Drew dragged out a chair and sat down, motioning for Finn to do the same.‘I’ve got a job for you.’
Finn didn’t move.
Drew smiled.‘You always did prefer to stand.’
Finn still said nothing.
Drew rested his elbows on the table and folded his hands as if in prayer.A closed folder lay in front of him.‘So, you belted up your OIC.No one’s arguing that.But, if it had been me, and someone had blocked my wife’s messages while my boy was dying…’ Drew peered around, and his voice dropped, ‘I might’ve done worse.’
You’d think after eighteen months it wouldn’t hurt.But it sure as hell made Finn bitter.This place was good at letting old wounds fester deep into your bones, twisting that bitterness into a heavy numbness that meant nothing surprised him anymore.Not since they’d buried his boy without him.
Drew slid a folder across the table.‘There is a way out of this, Finn.As the Federal Agricultural Commissioner—’
Finn let out a low whistle.‘Who’d you kill for that job?’
Drew chuckled, adjusting that fancy tie.‘Some days, I feel like the job is killing me.’
‘It suits you.’The guy always had that politician’s touch of speaking in circles and rarely giving a straight answer.‘What do you want, Drew?’
‘I’m trying to set up a federal stock squad.’Drew tapped on the file.‘And I want you to run it.’
He tilted his head at Drew.‘From in here?’
‘No, because I got you a pardon.’Drew pushed the paperwork across the table.‘This is yourget-out-of-jail-freecard.’
‘Nothing is for free.’Finn knew that.‘And I don’t work for suits.’
Drew smiled like he’d been expecting that.‘You won’t be.But I remembered when you were a kid who’d brought down that string of stock thieves and helped me through the paperwork.You were what…’
‘Sixteen.’It’s why he wanted to be a cop.And how Drew had ended up being his mentor, through the bad and the downright ugliness that life kept piling up on him.
‘I’m not a cop anymore.’Finn didn’t believe in justice either—not anymore.Not after what they’d done to him.So why the hell was Drew offering him a badge now?
Drew leaned back, nodding like he’d expected that question, too.‘But you’re a man who knows what’s right, in a world that keeps getting it wrong.That’s enough.’
Finn remained silent.He didn’t do speeches.
‘Listen, son, I’m giving you a shot to do something real, out there…’ He pointed to the high windows, so heavy with grime it effectively blocked out the world.
‘I need your help, Finn.These farmers, they’re already doing it tough.And when their livestock, their livelihood, goes missing no one cares.I can show you the figures of how rare it is for anyone to catch those thieves.And I want you to help them.’
Drew leaned forward, his forearms resting on the table.‘You’ll answer directly to me.There will be no other brass breathing down your neck.Just you and the land, doing what you were born to do.You’re a born stockman who thinks like a cop, which is a rarity these days.And we both know you never back down from a fight.So, this is your shot, Finn, to build something that matters.’
Finn stared at him, not saying a word.
This time, Drew didn’t fill the silence.He just waited.
And, finally, Finn asked, ‘Where?’
One
Present Day—Elsie Creek, Northern Territory
Taryn Hayes stepped off the tiny plane with her large suitcase, her chunky workbag, and the unshakable feeling that the sun had a personal vendetta against her.Especially when the heat hit like a wall that was thick, dry, and horrifically hostile.
She adjusted her sunglasses, scanning the bare patch of asphalt they called an airport.They didn’t even have a terminal.
But it had an uninterrupted view of the surrounding outback, and a cranky old man in a pair of grease-stained grey coveralls, squinting at her like a geriatric Popeye having a bad day.
