LITMIR.BIZ

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at the blossom on the shrubs and found the profusion of colours appealing. 'They might be a little unkempt, Uncle James, but they're very pretty, and the perfume's lovely.'

      James smiled thinly and she realised how tired he looked. The grey streaks had recently appeared in his brown hair, and deeper lines now creased his high forehead. With the worry of running the institute while his brother was overseas, and the extra burden of the professor's accident, Breeanna's unexplained absence must be adding to his concerns.

      The sound of the doorbell echoed through the house as James pressed the button. And waited. Pressed it again. Waited again.

      'Do you still have the spare key Breeanna gave you?'

      Paige opened her handbag, rummaged through it, and finally drew out a solitary key on a thin ribbon. They opened the door and walked inside, Paige calling out Breeanna's name. Two steps into the living room Paige stopped.

      'Oh!' The sound was out before she could stop it. She saw her uncle's frown, and explained. 'Breeanna's normally so neat. I'm … surprised,' she gestured to the half-full tea cup, some of its contents obviously slopped over the coffee table and a slew of crumpled magazines. Minimal furniture gave the small room an impression of spaciousness: low-backed, green-cushioned lounge, stereo wall unit and high bookcase tucked into the far corner.

      'Come on,' said James. 'She could be in bed.'

      Paige was equally shocked by the state of the bedroom. Rumpled sheets on the queen-size bed, clothing heaped on a white cane chair in the corner and half-fallen to the floor, shoes scattered as though kicked off and left. Worry ate into her further. She picked up a framed photo that had fallen down on the dresser and looked at it. Black hair that gleamed as though burnished by the sun framed a face neither beautiful nor plain, but arresting in the strength of the jawline and the fullness of the smiling mouth. But it was the eyes that held Paige's attention. Warm and dark, they seemed capable of looking into your soul, and Paige felt the same fascination she always did when she gazed at the photo.

      'It's like looking at Breeanna, isn't it?'

      James had walked quietly up behind her, and Paige gave a little start. She quickly stood the frame down. 'Yes. But Breeanna's prettier than her mother was. Well,' she shrugged, 'from what I've seen in the photos.'

      'Morag was a stunning woman,' James said, as though to contradict her. 'Charismatic, compelling …'

      He turned away, but she caught the whispered word 'beautiful' and it added further to the mystery she had always felt surrounded her father's first wife.

      James glanced back at her. 'I'll search the rest of the house. You see if there's anything here that might give us a clue to where she's gone.'

      Paige looked again at the dresser. Breeanna wore minimal make-up and the few items there confirmed that. Paige opened the top drawer. A jewellery case, personal items, a spare set of house keys, Christmas and birthday cards that must have been special to her. Nothing to give Paige an idea what had happened to her sister. She began to search through the other drawers. Underwear, knit tops, shorts. She pushed the last drawer closed. A muffled knock sounded. Puzzled, she pulled it open again and felt through the silky pants and slips and sports briefs until she touched something solid. She pulled out a black plastic case no bigger than a small box of chocolates. Her fingers moved to open it, then stopped. No, she shouldn't do it. It would be violating Breeanna's privacy. She lowered the case to the drawer as James entered the room.

      'What's that?'

      'I don't know. It was in the drawer. I was just putting it back.'

      Before Paige could replace the case, James took it from her and opened it.

      As the contents were revealed, the air rushed from Paige's lungs. She stared as though mesmerised, then shook her head in disbelief.

      'Oh, no.' Shock rasped her voice, and her hand flew to her mouth as though to stop the words. 'Not Breeanna.'

      CHAPTER THREE

       Nine days later

      The pain was almost unbearable.

      It ate into Rogan McKay's body, twisting him on the sweat-soaked sheets. He tried to rise, to get help, but the agony pinned him down.

      Then the pain stopped. And there was only the ache, the soreness where it had been. For a minute it gave him rest, allowed his breathing to return to normal.

      Then it came back.

      He clenched his teeth with the effort not to scream, to cry out for it to stop. When the next respite came he reached an exhausted hand over the bedside lamp and turned it on.

      2.53 a.m.

      He'd been so tired, so damn tired when he'd crashed onto the bed at midnight that when the pain started dragging him out of a thick, deep sleep he'd thought it was a bad dream. But the intensity of it soon affirmed that it was no nightmare to be thrown off with full consciousness.

      A harsh cry strangled in his throat as the pain threw him back against the pillow. This time was worse than anything he'd ever felt … his muscles tensed against it, the tendons and veins in his neck stretched like singing ropes. The sweat on his forehead poured into his eyes. His brain was painting blackness through his mind, shunning all thought in its efforts to cope with an agony beyond endurance.

      Suddenly it was gone.

      He slumped down on the bed as the swirling mists in his brain subsided, dragging air into his lungs in great panting gulps. Gingerly he moved his arms, his legs. Finally he swung his body over the side of the bed and stood, weak and unsteady, fighting to make sense of what had happened.

      Slowly he became aware of a great emptiness in his soul. A desolation, a sense of loss so profound his gut clenched with the knowledge of it.

      Because now he knew. He understood. But his brain refused to believe.

      Like a very old man he shuffled out of the bedroom into an adjoining study. He turned on the light, collapsed onto the chair at the desk and willed his reluctant hand to pick up the phone. He punched in a series of numbers. And waited.

      Finally it rang out. He tried a different set. An automated voice asked him to leave a message. He spoke several words, then replaced the receiver.

      A window on the opposite wall mirrored the despair registering in his eyes. Eyes so brilliantly blue they glittered like icebergs in the warm light. Eyes he feared would never again look back at him.

      "Didn't you sleep well last night, son?' Alice McKay asked as Rogan flopped onto a kitchen chair and poured himself a glass of orange juice.

      He pushed long strands of sun-bleached hair off his forehead before replying. 'It always takes me some time to adjust when I get off the boat, Mum.'

      Alice smiled. 'You've been home two days. I think your socialising with Meryl and your brothers might have more to do with it.'

      Rogan saw the flash of pain in his mother's eyes. It was six months since his youngest brother, Ewan, had been murdered, and although Rogan had helped put the killer behind bars, he knew it had given his parents only a small sense of closure. While she hadn't given obvious preference to him, Ewan had been their mother's favourite. She had tried to bury her grief in the hard work involved in running the family dairy farm, but Rogan had seen how his brother's death had aged her. Her hair, once the same tawny colour as his, had gone grey, and the extra kilos she'd gained in middle age had fallen away, leaving her face drawn and lined. His father, too, no longer seemed as strong and tireless as Rogan had always thought him.

      It had shocked him, this sudden ageing of his parents, and now he realised he couldn't tell them of the dread eating its way into his chest. They had lost one son, he didn't want to tell them they might have lost another. As soon as he'd woken this morning he'd made a few phone calls, but the answers only seemed to confirm what he already suspected.

      'Thought I might drive to Melbourne and see Liam,' he remarked, the casualness in his voice not betraying his need to jump

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