“Days ago?” Fray asked.
Tobin gave a nod. “Six days.”
Dylan had been unaccounted forfor six days?
Oh no...
“And that’s not all,” Tobin said, his tone quiet, grim.
“What?” Ciaran wasn’t sure he wanted to know.
“They had a run-in with the Bass Strait boys?—”
Ciaran’s hearts skipped a beat. “They what?”
“Apparently they said something that freaked Dylan the fuck out,” Tobin said. “Let’s get back to the Cove. Hendrix can tell you everything.”
Chapter
Seven
SAWYER
Sawyer didn’t seeCiaran or Fraser for two days.
When Sawyer had asked, Otis said it was common for them to stay out for a night or two when shipwreck diving.
“Might wanna be careful, Detective,” Otis had said with a grin. “You take too much notice of him, people around here might think you’re interested.”
Sawyer was going to say he was just doing his job, but given the fact that Otis had said “him” but hadn’t mentioned either of the two men by name, yet Sawyer still knew he was talking about Ciaran specifically, he’d decided to drop it. He just took his few grocery items and ignored Aurin’s mischievous grin as he went back to the station.
Deciding he needed to get out and explore the town, he took the police cruiser for a drive. There was only one street, Bay Road, as it was so aptly named, and a few roads off into the mountains. Supposedly, the entire district had a population of only twenty-two, but Sawyer wasn’t sure he believed that, considering he’d only met six of them. He hadn’t seen another single soul. Two guys, Hendrix and Dylan, were apparently away, but Sawyer had to wonder how anyone would actually know if people moved out of the area.
Apart from seeing them leave by boat, that was. But they could disappear into the mostly unexplored rainforest that hemmed them against the coastline, and who would even know?
If they were a loner, a solitary person, no friends or family, like Sawyer, who the hell would miss them?
So Sawyer decided he should start doing some house calls and property checks, during which he could introduce himself.
He remembered that Ricky Carpenter had suggested him to go speak to a Mr Brown, and Sawyer thought it was as good a place to start as any.
Huon Pine Gully Road was more of a billy goat track than passable road, and he thanked god he had a 4WD. But he soon found what looked like a driveway, if the old rotten wooden sign with “Brown” scratched into it was any indication.
This would make a great horror movie set,Sawyer thought as he drove down the track. Thick forest, lush, overgrown greenery brushing against his cruiser, scratching eerily as he passed. The forest seemed to close in around him, wet and misty.
And if Hadeom or Carpenter thought the town of Tenebrae Cove was weird and creepy, it had nothing on the mountains.
Sawyer drove on for a few minutes more, slow and cautious, until he came up to an old shack.
It was dilapidated, the wood was mostly rotten by the looks of it, with green moss growing on some parts, and it probably should have been condemned. But there was an old Ford station wagon parked in a leaning garage, brown just as Carpenter had said in his note.
Mr Brown and his even browner Ford...
The car, Sawyer assumed, was bought new back in the ’60s, and from what he could tell, it had seen better days. He doubted the vehicle was registered and wondered if he should care.
Did it even matter out here?
The man who came out of the house was everything Sawyer could have expected of someone who lived in such a place.
