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Then he turned away. He looked towards Mia and began pushing his way forward through the water to her and Audrey. He kept moving, not letting himself stop until he felt the sand give way to firm path under his feet. When he was close enough, Mia reached down and he stretched up and she helped pull him clear of the sea.
Kieran was shivering hard but she was warm as she steadied him on the path. He wasn’t sure what else to do so he put his wet arms around her and Audrey and held them both until he felt himself begin to breathe again. He wasn’t sure how long they stood there together, their heads close, Mia’s hands on his back.
Finally, he straightened. ‘Let’s go. Let’s go up.’
‘Are you sure?’ Mia looked at him. ‘Are you ready?’
‘Yeah.’ He nodded. ‘I’m ready.’
They turned towards the path, winding clear and dry ahead. Kieran didn’t look back at the lifeless caves or the angry sea or the lonely gaze of The Survivors. He reached out instead and took Mia’s hand as she held their daughter and they made their way together, up to higher ground.
Acknowledgements
This book took me to a beautiful part of Australia and my thanks go to the many people in Tasmania who were kind enough to share their stories and experiences with me.
Thank you to the staff at the Eaglehawk Dive Centre in Eaglehawk Neck for guiding me through such a fascinating experience under water, and patiently answering my many questions about diving in Tasmania.
I am grateful to Grant Blashki, Lead Clinical Advisor for Beyond Blue, for sharing his professional insights around the impact of grief as well as the research and treatments available.
Any mistakes or artistic liberties throughout the book are my own.
My sincere gratitude to the real Sue Pendlebury and George Barlin who successfully bid for the chance to name a character at the Peter Pan Committee’s Literary Lunch to raise funds for Barnardos. Thank you so much for your generous donation to this important cause and for lending your names to two of my favourite characters.
Thank you to the many people who worked so hard on this book: my editors Cate Paterson and Georgia Douglas at Pan Macmillan, Christine Kopprasch at Flatiron Books, and Clare Smith at Little, Brown; my agents Clare Forster at Curtis Brown Australia, Alice Lutyens and Kate Cooper at Curtis Brown UK, Daniel Lazar at Writers House and Jerry Kalajian at the Intellectual Property Group; and my publicists Clare Keighery at Pan Macmillan, Amelia Possanza at Flatiron Books and Grace Vincent at Little, Brown.
Thank you to my friend and former publicist Charlotte Ree from Pan Macmillan, whose promotion has rightly taken her onward and upward, but whose dedication and wisdom have been a driving force in the success of my books.
Thank you to my brother Michael Harper for Shifty the dog’s name and backstory, and as always to Mike Harper, Helen Harper, Ellie Harper, Susan Davenport, Ivy and Ava Harper for their support.
A big welcome to the two new arrivals who in no small way helped inform the character of baby Audrey: my son Ted Strachan and niece Isabel Harper.
And, as always, my love and gratitude to my husband Peter Strachan, our wonderful daughter Charlotte and beautiful baby Ted. I couldn’t do it without you.
About Jane Harper
Jane Harper is the author of the international bestsellers The Dry, Force of Nature and The Lost Man. Her books are published in forty territories worldwide, and The Dry has been adapted into a major motion picture starring Eric Bana. Jane has won numerous top awards including the Australian Book Industry Awards Book of the Year, the Australian Indie Awards Book of the Year, the CWA Gold Dagger Award for Best Crime Novel, and the British Book Awards Crime and Thriller Book of the Year. Jane worked as a print journalist for thirteen years both in Australia and the UK, and now lives in Melbourne with her husband and two children.
Also by Jane Harper
The Dry
Force of Nature
The Lost Man
First published 2020 in Macmillan by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Ltd
1 Market Street, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, 2000
Copyright © Jane Harper 2020
The moral right of the author to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted.
All rights reserved. This publication (or any part of it) may not be reproduced or transmitted, copied, stored, distributed or otherwise made available by any person or entity (including Google, Amazon or similar organisations), in any form (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical) or by any means (photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise) without prior written permission from the publisher.
Cataloguing-in-Publication entry is available
from the National Library of Australia
http://catalogue.nla.gov.au
EPUB format: 9781760982485
The characters in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental
The author and the publisher have made every effort to contact copyright holders for material used in this book. Any person or organisation that may have been overlooked should contact the publisher.
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