It was Ruby, out of breath, looking for someone in the reception area.

Paula hurried towards her. ‘Ruby! Are you alright?’

‘People down the road reckon they saw some guy carry my mum to a truck. Where is she?’

‘Your mum’s okay. She was hurt, but she’ll be okay.’

As Paula told Ruby what had happened, the girl shook her head, as if trying to shake what she was hearing out of her ears.

‘It’s my fault. I should’ve stayed at the house,’ she said.

‘It’s not your fault, Ruby.’

Ruby shook her head even more vehemently. ‘It’s my fault. I pissed off. Should never’ve left. Is my brother alright? Where’s my brother?’

‘Your grandparents just picked him up.’

Ruby exhaled a shuddery breath with relief. Then she spun around and headed out the doors to the patch of concrete where she’d left her dirt bike.

Paula ran outside after her. ‘Ruby, hold on.’

‘Going to find my brother.’

‘What can I do?’

‘Nothing,’ Ruby shouted over her shoulder at Paula, then revved up the dirt bike and swerved out onto the road.

Paula stayed in the car park, moving from foot to foot. She’d failed that girl. She’d failed Nicole. Maybe the whole world had failed them, but that didn’t lift any of the responsibility off Paula.

Standing there, she realised her hands were shaking, sweat trickling down her back and chest, heart still racing from the surges of adrenaline that had been hitting her from the moment the phone woke her. Her legs suddenly felt boneless, as if they might give way under her.

She couldn’t go back inside. Probably there was official stuff still to do, paperwork she needed to fill out, but she couldn’t face it. Her bag and her phone were inside the hospital but her car keys were still in her jeans pocket, so she walked away from the hospital building straight to her car.

The adrenaline in her body was now converting into a pure, undiluted rage—a fierce metabolic process that tore away any threads holding her within normal bounds.

She headed south on the highway, driving too fast, towards the Upper Pinch Road house. She had no idea where Curtis Wigney was, had no viable hope of finding him. All she had was the certainty that if she saw that man, she would steer her car straight at him, ramming his body against a wall or a tree, so he could never hurt Nicole again and never have a chance to hurt those children.