Lucy opens Simone’s rucksack while it’s still on her back and begins getting the tent pegs out. The wind has picked up, whipping their hair around their faces. In close proximity, Simone sees goosepimples on Lucy’s arms.
Simone takes the tent poles and begins trying to knock them into ground so hard it may as well be made of steel. As she makes botched attempts, she uses the quiet time to think of options. Anything.
One tent peg.
Get legal advice.
Another.
Talk to the police the next town over.
Another.
Contact Damien.
Another.
Get out of the country.
Another.
Hide.
The solutions keep coming from Simone’s brain in the way they always have, but she doesn’t buy into any of them. Each is so flawed as to be impossible. They can’t go to trial, not now. They can’t contact Damien – he’d be arrested along with them. They can’t leave the country.
They can’t hide forever. Ten bottles of water.Ten.
She is ashamed to find tears in her eyes as she hammers. Each peg goes less than a centimetre in, the ground cracking, poles wobbling, but it will have to do.
Pegs done, she begins to erect the tent, while Lucy looks busy but isn’t helping. One side of the tent rises up like a flag on a pole as Simone’s brain continues to whir.
Wait it out.
The next side of the tent.
Prove the kidnap.
She unrolls the foam mattresses Lucy borrowed from somebody at camp.
Find the kidnapper.
Find the kidnapper.
This is surely the answer, but isn’t it impossible?
‘You OK?’ Lucy asks her, looking closely.
‘Mm-hm.’
‘Your eyes are wet.’
‘It’s just the wind,’ Simone tells her.
‘Leave this to me,’ Lucy says. ‘Sorry, I was being useless.’
And then she makes Simone’s bed up, as nice as she can get it with the things they have.
CHAPTER 37
