I glance over and see my brother’s boots just outside the door, one lying on its side where he’s recklessly kicked them off the way he always does. Even though he and Will have been working together on Jason’s project, the twist in my gut says that’s not why he’s here.

  Inside, the living room feels smaller than it did this morning. In the corner, the wood heater crackles and pops throwing a dull orange glow across my scuffed floorboards. Jason leans against the wooden mantel, arms folded, eyes flicking to the window. Will is over by the couch, hands jammed into his pockets, shoulders stiff. Together, they take up all the space, leaving me pressed against the doorway.

  ‘Mia,’ Will begins. ‘We need to talk.’

  ‘Can I at least make a coffee? It’s been a long day and—’

  ‘This isn’t a family catch-up, Mia,’ Jason snaps. ‘You won’t be needing a coffee.’

  From the minute I sit down, it’s clear what this is – an intervention.

  ‘Mia, I specifically told you not to call the police.’ The tremble in my brother’s voice makes it clear how angry he is. ‘We went over this. I explained to you what was at stake. You’ve put everything we’ve worked for at risk.’

  ‘We?’

  ‘Yes, we,’ Will chimes in. ‘I’ve worked my arse off in Canberra getting this project signed off. Do you think it’s easy getting a bunch of bureaucrats to green-light a geothermal drilling project in a national park? You have no idea what I’ve had to do, and we’re almost there. We’re one step away.’

  Images of Will charming some government woman over bottles of wine and fancy dinners push their way into my mind. Is that what he had to do? I bite my lip to stop from saying it out loud.

  ‘This entire thing hinges on Jack being supportive, Mia,’ Jason says, taking over. ‘He’s not just a big fish in a small pond. He has connections that go all the way to the Premier's office. If he arks up and turns the town against it, we’re ruined.’

  ‘I didn’t give my name,’ I tell them. ‘And I drove all the way over to Winton River to call from a phone box. No one knows it was me.’

  Jason scoffs and shakes his head. ‘Are you really this stupid?’

  It’s the first time I’ve ever seen my mother’s venom in him. Since we were kids, Jason has been my rock. My ride or die. She resented us both, but bad as it was, I always had Jason, and he was enough. To hear her bitter tone in his voice is like a knife in my chest.

  ‘I couldn’t just leave her out there,’ I whisper. ‘It wasn’t right.’

  ‘It’s not about that, Mia,’ Will says, his voice softening a little. ‘What were you thinking, going out there in the middle of the night like that? It’s dangerous. Anything could have happened.’

  ‘It was because of Herm,’ I manage, inching the sleeve of my shirt into my palm and clutching it in my fingers. ‘He was so adamant that I shouldn’t. Koda alerted on the way back from finding Lilly, and Herm was so determined to warn me off going back. I thought…’

  ‘You thought what?’

  They both lean in, the intensity of their gaze causing my legs to tremble. ‘I thought he knew there was another body out there. Maybe because he did it. Or because Jack did, and he was trying to cover it up.’

  They both stare at me. Silence hangs between us, the tension in the room a taut wire about to snap. I immediately drop my head and pull at the corner of my fingernail.

  Will shakes his head and steps back. ‘Are you being serious? You think Herm is, what? A serial killer? Or Jack?’

  ‘I wasn’t wrong about Koda’s alert.’

  ‘Anything could have happened to her, Mia,’ he says, frustration creeping back into his voice. ‘She probably wandered off, just like Lilly did.’

  ‘Oh, come on, Will. You can’t really think that, in the space of a week, two different girls who had nothing in common both just wandered off and died either on or near Jack’s property.’

  ‘There was nothing to suggest Lilly was murdered. Or Hazel, for that matter.’

  ‘Bullshit,’ I snap, finally finding my voice. ‘People don’t just fall into a ravine and not try to get out. I’ve seen it a hundred times around the park. No one just lies down and dies of exposure. And Hazel was buried. I saw her head wound. It wasn’t an accident.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Lilly’s nails were perfect,’ I say, glancing down at my own ravaged fingers. ‘It was obvious she didn’t even try to climb out, and Hazel’s head was bashed in. I saw it. I can’t get it out of my mind.’

  ‘Maybe Hazel fell and hit her head, and Lilly was probably drugged out and incoherent. There’s a million ways to explain how they died, Mia. Why would you jump straight to Herm or Jack being murderers? It makes no sense.’

  Jason steeples his palms, then knots his fingers. ‘Gerry said you’ve been struggling again.’

  Struggling. Suddenly, my throat is so thick the words get tangled. ‘Don’t… No… Don’t do this.’

  ‘Look, Mia, maybe—’

  ‘No,’ I snap, pacing back and forth across the room. ‘Gerry saw me when I was going to use the pay phone, that’s all. He was coming out of the hospital, so I made up an excuse about my anxiety for being there. I’m not struggling. I’m fine.’

  ‘He saw you?’ Will shouts, throwing up his hands. ‘Oh, that’s just great.’

  ‘He wouldn’t say anything.’

  ‘He would, Mia, and he did, to Mum,’ Jason tells me. ‘She also said you attacked her and Sophie at the Sweetie the other day. Amelia told me the same thing.’

  ‘Oh, that’s ridiculous. I did not attack them. I just…’

  ‘What’s going on with you?’ Will asks. ‘You’re not yourself.’

  ‘I’m not myself?’ I turn to him, my hands trembling. How can he accuse me of acting differently when I barely recognise who he is anymore? ‘What about you? You’re a completely different person lately. The reason I argued with Mum and Sophie is because they told me everyone in town thinks you’re having an affair, probably with that Jess woman you’re working with on Jason’s project.’

  ‘What?’ Will comes forward glaring at me. ‘And you believed that?’

  Jason steps between us, arms out, trying to calm the situation. I can’t help but notice he makes no effort to dispel the accusation. He doesn’t even look surprised by it. ‘Mia, this still doesn’t explain why you put everything at risk to go off on some wild goose chase, thinking Herm and Jack are murderers.’ He looks at Will and motions for him to sit down. ‘It makes no sense, and I hate to say this, but I think maybe you need to go back on your medication.’

  My insides collapse. I want to shout and protest, but that will only prove him right.

  ‘I think it would be for the best,’ he continues. ‘You’re acting crazy right now.’

  Crazy. It’s the same word Mum used when I was fourteen. She’d been tugging at my arm as I locked both hands around the metal bedhead, knuckles white, refusing to be taken to the clinic in Sydney. It was the last thing she did before she forced us to go and live with Mimi.

  ‘We all think that maybe it would help.’

  ‘We all?’ I repeat. ‘Who’s we all?’

  ‘Mum, Gerry, Sophie, myself,’ Jason tells me. ‘And Will.’

  I stare at Will in disbelief. ‘You agree with this?’

  ‘Like I said, Mia, you’re not yourself.’

  ‘But there’s nothing wrong with me,’ I argue. ‘I’m not crazy. You’re just not listening to me.’

  ‘We are listening, Mia,’ Jason says. ‘But what you’re saying makes no sense.’

  I shake my head and turn away to stop them seeing the tears in my eyes. ‘You have no idea why I was on medication when we were young, Jason. Or why Mum took me to that place. I wasn’t crazy.’

  ‘Mia, I was there, remember? I know what it was like with Mum. It was harder for you because you needed her more. I get that, but—’

  ‘That’s not why,’ I whisper, unable to turn and face them.

  ‘Then what?’

  Koda appears at my side, and I reach down and hold onto his ear. ‘Herm,’ I begin, the words catching in my throat, ‘when I was a kid, he…’

  ‘He what, Mia?’

  A hot flush creeps up my neck. A mix of shame and fear. ‘When he used to pick me up for the stupid shit I’d do, once we were at the station, he’d take me out the back and…’

  ‘Just… stop,’ Will snaps. ‘I can’t… I don’t want to hear this.’

  ‘No, I have to say it,’ I say, finally turning to face them both. ‘I need to.’

  All my life, I’ve kept what he did to me bottled up inside. An insidious voice that constantly whispered that maybe it was my fault. Making me question why I hadn’t spoken up. Asking why I hadn’t told someone the first time, the second time, or any of the times that followed. Had his attention, disgusting as it was, been better than feeling like I didn’t exist at all? If that’s true, then I don’t deserve Will’s love or Jason’s respect. If that’s true, there’s a part of me that must have been born broken.

  ‘I was thirteen the first time. Sixteen, when it finally stopped.’

  Will’s head snaps up, and he glares at me. ‘Sixteen?’

  I nod and roughly wipe at my tears with the back of my arm.

  ‘For three years you let him…?’

  ‘Let him?’ I step back. Time stands still and a strange buzzing fills my ears. I squeeze my eyes closed to try and stop myself from falling. Will thinks it was my fault.

  Jason rubs a thumb along his jaw, staring at the floorboards as though the right thing to say might be written in the pattern of the wood. ‘Is that why you think he killed Lilly and Hazel?’ he asks eventually. ‘Because of what he did to you?’

  ‘Huh?’ I ask, eventually shifting my eyes away from Will.

  ‘Is that what this is about? What happened to you back then.’

  ‘No, it’s because Lilly was pregnant,’ I tell him. ‘I don’t know about Hazel, but Lilly was.’

  Jason stares at me a moment, taking it all in. ‘There was nothing in the news about Lilly being pregnant.’

  ‘They must have covered it up.’

  ‘Covered it up?’ The look of disbelief on my brother’s face is enough to make me want to take the words back. ‘Okay, let me get this straight. You think Herm is going around town getting teenagers pregnant and then killing them? Wait… is that what happened to you? Were you pregnant?’

  Will glares at me. His eyes are hard and unsympathetic as he waits for me to answer. ‘No, I wasn’t, but it makes sense that he wouldn’t want anyone to know about Lilly. He’s a cop. She was a teenager.’

  ‘Mia,’ Jason comes over and pulls me into an embrace. ‘What happened to you is horrible, and I’m so sorry. You should have told me back then. What he did wasn’t your fault. I need you to know that.’

  I nod and push my head into his shoulder, sobs of relief causing my entire body to shake. I hold on to him as the weight of shame pulls at me, dragging me down toward the hole I’m so tired of trying to dig my way out of.

  ‘That’s why Mum made us live with Mimi,’ I manage. ‘Because of what I tried to do that day. It was my fault.’

  When he eventually steps back, I steal a glance at Will. His arms are folded across his chest. He’s a fortress, and I am clearly locked out.

  ‘Listen to me,’ Jason begins, hands resting on my shoulders, his head dipped to meet my eye. ‘I love you. You know that, right? Mum made us live with Mimi because she couldn’t cope with being a mum. It wasn’t because of you, Mi.’

  I nod quickly and wipe at the tears still slipping down my cheeks.

  ‘I’m sorry for what happened to you. I really am.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I whisper.

  He casts a glance back at Will, thinks a moment, and then says, ‘That said, I still think with everything going on, it would be a good idea to have Gerry write you a script.’

  I step back and search his eyes. ‘What?’

  ‘I just think maybe finding Lilly and Hazel has brought back some trauma for you, and you’re not handling it in the best way.’

  ‘Brought back trauma? Jason, Koda alerted, and we found Hazel out there,’ I tell him, gobsmacked that he’s still not getting it. ‘That’s not acting crazy, that’s a fact. And there’s nothing to say it won’t happen again. Do you really want that on your conscience?’

  ‘What Herm did to you, and maybe to Lilly, is awful,’ he continues. ‘It makes him a predator, and at some point, we’ll address that, but Mia, it doesn’t mean he or Jack are serial killers.’

  ‘Oh… my… God,’ I say on a long breath. ‘You don’t even care.’

  He pushes his hair back off his forehead and shakes his head. ‘That’s not what I’m saying.’

  ‘All you care about is your stupid drilling project.’

  ‘Stupid?’ His look of disbelief matches mine. ‘Mia, this project could change how the entire world is powered. Do you understand the gravity of what I’m trying to achieve here?’

  I search his face for the boy he used to be, for the brother who once loved me unconditionally. With painful clarity, it occurs to me that he’s the one person I’ll never be able to find, no matter how hard I look. ‘Jason, I need you to leave.’

  ‘Mia—’

  ‘Just get out of my house,’ I hiss, my voice about to break. ‘I don’t even know who you are anymore.’

  Finally, Will gets to his feet and finds his voice. ‘Just go, mate. I’ll take care of this.’

  This. Like suddenly, I’m nothing more than another problem on his list of things to solve.

  ‘This isn’t how I wanted things to go, Mia,’ Jason says as he takes out his keys. ‘And for the record, you need to be on medication. The things you’re suggesting are just… not possible.’

  They exchange one last glance, a silent communication I can’t decipher. There was a time when the three of us were inseparable, but clearly, that’s no longer the case. It’s Jason and Will. I'm nothing more than a thorn in their side – a threat to their well-laid plans.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Juniper

  WALKING through town, I can’t help but marvel at how, despite the world evolving around it, Wildling hasn’t changed at all. It’s been three years since I was here, and the town is exactly the same as the day I left. It’s like coming home to find your old bedroom frozen in time, the pretty ballerina music box still sitting propped open on the dresser.

  The community hall stands in the centre of town, flanked by an old sandstone church and the library. As a teenager, I spent countless hours there reading and breathing in the musty scent of the books, letting them take me away to places more exciting than this. At the end of Main Street, the park with its pretty lace rotunda spreads out, the towering Moreton Bay fig still standing over in the corner. My cheeks warm as I remember the sensation of my back pressed against its trunk, Bryce’s lips on mine the first time we kissed.

  I stroll by Sweet Sips Café, and the aroma of freshly baked bread wafts through the air. To the left, Old Jimmy is wrangling with the specials blackboard, trying to make it balance on the footpath outside the pub.

  I stop at the corner of Clyde Avenue and let the sounds of the town envelop me. The church bells, the deafening chatter of white cockatoos up in the trees, and farm dogs barking as they pass by in the backs of utes. I expected to feel claustrophobic coming home, like everything would seem smaller than I remembered, but as I look around, it actually feels good to be here. Like I can breathe again.

  It would be so easy, I think to myself as I stroll along, to just stay here. To forget about the pressures of Sydney and instead just slip back into my old life. Once upon a time, I was the sweetheart of Wildling. People trusted me, confided in me, and asked about my plans for the future as though anything was possible. I was going to make them proud. I was going to show them that Wildling could produce more than just farmers and local business owners. I was going to be a name. A journalist in the big city. But unless I can find out what really happened to Hazel Smith and whether she was connected to Lilly Daniels in some way, the reality is, I’m just a girl with a career that's quickly slipping through her fingers.

  The sound of laughter catches my attention, and I glance over to the Sweetie where two female reporters are coming out holding cups of takeaway coffee. Edwina Harris, the senior crime reporter from the Daily Examiner, and Marcia Hamilton from Channel Nine News. Real journos. Women who have careers to be proud of. Compared to them, I haven’t accomplished a damned thing.

  The thought distracts me, and not watching where I’m going, I crash into someone. She falls to the ground, her dog’s lead quickly tangling our legs together.

  ‘Oh, my gosh! I’m so sorry!’ I gush, reaching out to try and unravel the lead. ‘I’m such a klutz.’

  The brown and white dog licks the woman’s cheek, and she quickly reaches out to reassure it. ‘Everything's all right, Koda,’ she says. ‘I’m okay.’

  ‘I was off in a dream world,’ I tell her. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  ‘It’s fine,’ she murmurs, her fingers working the knot. ‘It was my fault. I wasn’t paying attention either. I shouldn’t even be here. I took the day off work and… anyway… sorry.’

  For a moment we both fuss with the lead, our hands brushing. When she finally looks at me, I notice her eyes are red-rimmed and her skin is blotchy.

  ‘Are you okay?’ I ask, not wanting to overstep.

  She gives the leash one last tug, pulling it free from my leg. ‘You’re Juniper,’ she says, ignoring my question. ‘Britt’s sister.’

  I search her face for a moment, and then it hits me. Mia Thomas. The girl who grew up with her grandmother on the outskirts of town. Jason Thomas’ sister. She was a couple of years above me at school, but I remember how all the other girls tormented her because her grandmother called herself a guardian or a custodian or something like that of the land. They lived out at the end of Wildling Road in a house everyone said looked haunted. All the kids made fun of her. It was awful.