Australia. The routes in and out of Melbourne had never coped and never would, not when the satellite areas like the Peninsula offered cheap, high-density housing but no jobs.
Beside her a siren whooped, highway patrol, festooned with antennas and decals, motioning at her mobile phone. She showed them her badge through the window. They shrugged and shot away down the shoulder of the freeway, looking for other mugs who were driving while talking on a mobile phone.
It was inevitable that thinking about her own daughter-and love, protection and responsibility-would lead Ellen to thinking about Katie Blasko. A ten-year-old, missing for-she glanced at her watch- twenty-four hours now. Was Katie at a friend’s house? Getting off the bus in Sydney, where she’d be swallowed up in the fleshpots of Kings Cross? Twenty-four hours. Twenty-four hours of heaven or hell.
Her phone rang. It was a text message from a Supreme Court clerk.
Jarrett acquitted.
All she wanted to do was call Hal Challis. She had him on speed-dial. But he had a family crisis to contend with. It wouldn’t be fair. She had to do this alone.