1
My palms are slick with sweat as I grip the steering wheel so tightly that my knuckles turn white. I barely see the paddocks and trees zip by as I drive erratically on the country roads towards Ringo’s place.
I haven’t driven in months, so getting used to the van with the gear shift up on the steering column took a bit. But I figured it out as I tore away from the airfield, ignoring Brody who dove into the passenger seat just as I slammed my foot down on the accelerator.
“We’re approaching your property now,” he mutters to Ringo over the phone, clutching the grab bar like he’s holding on for his life.
Perhaps he is. I haven’t exactly obeyed any road rules, driving this thing like it’s a four-wheel drive tearing through the bush. Add in my rusty driving skills, and yeah, I can see why Brody is sweating right now.
I don’t care, though. The van is replaceable. My sanity, though? It’s hanging by a thread.
Daniel’s words keep echoing through my mind, and I dissect them again and again, hoping to find even the slightest hint that I misheard him. But every time I go over it, I come up with the same truth.
“Your baby didn’t die, Abbey. She’s still alive.”
Pain lashes my already broken heart every time I replay those words. Because what if he’s right? What if he’s telling the truth and Bobbi has been alive this whole time?
She’d be what? Seven weeks old now.
That thought alone nearly breaks me.
Seven weeks without me.
Is she even okay? Safe? Warm? Loved?
Has anyone held her the way I would?
And if she really is still alive, who has her?
The weight of not knowing crushes my chest, stealing my breath.
Ineedanswers. Ineedto breathe.
Veering off the main road, the tyres screech as I speed up the gravel driveway towards Ringo’s house.
I don’t slow. I don’t even blink as I fly past the gates, hitting a pothole hard enough to send us airborne for a beat, nearly launching us off the road.
In my irrational state, stealing one of the vans and going rogue makes perfect sense. I just need to know for sure if Bobbi is alive or dead before I get my hopes up. And the only way to do that right now is by coming back here, to where I thought I’d buried my little girl.
“Fuck! Abbey!” Brody hisses in a sharp breath as his side of the van nearly clips a protruding branch, before he snaps into his phone. “Dude, I’mnottelling her how to fucking drive! I like my balls exactly where they are! She’s your wife. You tell her!”
Under different circumstances, I’d laugh. Brody sounds comical, and I can just imagine Ringo barking orders at him through the phone.
But none of that matters. Not now, when Bobbi might be alive.
Black-clad Marx men scatter out of the way as I skid the van to a stop outside the barn, barely throwing it into park before I’m out the door and sprinting towards the orchard.
“Abbey?!” Alana yells from somewhere near the house, but I don’t look back. I just run.
The moment the jacaranda tree comes into view, a sob lurches from my throat as tears blur my vision. Bile rises up as I keep pushing my legs to move faster, my eyes locking onto the two small gravestones beneath the tree.
One is a little more weathered. The other surrounded by colourful painted rocks, care of my little sister, Tahli.
“Bobbi!” I choke out, her name slicing through my heart as the strength I’d worked so hard to build over the last few weeks begins to crumble.
The moment I near her grave, I skid across the damp grass on my knees before diving my fingers into the soil.
I claw at the earth, determined to dig up the casket no matter how long it takes me, I blink past the tears as my gut churns with a combination of hope and fear.
