Page 90 of Bay of Plenty

Me:Oh, Dad. You’re better at writing than you think.

*

That night, I couldn’t sleep. I wandered out to the courtyard, the half-moon hanging over the back bush. I missed Declan so much it felt like the pain would never end. I still wanted a chance with him, but he seemed firm in his decision whenhe left, even though he’d spoken about being unhappy and unfulfilled in his job before. The aching was bone-deep, liquefied into my veins. I was desperate for some respite, some hope. I breathed in the lemonwood and listened for the rustle of tuis.

I had to think about good things. How CeeCee had said that whatever happened, a weight had been lifted from her heart. How lucky I was to have a second chance with all these people seeing me off at the airport tomorrow morning—Mum, Dad, Rosemary, Kui, Bevan, Rina, Fleur, and Mr.Saunders. How I knew this town well enough that I could trace the lemons in tonight’s cake, which had been swapped for avocados, which had been traded for fresh fish, which was a thank-you for succulent cuttings. How I could be hopeless at sports but great at surfing. And hiking, it seemed.

There were vast, mystical things—just as Snow molded seamlessly into the ocean, Kingi was absorbed into the forest like a vital layer of the canopy. How the sea and the mountains still seemed immense and unknowable but wonderful too.

Snow belonged in the sea; Kingi to the mountains. Unlike Kingi and Snow, I didn’t belong to one place or another or even to one country. But I no longer felt unmoored. I’d untangled the wild chaos of my heart and mind, which had led me to wrongness and complication. Finally, I was free to feel the steady pulse of myself, free to live the messy wonder of the world without this desperation to rigidly judge and define it.

But, still, how would I ever get over Declan? I couldn’t imagine a time when I would.

Chapter Fifty-Nine

Excerpt from the confession of Cecelia “CeeCee” Amor.

Questioned by Detective Chief Inspector Declan McDermott, National Crime Agency, UK.

Interview’s written transcriptionsigned by Cecelia Amor on 16 December 2024, witnessed by Detective Inspector Lisa Pritti on 16 December 2024.

CeeCee, how did you get pulled into the drug ring?

It was because of Cazza—Cassidy Corcoran. She always made comments about how Janey’s disappearance was such a mystery and how strange it was that I was Janey’s best friend and yet didn’t have a clue. It was hard to know whether she’d seen something or guessed I was involved. I had to stay friends with her. She even followed me to Sydney when I signed up for a postgraduate business degree. She studied chemistry. That’s when she met the guy who went on to work in the heroin labs in Tasmania.

She was home for the holidays, and we met for coffee at Roxie’s. She asked me if I wanted the chance to make millions of dollars in one year. I would be the middle person, trafficking heroin from Tasmania to London.

I felt sick to my stomach. I turned her down. I said, “Thanks for thinking of me, but I can’t.”

Cazza’s reply was casual. “No worries, mate.”

But I knew better than to be relieved.

She got up to leave, stared into the distance and said, “How funny. Now we both know a secret about the other person. Only difference is—I haven’t done anything about it yet.” I was terrified.

A year later, my mother sold the campground overnight to developers. Now, I needed sixteen million dollars to buy it, to make sure Janey’s [Januska Saunders’s] body remained a secret. I had no other choice—I phoned Cazza. I told her that Bevan’s parents were desperate to sell the winery, and wasn’t that a genius way to transport the heroin?

What was your relationship with Sidney “Snow” Stone?

I want to make clear that Snow never knew about the heroin ring and had nothing to do with it. He’s innocent, and his only fault is that he’s trusting.

I promised Snow that buying the winery would give us the life we wanted—for him, the surf school; for me, the boutique. To ensure the purchase didn’t raise any alarms, I asked Snow to borrow the deposit from Joyce and Brian Joyson. I set up Big Wave Holdings in the Cayman Islands, using a lawyer [name redacted] recommended by Cazza, who I now know was also the London scientists’ lawyer. Everyone calls him the “bow-tied lawyer.” He took all his instructions from me.

Snow had no idea what he was signing. The winery flourished immediately. After hours, I spent time at the winery, so Rangi [Tane] didn’t know he was essentially taking ordersfrom me through Snow. I justified all this to Snow by saying that it had to appear like he was running the winery, as he was the popular one in the community, and people wanted him to do well. He knew as well as I did that certain locals might become resentful if they knew it was run by a young woman.

Snow was never mean or harsh with me. It was after a year that he started to believehewas in charge and that the winery was doing well because of him. I was booking him for longer hours surfing so he stayed away from the winery, and he became frustrated.

I always loved Snow and I still do. He has an innocence to him, and I love that he’s so in tune with the ocean. The last thing I ever wanted was to implicate or hurt him.

When I returned toOhopeafter Australia, Snow and I lived together for three perfect years. Deep down, I suspected that Snow was gay, but he tried hard to make our relationship work. His father was a bigot. The only thing his father approved of about Snow was Snow’s girlfriends.

But then Snow started seeing more of Kingi, until even I could see they were in love. One day, he sat me down and told me he could never give me what I wanted or deserved, and that I shouldn’t be settling for this life we shared. I told him I wasn’t settling, that I loved him enough for the both of us.

Kingi was determined to be sober and to stay away from his gang friends. I could sense that Snow was about to tell me that Kingi and he were going public.

But then the bar fight happened, and Kingi left for the mountains. Now Snow needed me to stay so the police didn’t guess at their relationship and follow him when he went to visit Kingi.

I convinced myself that I was compromising far less thanother women. I’d never wanted children, so really—what was I giving up? After all, Snow’s home was with me.

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