upon a time, Will had been a hotshot cop with an instinct for running down predators.
The hotshot was gone, but it turned out his instincts had survived the fire.
Soon as everyone was ready, Will took them to the start of the track and had the forensic people walk ahead about a foot, one on either side of the trail. Tree ferns, their bodies lush and dark and their leaves a silvery light green, grew thick around them, along with taller, more ancient trees that blotted out the cloudy light.
Moss hung from branches and he saw a perfect spiderweb strung between two ferns.
In the shady and cool dark, the freshly trampled undergrowth cushioned their footsteps, creating an eerie silence that Will broke. “The water bottle wasn’t found on the track itself, but about ten feet to the left, just lying on the ground.”
“Like it fell from her pack and she didn’t notice?”
Will nodded at the younger detective’s question. “Or like she dropped it while disoriented after being injured.”
This particular track, with its hidden rocks and slight but steady incline, was hard going despite the inroads made by the searchers. He could hear Robert huffing behind him, but the other man kept on going. It was his partner who whispered, “Are we seriously planning to follow the crazy cop deeper and deeper into the bush?”
Will didn’t allow the question to distract him; he kept an eye on everything around them, just in case the killer had made a mistake this time. “That’s where the water bottle was found.” He pointed out a jutting rock barely visible through the tangled army of tree ferns. “Her family requested and was granted permission to place a memorial plaque against the rock just above where the bottle was found.”
Stepping off the path, he led the other two detectives to the spot. Such a lonely, quiet place, he thought, looking down at the moss-brushed engraving to a “beloved daughter and cherished child.” He wasn’t a man for prayer, but he hoped she’d been hit from behind, that she’d died without fear and with the sound of songbirds in her ears.
“Imagine having only this to remember your kid.” Robert’s hand rose reflexively to his jacket pocket, where Will knew he kept snapshots of his wife and son. “Maybe we can give them something to bury at last.”
Will took his colleagues back to the path in silence, and they carried on walking.
But there was nothing to find. He could feel Robert and his partner glancing at one another, caught the edges of a furiously whispered conversation. The two scene-of-crime officers, however, kept on moving ahead, their white coveralls making them appear ghosts against the dark green of this quiet and whispering place.
Robert coughed. “We should head back.”
“It’ll be easier to go this way.” Will had never walked this track, but before leaving Nikau with Dominic, he’d asked Nik to confirm his understanding of how this track connected to the one Shane Hennessey had taken that morning.
“Are you sure?” the younger detective asked in an overloud tone. “No offense, but I don’t plan to end up worm food in the fucking bush.”
“Just follow the track back.” Will had his mind on the mental map. “I’m going to check out something.”
Neither man turned around; they were probably afraid he’d lost it and would wander off into the wild unless contained.
The SOCOs stayed silent, but fell back so that they were walking pretty much alongside Will.
Five minutes later, he stopped. “There’s your crime scene.”
The two detectives moved past the rest of them, the younger one saying, “Well, fuck!”
“Shit, Will”—Robert took a stick of gum from his pocket—“there’s a goddamn plaque commemorating the spot where the water bottle was found.” He crumpled up the gum wrapper.
“Yes, anyone could’ve chosen the location to lead you on a wild-goose chase,” Will said, but he didn’t believe it.
The killer had returned to the location of his past glory.
52
Will made a quick stop to call Anahera after he was out of sight of the police presence at the dump site. “Be very careful,” he told her. “You’re a couple of inches too tall, but otherwise, you fit the same profile as the missing hikers.” It had been her laugh last night—he’d seen it then, the vital wildness of spirit evident in those other women.
Even with that, it had taken him until the conversation with Robert to realize the dangerous similarity. He didn’t think of Anahera as petite—she had too big a presence. But in a purely physical