Keely sat on the couch forlornly studying her hands while Euan slid the door shut behind the departing police. What an idiot she’d been. If only she’d rung her parents from the hospital. The missing phone and wallet, minus its contents, had been found somewhere along the highway between Perth and Bunbury. The finder had rung the home number they’d found in her wallet, hoping for a reward. Evidently, her panic-stricken parents had been frantic and reported her as a missing person.

The two local police, a man and a woman, had been slightly amused. They obviously knew Euan and didn’t have him pegged as an abductor but, all the same, they had asked her to explain what had happened from the time of her arrival in Perth. She’d gone back over everything. They’d wanted to know Marty and his mates’ names and whereabouts but she knew only their first names and that they’d said they were heading south.

When she’d got to the part about having her bag stolen she’d told the policeman, who was the one making the notes, that she’d reported it. She’d explained that her parents weren’t expecting to hear from her again for a few days and she hadn’t wanted to worry them. Euan had remained sitting at the table silently, only speaking if the police asked him a direct question, but she had noticed him looking at her quizzically when she’d mentioned not wanting to worry her parents.

The policeman had checked his notes and said it had taken a while to connect her report of the stolen items to that of her parents’ missing-person report. There’d been an outage in the system and a backlog of entries.

The woman had looked at her sagely. “It would have been much easier all round if you’d let your parents know what was happening from the hospital,” she’d said.

Keely had mumbled an apology. She felt like a seven-year-old instead of a twenty-seven-year-old. Would she ever be able to stand on her own two feet? She hadn’t rung her parents so she didn’t have to deal with their reaction to the theft and her operation and now it had caused a huge chain reaction, making everything worse.

The policewoman gave her a sympathetic look. “We’re just doing our job,” she said. “Glad to see you’re okay but you need to ring your parents, which I suggest you do straight away. And you’ll need to attend Bunbury Police Station with photo ID to collect your property.”

“Why Bunbury?” Euan had asked.

“The person who found it took it on to their home town.”

“My photo ID’s in the wallet and on the phone,” Keely had said.

“Just take yourself in then.” The policeman had shut his notebook. “We’ll leave you in Euan’s care and report back to the Perth office.”