Dana leaned toward the mike. “I do.”
“That’s a long time ago—why do you remember that phone call specifically?”
I feel Dana’s attention being pulled to me in the dock. Like the others, she’s probably been advised not to look. And she doesn’t. She keeps her eyes firmly on the prosecutor, clears her throat, and says, “Because it was from her—from Ellie. And it stuck in my mind because it would have been close to four a.m. her time the next day. I thought she might be in trouble, and it jolted me.”
“What did she want?”
“She asked if I remembered a photograph of us that the barman at the Mallard Lounge had taken on her father’s birthday.”
“The Mallard Lounge is where?”
“In the Hartley Plaza Hotel on the Vancouver waterfront. The hotel is named for her father—it was one of his development projects.”
“And what was happening at the Hartley Plaza when you were there?”
“The AGORA convention. It’s an event hosted annually by the Hartley Group, which is Ellie’s father’s company.”
I’m going to throw up. I watch Lorrington’s profile intently. His jaw is tight. He knows what’s coming now.
“What is the AGORA convention?”
Dana is nervous. She reaches for her glass of water with a trembling hand, sips, and says, “Ellie referred to it as a sort of ‘pitch-fest’ or speed-dating event designed to introduce investors to people who need equity financing for various projects, mostly development projects, real estate, that kind of thing.”
The prosecutor consults her notes. “And the patrons in the Mallard Lounge that night, were they part of the AGORA convention, too?”
“A lot of them looked like they were. Business attire, conference name tags, that sort of thing.”
“So all people hungry for money?”
“Objection.” Lorrington rises. “Leading the witness.”
“I’ll rephrase,” says Konikova. “What was the primary goal of most of the hotel occupants that night?”
“Well, people seeking money. Or to loan or invest it and make a profit from it.”
“And why were you and Ellie there?”
She clears her throat. “Ellie had come off a bad dinner with her father when I happened to call her. She suggested I come over, and I was keen to join her for a night on the town. I met her in the Mallard, where she’d had dinner, and we drank a lot more. Then we asked the barman to take some photos of the two of us together.”
“Is this one of the photos, Ms. Bainbridge?”
A photograph comes up on a screen for everyone to see. It’s been enlarged tenfold and sharpened. My breathing begins to deepen. I feel my chest rise and fall, but I’m not getting air.
“Yes,” says Dana.
I feel the moment build. It swells. I glance around the court. I need to get out.
“Can you please tell Your Honor who is in that photo, Ms. Bainbridge?”
“That’s me. And that’s Ellie.”
“And in the background, among the other patrons of the Mallard Lounge, do you see anyone else you recognize?”
“Yes. I recognize the person seated directly behind Ellie at the bar.”
My scalp is shrinking. The more I try to control my breathing, the faster my chest rises and falls. I’m going to hyperventilate.
“Is this person in the courtroom now?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Ms. Bainbridge, can you point to this person?”
Dana points.
THEN
LOZZA
Lozza roared down Bonny River Road and screeched to a halt outside the Cresswell-Smith home. Lights blazed inside. The front door was wide open.
The woman from next door came running into the road in her nightgown, a mobile clutched in her hand. “Thank God you’re here—I called triple zero. He took her! I saw it happen! He took her in his car.”
“Who took her? What happened?” Lozza heard the wail of sirens in the distance. Emergency response was on its way. More sirens sounded from an opposite direction, growing louder.
“I . . . I . . . didn’t know what to do,” the woman sobbed.
Lozza steadied the old woman by the shoulders. She looked her dead in the eyes, spoke calmly, clearly. “Tell me what happened. Everything.”
“There . . . was a scream. A terrible scream. It woke me—I was sleeping with the windows open because of the heat. The most awful sound I’ve ever heard. I . . . I looked out the window. There . . . there was a car in their driveway, over there.” She pointed to the driveway. “Both the driver’s door and the passenger doors were open, engine running. Headlights on. Then I heard crashing and banging, and he came out struggling to drag something very heavy. He came out the front door and tugged it across the lawn to the car and—” She shuddered and wrapped her arms tightly around herself, her cell phone still gripped tightly in her hand. “It looked like a body. I think it could have been a body wrapped up in a blanket or sheets or something and tied up with rope. I think it was her—the wife—inside. He really struggled to get his load into the back seat of the car. When I realized what might be happening, I hurried downstairs to find my phone. I couldn’t find—” She swiped away tears. “Oh, God, I couldn’t find it at first. Then I did. It had gone down between the cushions on the couch. I called triple zero. But when I went to the window again, the car was already backing out of the driveway.”
“Did you get a look at the assailant?”
“Dressed all in black. He had a balaclava over his head.”
“What kind of car?”
“Brown. I think it was brown.”
“A sedan, hatchback, ute, what?”
“Sedan. One of those . . . those . . .”
“Corolla? Was it a Toyota Corolla?”
“Yes, yes, I think it could have been.”
“Did you see the rego?”
She shook her head.
“Which way did it go?”
“To the right.” She pointed. “It sped off that way. I heard tires screech at the end of the road.”
The sirens grew louder. Lozza’s mind raced. Bonny River Road was shaped like a crescent. Going either north or south would lead a driver to the Princes Highway, which was the only road that ran up and down this section of coast. If the assailant had turned north here on Bonny River Road, it was likely he intended to head north when he hit the A1.
She ran to her vehicle and climbed in. She needed a full highway patrol response. Breathing hard, blood racing, Lozza dialed for backup from a neighboring jurisdiction that had a bigger force and staff on night duty. As the phone rang on speaker, she spun a U-turn across Bonny River Road and hit the gas.
As Lozz sped toward the highway, she explained the nature of the emergency to dispatch and gave her name and rank. “I’m in pursuit, heading north onto the A1. If I lay eyes on the vehicle, I’ll call it in.”
It was a gamble. The Corolla could conceivably turn south. Or it could duck into a side road before it reached the A1 and lie low in a quiet neighborhood. But her instincts told her a kidnapper would want to get away and fast. It was the assailant’s bad luck that the Cresswell-Smiths had a nosy neighbor, or the kidnapper could have been long gone.
Lozza hit the highway. She put her foot down on the gas, then swerved violently for three kangaroos that bounded across the road and vanished into the gum forest. Close call. Sweat dampened her brow, and she thought of Maya and all the reasons she’d left the murder squad in the big city. A semi came barreling toward her from the opposite direction, headlights and running lights bright as the rig punched a tunnel through dark forest. It roared past and shuddered her little car. Lozza gripped the wheel tighter, driving as fast as she dared. She had every intention of going home to her daughter. Alive.
Another truck roared past, headlights blazing. A memory flashed like lightning—the sight of Martin Cresswell-Smith’s pale body floating in the swamp—his buttocks barely breaking the inky surface. Martin lol
ling onto his back when Gregg bumped him. The sightless sockets, the shredded lips, the nightmarish work of the muddies, his groin seething with sea lice. The knife with blood. The ropes. The chair. The feces. The severed digits. The smell. She focused as she rounded a bend. If the person who had killed Martin Cresswell-Smith now had Ellie, she feared the worst for her.
Another, deeper part of Lozza’s brain still couldn’t see the pieces adding up—she still felt Ellie was playing them.
What was she missing?
Who was the man from the Puggo—the bikie—who’d delivered the drugs Ellie had overdosed on?
Lozza saw it suddenly as she rounded a curve. Red taillights. The Corolla. She increased speed.
THEN
LOZZA
Lozza gained on the red lights up ahead. As the vehicle came into better view, she saw it was definitely a Corolla. With a dent in the rear and the registration QUEENSLAND 549-GIN. Her heart sped up.
She leaned harder on the accelerator, which increased the risk of hitting an animal and obliterating both the creature and herself. Every molecule in her body was focused and ready to slam on the brakes.
Trees whipped past as she went faster through the tunnel of gums. Without taking her eyes off the road, she used her voice-activated system to call dispatch again.
“This is Senior Constable Lozza Bianchi. I have eyes on suspect vehicle. Repeat, eyes on suspect. Brown Toyota Corolla. Queensland 549-GIN. Headed northbound on A1 between Jarrawarra and Keelongong. We’re about two klicks south of Keelongong intersection.”
She swerved around a sharp bend, tires screeching. Lozza’s heart shot into her throat as she felt her wheels skidding on fine sea sand. She pulled back into control. The Corolla driver ahead seemed to realize he was being chased and picked up speed, skidding and swerving around another curve in the narrow road.
Lozza eased back slightly. There was nowhere to go until the intersection, which was now about one klick ahead. Highway patrol would hopefully have had time to deploy road spikes.
The red taillights disappeared from view behind trees as the Corolla rounded another curve.
As Lozza followed, she caught sight of the Corolla again. It suddenly hit the brakes, swerved violently, then fishtailed. The car had collided with something. Brake lights stuttered as the Corolla slid sideways again and veered onto the dirt verge. It bounded over the sandy verge, then spun as it pulled back onto the road. Whatever it had hit went hurtling down a bank. Lozza clenched her teeth as a sick feeling filled her.
Her phone rang.
She slowed a little more and connected the call.
“Roadblock in place. Spikes deployed. Stand down, Officer, repeat, stand down. Under control . . .”
She killed the call and eased off the gas, her heart thudding against her ribs. Her T-shirt was wet from perspiration. She rounded another bend and saw the pulsating red and blue lights of law enforcement vehicles at the intersection ahead, the colors bouncing off the silvery trunks of gum trees. But her adrenaline kicked up again—the Corolla was not slowing down! It continued to barrel at high speed straight toward the strobing lights.
Horror rose into her throat.
She slowed and backed off even more, a feeling of dread leaching through her veins as the inevitable played out in slow motion in front of her eyes.
Suddenly the Toyota swerved, almost flipped, corrected, and veered off the highway to the right. It bounded down a sand track and disappeared into the black forest. All Lozza could see through the trunks were intermittent flashes of light from the fleeing vehicle’s headlights. Lozza called it in.
“Suspect heading east down a dirt road through the forest—” She saw a sign for the Keelongong campsite. “Track could lead to the campsite near the beach.” She turned down onto the sandy track and followed after the Toyota.
The road was rough, the sand soft in places, bogging down her tires, causing them to spin. She heard sirens wailing behind her and also coming from somewhere up ahead. She guessed responders were approaching from the beach direction to head the Toyota off from the east.
Her headlights darted off ghostlike gums. Glowing eyes watched her from the woods. She spotted the taillights of the car ahead.
The fleeing driver hit the gas and punched and bounced faster along the sandy road at reckless speed. The vehicle disappeared from view again as it went behind trees, then as Lozza came around a stand of dense ferns and trees, she heard a loud explosion. Her heart sank to her stomach. The sound was followed almost instantly by another explosion ripping through the forest. Bats burst from the trees. They swooped and fluttered in front of her headlights. As she neared, she saw the orange flickering glow of a blaze through the trunks of the trees. Behind the fire the bar lights of a police vehicle strobed, and Lozza realized with horror what had occurred. The getaway car had crashed head-on into a highway patrol cruiser.
She took her vehicle closer, stopped, flung open the door, and ran stumbling over roots and ruts toward the fully engaged vehicle fire. Smoke roiled black and acrid through the trees. Heat radiated at her. She heard the fierce crackling of flames. As she neared, another explosion sent a whoosh of white fire and sound into the air. Heat blasted at her. Her heart stalled. She stopped, stared, and she put her hands on top of her head as if to press the horror back in.
Ellie.
She was still in there.
Lozza heard more sirens coming from the other side of the blaze. A fire truck also approached from behind her. A firefighter ran up and took her arm.
“Ma’am, please, you need to back away, ma’am.”
“The victim is—she’s still in there.”
“Ma’am. Back away. Now.”
THEN
LOZZA
She was dead.
Ellie Cresswell-Smith had perished in the fire along with her abductor.
Lozza had failed. This thought, the weight of it all, circled and pressed down on her along with all sorts of questions as she sat shivering on the back bumper of an ambulance with a blanket around her shoulders. Despite the heat, shock and her own perspiration had made her cold.
Pale dawn seeped through the smoky forest. The vehicle fire had spread rapidly through the surrounding drought-dry brush and highly combustible eucalypts. It was only being brought under control now. Smoke burned her nostrils and the back of her throat.
A spark from the crash had likely ignited spilled fuel. The highway patrol officer had been pulled free of his vehicle before it became engaged, but officers from the vehicle traveling behind him were unable to approach the fully engulfed Toyota Corolla. The highway patrol officer had been taken to the nearby hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
Firefighters were now attempting to control the ensuing wildfire before investigators could even begin to go in. Gregg handed Lozza a coffee. She looked up. His eyes were kind. His rugged face and smiling eyes had never been such a welcome sight.
“Thanks,” she said, taking the cup from him.
“Did you call Maya—let her know you’re okay?”
She nodded, sipped.
Corneil approached. The sergeant’s features were as flat and inscrutable as always. A helicopter thudded up ahead.
Lozza had already explained to Corneil the events in detail—how she’d received Ellie’s call at 3:50 a.m., heard screaming. How she’d gone to the Cresswell-Smith house, then given chase. Corneil had taken notes. Lozza felt this wasn’t going to end well.
“Why did she have your personal number?” he asked now.
“I gave it to her. After we interviewed her. You saw me giving her my card. You were watching from the window.”
“Why did you give it to her?”
“In case she decided to talk or remembered something.”
Corneil’s brow crooked up. “Exactly what did she say on the phone?”
Lozza repeated her recollection of the call, again.
“Are you certain Ellie Cresswell-Smith was not in the home when you got there?
”
Lozza’s pulse stuttered. “I . . . The neighbor witnessed what looked like a body tied in blankets being dragged out of the house.”
“Are you certain it was a body?”
Lozza cleared her throat. “I made the assumption.”
“Assumption,” Corneil said quietly as he reached for his phone. But as Corneil was about to place a call, one of the officers shouted.
“There’s no one in here!”
Everyone looked. Lozza got to her feet.
“There’s no one inside the vehicle!” The charred driver’s door was open. A suited-up forensics officer had peered in. “Looks like the driver fled,” he called out.
Corneil strode closer, calling out in return. “What about on the back seat? Where is the victim? Have you checked the boot?”
“Nothing in the boot. No human remains in the vehicle immediately apparent. Looks like there was no victim in here.”
Gregg touched Lozza’s arm. She felt like she was going to be sick.
“I was acting on the statement of the neighbor,” she said quietly.
“You made an executive decision, Lozz,” Gregg said. “There was no time to gamble with. We all would have done the same thing.”
Except Lozza wasn’t certain about that. Not at all.
Corneil strode back toward Lozza as he placed his call.
“Sybil,” he said into his mobile, “are you at the Cresswell-Smith home now?” He listened, eyeing Lozza, his brows going lower. “And you’re sure she’s not still inside her home?”
He nodded and killed the call.
“House is empty,” he said. “Evidence of an assault. Blood. Mrs. Cresswell-Smith’s phone was found in the house. Neighbor’s account remains consistent. But she’s gone. Ellie Cresswell-Smith is gone.”
THEN
LOZZA
Lozza drove slowly back along the Princes Highway. The sun was higher, and the road shimmered in the heat. Traffic was getting busier. She replayed the events in her mind, trying to see where she might have done things differently. A sick part of herself wondered again if Ellie Cresswell-Smith was really just a brilliant con who had set this up. But why?
In the Deep Page 29
