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It looked like Reed had no say in it, Sierra was coming whether he liked it or not. “Right, let’s go.”
Sierra grabbed her coat and backpack from the bench as he led the way past the two big fire trucks, hunkered in the large garage area and out the back door, to where the police Land Cruiser was parked in the rear lot.
“Which way is it?” he asked as she hopped into the passenger seat beside him.
“Take a right out on the main road, I’ll direct you from there.”
“Got it,” he replied, steering the car out of the carpark.
“Do you really think it’s human bones?” Sierra worried her bottom lip as she stared out the front windshield.
“We won’t know till we get there. Why?”
“Because the more I think about it, a Glossy nesting area would be a great place to hide a body.”
“Okay. First of all, what’s a Glossy?”
“A Glossy Black Cockatoo. They’re an endangered bird, native to the island. I volunteer for the Friends of The Glossies. We record all of their nesting sites, make sure they stay protected.”
“So why would it be a good place to hide a body?”
“I’m sure there are lots of great places to hide a body, if you wanted to, on the island. There are a lot of isolated tracts of scrub that’ve never seen a human footprint. But we try and keep the Glossy nesting area’s a secret; the less people who know where they are the better. We need the birds to remain as undisturbed as possible. We often put up signs warning people to stay out.” She held up a hand as he started to protest. “I know that doesn’t always work, but most tourists respect our signs and our wildlife.”
Reed was more than skeptical, but he held his tongue.
“And sometimes, if we get the funding and the time, we erect fences around the area, as an extra step to keep people and predatory animals out. This is one of the sites that has a fence around it.”
“So, you’re saying someone could’ve chosen to bury a body there because you’re almost guaranteed no one will go in there?”
“Something along those lines, yes.” Sierra looked decidedly unhappy about that scenario. “The Friends of The Glossies only go in there once a year, during breeding. And even then, we try to make as little impact as possible. The rest of the time the place is left untouched.
They drove the rest of the fifteen minutes it took to get to the site in relative silence, with Sierra giving him instructions when necessary. Having Sierra sitting next to him in the car, it was almost like a re-run of yesterday morning. And he was just as aware of her presence as he’d been yesterday. Even more so now he knew what she tasted like. That kiss kept replaying in his mind, even as he followed Sierra’s instructions and pretended his whole body wasn’t pulsing with the need to do it again.
His phone rang loudly in the silence of the cab.
“Do you want me to answer that for you?” Sierra queried, reaching for his phone in the middle console.
“Check who it is, first,” Reed replied. He really needed to sort the Bluetooth connection out in this car, so he could easily answer his phone.
“Caller ID says, Dad,” she said, glancing up from the screen.
“Leave it. I’ll get back to him later.”
She gave him a quick, curious look, then replaced the phone in between their two seats. Silence descended again.
He really should call his folks. He’d promised he would as soon as he was settled. But who would’ve guessed things would get quite this crazy on the island? It was because of his father, and the things he’d sacrificed in his life, that Reed was able to become a police officer. He owed his parents, even if they’d never acknowledge it.
His father, Nikau, had worked hard, taken a safe, dependable job as a plumber and put in long hours to make sure his family, his sons, had the best childhood he could give them. Nikau was a leader amongst his culture, people looked up to him, and he gave back to the community with both hands and a strong heart in many different cultural projects, to make sure his people’s heritage was preserved. And he’d instilled that same strong sense of belonging to their Maori heritage in both Reed and his brother, Seb.
One of the hardest things his father had ever done was to move his family away from their home near Waikaremoana, where his tribe, the Tahoe came from, to the big city of Auckland. He’d done it to get Seb away from the growing influence of the Mongrel Mob and the scourge of alcohol and drugs that went along with it. The boys hated the big city at first, and hated their father for uprooting them and sending them to some public school where they knew no one, had no friends. But now with hindsight, Reed could see it was the best thing Nikau could’ve done for his boys. It freed them to find their full potential, had taken them away from the trap of being stuck in a small town, with nowhere to go but down.
Nikau always encouraged Reed to follow his passion, to fulfill his potential. And he’d been the first to cheer Reed on when he got into the Academy in Melbourne.
He would call him just as soon as he got home tonight. Right now, he needed to focus elsewhere.
Every now and then, they passed signs of the search for Jessica. A flash of an orange uniform off the side of the road, as another team searched a grid area. A local couple parked by the side of the road, handing out hot tea and coffee to the searchers. A sign noting a rally point for a particular team, telling them where to meet. The camaraderie from last night was gone now, replaced by a sense of foreboding. Reed wanted to ask Sierra if she’d received anymore threatening letters from her stalker. But by the look on her face he knew she wouldn’t appreciate it, so he let the topic lie. For now. It did need to be addressed, however. She couldn’t continue like that, never knowing when another threat was going to land in her mailbox. He would make sure this was properly looked into. As soon as he had the time. He wished they could go back to that easy time last night, when the apprehension and disquiet had retreated for a few special moments. Go back to kissing her.
Sooner than he thought, they were on Binney’s Track, then Sierra pointed to something in the distance. A group of people hovering around the edge of the road, most wearing the bright orange high-vis vests given out by the SES search teams. Reed pulled off the road and parked the car.
