The Red Mazda

Luke Smith retrieved Kain Jeffries's phone from a concealed compartment beneath a wardrobe floor and sent Brianne Sitch a message under Kain's name. The text assured her that Kain was safe, that Luke was on his way to her, and that she should trust him. Kain was alive in Clivilius and expecting Brianne's arrival — he and Luke had agreed that Luke would collect her that day and bring her through. What Kain had not agreed to, and did not know about, was Luke using his phone to impersonate him. The method of persuasion was Luke's alone.

Luke drove to Jeffries Manor, a fifteen-minute journey by borrowed vehicle. The manor sat atop a steep hill at the end of a bush-lined gravel driveway, and Luke climbed the path on foot with the Portal Key in his pocket. His cover story was thin but functional: he was Jamie Greyson's partner, visiting to deliver a letter that had been misdirected to his address. The claim was grounded in a real relationship — Jamie was Louise Jeffries's younger brother and Luke was his partner — which made the visit plausible even though the letter was a fabrication.

Louise Jeffries answered the door. Her son and her brother had both been missing for a week. A missing persons report had been filed with Detective Karl Jenkins on 28 July, and Louise had named Luke as someone she believed held answers about the disappearances. She had distrusted him for years — a persistent unease about her brother's partner that she had never been able to articulate but had never been able to dismiss. Luke stood on her doorstep and told her Jamie was still in Melbourne. Louise pressed him. He held to the lie. She accepted the letter story with visible reluctance and went inside to find Brianne.

While Louise was gone, Luke sent further messages from Kain's phone. Brianne responded immediately — she had heard nothing from Kain since 26 July and the sight of his name on her screen overwhelmed whatever caution she might otherwise have exercised. Luke, writing as Kain, told her to go with Luke, that he knew where Kain was and would bring her to him. Brianne asked if she could trust him. Luke, still writing as Kain, told her yes.

Brianne Sitch came to the front door. She was twenty-two years old, six months pregnant, and had not slept properly since her fiancé vanished. She asked where Kain was. Luke showed her Kain's keys and told her he had been sent to collect her. She did not ask how Luke had the keys. She asked again where Kain was, and Luke said he would take her.

They walked to the large shed where Brianne's red Mazda was parked. Brianne directed Luke to use the spare car key on Kain's keyring — the chunky square one marked Mazda. Luke drove. Brianne sat in the passenger seat. As Luke placed Kain's phone in the centre console, Brianne saw it.

The realisation was immediate. She had been exchanging messages with Kain's phone, and the phone was in Luke's hand. The texts that had told her Kain was safe, that had told her to trust Luke, that had answered her desperate questions about her missing fiancé — Luke had written them all. Brianne demanded to be let out of the car. Luke refused. She struck him. She screamed. She called him a psychopath and pounded against the locked passenger door. Luke reversed and turned the car toward the grounds.

In the rearview mirror, Louise Jeffries appeared at the manor's front door. Every suspicion she had carried about Luke Smith for years was materialising in the gravel dust of her own driveway, and she could do nothing but watch her son's pregnant fiancée being driven away screaming.

Luke did not take the driveway. He swung the Mazda behind the shed, lowered the driver's side window, and activated the Portal Key. The aperture opened against the wall. Brianne was still fighting — grabbing for the steering wheel, trying to stop the car — when the Mazda passed through the Portal into Clivilius.

Luke braked hard on the Clivilius side. Dust rose around the car. He told Brianne he could not stay and left the vehicle with the engine running and the door open. He sprinted back through the still-open Portal before it closed.

Brianne Sitch was in Clivilius. She was alone in her own car in a landscape she had no framework to comprehend, and the man who had put her there had already gone back the way he came.

On the Earth side, Luke had unfinished work at the Manor. He crossed the grounds to the sunroom, where Kain's dog Hudson was enclosed behind a gate. Hudson recognised him and barked. Luke unlatched the gate, gripped the dog's collar, activated the Portal Key against the sunroom's sliding glass door, and pushed Hudson through to Clivilius. He closed the Portal behind the dog.

The motorbike was next. Luke entered the large shed where Kain's bike was stored and found it in the dark. He sat on the seat, looked down at the empty ignition, and understood his mistake. The key was on Kain's keyring. The keyring was in the red Mazda. The Mazda was in Clivilius.

Before he could recalculate, Louise's voice reached him from the doorway. She told him the police were on their way. She was holding a kitchen knife.

Luke Smith was trapped in the shed at Jeffries Manor with no vehicle, no key, and no clear exit. Louise Jeffries stood in the doorway with a blade and the certainty that she had been right about this man all along. She had spent years unable to say precisely what she feared. She no longer needed to.