Con, Melinda, and Lois stood waiting outside the laundry door. It had begun to drizzle. The footage of Bree sneaking out with a coil of rope over her shoulder played over and over in Con’s mind. It would be someone else’s job, now, to look through the footage and find the moment she arrived at the school, but he imagined it would be the same night the girls went missing.

A clever place to hide, he thought. With all the rain that night, it would’ve been easy to slip in here unnoticed, and she would have known the school would be closed after their disappearance.

Finally Forensics arrived and Lois unlocked the door. With rubber gloves, serious voices, cameras flashing and recording, they walked inside.

Immediately they found the space where Bree had been staying. It was a small tiled room just off the laundry, Lois explaining that the freezers for the cooking classes had been kept here before the renovations began. There was a doorway into a small toilet, which was still connected to the plumbing, and the floor was covered in a blankets, pillows and junk food wrappers. The full Deltora Quest series lined one of the walls, and paints and markers lay in a neat pile in the corner.

But what drew everyone’s eyes was what was written on the walls. On one wall:

The Hungry Man is real the Hungry Man is real the Hungry Man is real the Hungry Man is real the Hungry Man is real the Hungry Man is real the Hungry Man is real the Hungry Man is real the Hungry Man is real the Hungry Man is real

On the second wall:

I’m sorry Hungry Man I’ll never tell anyone what I saw please don’t take me please don’t take me please don’t take me please don’t take me

On the third wall:

Hang a girl on a tree to die, and the Hungry Man will pass you by.

I’m sorry Denni. We should have believed you.

On the fourth wall:

She was right.

He took them into the caves.

And their bones will feed him.

Two hours later, Con walked into the interview room at the station. Madison was alone, having refused a lawyer and even the support of her mother, who was instead waiting in the room next door.

Agatha wasn’t there, either: she was giving a press conference. Con was supposed to wait for her to finish before he spoke to Madison. This was a formal interview of a minor, he needed to wait for a second police officer, at the very least. Preferably a social worker would be there too, as she’d refused her parent’s presence, but Madison said she wouldn’t speak a word to anyone but Agatha and Con. It definitely would not go well for him if he began this interview by himself.