Day Eight

Declan brushed his teeth and changed into his running gear.

We walked the still-dark beach in silence, the whoosh of the waves filling the space, brushing against each other as we moved.

Declan tapped his phone light to guide us up the cliff.

Streams trickled down mossy walls, and gnarly old pōhutukawa trees arched over us.

Finally, we climbed the stairs to the top. Dropping to the bench, puffing a bit, we waited. Declan’s hand on the bench touched mine.

Nothing but the sound of our breathing broke the silence.

The sun peeked out, more, more, and then roared with blazing arms of orange and yellow.

Released from the horizon, it soared into the sky, finding new strength with every second.

A breathtakingly beautiful sunrise flashed up from the edge of the world.

Blinking open to the bright gold light, the trees filled with chirping birds and rustling creatures.

I nudged Declan’s arm with my shoulder. “We’re one of the first to see the sun today.”

He nudged me back. His arm stayed pressed against mine as we swayed. “ You and me.”

*

My phone pinged with a cryptic text while I was lingering after yoga to chat. Declan had already left to call his team from home.

I have information for you about Janey. Meet me under the palm trees in five minutes.

I checked the time: 11:00 a.m .

Who was this?

Another ping . This is Sarge.

What? I glanced up to see him pocketing his phone and heading towards the palm trees. Declan knew my suspicions about Sarge, but he also said that Sarge could be useful to the drug investigation. I assumed he would approve of me meeting him to keep that relationship open. I had to go now.

“I’m about to hand you something that could get me into a lot of trouble,” Sarge said when I met him.

“I keep some old police files at home, for everyone’s protection.

These are the daily logs. They detail incoming calls, visitors, and outgoing responses.

Take them, read them, and I’ll return in half an hour.

I’m doing this to put your mind at rest.”

I nodded, acting eager and super grateful but under no illusions. He was doing this to get in Kui’s good books. Also, he allowed me to read the pages alone—he must expect me to photograph them.

He returned a half hour later and asked what I thought.

“You’re right, of course,” I said, groveling.

A smile curled smugly on his face.

“There were no official interactions with Janey on any of the days before her death,” I said.

The way to get in with him? Think like him. “Stroppy madam” had been one of his most damning criticisms of a woman. “Sorry if I came off as a stroppy madam. You’ve stuck your neck out to ease my mind, and I appreciate that.”

I swung my backpack lightly, like we might be almost friends now.

Sarge tracked my motion, then flicked his eyes to my face. “I notice you carry this backpack with you everywhere since you bought it… was it two days ago? It’s new, isn’t it?”

My muscles tightened. Janey’s diary was in the backpack because I couldn’t leave anything in my room after it was broken into last night. The last thing I wanted was for him to notice it.

“This one?” I asked. “I’m like Clarebear. I like to carry my bag everywhere, and usually I have a laptop too. The beach messed up my leather bag.”

He nodded. “Clarebear says I have a backpack fixation, one for every minute of my day. I was looking for a special one for fishing. This would fit a tackle box and lunch.”

I clutched the bag tight. “Think it’s too small for that.”

He held out a fleshy hand. “Mind if I try the zippers? That’s one of my bugbears—the zippers must be quality.”

I snatched the bag firmly behind me.

“Like most women—Clarebear, for a start—I’m private about my bag,” I said. “I have personal female medical items in there.”

“Oh, sorry.” He flipped up his hands like I’d burned him. “Very inappropriate of me. Please accept my apologies.”

Inappropriate? Apologies? That didn’t sound like him. And he’d noticed I’d bought a new backpack and carried it everywhere. He wasn’t as slow as I’d thought.

Still, his adoration for Kui had proved his weakness. He’d stuffed up by letting me see the police daily logs. Something had sprung out at me. Something small but revealing.

*

While Dad was resting and Declan still in the bedroom, I printed the logs and showed them to Mum.

“See here? Entries for each eight-hour shift were in one set of handwriting, with one set of initials.” I turned to the last page. “But the day before Janey died, the handwriting and initials changed halfway through the day. And they’re on a fresh page. The initials were the same as Sarge’s.”

“Does that mean Sarge had tampered with the daily log?” Mum frowned. “Why?”

“Maybe something did happen with Janey,” I said. “But Sarge ripped out a page and rewrote that part of the day.”

“Why don’t we start with the officer who worked that morning?

” Mum said. “This is a small town. There can’t be too many in the police with those initials.

” She pressed her forehead and started rattling off names until she came up with Thatcher Bell.

After a quick search on my phone, I clicked on one of the articles about him.

“Look here. Sarge gave him a big promotion to The Mount after Janey disappeared. That put him on the ladder to be superintendent—a huge job.”

Mum flicked through some more. “He’s well- loved in the community. Active in kids’ beach sports.” She lifted her head, horror warping her face. “Are you thinking maybe he could be the creeper?”

“Not sure. Janey’s disappearance. His promotion. Those two things might be linked.” The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. “Which means Superintendent Thatcher Bell might know something very incriminating about Sarge.”

We called Kui and Bevan to tell them. They were intrigued and offered to research him.

I wanted to contact Thatcher Bell, but when?

That was going to be a frightening conversation.

Declan had told me to leave this until after the case.

Still, my gut roiled and writhed at the thought that there was someone who knew what had happened to Janey and I wasn’t confronting him.

On the beach an hour later, I was still thinking about this with a sick feeling in my stomach. Declan tapped my arm. He’d been taking a call.

“I’ve found this scientist.” He seemed excited. “Let’s go somewhere private and call her.”

One of the London companies we were investigating belonged to chemists who developed synthetic heroin.

Declan and I had theorized that this new “White Cloud 1.0” could be synthetic.

Maybe Snow’s heroin had paid for the development of this new, stronger product.

If that development was complete, they would no longer need Snow, which could explain why the shipments were ending.

Parked in the dunes near the golf club, Declan called our expert and recorded her on speakerphone. She spoke for thirty minutes about the synthetic process. I kept glancing at my watch, impatient to get to the point. We told her about White Cloud 1.0.

“Even though it’s called synthetic heroin, you still need to extract the DNA from the poppy,” she said. “If this drug is as elevated as advertised, the poppy will be engineered at the time of growth in a sophisticated facility.”

From deep within my brain, I dug up something from the mass of research I’d waded through that week.

“Would the facilities in Tasmania be sophisticated enough to grow this poppy?” I asked.

It was an island at the bottom of Australia.

“It’s the largest grower of poppies in the world for producing heroin for the medical industry. ”

Declan nodded enthusiastically. “And it’s only a four-hour flight from here.”

“Mm, that tracks,” the scientist said. “One of their most qualified employees could definitely be illegally using their facility to do this.”

After discussing it further, we rang off, and still seated in the car, we both gazed thoughtfully out over the golf greens.

“What if the genuine heroin came from Tasmania too?” I asked Declan. “Let’s go over again how it might have got here,” I said. “Is it flown in? Shipped? This beach is so remote, there’s only a tiny airport and no place for a big boat to moor except at The Mount, an hour away.”

“My port contact at The Mount said that incoming shipments from the pharmaceutical industry were flagged and highly monitored,” Declan said. “But still, anything is possible for someone who has gobs of cash to bribe workers at the port.”

“Can’t be a small yacht. The seas are too treacherous,” I said. We’d already researched this. “And a helicopter couldn’t make it.”

We both sighed.

“I have a hopeless sense of direction,” I said. “Where’s Tasmania from here? ”

Declan waved his arm inland. “The quickest way is across New Zealand’s North Island. But too many people would notice a plane flying over. Likely it would come around the bottom of the North Island and up.” He gestured from the East Cape and toward us.

I waved my arm in the same direction.

Arms flapping like drunk windmills, we looked at each other and laughed. That laughter bubbling up, not at some wordy joke but out of sheer silliness, loosened something in both of us.

A light bulb pinged in my head. His eyes widened at the same time.

Our voices tumbled all over each other.

“Mr.Otto waved his arm in the same way when he was talking about the UFO,” I said.

“It couldn’t be a plane or a helicopter. Could it be—” Declan said.

I hung over Declan’s shoulder as he searched the distance from Tasmania, how far the most powerful military drone could travel, and how much it could carry.

We spoke at the same time. “It’s a drone.”

*

“Let’s go see Mr.Otto,” Declan said.

We stopped in at home for gifts of lemons and carrot cake, then headed on foot to Hans Otto’s red and white cottage near the library.

His walls inside were crowded with framed photos of all the iterations of Bella the cat.

Kids and grandkids were featured only if they were holding one of the Bellas.

“I know what you’re here for,” he said, storing the lemons and carrot cake in his kitchen. “Bella and I saw another UFO last night. It flew out to sea, but it didn’t fly into shore again.”

Declan and I exchanged a look. That’s it.

We talked for a while, trying to get more details, but he couldn’t add much more. As we said goodbye, Mr.Otto waved with Bella’s paw, giggling at her cuteness.

Outside, I asked Declan, “Was that the final shipment arriving? Where do you think it landed?”

“Maybe farther up the coast? The Mount?”

“You have good instincts trusting him.” Declan held my hand on the walk home. Our fingers took on a life of their own, rubbing and teasing, like a flirty dance. “Anyone else would have written him off.”

“Thank you.” I smiled and bumped his shoulder with mine.

I felt a creative buzz between us. Finally, were we working this out? Making sense of this mangled mass of information?

*

I was back to feeling tense that evening.

We were both feeling the pressure. There were still huge gaps in our information.

Tomorrow, Declan was heading to The Mount to organize his team, who had flown in.

Whatever his internal turmoil, he was warm and kind to both my parents as we diverted Dad with a card game. Outside, it started to rain.

I watched him patiently waiting on Mum’s agonized play with a smile. He was so nice, so considerate to everyone he’d met here. To me.

Later in bed, I thought of that muscled body next to me.

Those defined abs, wide shoulders, and taut thighs.

I admit that over the past few days, I wouldn’t have minded if he hadn’t given me privacy in the bedroom and shower at both ends of the day.

He was steady and earnest and sweet, things I used to think were dull and boring when I was dating men like Jack and other “alphaholes,” as Shay called them, I met through work, but these things made me feel secure and happy now.

More than that—I was holding my breath, my heart racing, waiting and hoping for him to turn to me and ask if he could put his hand on my cheek, his lips on mine.

But he didn’t. And he couldn’t, and he wouldn’t.

I thought about the conversation where he said he thought our relationship could be real.

I felt something—the possibility that this could be great.

But I’d rejected it. Even though my parents had been cleared, I needed this story.

The stakes of this case were way too high to risk something like this.

The rain tumbled down harder, as if the sea had risen into the sky and tipped its contents onto the roof. It should have frightened me, but I felt safe with him under this sheet, in this room, inside this house. It made me realize that I’d never felt that before in any of my relationships.

If I was truly honest with myself, the safety I felt with Declan wasn’t something I should ignore.

I didn’t need him to rescue me, but if he was my safe place, I could go out into the world, explore the scary depths of the ocean, knowing I could always float home to him.

I’d never had anyone treat me as well as he did, and I didn’t think the respect he showed me would disappear if we were in a proper relationship.

Does this mean I want love after all? Yes, and not just love, it’s Declan I want.

I had to take a risk and tell him how I felt. Tomorrow morning when we got up, I’d tell him that yes, when we kissed, I’d felt it too.