Page 65 of The Hideaway
Mira frowned; she hadn’t heard anything.
‘I don’t think so, I—’
She stopped herself short.
Yes – I can hear them!
The rise and fall of voices – familiar ones – coming and going, through the trees.
Oh, thank God!They had found the others.
‘It’s them!’ said Mira. ‘I think it’s Scott, and Carly – is it...?’ Mira was about to bolt through the trees to find them, had started to move, when Naya’s hand yanked her backwards, a sharp tug that had her almost falling flat on the ground.
‘Shhh!’ said Naya. ‘Don’t move. I don’t think... something doesn’t sound right.’
The two of them halted on the spot, listened, tuned into the two voices.
They couldn’t hear everything, but snippets, fragments of the conversation drifted through the trees to meet their ears. Words – confusing ones, sentences that made no sense, not in isolation.
And then, piece by piece, Mira started to put it together. Looking into Naya’s eyes then, she realized that Naya understood everything too.
They knew what had happened and why. They knew who had killed Hannah.
And they understood, too, that their fight wasn’t yet over.
Slowly, Naya knelt to the ground, stifling a groan as she moved her wounded leg. She gestured to Mira to hand over her rucksack, which Mira did, and began to rifle through it.
‘What are you looking for?’ asked Mira, voice low.
‘The knife,’ she whispered. ‘It was in my rucksack with the first aid kit – but it’s not in yours. Did you see it when you went through my bag?’
Mira shook her head.
‘Then someone’s taken it,’ said Naya.
Naya dropped her eyes down, and Mira watched as she sifted her hands rapidly through the damp leaves of the jungle floor.
When she lifted them back up, her fingers were clasped around the sharp edge of a fist-sized rock.
SCOTT
Scott was terrified, but he was doing his best not to show it. His heart was battering his ribcage, the palms of his hands were clammy with sweat. He was almost grateful for the throbbing pain in his ankle, which was serving to remind him he was still alive. Still here.Now let’s make sure I stay that way.
Perhaps he could show Carly he wasn’t the enemy somehow; that she didn’t need to get him out of the way. It was worth a shot.
‘I think I understand,’ he said, the words rasping in his dry throat. ‘You wanted Hannah to know the impact of her work on Robyn – you wanted her to stop telling people to avoid proper medication.’ Carly nodded; she looked relieved that he’d understood her. ‘And then Hannah’s death was a kind of tragic accident.’
He paused, then forced himself to make eye contact with her, trying to get across as much of an air of compassion as he could. ‘It must have been really hard to know what to do after we found her body...’
Carly sighed. ‘Yeah, I was gutted, honestly. I didn’t want to have to hurt anyone else. But when Ben ran off, I realizedthat as well as the satellite phone, he took the photo with him.’ She reached into her back pocket and showed Scott a crumpled photo – she must have taken it back from Ben when she stabbed him, moments ago. In a flash, he understood: it was the picture of Robyn that Carly had shown to Hannah when she’d confronted her.
‘I’m glad Ben found it, to be honest. I thought I’d dropped it somewhere. Hannah must have been holding it in her fist – I didn’t realize she still had it when she fell, and then when I noticed it was gone, it was too late to go back for it.’
Scott swallowed. ‘I see. And if Ben had that photo on him when the rescuers came – well, the police would have figured it all out, wouldn’t they? And you couldn’t let that happen.’
The satellite phone, still in Carly’s hand, started to ring again, giving Scott a quick rush of hope – but it was quickly extinguished as she pressed a button to silence it. ‘I never meant for all this,’ she said softly. ‘But after we’d found Hannah, I thought if I could just get the rest of you to be injured or weakened in some way, I could get out of here without you following me. Then when you were navigating earlier, just before we saw that snake, I told you we were still lost so we’d stop going in the right direction... and then – I’m sorry about doing that to your ankle, by the way.’
‘Ah... that was you?’She tripped me up.
