Vanished by James Delargy (free novel 24 TXT) 📕

know when he got back to the house and why the quad tyres were slashed, distrust oozing from every word.

Lorcan was confused himself as to why the tyres were slashed. So he played on it. Taking his quivering hands from his pockets he held them up and told them he had nearly crashed earlier so had given the quad up. By now he felt that he was running out of luck. He didn’t know how long he could continue devising barely plausible stories. His mouth felt like the desert outside.

Then Ian accused him of trying to take the gold. Had he realized that Mike was telling the truth over Stevie’s shooting? But Lorcan had one final play, reversing the accusation and questioning Ian’s whereabouts and who he was with.

That bought a moment’s silence, a flustered Nee glancing at her lover. He felt sick to the core.

Then they left, separately but together, Lorcan waiting until the vehicles disappeared from view before sliding down the wall to stop himself from collapsing. But he didn’t have time to sit around. He needed to find his son.

115

Emmaline

On leaving the restaurant they caught a break. The family’s white Toyota had been found. With a worrying amount of dried blood on the dashboard and in the footwell.

It had been discovered by police in the Northern Territory, off the road and half-torched. Emmaline wanted to get to the scene. The choice was a long drive up the Great Central Road or a bumpy flight from Leonora on a privately hired twin-prop. She chose the latter. Two hours of discomfort rather than fifteen.

Though the scene was technically out of state she was granted automatic authority from the Cross-border Justice Scheme, a partnership between the West, NT and South Australia. It had been designed for cases of this type, removing the territory borders to improve law enforcement, so that offenders couldn’t escape justice by going interstate. The region it covered was known as the Ngaanyatjarra Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (NPY) lands. Something she was glad she didn’t have to spell out on the forms.

On the flight she studied the details of the report. The officers who had found it noted that it looked like the fire had been started deliberately, the smell of accelerant lingering. It had failed to take hold though, so it was presumed that the occupants left before it did and were therefore unaware that it hadn’t been destroyed. Or they’d been spooked by something, thought Emmaline, possibly the worry over a national search for the vehicle. The fugitive – or fugitives – had given themselves a two- or three-day head start until the family’s disappearance might reasonably be noticed. After that they would have been piloting a ute that may as well have had a giant spotlight on it.

A trace amount of gold had also been found in the truck. Which suggested they had more to sell.

But it was the blood on the dashboard that was the most disturbing factor. An intensive search of the nearby area was already under way. Looking for a body. With the focus on Naiyana and Dylan Maguire.

Emmaline arrived at the scene in three hours. The ute was indeed off the road, hidden and half-torched, the white paint tarnished black and silvery in parts. She peered in the passenger window. A significant amount of blood coated the dashboard, still visible even though the interior was scorched.

‘So he killed them?’ said Oily, looking around the rest of the vehicle.

‘Why bring them nearly two thousand kilometres if he was only going to kill them?’ asked Emmaline. ‘It would have been easier to do it back in Kallayee.’

‘What’s to say he didn’t?’

‘The missing bodies. If there had been an argument between them, there would be bodies nearby. Of either of them. We have to proceed on the assumption that all are alive. But one or more is injured.’

‘There’s no guarantee this is Naiyana’s blood. It could be his. Or Dylan’s.’

That was also true. She glanced at the officers patrolling the scene. Now outside of WA she was forced to ditch the local help, and felt a little lost without Rispoli’s intelligence, Anand’s humour and even Barker’s no-nonsense approach. But such was a job with the MCS. Fly in, work with what you get, investigate and fly out.

She left the sweep of the area in the hands of the local sergeant advised by the inspector from Alice Springs. It was the onward progress of the group she was interested in.

From here it was assumed that Ian, Naiyana and Dylan had at least a week’s head start. Bulletins had been issued around the state asking for people to come forward if they had been approached by either Ian or Naiyana. Or if anyone recalled seeing them in the area.

Emmaline was desperate to locate them. They might be the only people who could tell her what had happened in Kallayee. As witnesses or perpetrators. But for every hour that passed, the chance of the trail growing cold increased.

116

Lorcan

As he sat slumped against the wall, the urge to get out and look for Dylan made his whole body tingle, stinging with sweat and heat as if boiling from the inside out. He gave it five minutes, until he was sure Naiyana or Ian weren’t coming back, before he left the house. Heading out of Kallayee was a great dust cloud, both vehicles gone.

He broke into a jog, which quickly became a run. He called out for his son as he peered into buildings and around the back of shacks that echoed the name back to him. He passed the spot where he had shot Stevie. And where Mike had been executed. The bodies were gone, all trace of them vanished apart from blood on the sand. They were being disposed of. His wife was helping with the disposal. He wondered if he was next. And then Dylan.

As he stood there another blood-curdling thought arose. What if Dylan had seen him murder