Little Girl Lost (23 page)

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In the middle of nowhere, Katie Brooks’ car exploded.

At least that’s how it felt as thick steam burst out from under the bonnet. Suddenly Katie was driving blind at high speed as the steam enveloped the front of her car. She lifted her foot from the accelerator and reached for the windscreen wipers. That only made things worse. The dust on her windscreen turned to mud and was smeared in a messy rust-coloured arc across the glass. Cursing, Katie turned the steering wheel and let the vehicle roll slowly to a stop on the side of the road. She got out and took a step back to look at the car she had owned for a little less than forty-eight hours. She didn’t know much about cars, but she didn’t need to know much to be certain that the blue Holden Commodore wasn’t going anywhere in the near future.

‘That’ll teach me to buy a twenty year old car,’ Katie muttered under her breath. ‘So much for an “Australian classic”. That’s the last time I listen to a used car salesman.’

She took a deep breath and slowly turned in a circle.

She was standing in the middle of the longest stretch of straight flat road she had ever encountered. The thin grey line extended to the horizon in either direction, without so much as a building or another car in sight. In fact, she hadn’t seen another human being for what seemed like hours. The only living thing she’d spotted was a kangaroo hopping across the road about a hundred miles back. So much space and so few people! Would she ever get used to it?

The geyser pouring from underneath her bonnet was beginning to ease. She opened the door and walked to the front of the car, reaching inside to feel for the catch. Very carefully she raised the bonnet, releasing another cloud of steam that quickly dissipated. She stared at her engine for a few seconds, before admitting it was a waste of time. She had no idea what to do. If she was going to get out of here, it wasn’t going to be in the Commodore. She swung her leg to kick the offending vehicle, but at the last minute, pulled the blow. In her open-toed flat sandals, the kick was likely to hurt her foot more than the car.

She walked into the middle of the road and looked back the way she had come. Nothing. She looked in the direction she’d been heading. Somewhere out there was a small town called Coorah Creek. She did remember seeing a sign a while ago, but had no idea how far she still needed to go. And all the road signs were in kilometres, not miles. So even if she knew how many kilometres, she wasn’t entirely sure she’d know how far that really was.

As she stood gazing down the road, bits from her reading leaped into the forefront of her mind. The bits about people dying of thirst when their cars broke down. And the bits about poisonous snakes and spiders. There probably weren’t any man-eating crocodiles here, a million miles … kilometres … from the coast. But weren’t the wild pigs dangerous too? Suddenly a whole less sure of herself, Katie leaned back against the car.

‘Ow!’ She leaped forward as the hot metal burned her thighs through the thin cotton of her skirt.

That was another thing. It was hot here. Really, really hot! Her car’s on-again-off-again air-conditioning had barely been worth the name. And now she was standing in the blazing sun in an area desperately low on trees. She wandered along the road a short distance, looking for a tree big enough to give her a spot of shade. Nothing. She turned her face to the sky – a brilliant arc of totally cloudless blue. She could already feel her pale English skin starting to burn.

‘Well,’ she said to the vast empty spaces, ‘I left cold, grey, miserable London feeling burnt out by my job and that I’d lost my way. Now here I am, lost in the middle of nowhere and about to get really burned.’

The frustration building inside her suddenly exploded into a burst of laughter, but she was aware of the undertone of hysteria.

Returning to the car, she opened the rear door and rummaged around in the bags strewn over the back seat. Somewhere in there was a hat. And some sunscreen. Sweat was dripping from her forehead by the time she found them. She stepped back from the car and began slathering the white cream over her nose and cheeks.

‘So now what do I do?’ she wondered out loud. ‘Do I wait with the car like it said in the books? Or do I start walking?’

The only answer was the distant haunting caw of a crow.

Surely someone would come along soon.

She reached for her handbag, and retrieved her mobile phone. Squinting against the bright sunlight, she looked at it with little hope. She’d already discovered that large parts of Australia did not have mobile coverage. Either that or her phone was rubbish, which was also entirely possible.

Grimacing in disgust, she tossed the phone back onto the front seat.

Just a couple of weeks ago, she’d been wrapped in a heavy wool coat, fighting her way through crowds of shoppers in Oxford Street and admiring the best Christmas lights in London. She had cursed those crowds and their armloads of parcels and bags blocking her way. Right now she would give anything to see a few of them walking towards her. She would even offer to carry those parcels for them.

Once more she looked in both directions along the road. Nothing but the distant heat haze shimmering across the grey tarmac. It looked like water, or …

Water.

She was suddenly dying of thirst.

Katie turned back to her car. She wasn’t a total idiot. She’d bought water at the last petrol station.

Ah-ha!

She held the plastic bottle aloft in triumphant. But her joy was short lived. There was only about an inch of liquid left in the bottom. She removed the lid but hesitated. Should she drink it now or wait. Surely she wouldn’t be here long? Would she?

Defiantly she drank the last of the water. There! It was done. Now someone had to find her.

She looked down at her arms, trying to see if the skin was already turning pink. It felt as if it should be. For the first time, she felt a real twinge of fear. As a nurse, she knew about the effects of sunstroke and dehydration. But what could she do? There wasn’t any shade.

Maybe she could make her own.

She opened her suitcase and eventually found a long, light cotton skirt. She squinted up to judge the angle of the sun then opened both car doors. She tried to spread the skirt over them to form a tent. It didn’t work. The patch of shade created wouldn’t have sheltered a mouse. Even that little bit of effort had raised a sweat, and she could feel her energy being drained away by the relentless heat.

She looked at the skirt in her hands. It had been a gift from her sister, and she was quite fond of it. But she was also quite fond of being alive. If another car didn’t come along for a couple of hours – and that seemed entirely possible – she was in real trouble.

She gripped the skirt firmly and tugged at the side seam. It took a lot of effort, but finally she heard the stitches tear. When she opened the skirt out, she had quite a large piece of fabric to work with. Enough to make some sort of tent. She spread the material between two open car doors, using the windows to hold the edges. After a few minutes work, and a lot more sweat, she had created a small patch of shade between the two doors, under the tented fabric.

Before she sat down, she scrabbled around some more in her suitcase, and emerged with a woolly cardigan – a garment she was unlikely to need in the near future. She put the cardigan down in the small patch of shade. That would give her bum some respite from the rough gravel on the side of the road. Then she lowered herself into her makeshift sun-shelter.

It wasn’t cool. Far from it. The heat radiating from the metal of the car was intense, but at least she wasn’t in the full blazing sun.

She wriggled about a bit. Trying to get comfortable – or at least less uncomfortable. She tried to stay focused, listening for the sound of an approaching engine. But all she could hear was that damn crow. It was starting to get on her nerves.

She glanced at her watch. How long had she already been here?

Her head was starting to spin and her eyelids fluttered.

No! She had to stay awake.

She shook her head, wishing she still had some water left. Wishing she had never hopped on that plane in London. She had really messed up. Again. The wrong career, and now the wrong place to pursue that career.

Her life wasn’t exactly going as she had hoped. If only …

She felt her eyelids starting to close. She took a deep breath and blinked rapidly. It already felt like she’d been stranded for hours. She glanced down at her watch again. Time was moving at a snail’s pace.

She must not fall asleep!

It had to be the most boring stretch of road in the world – this road that led to Coorah Creek. This road that was taking him back after so many years. It was long and straight and flat with no turnings or side roads. Scott Collins wondered if maybe there was a metaphor in that.

He wriggled his fingers on the wheel to relieve the stiffness and the boredom. He’d never thought he’d see this part of the country again. And certainly not of his own volition. But times change. People change. He was coming back to Coorah Creek and he had no idea what was waiting for him there.

He reached out to pick up the water bottle from the centre console. His air-conditioning was going full bore, but he could still feel the sun beating down on his car. He was looking forward to getting away from the relentless heat. And the dull burnt colours. And the rain that thundered so hard on a tin roof that you couldn’t hear yourself think. His future was full of lush green places, where rain fell in gentle refreshing showers. He might even get his first white Christmas, if things went well. That could be fun. He’d never seen snow.

At least he would be in a place where there were no memories to haunt him.

But if he was going to escape those memories, there was something he had to do first. He had to return to Coorah Creek.

Somewhere ahead of him, the sun flashed off metal, pulling Scott’s attention back to the long straight road. It was easy – and very dangerous – to lose concentration like that. He strained to see through the shimmering heat haze in the distance. There was a dark shape – a car – on the side of the road up ahead.

Scott immediately lifted his foot from the accelerator. He’d been away from the outback for more than eight years, but some lessons are never forgotten. In the outback, you never drove past a stranded car without stopping to see if the driver needed help. Out here, a broken down car could cost someone their life.

Scott pulled off the road a few yards behind the blue Commodore. He registered its make with a smile. The car was a classic, but getting on in years. He wasn’t surprised that it was stuck way out here. Now, where was the driver?

That’s when he noticed the fabric stretched between the two open doors. Someone had tried to construct a shelter. He strode quickly forward when he saw a girl apparently unconscious lying half in and half out of that makeshift shelter. He swiftly knelt beside her and reached out a hand to touch her face where the skin was already red. She looked so young and so terribly vulnerable.

‘What the …’ With a jerk the girl suddenly sat up, her eyes staring wildly around her.

‘Hey. It’s all right.’ Scott sat back on his heels to give the girl some breathing room.

She ran her hand over her face. Slowly her eyes came to focus on him. ‘Oh.’

‘I saw your car. Are you all right?’

‘Yes. I fell asleep. Jet lag.’ The words came out as a harsh croak.

‘Hang on a second. Don’t try to get up yet. You need water.’

Scott rose to his feet and jogged back to his car. The water bottle he’d been drinking from was half empty, but there were two more on the passenger seat. He picked up both of them.

The girl had pulled herself into a sitting position, leaning back against the car. She looked terrible. Scott tried to conceal his concern as he passed her an open bottle.

‘Slowly,’ he warned as she began gulping down the warm liquid. ‘Slowly!’ Scott put his hand on her arm and she lowered the bottle. ‘If you drink too fast you’ll probably throw up,’ he told her. ‘And we don’t have enough water to waste it like that.’

The girl took a deep breath, and nodded. She leaned back and closed her eyes. Scott could see the strain on her face. He waited silently until she was ready to take a few more slow sips of water.

‘Do you want to try to get up?’

She nodded.

‘Okay. But take it easy.’

The girl really didn’t need the warning. She was moving very slowly, and looked quite shaky as she gathered her feet under her. Scott stood up and reached down to help her. She was a small thing – light as a feather and barely up to his chin. She swayed a little, and he kept one hand on her arm until he was certain she wasn’t going to fall down again.

She took another smaller drink of water, and finally looked him squarely in the face.

‘Thank you.’ Her voice sounded much stronger.

‘Are you all right?’

‘I think so,’ she said. ‘I must have fallen asleep. It was so hot.’

‘You passed out,’ Scott said. ‘Dehydration and heat exhaustion will do that.’

‘I know that,’ the girl said. ‘I’m a nurse.’

‘A nurse? Then you should know better than to come out here without water.’

‘In my part of the world, there isn’t much chance of dying of lack of water by the side of a road.’

As she spoke, her accent finally registered. ‘You’re English?’

‘I am.’

‘Then what the hell are you doing out here all by yourself? And without water? This isn’t England.’

‘I know that,’ she girl said, a touch of anger bringing a spark into her blue eyes. ‘I had water. I ran out. I wasn’t expecting this rubbish car to break down, was I?’

‘It’s not a rubbish car.’ Scott tried to hide his smile as the girl painfully shook the fist she’d just thumped the car with. ‘It’s just old. What happened?’

‘It exploded.’

Scott raised an eyebrow. Obviously a girl given to understatement. As she sipped slowly from the bottle of water, he moved to the front of the car and checked under the bonnet.