The Summer of Secrets Read online

  ‘And I’ll have a flat white,’ Chloe said. ‘No sugar, but perhaps I might also have —’ She turned to look at the tempting goodies beside her.

  She’d had no lunch so she knew she should choose something sensible and nourishing like a piece of spinach and feta quiche, but the thought of returning to the Bugle office to a boss with a very sore head somehow weakened her resolve. ‘And I’ll have a chocolate brownie.’ Chocolate was supposed to be good for lifting a person’s mood and her mood obviously needed a huge boost this afternoon.

  ‘I’ll have them for you in a jiffy,’ the woman said.

  ‘How much do I owe you?’

  ‘No need.’ The woman grinned. ‘The Bugle’s got you covered.’ She laughed and Chloe noticed a poster on the wall behind her which said exactly the same thing – The Bugle’s got you covered.

  Finn Latimer was awake with his computer turned on and he was typing madly when Chloe got back to the office. The whisky bottle and the glass had disappeared and the place didn’t reek quite so badly of alcohol.

  ‘Here’s your coffee,’ she said, setting a cardboard mug down beside Finn. ‘I thought you might like these, too.’ She slipped a packet of aspirin onto the desk. ‘I was passing the chemist.’

  His eyebrows lifted. ‘Thanks. That’s – good of you.’

  He didn’t invite Chloe to sit down, but she helped herself to a chair at another desk where a second computer had been turned on. She turned to face the screen and took a reviving sip of coffee. ‘Mmm, good coffee.’

  ‘You sound surprised,’ Finn said with the barest hint of a smile. ‘You know they grow coffee up here.’

  ‘Really? No, I didn’t know that.’ Chloe tucked this info away as something she might investigate later. It could make a good story – coffee from tree to cup. If she decided to stay here. Which was still highly unlikely. ‘Now,’ she said in her most businesslike tone. ‘What would you like me to do?’

  ‘Well, if you could cover the rounds, that would be very useful.’

  The rounds. Chloe experienced a moment of panic. Her brief from Emily Hargreaves had been clear. She was to leave the hard news to Finn and concentrate on colour stories that would attract new advertising. She had only the vaguest idea what ‘rounds’ on a small country newspaper might involve.

  At Girl Talk she’d had experience in gathering regular snippets of gossip, but the focus had been on celebrity news. Baby bumps and relationship breakups. A friend who worked in television had been a handy source for these insights, while an old school friend, who was now a GP, had kept Chloe up to date on the latest issues in women’s health. And a barista friend had passed on tips about the latest foodie trends.

  What counted as crucial news in a small country town?

  ‘There’s a file on that computer with all the phone numbers,’ Finn told her.

  ‘Oh? Great.’ But rather than jumping to the task, Chloe took another sip of coffee and opened the paper bag that held the mood-boosting brownie. ‘So are you still on the lookout for breaking news?’

  ‘I doubt you’ll pick up anything of major importance, but the locals will be sure to complain if we miss anything obvious. There’s an ongoing story about a young local baker who went missing in the rainforest, so any updates on him are important.’

  ‘A baker? Oh, yes, I was curious about that. I passed the bakery and I saw that the shop was shut and all the shelves and display cases were empty. But there were flowers on the doorstep. I wondered —’ Chloe had supposed there’d been a death, but someone missing was almost worse. ‘When did this happen?’

  Finn frowned. ‘It’s more than two weeks now.’

  ‘Gosh.’ So this was really serious. ‘Is there a chance he was murdered?’

  ‘There’s always a chance,’ Finn said grimly. ‘The rainforest’s very dense and people do get lost, but I’m afraid, in this case, the police suspect foul play. Looks like Ben stumbled on a drug set-up. There have been extensive searches but no real clues so far.’

  ‘I imagine the whole town must be worried.’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘What’s the baker’s name?’

  ‘Ben Shaw.’

  Chloe found pen and paper and quickly made a note of this.

  ‘Anyway, you’ll find that all the people on the rounds list know what I’m looking for.’ Finn gave a brief nod in the direction of her computer screen.

  ‘Ohh-kaay.’ Chloe deliberately drew this response out, trying to sound far more confident than she felt as she clicked on the file entitled Rounds.

  A list of phone numbers loaded onto her screen. She drank more coffee while it was still hot and took a bite of the brownie, which proved to be delicious. At least the Lilly Pilly café had her tick of approval.

  The first phone number on the rounds list was for the Burralea police. The helpful sergeant expressed only mild surprise that someone other than Finn was calling. He told Chloe about a break-in at the pharmacy in Burralea’s main street. Alarms had gone off and the police had responded quickly, so the culprits were frightened off and escaped empty-handed.

  ‘Obviously they were after drugs,’ the sergeant said. ‘It’s worth spreading the word. Yet again. Can’t say it too often. Anyone hoping to find drugs in this town is out of luck. The pharmacy has alarms and time-lock safes. That goes for all the pharmacies in this district.’

  Chloe conscientiously noted this down. She would turn it into a little news item to present to Finn later. She enquired about Ben Shaw, but unfortunately, there was no news on that front. Then she rang the ambulance, but there’d been no call-outs in the past twenty-four hours. Things had been quiet at the fire brigade as well.

  The fellow at the fire brigade sounded intrigued, though. ‘So you’re new on the Bugle, are you?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Chloe and then, because there was no point in hiding it, ‘just started today.’

  ‘We’re not losing Finn, are we?’ He sounded dismayed.

  ‘No, no. Mr Latimer is still the editor.’ She chanced a glance in her new boss’s direction, but he had his broad back to her and he seemed intently engaged in laying out pages on his screen. He certainly showed no sign that he was listening to her end of the conversation.

  ‘Well, you can tell Finn from me that if there’s no decent rain in the next couple of weeks, there’ll be widespread fire restrictions.’

  ‘At least it’s raining today,’ Chloe said cheerfully, remembering her dash to the café through the cold drizzle.

  The fireman snorted. ‘You call this rain? It’s nothing more than angel’s piss. I’m talking about decent rain. At least a hundred millimetres in twenty-four hours.’

  Well, that was telling her. Chloe allowed herself a wry smile as she made additions to her notes and, when she rang the Water Resources number, she was prepared for a similar story.

  ‘Tell Finn the lake’s at fifty percent.’

  ‘Fifty percent capacity?’ Chloe clarified.

  ‘Of course,’ he snapped impatiently. ‘And as Finn knows, we’ve still got quite a few months to go before we can expect the proper wet season.’

  ‘So fifty percent is bad news?’ Chloe hated asking the obvious, but it was important to check.

  Her question was met by silence before the voice on the end of the line responded in a tone of quiet exasperation, ‘You’ve seen the lake, haven’t you?’

  Chloe supposed she should explain yet again that she was new to the job. Brand new. At one point on her journey today, she’d caught a brief glimpse of silvery water in the distance, but that was all she’d seen of a possible lake.

  She realised now that she should have done more research before she’d left Sydney, but her final weeks in the city had been a whirlwind of packing and endless farewells with her family, her friends and her former colleagues, all of whom had expressed despair that she was going to travel so far away. To the ends of the earth.

  ‘We’ll worry about you,’ her mother had said dolefully, but her dad had
laughed at this.

  ‘It’s not as if she’s heading for Outer Mongolia,’ he’d said as he’d given Chloe an extra warm hug.

  And yet, her knowledge of Far North Queensland was almost as limited as her knowledge of Mongolia. Perhaps the fellow from Water Resources guessed her situation.

  At any rate, he relented. ‘Lake Tinaroo is actually a dam, a big one, with two hundred kilometres of shoreline,’ he explained with excessive patience. ‘It’s still full of trees and stumps from when the country was initially flooded. The farmers need to draw on it for irrigation, so without rain, the farmers keep drawing and the water level keeps dropping. But if it drops too far, we have to ban motorboats and water skiing. It’s too dangerous. Problem is, that’s bad for tourism.’

  ‘Right,’ said Chloe. ‘Thanks very much for your explanation. Much appreciated.’

  ‘No worries.’ He sounded happier again, so she hadn’t pissed him off too badly. ‘Glad to help.’

  Again she made notes, pleased that she had a few little stories to write up for Finn, who was continuing to ignore her, leaving her to sink or swim. The next number on her list was the Burralea Progress Association.

  A woman answered, introducing herself as Moira Briggs. ‘How lovely to have a woman journalist on the Bugle,’ she said, her voice bubbling with gossipy warmth. ‘Where have you come from?’

  ‘Sydney,’ Chloe told her.

  ‘Really? The biggest of all the big smokes? Well, I daresay you’ll notice things are a little different up here.’ Moira chuckled. ‘When did you arrive?’

  There was little point in trying to hide the truth. ‘Not too long ago, actually.’

  ‘Ha! Finn’s thrown you in at the deep end, has he?’ This comment was accompanied by another chuckle. ‘What do you think of our Finn?’

  Chloe gulped. ‘Um – I’m supposed to ask you the questions, Moira.’

  Moira roared with laughter. ‘He’s hot stuff, isn’t he?’ A beat later, she said, ‘Sorry, love. I couldn’t resist that. I have a soft spot for Finn, even though I’m twice his age. Some men just have that certain something.’

  Like a drinking problem? Chloe wanted to ask.

  ‘I’m sure you must know I’m teasing,’ Moira added.

  ‘I guessed,’ said Chloe. ‘But do you have any news from the Burralea Progress Association?’

  ‘Nothing new since I spoke to Finn a few days ago.’

  ‘All right. Thank you.’ Chloe was about to hang up when Moira jumped in again.

  ‘Come down to the office and visit me, won’t you, Chloe? I’m only a few doors away. Have a cuppa. It’s always good to put a face to a voice.’

  ‘I will,’ Chloe said. ‘Thank you.’ To her surprise she was smiling as she hung up.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  In Springbrook House, a Townsville girls’ boarding school, set amid enormous and shady rain trees, Bree Latimer was at her desk in the two-bed dorm that she shared with a classmate, Abbey. Abbey was wearing headphones, listening to something on her computer, while Bree was rushing through her homework.

  Bree was a weekly boarder, unlike Abbey or the other boarders whose families lived out west on cattle properties, or in far-flung places like Papua New Guinea or Hong Kong. On weekends, Bree went home to her grandparents, who lived just a few suburbs away.

  She hadn’t accepted this arrangement easily. She’d been devastated when her father announced that he was taking a job in a tiny Tablelands town called Burralea, and leaving her behind. She’d kicked up a terrible stink. How could her father abandon her when he was all she had left?

  Bree’s gran had done her best to explain. ‘Your father’s in rather a deep hole and he needs time to get over everything that’s happened before he can look after you properly.’

  Bree hadn’t taken this well. She’d clung to her father and cried horrendously when it was time for him to leave. And her acceptance of the inevitable had come slowly. But now, eighteen months later, although her father’s absence remained a permanent ache in her heart, Bree had settled into school and each weekend she happily lapped up her grandparents’ loving and conscientious attention.

  All their married lives, her gran and grandpa had lived in the same house, which seemed amazing to Bree, who had lived in many places in at least four different countries. Her grandparents’ house was an old Queenslander in North Ward, just one block back from the sea. It had a latticed front verandah covered in pink bougainvillea and it seemed utterly perfect to Bree.

  They had created the most adorable bedroom for her, with pale-lemon walls and a bright bedspread in tropical hues of deep aqua and coral. It also had a roll-out bed so that she could invite a friend home on special weekends. A desk and a computer had been installed, as well, and there were plenty of shelves for her precious collection of ornamental dogs, which was far too vast and sentimental to take to school.

  The collection had started with a patchwork puppy that Bree had loved since her toddler days. The poor pooch was now minus an eye and had a badly chewed tail, but it sat proudly on a shelf next to her assortment of plaster and porcelain dogs. These ranged from super ugly to adorably cute, and included a skinny copper dog Bree’s mother had bought in Africa and an exquisite glass poodle that her aunt had brought back from Paris.

  Of course, what Bree truly longed for was a real dog to love and to play with, to take for walks and to have lying at her feet while she did her homework and then sleeping at night in a basket at the end of her bed. Her grandparents had drawn the line at this, however. They weren’t keen on all the extra work a dog would require and said they were too old to start again with a puppy, especially as Bree was away at school for five days of the week.

  Even without a real dog, Bree loved her bedroom. It had French doors painted gloss white and curtained with lace that opened onto a corner of the latticed verandah. Here, Bree had her very own little sitting area, with a cane table and chairs lined with comfy rose-coloured cushions where she entertained her friends when they visited. She felt terribly grown up serving them afternoon tea of lemonade with ice cubes and sprigs of mint and a selection of yummy goods from the bakery, as her gran had never been one for baking.

  Lavished with her grandparents’ love and affection, Bree knew she was lucky. And mostly she was happy.

  This evening, with her dreaded maths homework rushed through and finished, Bree reached for the diary she’d kept ever since she’d started at this boarding school. Initially, it had been one of the school counsellor’s suggestions.

  ‘You have a gift for writing, Bree,’ Miss Groves had said. ‘So you shouldn’t find it a chore to keep a diary. I think you might enjoy jotting down your thoughts, or recording things that happen. Why don’t you give it a try?’

  The idea had appealed. The very next week Bree had used her pocket money to buy a book with gorgeous butterflies on the cover and a special lock for keeping the contents secret, and she was quite regular about adding entries.

  Mostly she wrote about school and her friends or her weekend outings, and sometimes she even made up little stories, usually ones with a dog as the hero. Miss Groves was right. She hadn’t found it a chore to write. She liked her diary entries and secretly she knew that some of them were quite good. She wondered if one day she might be a journalist like her dad.

  Homework dispensed with now, she pulled the diary towards her, took the little key from her pencil case and unlocked it, then selected a favourite pen.

  Tuesday

  Today Mrs M gave us the strangest assignment. She asked us to write a letter to ourselves. It’s not an assignment that she will read and mark. She told us that no one else will read our letters. They’re to be locked away safely and handed back to us to read at the end of next year, our first year in high school. But as this school covers Prep to Year 12, high school’s not such a big deal. Or at least, I don’t think it is.

  The letter is kind of a fun idea, though, a bit like keeping this diary, I guess. But the end of next year?
So far away!!

  Mostly, I just wanted to ask myself questions. Lame stuff like how long is my hair now? How tall am I? Have my boobs grown? Has Joshua Cook even noticed that I exist yet?

  Of course, the really big question is will I feel any better about Mum and Louis by the time another year has passed?

  Bree stopped. She felt sick just writing her mother’s and her little brother’s names. Especially today.

  By a horrible coincidence, Mrs M had chosen the one day of the year when Bree tried desperately hard not to think about any of that horror. In truth, she tried not to think about it most days. She knew that if she gave in to those saddest of memories, she would only end up bawling and then everyone in the school would know why she was upset and she would be sent back to Miss Groves for further counselling.

  It wasn’t that Bree didn’t like Miss Groves, but she didn’t like feeling different from the other girls – a ‘marked’ child. She had learned the hard way that she was better off toughing it out than letting her heartbreak show.

  The problem was, the only way she could remain tough was to try to forget. And there were two problems with forgetting. It was virtually impossible. Worse than that, trying to forget felt wrong.

  Especially today.

  Today her gran would be remembering, of course. Gran would have visited the cemetery, taking white lilies for Bree’s mum and a spray of cheeky yellow orchids for Louis, just as she had on each anniversary since the incident three years ago. And if today had coincided with a weekend, Bree would have been expected to accompany her.

  The very thought brought tears to her eyes, but she didn’t want to cry. She picked up her pen, added a little more to her diary.

  Today’s a sad day for Gran, too, because Mum was her daughter-in-law and Louis was her grandson, but Gran seems to like visiting cemeteries. I hate it. I can’t help it. I just hate seeing those head-stones. I hate having to think about what they mean, and that Mum and Louis are under there. I just want to think about how they used to be.