Into the Myrtle

“You tell yourself you’re following evidence. But somewhere along the line, you start realising the evidence has been leading you.”

"What the fuck's up with you?" Sarah asked as we stepped back into the sheeting rain, the storm refusing to loosen its grip on the afternoon that was rapidly transitioning to something darker. Water lashed at us from all angles with renewed fury, soaking us to the marrow within seconds of leaving the marginal shelter of the toilet block. Her voice was half shout to carry over the weather, half accusation—sharp enough to cut through both the storm and whatever fugue state I'd entered.

I said nothing in response to her question. Couldn't trust my voice not to betray the confusion churning inside me. My jaw was clenched so tightly it ached, muscles bunched and knotted, and my mind spun like tyres on slick bitumen—gaining no traction, going nowhere despite enormous effort. The image I'd seen—or thought I'd seen, was already beginning to doubt my own perception—played over and over behind my eyes in an endless loop. That silver hair. That crouched figure. That impossible presence and equally impossible absence. So fleeting. So strange. So utterly inexplicable.

It had felt real in the moment. Absolutely, undeniably real. But was already beginning to blur at the edges, details softening and shifting like a dream eroding on waking, like memory trying to reshape itself into something more plausible, less threatening to my understanding of reality.

Was it just stress manifesting as hallucination? A flicker of shadow misread in the chaos of torchlight and storm and exhaustion? The rational part of my brain scrambled desperately for footing, for explanations that didn't require abandoning everything I understood about how the world worked. Perhaps a reflection somehow, though there'd been no mirrors. Or a trick of the light creating pareidolia, seeing human shapes in random patterns. My mind offering up what it expected to see rather than what was actually there.

But instinct, that quiet, stubborn voice that had pulled me through a dozen impossible cases over two decades of police work, whispered insistently that I had seen something real. Something important. Something connected to this investigation in ways I couldn't yet articulate. And the feeling that I'd known her, that silver-haired woman, that sense of recognition... that wouldn't let go, wouldn't release its grip on my consciousness no matter how I tried to dismiss it as imagination.

The crackle of the radio startled me back to present reality, the harsh burst of static biting through my reverie like a physical slap. "CITY632. Are you there?" the dispatcher's voice was tinny and warped by the speaker quality, distorted further by weather interference, but its insistence left no room for drifting thoughts or internal contemplation.

I turned and made for the car, my boots sliding treacherously on the mud-slick gravel with every step. One hand shot out instinctively to catch my balance on the bonnet as I nearly went down, the cold metal stinging my skin, shocking me further back to operational awareness. Rain blurred my vision continuously, as I reached for the door handle.

"CITY632 here. Go ahead," I said into the handset, nearly growling the words as I yanked the door open and climbed inside with ungainly haste. Water pooled instantly beneath my seat, dripping from every fold of my clothing, creating puddles on the floor mat that would take hours to dry.

"CITY632. Still no sightings of either vehicle. Patrols will remain on alert for the next few hours. Over."

The update was both expected and disappointing. The second vehicle—still unidentified—had vanished as completely as the woman in the toilet block. Coincidence? Or connection?

"Copy that. We have located one of the vehicles. We are here with it at the start of Myrtle Creek Forest. Looks like it has been abandoned," I replied.

"Copy that, CITY632, patrols are on their way."

"Understood. CITY632 out." I replaced the handset with more force than was strictly necessary, the satisfying click of it settling back into its mount offering a tiny relief valve for the pressure still coiled in my chest like a compressed spring.

Slumping into the seat with a sigh that fogged the air slightly, I stared through the windscreen at the scene before us. The toilet block loomed in the murky view, its outline blurred by the torrent of water racing down the glass in sheets. My fingers drummed a silent, unconscious rhythm on the steering wheel—tap tap tap, pause, tap tap tap—some nervous energy seeking an outlet. I was soaked through completely, aching in joints that were starting to stiffen, and beginning to feel the first prickles of genuine cold settling in beneath the skin despite the heater's efforts.

But it wasn't the rain that chilled me most. It wasn't the physical discomfort or the exhaustion or the frustration of another lead evaporating. It was the image. That glimpse. That feeling that someone, or something, had been watching us from inside that cubicle, had been present in ways that violated everything I understood about space and matter and reality. And then... gone. Simply gone, as though erased from existence.

The heater hissed weakly at my feet, struggling against the overwhelming cold and moisture, producing more lukewarm breath than actual warmth. Still, I was reluctant to leave the car's marginal shelter again—reluctant to confront more ambiguity, more impossible details that refused to fit into any coherent narrative.

Outside, Sarah was still moving despite the weather that should have driven her to shelter. Her shape—a blur of dark fabric and hair now plastered to her skull in wet ropes—paced the gravel with a kind of restless energy that I recognised from countless cases. The investigative drive that wouldn't let her rest until she'd exhausted every possibility. The rain seemed to slide off her like it barely registered, like she'd achieved some state beyond caring about physical discomfort. Her resilience amazed me. It always had. That ability to simply push through, to refuse to be stopped by anything as mundane as weather or exhaustion.

"Come on then," I called through the window I'd cracked open, not wanting to shout but needing her to hear. "Get in before you drown."

But she didn't respond to the invitation. Instead, she stilled. Her head lifted, attention caught by something I couldn't see from my position. Her entire posture changed, shifting from restless pacing to predatory focus in an instant.

I leaned across the centre console, squinting through the distorted, water-streaked window, trying to follow her gaze with increasing curiosity. She stood staring at the entrance to the walking track—a dark arch formed by eucalyptus and undergrowth, the canopy above bending under the accumulated weight of the rain. Beyond that threshold: shadow. Nothing I could make out from this distance and through this weather. Just darkness and the suggestion of a path disappearing into forest.

Sarah tapped on the roof of the car with deliberate rhythm. Once. Twice. Then she waved me out with unmistakable urgency.

I groaned inwardly, the sound of defeat and resignation combined. "What is it?" I called, voice muffled as I forced myself to step once more into the sodden air, rain immediately cascading down the back of my neck like icy fingers resuming their torment.

"Let's just wait in the car," I added, trying and failing to keep the frustration and weariness out of my voice as I hunched my shoulders against the downpour in a futile attempt at protection. "This rain doesn't look like it's letting up any time soon."

It was a reasonable suggestion. Practical. Safe. We could wait for the backup patrols that were supposedly on their way, could preserve the scene without tramping through it in conditions that would destroy evidence, could stay dry and maintain body temperature and avoid the risks of pursuing unknown suspects into unfamiliar wilderness in deteriorating conditions.

Sarah didn't respond to the comment or even acknowledge it. She was already in motion, crossing toward the Myrtle Forest Walk sign with determined strides. Her feet avoided puddles with unconscious precision born of focus, eyes scanning the ground with systematic intensity, every muscle in her body poised like a bloodhound that had caught scent of quarry.

"I think I've found something," she called back, the note of restrained excitement unmistakable despite her attempts at professional calm.

My pulse ticked upward involuntarily, adrenaline providing a fresh surge despite my exhaustion. Whatever it was, it had refocused us both on the investigation, on the hunt.

I followed with considerably less grace than she'd demonstrated, my waterlogged boots squelching with each step like accusations of poor judgment. Overhead, the canopy bowed dramatically under the accumulated weight of the storm, branches creaking ominously, letting through enough rain to keep the forest floor glistening and treacherous whilst providing minimal actual shelter.

"What am I supposed to be looking at?" I asked, breath catching slightly from the exertion and the cold that was making breathing difficult. The carved wooden sign at the trailhead loomed ahead of us, half-obscured by low-hanging branches torn free by the wind, the lettering slick and darkened with moisture that made it barely legible. MYRTLE FOREST WALK, it read—less invitation now, more warning.

"This!" Sarah exclaimed, her voice charged with the kind of purpose that comes from genuine discovery, holding something aloft between her fingers. Silver glinted dully through the rain, catching what little light remained. She had picked it up from the churned earth beside the sign, from mud that showed clear signs of recent disturbance. "And these footprints in the mud are fresh," she added, pointing with her free hand to a series of shallow impressions that snaked away from the car park and into the woods like a trail of breadcrumbs deliberately left for us to follow.

I moved closer, curiosity overcoming wariness, peering down at the ground with professional interest. The prints were unmistakable despite the rain's attempts to soften them—shallow, narrow, defined well enough to read despite the steady rainfall. Sneakers, not boots. Not bushwalking gear designed for this terrain. The tread was a tight waffle pattern, delicate and completely inappropriate for forest hiking. The prints belonged to someone unprepared for wilderness pursuit. Someone in a hurry. Someone who hadn't planned on running into the bush but had been forced to by circumstance.

"Those footprints could belong to anyone," I offered automatically, clinging to protocol and logic and procedural skepticism even as the facts began to betray my resistance. Who, in their right mind, would venture into a storm-lashed forest in trainers? This wasn't an afternoon stroll gone wrong. This wasn't a bushwalker caught by unexpected weather. This was flight, pure and simple. This was someone running from something.

Sarah didn't bother replying with words—she simply extended her hand again, bringing the object between her fingers closer to my face for examination. A silver bracelet, slick with rain and mud that partially obscured its surface. Thin, unassuming at first glance, delicate. Its small pendant dangled and turned slightly in the wind, catching light.

"It's not just any bracelet," she said, her voice firm with conviction. "Look."

I leaned in, squinting against the rain that ran into my eyes. The engraving was faint beneath the layer of grit and moisture, but unmistakable once I focused on it: G.C.

My skepticism faltered, splintered under the weight of evidence, then cracked entirely like ice under pressure. Gladys Cramer. The initials thudded into my consciousness like a warning shot, like confirmation of something I'd been trying to deny. Too neat to be chance coincidence. Too specific to dismiss. Too real to ignore any longer.

Sarah didn't gloat or say "I told you so" despite having every right to. She didn't have to. The evidence spoke for itself with damning clarity. I saw the way her fingers closed protectively around the bracelet as she turned to head back toward the car, already reaching for her radio with her free hand to call in the discovery.

"No." The word came out sharper than I'd intended, more command than suggestion, and my hand shot forward on pure instinct, grabbing her arm before I'd fully realised what I was doing. My fingers clenched around the soaked sleeve of her jacket, the fabric slick beneath my grip, cold and unyielding. She froze mid-step, startled by the sudden contact.

Her face turned towards mine, eyes narrowed not in anger but in genuine confusion mixed with concern. Water clung to her lashes in droplets that magnified her eyes, her breath clouding faintly in the chilled air despite her exertion.

"Not yet," I said, softer this time, consciously moderating my tone, releasing her arm and letting my hand drop to my side. The imprint of her sleeve still felt cold in my palm, a phantom sensation. I didn't have a good reason—not one I could articulate aloud in ways that would satisfy procedure or protocol. Just a gut feeling screaming at me with unusual intensity. A tension humming in the air that had nothing to do with the storm.

She shook off the moment like water off her shoulders, physically rolling her shoulders back, and without further word or question, turned down the trail and started walking.

"Sarah!" I called after her with rising exasperation and genuine concern. "Let's wait for the other patrols to arrive!" The procedural voice in my head screamed at me even as I spoke—this is how officers get hurt, this is how situations escalate beyond control, this is how people die in the bush. But she didn't slow or acknowledge my caution. The forest began to absorb her silhouette with unsettling speed, rain and mist softening the outline of her coat until she was more shadow than person.

I cursed softly under my breath, a string of profanity that the storm swallowed before it could travel far.

Then I ran, because the alternative was letting her go alone into the darkness and storm.

The first few steps were laboured, my body stiff and weary from accumulated stress and exertion, muscles protesting movement. But adrenaline was proving itself a great motivator yet again, flooding my system with chemical energy that overrode fatigue and pain. I plunged into the forest after her without further hesitation, crossing that threshold from open space to enclosed wilderness. The rain was instantly different here under the canopy—less direct assault but no less insistent, transformed into thousands of individual streams dripping from branches and leaves like a thousand metronomes out of sync. My boots sloshed through rivulets carving their way down the trail, water flowing with such volume it had created channels, every step accompanied by the sound of soaked fabric scraping against soaked skin in rhythms of pursuit.

The forest closed in around us with almost deliberate intent, swallowing us into its green darkness. Towering myrtles and eucalypts rose like ancient sentinels on both sides, their slick trunks mottled with moss and peeling bark that hung in strips, creating textures that seemed to shift in peripheral vision. The air smelled overwhelmingly of wet earth and eucalyptus oil and something else—tension, perhaps, or simply the accumulated scent of organic decay accelerated by moisture.

The path narrowed quickly as we progressed, winding like a question mark through the undergrowth, limiting visibility to perhaps ten metres ahead through the combination of vegetation and weather. And ahead, just barely visible through the silver curtain of rain and gathering mist, was Sarah—moving steadily, unerringly forward, following footprints that led deeper into the wilderness.

Following Gladys Cramer into the storm.