Reid
On the way home, not a word is exchanged. I think the shock realisation that Morgan is still alive bounces through each one of our hearts.
Ronald rides shotgun, while Kylee sits beside me in the back seat of West’s car. Her hand places on top of mine. I don’t shake her away. Instead, I welcome the warmth her touch provides.
Morgan’s not only alive, but she’s found a way to call for help.
I wrestle with feelings of despair, and ones that yell for me to rally a search party of my own, one I can lead through bush, over hills, to the devil himself, until I’ve found my wife.
I can’t search for Morgan myself; I know this. I also know I need to find a way to trust West, Gleaton, and the rest of the police force. I still can’t.
I don’t trust any of them.
The porch is littered with bodies when West pulls his car in behind Maloney’s vehicle that’s sat dormant on the curb since the morning he turned up to the house.
Why Maloney? Why did he attend the emergency call I made on the night Morgan went missing? Why did he come back after we parted ways? Why is he staying with me?
I shake my head. Stop it, I reprimand myself.
Linda is the first to run down the path, followed by Mum, Dad, John, and Natalie. Tears rush from Linda’s eyes as she closes in. Her arms are outstretched as she collides with my chest. “Morgan’s alive. She’s alive,” Linda sobs against my neck. “How did she sound? When she called you, how did she sound, Reid?”
My eyes narrow. I grip Linda's upper arms firmly and pull her from me until she’s standing at arm’s length.
“What? How did you know Morgan had called?” I study Linda’s swollen bloodshot eyes, waiting for an answer, for a lie she might tell. My nails dig into her skin, and I can feel her flesh sinking below them. I don’t trust anybody.
“Ronald sent a text through to John. We all know.” Linda stiffens like a board. Her irises expand. “Reid,” she says, barely audible.
“Sorry.” I snatch my hands from her skin. “I shouldn’t have grabbed you like that. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.” Linda rubs her upper arm with her opposite hand. “It’s okay,” she sobs.
“Morgan.” My voice cracks. “She sounded depleted of all energy. Her voice was gruff—she said goodbye.”
“Goodbye!” Linda screeches.
I nod.
“No, she can’t.” Linda’s mouth falls wide. “No!” she snaps, smacking her lips together.
“Inside.” West’s tone is short and direct as he passes us by. “Get inside. I have to run through some things with you all. We need to debrief, and then I need to get the hell out of here and do my job. Morgan’s on her last legs. We don’t have time.”
As a pack, we enter through the doorway.
Maloney and Prospect eye us from the table. Bottles of water rest in its centre, like the two officers sitting there knew this would be the next step.
My head spins as my eyes connect with Maloney’s. Did he case the place like West said to do? Did he check on my kids? Unease settles into my stomach as I look to the copper who’s been with me this entire time. Could Maloney be behind Morgan’s disappearance? How could he be though? He’s not left my side.
I clear my throat. “Max, do the kids have any idea of what’s transpired this morning?”
Maloney shakes his head. “No, they have no clue.” His eyes study mine. There’s a long pause. “I checked on your children and Shirley as soon as I got here, and they’re okay. She’s keeping them well occupied.”
I nod, feeling a subtle sense of relief. The fewer people I have to worry about right now, the better it is for me.
“Sit,” West says, hunched over the table. His palms are flat against the surface, his knuckles a ghost white between the patches of red. “I need you all to listen. I will not be updating anyone from here on out. This is what we know.”
He shifts his attention to the clock hung on the wall, and then rebounds his sight back to me. “The clock is ticking, and Detective Gleaton and I need to get back to the station because we have multiple tactical crime squads, coming in from Brisbane. They will land within the next thirty minutes.”
“A team?” I pull out a seat and drop down.
“Yes. Specialist search-and-capture teams. We’ll have the bodies to find Morgan; we just need a rough location.”
Mum sits beside me, her hand tightly grasping mine. A dull ache radiates through my fingers from the pressure of her grip.
Dad places his hand on my upper shoulder as he pulls out the seat beside me and sits. I don’t have to look to know it’s my dad there because I can hear every rattled breath he’s taking. Support.
Scanning my eyes down the line across from me, I see Linda, John, Maloney, and Prospect. Where’s Natalie? I tilt my head forwards, only to find Natalie chewing on her fingernail, sitting beside Dad.
West stands upright and then moves to the chair at the head of the table. He doesn’t sit. Instead, he holds onto the backrest.
“Morgan has made contact. She has a mobile that has a low battery. We’re tracking the GPS. The moment that phone dies we can no longer track her location. We know this is our best chance of pinpointing exactly where she is.”
“Did she tell you anything that gives you an idea where to look?” Kylee dabs a tissue against her cheek.
“That isn’t information you need to know. What you do need to know is that your daughter is alive, and contact was made. She's doing her best to help us.”
“Okay.” Kylee’s voice is soft.
“Detective Dyson has been able to confirm that Vactrim and Winston are the same people. We are in the process of locating him too,” West continues.
“It’s Falcon. He has her.” I glare at West.
He shakes his head. “He can’t.”
I narrow my eyes and clench my jaw. “Bullshit.”
“Falcon Sampson is deceased. He’s been dead for the last six years.”
My chin falls open, exposing my teeth.
“What?” Linda’s shocked expression matches my own.
Disbelief, anger, and confusion flood me like an angry sea, crashing hard into the shore. My hands curl into fists and my need to punch someone, anyone, grows to the point where I leap from the chair.
“Sit down,” West barks.
I do.
“I received a call from our coroner this morning before we went to the hospital. He went on an extensive search of the death records for Falcon. It was quicker for him to do it than to wait for Births, Deaths and Marriages. At first, it seemed to be a maze of dead ends, but he located them.”
I look into West’s eyes. They are drooped and glassy.
“Reid.” He pauses, letting his head drop as he pinches the breach of his nose. “Falcon committed suicide. He left a note that records show had Morgan’s name in it. We don’t have that note, and our system doesn’t seem to contain a copy of that note either. But the Coroner’s report specifically discusses a letter retrieved and reviewed in finalising Falcon’s cause of death. Morgan’s name, along with others, was listed in his findings.”
My mouth gapes open, as do my eyes.
“Falcon’s mother possessed the original copy of Falcon’s letter. It was handed back to her when the investigation was closed. She has since passed away, so we believe his brother will have it now.”
“Vactrim,” I say.
“The one and the same,” West replies.
“Okay.” My voice shakes.
“We also need to find your brother.”
“My brother wouldn’t—”
“Your brother hasn’t been located. He’s a ghost in the wind at this point. Cruise has made no contact with anyone from the television network he's employed by, with Natalie, you, or your parents. Nobody knows where he is. He landed back in Australia, and from the airport he seems to have disappeared. Let us do our job, and Reid, stay with Maloney.”
“Okay.” Do I even have a choice?
“I’ll keep trying to get a hold of him,” Natalie says quietly, softly.
West nods in Natalie’s direction before saying, “Let’s go, Eric.”
There’s a clearing of a throat that has me swivelling my arse until my head twists towards the front door. The same tall, broad shouldered, muscular man who turned up at the house with Linda yesterday now stands in the doorway holding a parcel.
“Dusty.” Linda runs straight to him.
“Hey, babe. I came as soon as I could,” he says, catching Linda by the waist. He tucks her close to him. “Morgan rang. That’s wonderful news to get, babe.”
Dusty knows Morgan rang too?
“You might want to check this out. A delivery guy just handed me this package. It’s addressed to Reid and there’s no return address on the back. I checked. The driver is out on the street in his van, waiting. I said you might have questions.” Dusty reveals a white post satchel from behind his back.
West walks towards him.
“Could be something, right?” He holds the parcel out. West takes a step back.
“No. You put it on the table. The fewer hands touching this without gloves on the better. If it’s from Morgan’s abductor, we might get a print from the packaging.”
“Sure,” Dusty says before he takes long strides and places the satchel on the table.
“Max, can you get me a knife?” West flicks his eyes from the package to Maloney.
“Yes.” Maloney’s response is immediate, and as fast as he’s gone, he returns, holding a steak knife. “Do you want me to open it?” His eyebrows raise.
“No. Put the knife on the table. I will. I’ll need gloves. I don’t want to risk any evidence being unnecessarily tainted at this point. They’re in my car.” West doesn’t walk towards the front door to go to his car. Instead, he stalks the package. “Someone get me some gloves,” he snaps as Prospect appears from behind him holding a pair of cream latex gloves. How does he do that?
“Thanks.” West slides them on, pinging the band at his wrist before he picks up the knife and gently slices the blade along the top of the bag.
“What’s in there?” Mum’s voice shakes as much as my hands do.
West doesn’t reply.
West places a small cardboard box on the table. “Evidence bag,” he mumbles.
Prospect appears again, holding a clear bag with the word evidence written on its front.
“Thank you.” West slides the postal satchel inside, then Prospect seals the top.
Taking up the knife once more, West slices between the two folds taped together at the top of the box. He shifts his head until it blocks my view.
“Three evidence bags,” he says, closing the folds back together.
“What is it?” My heart thrums in my chest.
“A wedding ring.” West doesn’t look at me when he says this.
“Morgan’s?”
“You can tell me in a minute, once I've bagged it.” West turns his back to me.
I don't see what he puts into two of the bags, but in the last one he places the small box that had contained the ring.
West's arm stretches out. A bag dangles from his fingertips, and I snatch it from his grip within a second.
A thin gold band is resting at the bottom. I turn the ring on its side and look for the dent and scratch I know to be there, a dent and scratch caused by a plastic racket in a tetherball game we had set-up in our backyard last year. I close my eyes and watch the final parts of my hope flutter away like ducks heading south for the winter. “It’s hers.”
“What’s in the other bag?” John croaks.
“A thin ticket of paper.” Prospect eyes me even though it wasn’t me who asked.
“What does it say?” John holds out his trembling hand, like he wants Prospect to pass the item to him.
“Death. Now we part,” West answers.
“What does that mean?” Kylee cries.
The room falls silent.
Does this mean her captor has found Morgan before the police could?
My world shatters around me, only this time I know there won’t be a second chance. If this fucker has found my wife and killed her, then I’ll hunt him like a rabid dog and tear him limb from limb, even if it takes me the rest of my life.
Morgan, I will avenge your death.