a sign advising that I was at the start of an open walking track. Beside it stood a large sign warning trampers about kauri dieback disease and stating the attendant rules.
Flipping up the hood of the sweatshirt I’d put on before I left the house, I got out into the cold, cane in hand.
The outside world ceased to exist within minutes, the forest closing its wet green arms around me. Moss crawled up the mass of tangled branches. Those branches created bushland that would shred me if I tried to blunder through. Above me hung the fronds of a huge tree fern dotted with beads of water.
Hard to believe I remained in the heart of the country’s biggest city.
The farther I walked, the bigger the trees, their canopies touching the bruised sky.
People got lost in this dark and cool landscape even with the signs dotted around. Then there were those who came to the “Waitaks” to bury their secrets. I’d been nineteen, twenty, when a visiting speaker at the university made the dry comment that more bodies were buried in the Waitākere Ranges than in most cemeteries.
I’d been far more intrigued by that comment than by the criminal investigation techniques she’d been describing as part of her open-to-all guest lecture. My ensuing questions had made her raise an eyebrow and joke that she might have to report me to the police for suspicious behavior.
I’d sent her a copy of Blood Sacrifice after it first came out.
My debut novel began with body parts found in a city forest.
16
I wondered if the cops were analyzing every word I’d ever written. What were the chances I’d randomly write about a mother killed by a serial predator who gets away with it in the end?
Could be I was just screwed up in the head because of my own mother’s disappearance, could be I was a psychopath—that’s what they’d say. I stopped, resting my back against the rough bark of a tree I couldn’t name. My leg pulsed with heat, and my lungs wheezed far more than they should. I’d have to tell Dr. Binchy about that, too.
It took me three more minutes to get going again . . . but I only had a short distance to go. There, hidden off the side of the track, stood a rugged quad bike.
“Thien, you resourceful bastard.”
Grunting, I used the cane for balance as I retrieved the key hidden in the ground exactly one foot from the back tire, under a small fallen branch.
Uninjured, I could’ve hiked to the site in under an hour, but with one leg currently out of commission, I’d have to break the rules and use the vehicle. It wouldn’t be easy going even on that; the trail was made for walkers, not quad bikes.
Rain fell on me in a strange damp kiss as I veered off the path, an act that was never advised unless you knew what you were doing. Search and Rescue couldn’t find you in the dark green if they had no fucking idea where you’d gone.
I wasn’t worried; I’d always possessed an infallible internal compass, and this was my native soil, the playground of my childhood. I went as far as possible on the four-wheeler—until the forest grew too tangled for the vehicle to get through. Getting off at that point, I grabbed my cane from where I’d hooked it on the handlebar.
The ground would be uneven under my feet from here on out.
I took care as I walked under the canopy and through leaf litter in a silence so pure it hurt the ear. Even the birds were quiet, the insects still. Which was why I sucked in a breath when I stepped out near the site and saw the back of a police anorak, the hood up. The person wearing it turned before I could merge back into the trees.
Constable Neri took in my cane, my hoodie, and said, “You shouldn’t be here.” Her face no longer looked so soft, her eyes edgy and cold.
“Your people are gone.”
“Scene’s still closed off.”
Yellow caution tape fluttered behind her, the ends drooping in the rain. “What’s the point? The rain will destroy anything that used to be under the car if you haven’t already gathered it up.”
Not responding, she turned back to whatever it was that held her attention. Walking to stand beside her, I found myself looking at a mess of broken branches, disturbed soil, and scarred undergrowth.
As if the Jaguar had grown into the forest, just another