‘Oh, please. Your emotional rut is as unchanging as my menu. The reason for it has always had me stumped, but that, of course, was because I didn’t know the ins and outs of your failed relationship with our cute and nerdy little dinosaur doctor.’
‘You are way off base with this one, Maggie. Besides, our cute and nerdy dinosaur doctor has cleared off and I’ve got bigger dramas to deal with than my emotional rut.’
‘I don’t think so,’ she said. ‘In fact, I think I’m a hundred per cent right that Joanne Tan is the answer to you being emotionally stunted. I’m so right about this, I’m willing to make a bet on it.’
‘You’d lose your money.’ Emotionally stunted?Suchbullshit.
‘Oh, there’s things a lot more valuable around here than money. Especially to you, pet.’
‘Such as?’
‘Okay. If I’m wrong, and you turn out to not be hung up on Jo, then I will get you out of the upcoming shearing event with Regina at this year’s Yakka.’
That was a tempting bet. And of course she was wrong. Lol. Ha ha. As if. Not that it mattered … Jo was gone.
But if Maggie was right?
The publican had clearly developed mindreading skills after tending bar for forty plus years. ‘If I’m right,’ she said, ‘then you’ll wear a Yindi Creek Hotel singlet for the shearing contest and you’ll post a video of you getting your nuts handed to you by Regina on your Gavin Gunn social media.’
Ouch. ‘Do you even have Yindi Creek Hotel singlets?’ he said, looking at the pile of clutter on an old dresser: key rings, stubbie coolers, drink coasters, fridge magnets …
‘I will as soon as I’ve ordered some.’
‘You’re an operator, Maggie. And I don’t mean that as a compliment.’
She snickered, then leant forwards to ruffle his hair. ‘I like having you back living here. That cottage of yours is too far away.’
He smiled. ‘It’s like, two hundred metres away.’
‘Don’t backchat me, young man, when I’m feeling sentimental. Now, tell me about your Dave hunt. What have you got planned for the afternoon?’
His plans were simple. He’d decided to start right at the beginning of the line he had drawn on the murder board. And what better place to begin than in Charlie’s R22, flying the route he’d plotted when he delivered Dave to the remote spot off Doonoo Doonoo Road? Try to work out why the man had wanted to go there in the first place.
‘Hux?’
‘Sorry, Maggie. I was thinking. I’m heading out to Corley Station this arvo.’
‘Are you indeed?’ she said brightly.
He looked at her suspiciously. ‘Why are you saying it like that?’
TYSON [frowning]: Yeah, lady. Why are you saying it like that?
She grinned. ‘No reason at all. I hope you find whatever it is you’re looking for when you get out there.’
CHAPTER
28
Jo had spent part of her weekend in Brisbane on the computer in her study (also known as her dining table) mapping out a route to the GPS pin she’d dropped over the last potential dig site they’d briefly visited before the police waved them off. Now she set her phone to call out directions, so when they reached the outskirts of Yindi Creek she could follow the instructions toHead southwestback to the Matilda Way, and ignore theCaution: this road is unsealed and may be affected by seasonal floodingwarning.
Out of town, despite the road being unsealed, she let the speedometer get up to about eighty clicks an hour or so, since the going was so good. Corley Crossing Road was the most direct route to the cattle grid that marked the front gate of Corley Station, but Jo wasn’t headed for the front gate. Her study of the satellite maps had shown a small road (or possibly just a track used by farm vehicles) running parallel with what she assumed was the station’s southern boundary. The fence line, she hoped, that was visible in the ancient Polaroids the Dirt Girls had pasted into their scrapbook.
Phone coverage became spotty the further west they travelled, and her mapping app kept glitching, but she had colour A3 printouts of the satellite map that Luke was in charge of, and she was hopeful the turn-off to the thin dotted line on her map markedDoonoo Doonoo Roadwould be obvious enough even if they were in a blackspot. It wasn’t as if there were any other roads on this strip of the Matilda Way. Not until they hit McKinlay, anyway, and if they did end up there, they could fuel up and turn around and look for the turn-off a second time.
The phone call she’d made while they drank their lemonade at the pub to some woman called Gloria at the shire council had given her a cautious go-ahead that the roads in the shire were all open—for the moment—so long as she had a four-wheel drive and checked in with the road reports daily. Luck really did seem to be on Jo’s side at last. Even Luke seemed to have cheered up now they were back on the move. Holiday mood had set in. For both of them. She liked it.
Just when she was beginning to wonder if she had missed the turn after all, Luke spotted a signpost. It was old and battered and covered in dust, and it was pointing to the ground rather than the road, but it was a signpost nonetheless.
