” I looked at him, pleading. “And he can help our case in so many ways. I promise I’ll be back in time for the campground auction tomorrow at three. Kingi might have seen or noticed something about Snow. Outside his usual environment, and maybe with his guard down, Snow might have let something slip about the winery or heroin. Even if Kingi is best friendswith Snow, his brother comes first. No way would Kingi allow Rangi to be swept up in the arrests of a heroin ring.

“And he was there the night Janey met someone. He must have seen who Janey was talking to, even though he insisted at the time he hadn’t. His memories might help if the police want to identify me as the person Janey met that night.”

“Okay.” Declan gave a huge sigh and ran his hand through his hair. “You are quite literally the biggest pain in the ass I’ve ever worked with, and I’ve worked with some award winners.” He shook his head. “I should have my head read that I’m letting you wander off into the bush by yourself.”

I was the biggest pain in the ass ever. Even better,hisass. I liked thinking about his ass. Especially in his washed-out jeans, which had everyone checking him out. I felt irrationally, idiotically happy, as if the sun had beamed into my chest and lit up the sparkles inside.

He kissed me passionately. Then, the sweetest kiss ever. “Come back to me,” he whispered in my ear.

Chapter Forty-Eight

How the hellwas I going to get past the police?

I couldn’t, not without a diversion. I had to find another way out. While Declan kept watch, I headed for the bathroom at the other end of the hall. Inside, one of the top windows was open slightly. Standing on the sill, I punched it open. It moved slightly. Punch, slight move. But then it wouldn’t give any more. I hauled myself up, twisting and turning to get through, scraping my thighs and hips painfully.

God, nothing about sitting on my ass all day in an office had prepared me for this. At least I had those hours of surfing. Folded over, I pulled my foot up near my waist, trying to get a hold on the bottom of the window. Footsteps. Heels. A woman.Quick.A final heave. Harder than I thought. I tumbled all the way out, thudding onto the concrete headfirst.Fuck.How bad was it? I wiped my face. Blood on my hands. Keep going. I scrambled to my feet and ran to the back street, sprinting from bush to bush and checking back.

Around the corner, I spotted the blue pickup truck. Kui’s cousin. “Don’t talk to her,” Kui had told me. “She can’t know anything about you or Kingi.”

I vaulted straight into the truck’s tray and hid under the tarpaulin until we got home. While she waited in thedriveway, I checked I’d stopped bleeding, washed all the blood from my hands and face, ran into the garage, grabbed a sleeping bag and a torch, and stuffed them in a backpack. In my bedroom, I snatched my Teddy-walking puffer jacket, my portable phone charger because the huts had no electricity, and one of Mum’s old wool sweaters. In the kitchen, keeping an eye out for the police in front, I filled two water bottles—I had to hope the huts had rainwater tanks—and grabbed the three protein bars I could find. I flung open the cupboards. What else would travel? In desperation, I wrapped a hunk of ham.

I scrambled back under the truck tarpaulin, and she took off. If, by any chance, she was stopped and searched, Kui had told her to act shocked and angry that I’d sneaked onto her truck, and she’d say she’d never seen me before.

My heart was pounding. God, was this how things were rolling? My chest felt pumped up with a taut balloon of fear and dread at how much could go wrong. Kingi’s safety was in my hands—I was the only one who could keep him out of jail. And he might be the only one to help me avoid the same fate.

I glanced at my phone. It was ten o’clock already.

I assessed the trip, reviewing my screenshot of the map. A ninety-minute drive would bring me to the trailhead by noon at the latest. After a five-hour hike uphill to the top of the mountain, I had to pick one of the two disused huts. They were in opposite directions, both about two hours from the top. Sunset was at eight-thirty on the beach, but it probably got darker earlier in the mountains without street or house lights. If I made the wrong decision, I would have to scramble around in the dark.

I shut off my phone to preserve the battery, though coverage in the mountains was spotty to nonexistent.

For ninety minutes, I felt horribly carsick and braced myself for the thumps and turns, cow manure, and tractor fumes, trying to think only about the hike ahead. But when I heard the calls of children in a school playground, terror seized me again.

I had two men with a list of reasons why I was better off dead. One had thought about it yesterday, thought seriously about it, but had not done it. But after a sleepless night, it might feel like a more efficient way to eliminate this huge problem blighting his life. The other one, Sarge, might have already killed an innocent teenager, so he wouldn’t have the same qualms. He’d already tried to pin her murder on me.

The truck screeched to a halt. Quick hands unlaced the tarpaulin. I burrowed my way out, dripping with sweat and stuck with dog hair. Kui’s cousin had already climbed into the driver’s seat.

I grabbed my backpack, threw it onto the ground, and jumped. No sooner had my foot left the side of the truck than she sped away in a cloud of dust.

Coughing, I rolled my head back.There they are.The ancient mountains of Te Urewera rose like sphinxes guarding precious secrets. This place was recognised in New Zealand law as a living, breathing human, with the same rights. Unlike humans, though, these mountains seemed unknowable.

But were humans certain and knowable? I’d thought so in London, based my whole career on it, assessing and categorizing, noticing small things that led to larger truths. But Kui, Bevan, CeeCee, Mum, Dad, and Janey weren’t exactly as I’d remembered them.

Maybe I was blinded by this beautiful, humbling place,but the thought that I couldn’t capture, define, and judge everything didn’t make me panicky or leave me grasping at reminders of how it worked in London. It made me unbound and joyful.

I hoisted on my backpack with a swing. The sleeping bag inside was bulging to the left. After unpacking the water, I flapped the sleeping bag flat onto the ground and rolled it tighter.

The grind of a truck startled me.Kui’s cousin?Had I left something in the back of the truck? But this truck had the grunt and depth of a more powerful vehicle. It was getting closer, too close. My hands shook uncontrollably. My head burst with visions of hunters with drooling dogs and shotguns. I was a woman, alone, with no one for miles. My screams would go unheard. Should I run? Hide in the bushes until they’d gone ahead? I reached into my backpack for my phone, turned it on, slid it into my front pocket, and pushed “Record.”If something does happen to me today, at least my phone will be found.

Or so I hoped.

The truck skidded into the clearing in a cloud of dust. Too late to run. Through the windshield, I saw the swollen profile of Sarge, the glint of his rifle on the passenger seat.

*

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