‘Well, we can only stretch the suicide out for a few days unless there’s new info, but the kid angle will last much longer if we can lock it down.’

‘That’s why it should have stayed in my piece,’ Oli says evenly.

‘I explained that, Oli,’ Dawn says. ‘You get something concrete, and we’ll run a whole cover on it, and we can allude to you breaking it first, okay?’

Oli nods; she can’t be bothered arguing anymore.

‘We can do all the background copy from here—you just feed us anything new, okay?’

Oli nods again.

‘And chase down the Riboni interview. We need it.’ Dawn looks her straight in the eye. ‘I’d like to pull your feature forward a day or so. Doable?’

‘I doubt it,’ Oli replies quickly. ‘I won’t be able to speak to enough people by then, and like you said, it needs new news. We’ll have to corroborate anything Alex says. I’m also going to try to get a comment from Bowman.’

Dawn folds her arms. ‘Okay, fine.’ She pouts, thinking. ‘Today let’s just make sure we’re first with every update. I want to run maps of the area, speculation from locals. I want a timeline. Pia, can you brief the art department on some graphics? I want to brand this thing, get it looking really slick—what we did yesterday looked like shit. Reuse the photos that Cooper kid took, they’re pretty good.’

Oli’s stomach growls.

Dawn skims the printouts Pia gave her earlier. ‘Just remember to use your brains—we sure as shit don’t have the time or money for a lawsuit right now.’

Oli turns to Pia. ‘Did you track down the property owners?’

‘Yep, Tasmanians Rachel and Will Tiernan.’ Pia doesn’t look up. ‘I spoke to them about half an hour ago. Nice people. They’re horrified someone died there, even though they’ve never actually set foot on the property. Basically, they’re no help, they had no idea someone was living there, and they were planning on selling when they got around to it. I get the feeling that money is not in short supply.’

‘And they have no links to Nicole or the other girls?’

‘Not that they know of.’ Pia’s fingers dance across her phone.

Oli arches her back. ‘If Nicole started living in Crystalbrook four years ago, where the hell was she before that? And why hide out? Alex never suggested that Nicole killed Evelyn, and once Alex was in prison surely it was safe for her to come home?’

‘Is there any chance she was in witness protection?’ Brent says. ‘Maybe that’s why the cops are being so slow to confirm the details.’