Harper studied the timecodes between the messages carefully. She soon realised that there was no credible case against Natasha: there wasn’t enough time between any of the texts for Natasha to have taken the babies; in fact, nothing indicated that she’d even crossed over to Lauren’s side of the river, not until Harper had seen her upriver struggling to cross with the stroller. The last text Natasha had sent was ten minutes before Harper had caught her. By then she would have known from what was happening around her—the screams from Lauren, the police cars converging on the area—that Patrick’s babies had been taken, and that they hadn’t yet been found. And yet, the message read: I’ll be here for you always. Whatever happens xx

Harper found the message puzzling in its ambiguity considering the circumstances, until she realised the position the woman was in: Natasha couldn’t let on to Patrick that she was already in the valley herself, spying on Lauren. To do so would have pushed him further away. When she found the hidden babies a moment later, then, she must have considered leaving them, running back to her car and pretending she’d never been there. But she hadn’t. She’d tried to help, despite knowing what the consequences of that might be. Perhaps she thought, at least she could do something good, and maybe Patrick would be grateful for that instead of focusing on the stalking. She certainly couldn’t have realised how badly it would backfire.

Harper felt defeated. Admitting that Natasha was innocent meant the abductor was still out there somewhere, and she had absolutely no clue how to find them.

*   *   *

Harper parked her car next to the millpond in the Bishop Valley Park. Lauren Tranter’s blue Fiesta was still there, now covered in a film of brown dirt and sticky leaves, abandoned since the day of the abduction. This was where it had all started. The weather was the same, hot and muggy. She hoped there wouldn’t be another storm.

She made her way towards the cafe, feeling the peace of the place, hearing the gentle sound of the river running through. She stopped briefly by the water, noticing a dark place under a big tree. There was something moving under there, flashing silver as it turned—three or four big fish, sheltering from the sun, trapped there by the low water level. She shivered, despite the heat.

Outside the cafe, she studied the far bank, where a person could easily be concealed in the thick bushes. She imagined the pitiful form of Natasha crouching there, watching Lauren laughing with her friends. Someone else had been watching Lauren too, but who? And where from? There were dozens of places to hide nearby; behind the cafe, among the people in the playground, in the woods.