The Dry by Jane Harper Read Free Book Online Page B

from behind a large upended laundry basket.
    For a moment Falk tried to imagine Billy Hadler’s last moments. Huddled behind the laundry basket, hot urine dribbling down his leg as he tried to silence ragged breaths.
    â€œYou got kids?” Raco asked.
    Falk shook his head. “You?”
    â€œOne on the way. A little girl.”
    â€œCongratulations.”
    â€œWe’ve got an army of nieces and nephews, though. Not here; back home in South Australia. A few around Billy’s age. Couple a bit younger,” Raco said, taking back the tablet and scrolling through the photos. “And the thing is, my brothers know every one of their kids’ hiding places. You send them blindfolded into their kids’ bedrooms, and they could find them in two seconds.”
    He tapped the screen.
    â€œEvery possible way I look at these photos, it looks like a search,” Raco said. “Someone who didn’t know Billy’s hiding spots methodically working his way through. Is he in the cupboard? No. Under the bed? No. It’s like the kid was hunted down.”
    Falk stared hard at the dark smudge that had once been Billy Hadler.
    â€œShow me where you found Charlotte.”
    The nursery across the hall was decorated in yellow. A musical mobile dangled from the ceiling above an empty space.
    â€œGerry and Barb took the cot,” Raco explained.
    Falk looked around the room. It felt so different from the others. Furniture and carpet still intact. No acrid bleach stink in there. It had the feel of a sanctuary, untouched by the horror that had unfolded outside the door.
    â€œWhy didn’t Luke kill Charlotte?” Falk said.
    â€œThe popular money’s on conscience and guilt kicking in.”
    Falk walked out, back across the hall to Billy’s bedroom. He stood at the bloodstain in the corner, turned 180 degrees, and strode back across the hall into Charlotte’s room.
    â€œEight steps,” Falk said. “But I’m pretty tall. So we’ll call it nine for most people. Nine steps from Billy’s body to where Charlotte was lying like a sitting duck. And Luke would’ve had the adrenaline going, blood pumping, red mist, the works. So nine steps. The question is, is that enough time for a total change of heart?”
    â€œDoesn’t sound like enough to me.”
    Falk thought about the man he’d known. What had once been a clear picture was now distorted and fuzzy.
    â€œDid you ever meet Luke?” he said.
    â€œNo.”
    â€œHe could change his mood like flipping a coin. Nine steps could be eight more than he needed.”
    But for the first time since he’d returned to Kiewarra, Falk felt a pinprick of genuine doubt.
    â€œIt’s supposed to be a statement, though, isn’t it? Something like this. It’s personal. He murdered his entire family. That’s what you want people to say. Luke’s wife of seven years is bleeding out on the hall floor and he’s spent—what, two minutes? Three?—turning the bedroom upside down to murder his own son. He’s planning to kill himself when he’s finished. So if it was Luke”—he hesitated slightly on the word if —“why does his daughter get to live?”
    They stood for a moment, both looking at the mobile hanging still and silent above the empty cot space. Why slaughter a whole family bar the baby? Falk turned it back and forth in his mind until he could think of a few reasons, but only one good one.
    â€œMaybe whoever was here that day didn’t kill the baby because they just didn’t need to kill the baby,” Falk said finally. “Nothing personal about it. Doesn’t matter who you are, thirteen-month-olds don’t make good witnesses.”

6
    â€œThey’re not crash hot about me coming in here generally,” Raco said with a note of regret as he put two beers on the table at the Fleece. The table lurched lopsidedly under the weight,