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Indy shifted in her seat and ran her hands across the table. She knew their strategy. Sit her across from the pane of glass that na?ve people would mistake for a mirror when it was actually a one-way viewing window for the pigs in blue on the other side.

Indy! She closed her eyes. It’d been a long time since she’d referred to police as pigs. It was probably an attitude ingrained in her by her dad, who only ever called them that. Strange how quickly she’d slipped into that way of thinking again.

Indy considered her reflection. Maybe that’s why they always sat people facing it?

So a criminal could look at themselves and reflect on what had brought them into the interview room?

Deliberate their fate, perhaps? Well, the joke was on them, because she hadn’t done anything wrong.

She didn’t take the watch, and they’d realise that when they searched her cabin.

Not that she was enthused about the idea of someone going through all her belongings.

Still, if it got her out of here, she’d put up with the invasion of her privacy. She just had to wait them out.

Indy eyed the flaking blue paint around the rim of the fake mirror.

Of course it was blue. Not very imaginative to paint every wall in a police station a different shade of their uniform colour.

Being left in here was an intimidation tactic.

As if Indy could forget where she was. Memories of the visits she’d paid to this room as a teenager flooded her.

The fear that had shaken every part of her body the first time she’d sat in this chair now made her laugh.

The tactic used to work but maybe being here with a clear conscience made it lose its edge.

Carter’s face flashed into her mind. Well, mostly clear.

She sighed. This is exactly why Carter should be steering clear of her.

Saying she’d grown up in this police interview room may be an exaggeration, but it wasn’t far off.

As she stared in the mirror, her image distorted in her mind until it was her father sitting at the same table.

Chances were he’d been here. Same with her mother.

Hell, even her grandfather wasn’t the peachy, law-abiding citizen most people had the joy of knowing.

She was just the next generation. Indy had gone to Windale Mountain and stayed because she wanted a different life from the one her family led, but here she was again.

Was it hereditary? Something in her genetic makeup?

She hadn’t even done this, but it didn’t seem to matter.

She’d never be able to escape her past. And she wouldn’t bring Carter down with her.

The door to the right of the glass opened and Sarge entered the room. He closed it behind him and stood there, staring at her. ‘It’s been a good decade since you were last in this room.’

All retorts about the time showing in his drooping skin and nearly all-white hair stuck in her throat. Sarge had been at this station for as long as she could remember.

Indy frowned and ran her fingers over the scratched ridges on the table. ‘Was my dad ever in this room? In this chair?’

Sarge leant back against the narrow strip of wall between the door and the mirror. ‘It’s the only interview room in the station, so yeah, he was in here a few times.’

She nodded and silence stretched between them. People had always said she took after her dad’s side of the family. Was Sarge experiencing déjà vu?

‘Your mum was in that chair only a few days ago before she was transferred to Silverwater. She had a failure to appear warrant.’

‘I thought she’d been too quiet.’

‘You’re not your parents, Indy.’

‘Only because you sent me to Nova and Windale Mountain. That place saved me, or so I thought.’

‘That place didn’t save you. You saved yourself.’

She scoffed and pressed her finger into a deep groove. ‘Yet here I am. Back in this room, having to defend myself. So have at it. Start firing off questions at me just like the good old days.’

‘I would, but I already know you didn’t do this.’ He pushed off the wall and opened the door, holding it back. ‘Come on, I’ll take you home.’

Emery pulled the ute up across two spaces in the Denarlie Police Station carpark and was out the door before Carter had unclipped his seatbelt.

She was obviously trying to make up for the time they wasted being stuck behind the slow-moving cattle truck.

He jogged through the front doors to find her pressing the bell in a way that would drive anybody nuts.

‘Press that bell again and the answer to anything you want is no,’ said an irritated voice.

‘What if this was an emergency?’ Emery said. ‘I’d bleed out on your carpet before you even bothered to come and see what was going on.’

Carter hadn’t spent that much time with Emery, especially without Indy present, but she’d always seemed so meek. A good reminder not to get between her and what she wanted.

Constable Williams appeared behind the thick glass. He wore a bored expression that didn’t change when he saw them.

‘I saw you run in here through the cameras so I know you’re not bleeding out, but I could fine you for that ridiculous parking attempt.’

Emery slammed her hand down on the counter. ‘I’ll move the ute once you let my best friend go. Free Indy!’

Williams didn’t look impressed, while Emery looked like she was ready to whip up a placard and start a chant. Carter quickly laid a hand on her arm in an attempt to calm her.

‘We’re from Windale Mountain Station and are here about Indy Mills,’ he said.

‘We’ve learnt more about the timeline for when the theft was supposed to have happened and we were with Indy at those times.

Emery walked back from the staff meeting with her and I was already waiting for her in her cabin.

I was there for hours. There’s no way Indy did what she’s being accused of.

We’ll sign statements, speak to a magistrate, whatever you need. She didn’t do it.’

Williams leant against the counter. ‘Indy’s not here.’

‘You’ve sent her to prison already?’ Emery said, shocked.

‘No,’ Williams said, rolling his eyes. ‘Some guy named Jonathan Taylor called to say they’d found the watch. Sarge is taking Indy back home. You just missed them.’

Carter tipped his head back as relief surged through him.

‘They found it?’ Emery exclaimed. ‘Seriously. You need to arrest Ray for making shit up about Indy. Isn’t that defamation?

Plus all the stress he’s caused Nova. We had an auditor out from the council today and if that evaluation comes back with any concerns because of this fiasco, you’ll be investigating a murder because I am going to kill that man with my own two bare—’

Carter clamped his hand over Emery’s mouth and gave Williams a polite smile, which he reciprocated with a raised brow. ‘What Emery means to say is thank you for your time.’ His hand grew wet and he ripped it away from her mouth. ‘Did you just lick me?’

She threw him a savage glare and marched out of the station.

Williams laughed. ‘Good luck with that one.’

‘Sarge, what did you mean when you said that Windale didn’t save me?

’ Indy asked, resting her head back as the police cruiser started the ascent up Windale Mountain.

She’d seen the scenery a thousand times, but she feigned interest anyway.

‘Wasn’t that the whole reason you told Nova about me and she brought me out here? ’

‘I spoke to Nova about you and got her on board because I needed to get you off the streets and away from the people you were running with. I thought you could benefit from learning more skills than just picking pockets to survive. You needed a place where you could get a full belly, a decent night’s sleep and learn to put in an honest day’s work.

’ The car slowed as they rounded the bends that wove upwards like a threaded shoelace.

‘Nova agreed and we gave you an opportunity, but it was up to you to take it and make it work.’

‘You didn’t give me much of a choice. It was Windale or juvie.’

‘It was still a decision you had to make. Windale was the opportunity; juvie was the direction you were headed. But Windale didn’t save you. Your choices and hard work are what saved you, Indy.’

She frowned and looked at him, but his focus was on the road. ‘Why me? Why did you choose me to give that opportunity to? How did you decide?’

‘Because none of what happened to you was your fault. You didn’t choose to have parents who cared more about what they were shooting up their arms or to be left at the whim of their junkie friends.

You didn’t choose for your parents to go to jail, or to be put in the foster care system.

You didn’t choose to be placed in the care of people who made that trauma worse for you when they were being paid to show you love and care. ’

Indy shuddered at the memory of the locked room and the couple who thought turning the key each night would cure her fear. The irony. She’d never been more afraid. ‘I did make some stupid decisions after that, though. The partying, the drugs, the stealing.’

Sarge chuckled dryly. ‘That’s true. But I always wondered if you would have made those same decisions if the adults in your life hadn’t let you down so many times.’

Indy turned her face away and looked out the passenger window. ‘Seems like you’re giving me an out.’

‘No, but you asked why you, and you don’t get to change my answer. Here’s another question, Indy. Why not you?’

‘Bonnie.’ The answer was right there. It always would be. ‘She might still be alive if you’d chosen her instead.’ He was the one who wanted to play the game of what-ifs with her past. Now it was his turn to re-evaluate.

Sarge sighed heavily as the sign for Windale Mountain Station came into view. ‘Bonnie Hallen. She didn’t make the same choices you did with her opportunity.’

Indy stilled. Her friend’s face swam on the windscreen before her. The dark frizzy hair she always complained about. The lip ring that jiggled when she laughed. She’d been given an out, too? Why didn’t she take it?

‘I didn’t know she was offered one.’

‘Let it go, Indy. She didn’t choose to have her life end the way it did and you’re not responsible for that either.

I worked her investigation and there are details that tell me her time was up before she’d even set foot in the door of that party.

The men who are responsible for Bonnie’s death are locked up and the key’s thrown away.

’ Sarge flicked on the indicator and turned into the Windale Mountain Station driveway.

‘It’s your life, Indy. Not your parents’, and not Bonnie’s. ’

She nodded as he pulled into a park, letting the engine idle. ‘I can’t change the past, though. Or the shade it still casts.’

‘Probably not, but you can pick the direction.’

Indy screwed her nose up. ‘Where would I go if I didn’t have this place? If what you’re saying about me saving myself is true, I could only do it in this place and with Nova backing me.’

‘I’m glad it worked out for you.’

Indy climbed from the car but before she shut the door, she leant down, a cheeky grin on her face. ‘Saved you a hell of a lot of paperwork, didn’t it? Thanks for the ride.’

Sarge’s laugh stayed with her as he drove away.