“But,” Matilda continued, “I don’t think she would stop if an outsider pulled up next to her while she was running on the road, or if they flagged her down on the beach.” She rubbed at her wet cheeks, her tears silent and slow. “You know when those three hikers disappeared, one after the other, everyone thought they’d just been dumb, walked into the bush expecting it to be like some gentle afternoon walk.”

The latter was a continuing problem throughout the ­country—­people saw the stunning landscape and wanted to explore it. What they didn’t understand was that the beauty had ­teeth—­you had to be ready to handle sudden cold and rain and hail, tracks without guardrails, and isolated areas where you might be the only human being for miles in every direction.

“That was what, fifteen years ago?” Will, a ­wet-­behind-­the-­ears probationary constable at the time, had been pulled into the search effort as a result of his climbing and hiking experience in the region.

He could clearly remember the television spots about irresponsible campers and trekkers leading to huge search-and-rescue costs; it had been one of those things that became a minor media sensation because the political parties had weighed in with opposing views.

Lost in the noise had been the failure of the search effort. “They never found the missing hikers, did they?”

“They were all women.” Matilda’s voice was raspy.

Will’s skin prickled, a ghost running her fingers across his nape.

19

“I never heard that it was considered anything but coincidence and bad ­decision-­making.”

“The police never said it out loud,” Matilda replied. “Not in public anyway. But the man I was seeing at the time, he was a junior detective. Probably one of the few good men I’ve ever dated.” A pause that hung in the air.

Regret, Will realized, had a taste. Poignant and acrid.

“Anyway,” Matilda continued after a jerky inhale, “he let it slip that the cops weren’t sure it was all accidental. Three women walked into the bush off Golden Cove over a single summer and never came out. They got especially worried after the dogs and the searchers and the hunters never even found one body. Not then. Not since.”

If Matilda was right, the theory had been kept very quiet. Not one of his senior officers had ever mentioned the possibility of a human predator. Making a mental note to talk to the detectives involved, he said, “Did the investigators have a specific theory?”

Matilda nodded. “Maybe a serial rapist like they had up in Auckland around the same time, only he was killing the women after. But nothing else ever happened, no other woman ever disappeared the same way, and they figured it had just been an awful coincidence. I mean, it was high season for hikers back when it all happened, and we don’t really have those kinds of killers here.”

Will had always wondered if that was true, because it was equally possible that New Zealand did have serial killers, but that no bodies had ever been found. If you wanted to disappear bodies in a sparsely populated country covered in dense forests and jagged mountains, deep lakes and rivers fed by glacial melt, the landscape itself would be your coconspirator. “Did people in town wonder the same thing?”

“There were whispers,” Matilda confirmed, “especially after they found that one girl’s bracelet down on the beach where the kids used to go.”

Instinct stirred. “The rock cave on the other side of the whirlpool?”

A nod. “Poor babies never went back there. But after the police found no blood or anything, people started saying the girl must’ve stumbled disoriented out of the bush and got herself drowned.”

“You didn’t agree?”

“I never forgot what my cop friend said and I always told Miriama how she should never, ever trust any man who came up to her while she was alone and away from other people.” Swallowing hard, Matilda added one final line. “And those times she ran away to Christchurch, she got scared by men who tried to take advantage of her. Grown men coming after my sweet girl.”

“She’s approachable, but she isn’t naïve about the world.”

“Yes, you see what I’m saying. Just last month, my girl was telling me that she’d be fine up in the big city, that she wouldn’t forget all the things I’d taught her about keeping herself safe.”

Will asked a question Matilda wouldn’t want to hear, but that had to be asked. “Would she be as wary if she ran into a man or woman she knew well?”

He saw the answer on Matilda’s bleak face; like most of those who lived in a small town, Miriama would’ve assumed she could separate the good from the ­bad—­and it was unlikely she’d have even considered that one of her neighbors might do her harm. But Golden Cove wasn’t immune from the harsh reality that the perpetrators of violent person-­to-­person crimes were most often familiar with and to the victim.

When it came to sexual and other assault crimes against women, that percentage skewed even further. No one was more dangerous to a woman than a man who’d once professed to love her.

Will’s hand fisted, nausea churning in his stomach. Forcing it down before the bile could burn his throat, he put down the coffee mug and met Matilda’s apprehensive gaze. “Dominic told me he thinks Miriama was seeing someone from out of town before the two of them got together. Do you know who that was?”

“She was going out with someone, used to go to Christchurch to meet him”—­deep grooves formed in Matilda’s ­forehead—­“but she just used to laugh when I asked her about him. She said she’d tell me everything once she was sure he wouldn’t be breaking her heart.”

Secrets were never good. Will had learned that over and over again.

“I was happy for her.” Matilda’s lips curved before fracturing. “The way she ­smiled… I thought she’d found a man she loved so much that she didn’t want to jinx it by talking about it.” She took the coffee Will had risen and poured for her. “But then she stopped going out of town and started up with Dr. de ­Souza… I’m happy about that, too. I mean, a girl could do a lot worse than a doctor.”

Unvarnished emotion in her voice as she continued. “Just the other day, I was thinking my girl’s life was ­made—­she’s going off to get the education she’s always deserved, and things are real serious with Dr. de Souza. I know it probably means she’ll end up living far away from here, ­because—­young fella like ­him—­he’s not going to want to stay out here forever, is he? And my Miri’s always wanted to fly.”

Dark eyes ragged with pain lifting up to meet Will’s. “Dr. de Souza asked me to sneak one of her cheap little dress rings to him. He wanted to make sure he got the size right.”

“He’s planning to ask Miriama to marry him?”

“I don’t know if he plans to do it before she leaves for the city or if he’s going to wait until after she comes back for her first break,” Matilda said, “but he’s mad in love with Miri.”

“You aren’t worried at how young she is to be thinking marriage?”