Vanished by James Delargy (free novel 24 TXT) 📕

up ladders and across rope bridges, bouncing and spinning and jumping, full of the joys of life. She willed it to last. When he got older, those moments would become fewer. But not entirely gone. There were always chances to play. You just had to know where to look.

‘Nee!’

Leona was skittering across the cafe, her arms outstretched. Using some kind of innate sonar she managed to avoid the other tables, her narrow hips and elongated frame assisting with the skilful manoeuvring.

‘Lee!’

There was a hug. Naiyana’s face pressed into her shoulder, a warmth in the hug. Old friends meeting.

‘How are you? How’s life outside the big city?’

‘Perth’s not that big,’ said Naiyana, more to dampen her own inner pining than the truth.

‘Compared to everywhere I passed on the way here it is.’

Leona threw her head back and laughed. She always got a kick out of her own jokes, as if she herself was surprised that she had managed to come up with something so witty.

Leona glanced around. ‘This town looks okay though. Better in real life than it does in your vlogs.’

Naiyana’s smile became wry. ‘If only I lived somewhere as metropolitan as this.’

‘I thought the place in your vlogs looked emptier.’

Naiyana stopped the chit-chat. It was time for serious business.

‘Is the heat still bad?’

‘It is summer after all,’ said Leona, accompanied by the thrown-back head and unrestrained guffaw.

‘Seriously, Lee.’

Leona pursed her lips and nodded. ‘We’re still getting threats.’

‘Towards the charity?’

‘And towards you.’ At this Leona looked around the cafe furtively, then back to her. ‘The owners of BS Foods,’ she chortled at the derogatory nickname Naiyana had conceived during their pursuit of the company, ‘have been to HQ looking to contact you.’

‘And?’

‘And what? We haven’t given them an address.’

‘You don’t have one.’

‘True.’

‘Did they say what they wanted?’

‘No, but I guess they are in damage control. They changed the ingredients like we asked. Apparently it tastes like dog food now. Cheap dog food,’ she laughed, head thrown back.

Naiyana wondered what BS wanted with her. She supposed that getting her to endorse the altered product might generate positive publicity for a company that was trying to repair its reputation and sales figures.

‘We also had a protest outside HQ from some of the people who lost their jobs. That was a fun day,’ said Leona. This was accompanied not by a laugh but almost a glare.

‘So you’re saying that the shitstorm is ongoing?’

‘Blowin’ strong.’

Despite the continuing stormy weather front, Naiyana felt a pang at not being back there to do anything about it. She was missing an opportunity to turn something bad into something good. Her main goal in the first place. But also the drive that had led her into this mess in the first place. So fuck BS Foods. The loss of jobs was regrettable but acceptable collateral damage. They were the ones who had tried to force a dangerous product onto the market.

‘Chester Grant has also been in contact,’ said Leona. ‘Well his office has, to be more accurate.’

‘What does the slimy bastard want?’

‘Not sure. Probably the same as BS.’

Naiyana nodded at this. No doubt the weasel was getting a stick up the arse from BS and his now jobless constituents.

‘There might be another reason for our esteemed MP getting in contact,’ said Naiyana, unable to hold it back.

‘What?’ asked Leona, intrigued.

‘I can’t say. Other than it might be to do with BS. BS on top of BS,’ said Naiyana and sniffed a laugh. ‘But on another topic, what do you think of the vlogs?’

‘Outback Motherhood? I love them!’ said Leona. ‘But you need to be more than a voice behind the camera. We should see you.’

Naiyana thought so as well, but that would bring risks. But wasn’t life all about risks? She had taken so many already that she could tolerate another few. As long as no one found out the location of the town, it would be a massive fuck-you to BS Foods and Chester Grant.

42

Emmaline

The afternoon brought with it a report from Tech on Lorcan’s phone. Naiyana’s was still offline and missing.

The date of the final, frantic recording was confirmed. The thirtieth of December at 17:03.

The rest of Lorcan’s movements had been analysed – when his phone had been within range of the mast 14 km north of Hurton anyway. Like most in the area it was a super mast but didn’t quite have the span to reach Kallayee. It never needed to before.

Emmaline ushered Oily and Rispoli into the caravan, a very non-hi-tech base for the investigation. Fittingly it was falling apart like the town itself. Barker and Anand had been sent into Hurton to question the locals as to whether they had heard a gunshot sometime in the afternoon of 30 December. Or last night. And to garner any further information on the family’s movements during their sixteen days in town. That was all. Sixteen days. Emmaline couldn’t help but think that the family seemed to stir up a world of shit wherever they went.

‘So this is what we know. We have Lorcan – and presumably the family – leaving Perth on the twelfth December. An overnight in Kalgoorlie before passing the towers around Kanowna and Menzies and arriving in Hurton on the thirteenth. After then it goes dark until the fifteenth when his phone connected and a matching credit-card charge was made in the local hardware store in Hurton. One call to his parents. Five minutes.’

‘According to them it was nothing urgent,’ said Oily. ‘Confirmation that they had arrived, found a place, were settling in, etc., etc.’

‘Then he was in Hurton again on the sixteenth. More expenditure on materials.’

‘So we can assume that they didn’t quite know what they were getting into,’ said Rispoli.

‘Possibly on a number of fronts,’ said Emmaline, thinking about the missing data and the boycotted baby food.

She continued. ‘Then on the nineteenth Lorcan Maguire – and his son – stayed overnight in Kalgoorlie, purchasing more materials there including the DIY furniture still present in the house,