see through the trunks were intermittent flashes of light from the fleeing vehicle’s headlights. Lozza called it in.
“Suspect heading east down a dirt road through the forest—” She saw a sign for the Keelongong campsite. “Track could lead to the campsite near the beach.” She turned down onto the sandy track and followed after the Toyota.
The road was rough, the sand soft in places, bogging down her tires, causing them to spin. She heard sirens wailing behind her and also coming from somewhere up ahead. She guessed responders were approaching from the beach direction to head the Toyota off from the east.
Her headlights darted off ghostlike gums. Glowing eyes watched her from the woods. She spotted the taillights of the car ahead.
The fleeing driver hit the gas and punched and bounced faster along the sandy road at reckless speed. The vehicle disappeared from view again as it went behind trees, then as Lozza came around a stand of dense ferns and trees, she heard a loud explosion. Her heart sank to her stomach. The sound was followed almost instantly by another explosion ripping through the forest. Bats burst from the trees. They swooped and fluttered in front of her headlights. As she neared, she saw the orange flickering glow of a blaze through the trunks of the trees. Behind the fire the bar lights of a police vehicle strobed, and Lozza realized with horror what had occurred. The getaway car had crashed head-on into a highway patrol cruiser.
She took her vehicle closer, stopped, flung open the door, and ran stumbling over roots and ruts toward the fully engaged vehicle fire. Smoke roiled black and acrid through the trees. Heat radiated at her. She heard the fierce crackling of flames. As she neared, another explosion sent a whoosh of white fire and sound into the air. Heat blasted at her. Her heart stalled. She stopped, stared, and she put her hands on top of her head as if to press the horror back in.
Ellie.
She was still in there.
Lozza heard more sirens coming from the other side of the blaze. A fire truck also approached from behind her. A firefighter ran up and took her arm.
“Ma’am, please, you need to back away, ma’am.”
“The victim is—she’s still in there.”
“Ma’am. Back away. Now.”
THEN
LOZZA
She was dead.
Ellie Cresswell-Smith had perished in the fire along with her abductor.
Lozza had failed. This thought, the weight of it all, circled and pressed down on her along with all sorts of questions as she sat shivering on the back bumper of an ambulance with a blanket around her shoulders. Despite the heat, shock and her own perspiration had made her cold.
Pale dawn seeped through the smoky forest. The vehicle fire had spread rapidly through the surrounding drought-dry brush and highly combustible eucalypts. It was only being brought under control now. Smoke burned her nostrils and the back of her throat.
A spark from the crash had likely ignited spilled fuel. The highway patrol officer had been pulled free of his vehicle before it became engaged, but officers from the vehicle traveling behind him were unable to approach the fully engulfed Toyota Corolla. The highway patrol officer had been taken to the nearby hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
Firefighters were now attempting to control the ensuing wildfire before investigators could even begin to go in. Gregg handed Lozza a coffee. She looked up. His eyes were kind. His rugged face and smiling eyes had never been such a welcome sight.
“Thanks,” she said, taking the cup from him.
“Did you call Maya—let her know you’re okay?”
She nodded, sipped.
Corneil approached. The sergeant’s features were as flat and inscrutable as always. A helicopter thudded up ahead.
Lozza had already explained to Corneil the events in detail—how she’d received Ellie’s call at 3:50 a.m., heard screaming. How she’d gone to the Cresswell-Smith house, then given chase. Corneil had taken notes. Lozza felt this wasn’t going to end well.
“Why did she have your personal number?” he asked now.
“I gave it to her. After we interviewed her. You saw me giving her my card. You were watching from the window.”
“Why did you give it to her?”
“In case she decided to talk or remembered something.”
Corneil’s brow crooked up. “Exactly what did she say on the phone?”
Lozza repeated her recollection of the call, again.
“Are you certain Ellie Cresswell-Smith was not in the home when you got there?”
Lozza’s pulse stuttered. “I . . . The neighbor witnessed what looked like a body tied in blankets being dragged out of the house.”