Eliza’s chilling account came back to him. What Georgia thought she’d seen. Maybe Georgia was chased off the cliff?

The Hungry Man. A man the size of a bear . . .

The Jaguar himself had been a big man.

No. He’s dead. It’s not him, thought Con. Big breath; slow release.

Georgia’s body appeared again in his mind. This time, others seemed to be lying alongside hers. Mottled purple faces, swollen limbs, staring eyes, gaping mouths. The Jaguar girls.

Con’s stomach lurched. Get back into your boxes! He crouched down to his knees, heaving into the plughole.

He beat his head softly against the tiled wall, breathing through his mouth. He had to be strong: it was up to him to find Jasmine, Cierra, Bree.

And Madison was the key to it all.

A ritual . . . a secret club that glorifies self-harm . . . all of this for her YouTube subscribers . . . Denni King’s death . . . a witch.

Madison is a witch. She summoned him.

The Hungry Man.

The Jaguar girls appeared again in the shadows of his mind, their eyes open. Are you sure monsters don’t exist? they seemed to ask. Are. You. Sure?

He turned the water off abruptly. He stood there, dripping, the steam dispersing into the fan.

The Jaguar girls peered down at him. Georgia joined them.

You didn’t solve it fast enough.

You never solve it fast enough.

He wrapped the towel around his waist and headed to his bed, grabbing his laptop from the desk. The sound of the radio and TV was like a balm on his mind. These days he always needed the sound of human voices in the background. It calmed his anxiety at being alone.

He opened his laptop and started writing down thoughts as they appeared in his mind, trying to force them into boxes:

1. JASMINE MURPHY –
   DAUGHTER OF A DRUG DEALER = RANSOM/BLACKMAIL?
2. CIERRA MASON –
   SEXUAL ABUSE = ELIZA ELLIS IS PROTECTING SOMEONE
3. GEORGIA LENAH –
   ABORIGINAL HISTORY MUSEUM
4. BREE WILKINS –
   PTS???

Jasmine was the most obvious target, as some sort of leverage against Murphy. If Sergeant Doble really was corrupt, Con still couldn’t believe he had been allowed so much freedom in the town. He needed to tell the commander – unless he really just didn’t understand Tasmania? Just because Doble had an alibi, it didn’t mean he didn’t have an accomplice who took Jasmine. But to what end would he have done that, really? There had been no demands made of Murphy, no contact at all.

Cierra Mason was also a possible target. Con didn’t believe Eliza Ellis had slept with her, but the person she was protecting . . . Con suspected it was Tom North, but he had an alibi too. And why take the other two girls? Why kill Georgia?