4338.220 · August 8, 2018 AD
Seven Bodies in the Rain
Seven officers have been in position since before noon. Four hours of rain and cold and leeches and the slow failure of winter light through a canopy that swallows sound. Then the first set of headlights appears on the access road, and a woman steps out into the clearing with a bottle of wine and sneakers and nowhere to be except the place she ran from last time. The second set of headlights arrives eighteen minutes later. After that, the forest takes everyone.
Myrtle Forest. End of a dirt road six kilometres west of Collinsvale. Car park barely large enough for a dozen vehicles, bordered on three sides by temperate rainforest. Seven officers in position since midday — Stout west, Sienna east, Webb and Garrett south, Rogers north, O'Neil on the outer perimeter, armed response one kilometre back. Encrypted radios. Tactical vests. The operational assumption that shaped everything: Sarah Lahey is carrying her service weapon.
Gladys arrives first. Blue Corolla, dead centre of the clearing, engine running. Steps out in a navy jacket and sneakers with a wine bottle three-quarters empty. Doesn't check her phone. Doesn't check the road. Leans against the bonnet and watches the forest and drinks and waits.
Sarah arrives eighteen minutes later. Silver sedan, nose to nose with Gladys's car. Boots. Heavier jacket. A coiled energy that Gladys didn't carry. Boot opens. White morgue sheeting. The shape beneath it is human. Gladys walks forward, sees what's inside, presses her hand to her chest. Reaches into her pocket. The exchange begins.
Sienna gives the order. Officers emerge from four directions. Gladys runs for the trail. Sarah hesitates — two seconds where the whole operation balances on what her right hand does — then follows Gladys into the trees. Both women go off trail. The forest swallows the pursuit. Then a single gunshot changes what everyone came here to do.
