Page 16 of Bound By Truth (An Island Bound Novel)

Reed could sense an edge of hysteria in his voice. He wanted to demand to know why the man had waited so long to call the police, but he kept his voice calm. Berating the guy and the family for not realizing that minutes made a difference would help no one.

“Right, give me your location and I’ll be over as soon as I can,” Reed said, furiously writing the details down as the man spoke.

This wasn’t good. Reed’s training kicked in as he went over protocol in his mind. He needed to get to the original site where the girl went missing ASAP so he could safeguard the integrity of it, in case the girl wasn’t found. Important clues to the girl’s whereabouts could be lost forever if someone was allowed to touch or move something they shouldn’t.

Pulling his police-issue coat on, he juggled his cell in one hand as he swiped the keys to the last remaining squad car off the peg board. Cell coverage was patchy on the island, and Reed prayed the Sarge was in a good spot right now as he dialed his boss’s number.

“Officer Coldwater.” The Sarge answered on the second ring.

“Don, we’ve got a situation. I just received a call about a five-year-old girl who’s gone missing. Her name’s Jessica Walker. It seems her family are tourists on the island and she’s wandered away from their rental accommodation in Penneshaw. I’m on my way over there now.” Reed had managed to get his coat on one-handed, and was slinging his police belt around his waist as he made for the back door and the garage.

There was a second’s silence on the end of the phone as Don digested the news. This kind of thing didn’t happen often in this small community.

“Right, Olivia and I are on our way. I’ll phone this in and organize a search and rescue on the drive back over. Everyone will assemble at the local fire station in Penneshaw. People should be there to help by the time we get back.” Reed could almost hear the Sarge ticking things off in his head, much the same as Reed was doing while he slammed the back door and strode towards the vehicle.

“Have you ever worked a missing-child case before?” Don asked, his tone clipped but soft.

“No,” Reed replied. “A couple of missing teenagers in Ballarat. But they were runaways, we found them at a friend’s house two days later.”

“Me neither,” Don admitted. “We’ve never had to deal with anything like this before.”

“I’m going to preserve the scene first. That’s critical.” Reed said. He was standing beside the car now, desperate to get off the phone so he could jump in and drive.

“We need to find her, Reed. Soon,” Don said quietly. “The girl’s welfare is paramount, of course. You know as well as I do, the longer these things go on the worse the possible outcome. There’s also going to be a media shitstorm if we don’t. And I, for one, don’t want to have to deal with that.”

Reed silently agreed with his boss. “Got it, Sarge. See you in Penneshaw.” He ended the call and hopped into the car, hoping he remembered how to get back to the ferry-port town. He’d only done the drive once so far, and that was in the dark, following Sierra’s taillights.

* * *

Sierra pulled her car in next to the curb and switched off the engine. Penneshaw was busy today; there were people everywhere in the street, which was a little unusual. She looked down at the list of shopping on the passenger seat, wondering if she’d forgotten anything. It was time to replenish her food supplies, and the local IGA supermarket always stocked her favorites. Mostly local products made right here on the island, like the special sheep cheese she loved, with the wonderful homemade relish to go with it.

It was snug and warm in the car and Sierra wasn’t looking forward to stepping into the biting wind she knew would greet her outside. There was no rain forecast today, but the wind alone dropped the temperature by many degrees, even when the sun managed to send down its weak light.

Her thoughts travelled backward, over the past few days she’d spent at home. Days spent poring over the documents Jen had sent her. Sierra made copious notes of her own as she read them, and she also made a few phone calls to confirm something she’d read, or back up hunches on a particular line of investigation.

Her neighbors, Sam and Debbie, had been like angels from heaven when they’d arrived on her doorstep three days earlier, just as Sierra started sorting through the notes. Sam handed over a laptop he said had been sitting around gathering dust in their spare room as he strode in through the front door, and Debbie marched in behind him with a plate full of freshly made scones. After Sierra made them tea and they ate the scones on the front deck, they left, but not before they assured themselves Sierra really was okay after her break-in.

It was an old Apple Mac laptop, but it still worked, even if it was slow, and once Sierra connected it to the internet, she was able to download a lot of her stuff off the Cloud. She was back in business. Sort of.

Sierra would never admit it to Jen, but it felt good to be working on something serious again. It’d take a lot longer than three days to piece together the story of the missing girls and to find out all the information she needed, but she’d made a good start. Had an interesting conversation with one of the detectives who’d worked the case three years ago and gleaned some extra details that weren’t in any of the reports she had. Who knew, they could be important. And she’d made some other calls to social workers and journalists who’d either worked on, or followed the case.

Another thing she’d never admit to Jen was the amount of time she spent thinking about Reed. If her mind stopped its machinations about the case for even a few minutes, she’d somehow find him in her thoughts, instead. The way he stood looking out her windows at the ocean. So solid, so assured of himself. The way his hand rested lightly on his gun belt, the other shoved in the pocket of his pants. Those strong fingers, with his honey-warm skin, made her think of how it would feel to have him trace his palm over her body.

A gust of wind buffeted her car, and shook her out of her daydreaming. She grabbed her weatherproof coat from the back seat and slung her handbag over her shoulder, then hopped out of the car. It really was as cold as she’d been expecting.

First of all, she needed to send a letter to Keira. She wished she could be in Hawaii with her sibling right now, or at least someplace warmer. She did love living on KI, most of the time. Keira probably wouldn’t answer the letter, she often didn’t, but Sierra felt better for at least keeping up her side of the sisterhood.

Keeping up with her younger brother, however, was not as easy. Logan never answered her emails or letters. Logan was a lot younger than Sierra. Mum had never said anything, but Sierra suspected he might have been an accident. She had an inkling her parents had been happy to stop at two girls. Then when Logan came along it’d turned their neat, predictable lives on edge. There were seven years between her and Logan, and maybe it was because of this large age gap, but she and her brother never seemed to see eye to eye. Her mum had complained the other day that she hadn’t heard from either of Sierra’s two siblings in ages.

She jumped up the two steps from the pavement and into the local newsstand. The shop doubled as the post office in this small town. The bell above the door jangled happily as she closed it behind her.

“Hi, Evan,” she called breezily to the stocky, bespectacled man at the other end of the shop. He came toward her, a large box in his hands, which he placed carefully on the counter and turned to face her.

“Hello, Sierra. Good to see you again. How did you go with that parcel I gave you the other night?” Evan’s voice was deep and gravelly. He kept his red beard neatly trimmed, and his thinning hair precisely combed over to one side. Sierra could only guess at his age, but thought he was on the downward slide toward sixty. He kept in shape for his age, and fitted in well with the small community.

“All good,” she chirped. “I gave it to Debbie, like you asked.” She didn’t mention that she’d been so caught up in the break-in that she’d forgotten all about it until yesterday.

He stared at her for a second and Sierra could’ve sworn he didn’t believe her, but then his features morphed back into their normal affable smile and he said, “Great. Thanks. What are you after, luv? I was just about to close up.”

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