Vanished by James Delargy (free novel 24 TXT) 📕

‘It was spotted from the air,’ said Rispoli, pointing at two people gawping from behind the hastily erected tape. Emmaline didn’t recognize them. ‘They were in a light aircraft, passing low along the gorge. They called it in.’

‘Have we got a make or model? Does it match anything we have?’ asked Emmaline.

‘See for yourself.’

Rispoli led them to the edge. A gorge was cut into the red earth, extending down a hundred feet into scrub. Hidden from the sun, hidden from the world. Near the bottom of it a blackened scrap of metal nestled amongst the scrub.

‘Make and model aren’t immediately obvious,’ said Rispoli. ‘We’re lucky it didn’t start anything bigger.’

The truck had burnt up almost completely, scorching the trees around it but keeping the scenery mostly intact. It sat black against the red and green landscape like a chunk of basalt amongst sandstone.

‘At the start we thought that it was dumped years ago but the breakage in the foliage is still green in parts. So I reckon it went over the edge not that long ago. We left it alone and called you and Forensics.’

‘Good shout,’ said Emmaline. ‘Who wants to come check it out?’

They all did but she chose Oily, as the most experienced. Donning latex gloves and shoe covers they scrambled into the gorge taking a circuitous route, rounding the mulga shrubs and stepping over the dry spinifex that used the shade and relative cool to grow thick along the sides.

The first thing she noticed was that the number plates were missing. Front and back. Possibly something nefarious or simply that they had been removed and bolted onto a similar vehicle to use what was left on the road tax. The next thing she noted was that the truck had burnt up pretty thoroughly but the blaze had been contained. It suggested an accelerant but she would get that confirmed later.

Making it to the cab she peeked inside. The rich smell of burnt flesh lingered. Faint but present. Enough to make her stomach curdle. Her heart quickened. Two bodies. Of adult proportions. Age or sex was impossible to immediately determine as both were not much more than bone and singed flesh.

Oily joined her at the opposite window.

‘What do you see?’ asked Emmaline.

He glanced around. ‘Neither body is strapped in.’

‘Yes. But they’re still inside the wreckage.’

‘Could be the seat belts burnt in the fire.’

Emmaline screwed up her face in thought. ‘But why didn’t they try and free themselves when the fire started?’

Oily shrugged. ‘Knocked out in the crash? And who are they? Naiyana Maguire you think? Plus someone else?’

One of the skeletons looked short enough to possibly have been Naiyana Maguire but all Emmaline was certain of was that she had another two bodies in the vicinity of Kallayee, dead under suspicious circumstances. Making three in total.

Wary of disturbing the scene any further, they hiked with some difficulty back to the top. She convened Oily, Rispoli and Barker together; Anand was still securing the scene.

‘What would anyone be doing all the way out here?’

‘A hell of a wrong turn,’ offered Oily. ‘Maybe some locals out for a good time, then bang, they go over the side of the gorge. Possibly high.’

‘It’s a long way from nowhere,’ said Barker.

‘And even if you were heading to nowhere, this isn’t the route you’d take!’ added Rispoli.

‘We need to know if anyone has been reported missing, locally,’ said Emmaline.

‘Way ahead of you,’ said Barker. ‘There was one case in 2004 that was solved and a cold one from 2006 but nothing recent.’

‘Was this Naiyana making a run for it?’ asked Oily.

‘Maybe she was kidnapped and they drove over the edge?’ said Rispoli.

‘So a Thelma and Louise?’ said Barker, grinning.

‘But it’s not a severe enough drop,’ said Oily. ‘They couldn’t guarantee it was going to end in death.’

Emmaline turned towards the gorge. ‘What if it isn’t Naiyana at all but those miners? Maybe they got caught up in whatever happened to the family. They witnessed it and were chased to their deaths?’

‘A wrong turn in a place they were unfamiliar with?’ said Oily.

‘And unfortunate enough to both be knocked out while the truck goes up in flames around them?’

78

Lorcan

His dad’s money had run out quickly. On bricks, a replacement sheet of tin and a roof beam. Three bottles of cooking gas, too. And food. His dream was turning to dust, or to be more precise getting covered in it. The book idea was out the window too unless there was a drastic upturn in fortune. He hadn’t written one word. Besides, no one was going to buy a self-help book where the main character made such a piss-poor attempt to overcome adversity. Even Naiyana had abandoned her vlogs. When he had asked why, she had said she wasn’t getting enough subscribers to make it worthwhile. Lorcan thought it was boredom, the same shots, the same people. They were stuck in the whirlpool, circling ever so slowly towards the plughole. As if the malaise of the situation was creeping into their psyches. He guessed that if they talked honestly, both would admit that they under-estimated the difficulties they would encounter.

But they weren’t talking. Naiyana was constantly going back and forth to the town claiming to have forgotten to pick up something. But he knew the truth. She just wanted to get away from him. He had disappointed her. The move had been a failure.

Even Dylan had noticed that they weren’t talking to each other. This morning, he had explained in a devastatingly honest way that it felt like he had two separate parents. Something which he complained about but had learned to play to his advantage, his mining operation in the dirt hill expanded and extensively equipped, the different mines connected by roads and even a base at the bottom where the dirt was being sifted by a bent colander salvaged from the kitchen.

Lorcan was trying to work up the motivation to