Page 80 of Killing Mind

What she hoped to see was a single figure walking along the grass verge towards her.

She drove slowly towards the dirt track and turned in.

The headlights illuminated the rough road right up until it disappeared around the wooded area. Tiff was not on her way down.

‘Damn it,’ she said. ‘Where the hell is she?’

‘What we gonna do, boss?’ Stacey asked, unable to keep the alarm out of her voice, which did nothing to assure Kim she was overreacting to the whole situation.

No call and no show. There had to be something wrong. What the hell had she been thinking letting the girl go in there?

‘Okay, Stace, if you want to get out you can but I’m gonna drive this car right up to that bloody shed and ram my…’

She stopped speaking as her phone rang.

The display said it was an unknown number.

She answered and put it on loudspeaker.

‘Hey, Mom, it’s Tiff,’ said the cheery voice on the other end. The relief flooded through her.

But mom?

‘Tiffany, where the bloody…’

‘Sorry not to have called sooner, Mom, but I lost my phone. Listen, I’m sorry about the things I said earlier. I didn’t mean them but I just didn’t want to come straight home until we’d both calmed down.’

‘Tiff, are you okay?’ Kim asked.

‘I’m fine, Mom. I’m with a friend… no, you don’t know her. Her name is Britney Murray, we’re at a retreat and, before you ask, I’ve eaten. We were lucky enough to get first sitting and, hang on… ooh, can’t talk for long but I just wanted to let you know I’m with lots of nice people who are taking great care of me.’

‘Tiff, are you sure you’re okay?’ Kim pressed, her foot still hovering over the accelerator pedal.

Tiff laughed. ‘I promise I’m fine. You don’t need to worry about me. We’ll have a proper chat about things tomorrow.’

‘Tomorrow?’ Kim asked, looking at Stacey.

‘Yes, Mom. These lovely people have invited me to spend the night.’

Sixty-Five

Tiffany had been on Kim’s mind all night and was still heavily present as she prepared to start the morning briefing.

She hadn’t driven away from the site until Stacey had agreed that Tiff sounded completely okay and not as though she was being coerced into anything.

A part of her had wanted to smash through that shed and bring Tiffany out even after they’d spoken, but after replaying the conversation over and over in her mind she had to trust that the constable knew what she was doing.

Replaying the conversation had helped convince her that Tiff was not sending any cry for help. She was fine and she had sounded it. The only worrying part of the conversation had been about the phone. How had she lost their only source of communication? It had concerned Woody too and she had come up with an idea to put into action later that day.

‘Okay, so Stacey has apprised you on the situation with Tiffany. Anyone got any thoughts?’

‘Other than we should have pulled her out anyway,’ Bryant said.

‘Understood but as you said yourself yesterday, we also have to trust that she’s a twenty-four-year-old woman playing the part of a teenager and that she knows what she’s doing.’

Bryant’s natural fatherly instincts were on overdrive given that he had a daughter of a similar age.

‘She knew her time on the phone with you was limited so everything she said had to mean something,’ Penn observed.