He’d be damned if he let that little line slip past him:a life built on goodbyes.
She said it like it was nothing, and yet it explained everything.Like why she kept her distance to not get attached.And why nothing rattled her, not even the open hostility from the people around her since she’d arrived in town.Because if you already had an exit plan, why bother unpacking your suitcase in the first place?
‘Meghan was murdered for helping Izzy uncover something no one wanted found.And someone has made sure it stayed that way.’
Finn’s jaw ticked.‘You’re not blaming Izzy for that.’
‘No.Not at all.’She shook her head.‘Meghan was excited to be part of Izzy’s work and digging for new leads.She even left me a message, asking for advice, for my help—’
Holy hell.
Hope suddenly flared in his chest.
Help.Actualhelpfrom someone who may just shift some of the weight he’d been carrying solo for too damn long.
Only her expression killed all that hope just as fast.
‘By the time I got her message… she was dead.’
Finn flinched.
To control himself, his fingers curled tighter around the steering wheel as his throat locked up like his body had heard something it couldn’t forget.
Because he knew.
God help him, he knew.
He’dmissed his message, too.
Liam had called.His little boy.Late at night.Voice thin and tired, barely more than a whisper on the machine that said,‘I love you, Daddy.It’s okay.I get it.’
Finn never got the chance to call his boy back.
Then, finding all his messages had been blocked: the ones from Bree, from the doctors, Drew, even his old sergeant from Queensland—all of them had been held up by a chain of command more interested in headlines than humanity.
By the time they’d reached him, he’d already lost everything that mattered in gut-wrenching order of...
His son.His wife.His career.His freedom.
That was the crack that broke the rest of him.The moment the wires snapped, and the mask fell off.What was left wasn’t a cop, it wasn’t even a man.It was just pain, walking.
What made it worse was he never got to say goodbye.Or to even say he was sorry.
It’s why he came back to Elsie Creek, to watch over this town.And why he always slowed down when he drove past the town’s dusty church, which stood on the hill, where they said the graveyard had the best views of the outback.
He drove past it more than he needed to…
Because his son was buried here.
And that was reason enough for him to stay.
The silence in the troopy thickened like heat off the bonnet.The gravel crunched beneath the tyres as they headed towards the Spinifex Highway.
Finn exhaled heavily, as if he had to drag it up from somewhere deep just to breathe, while fighting against all that pain of his past.
Thing is, she was sitting right beside him, sharing the same breathing space, and didn’t even realise they shared the same pain from the exact same thing.
But he could see it now.
