Not when Finn had stormed into the hospital with Brodie and Lydia’s blood on his shirt, barking into his radio and phone like a one-man taskforce to get everyone on the job.
Half the other rooms were filled with patients, locals who’d peered out into the corridor to see what was going on.People who knew someone… who kneweveryone.It wouldn’t take long, and word would fly across that invisible outback telegraph line, where Red would wait for word before his next move.
But where would the bastard go?
The roads to Katherine and Darwin were boxed in.The small bush hospital was the only one within cooee.And if Red’s wounds were bad enough, he would’ve been kicked out the front door in a drive-by of the hospital, because no one wanted to be associated with a stock thief in cattle country.
No, if Red needed patching up, Bob would take him somewhere quiet.
Hidden.
And there was only one place left that made sense…
The quarry.
The same bloody quarry they’d had under surveillance this past month.The one Stone and Romy swore hadn’t seen movement in days.
And the kicker?
Their trucks were still there.Tagged and being watched—thanks to the tracking units Amara and Finn had tucked behind wheel wells and under the chassis lines.
But the truck they’d used tonight?That one wasn’t even on their radar.
As to how the crime of stock theft happened.Hmm…
Lydia, being the neighbourly person, had said the owner was out of town, and she’d swing past the southern paddock to check the back fence during Brodie’s driving lesson.
And Red?He must have overheard Lydia on the phone about the owner being out of town—but not all of her plans.Or Red asked her what was new in town.Something so simple that maybe even Lydia hadn’t realised what she’d said.
It wasn’t hard to picture the rest of the story…
Bob the ringer, showing up with Red, handing out business cards under the banner of SW Rural Contracting.Asking if they needed any fencing or mustering done, to scope out the place under the guise of needing a gig.
Only this time, they didn’t find a new client to rip off later.They’d found payday.An empty station, with a livestock truck sitting in the shed with the keys tucked behind the visor—like they always were.Along with a fence line that backed straight onto a dirt road with cattle nosing through the gaps, reaching for the tall weeds on the roadside.
Easy pickings.
They just hadn’t expected Lydia to be out there with Brodie behind the wheel.
Finn rubbed a hand over his jaw.He wasn’t letting them go that easy.No way in hell was he done with Red and Bob.Who were still out there, starting from the wrong side of the highway.Hours away from the quarry.But both fugitives were locals, they’d know how to cut through the scrub, using the dark to their advantage.
But prepping his team to storm the quarry in the dark?
Suicide.
Just the mere mention of the quarry over the radios could also blow their cover.Finn and his team had told no one.They didn’t even have it on paper, because as Finn had explained to his team, their surveillance was illegal.Inadmissible in court.And Izzy had warned them it was enough to have their entire case thrown out should they dare to make an arrest.
No, what Finn needed were his maps.The old kind.The ones that showed every bore trail, river cut, cattle path and gully.All the information he’d collected from Bree, Cowboy Craig, Stone, even Porter, and lots of other cattlemen, hunters, and stockmen who’d shared with Finn.He could then see their escape plan, and all the other paths that’d lead to one place…
The quarry.
What he’d kill for his maps and—
Click.
The door that led to the corridor eased open with a whoosh.
Tanisha stood there with hair wrapped high in a satin scarf, wearing silky pyjamas covered in bright pink flamingos, holding a thermal coffee jug in one hand and his old canvas bag he kept in the office in the other.
