‘Has to be,’ Finn replied.‘We thought SW Rural Contracting was Sawyer’s company.But Red’s still swapping out prime stock, and signing off on the paperwork, right beside SW.’
‘SW Rural Contracting.’Taryn’s gaze sharpened.‘Which is why you want me to look into this company?’She gathered it all together and rested the file and her notebook on her lap.‘You’re hoping it connects to Everlight?’The company that had her cousin murdered, Izzy kidnapped, and stole millions in government grants.
‘I know it does.I just don’t know how.’
She looked at the man who’d finally stopped avoiding her to share some answers.Only now they were both chasing the same company, just from different angles, and for different reasons.She might not fully trust him, but she did say, with clear conviction, ‘I believe you.’
Seventeen
Finn pulled up to the ridge, with the engine low.Among the open scrub, with a skyline smeared with a deep burnt gold, as the Spinifex Highway stretched like a scar across the earth.
It wasn’t a real highway.Hell, it wasn’t even on any map.
But out here?
It was a wild vein of lawlessness that ran straight through the heart of the outback, which only the locals used.A simple dirt track, that was the road you took when you didn’t want questions asked.
It was the road to take when your truck was too heavy and your paperwork was too light, and the weighbridge too close for comfort.Or when you had one too many at the pub and needed to avoid the police, to get back to the station before sun-up.
First created by the cameleers as an outback supply route, the infamous Spinifex Highway was where things fell off the back of one truck and into the tray of another.Where cash changed hands without receipts, and a handshake sealed the kind of deal that never made it to a ledger.
It was a place where a circle of utes lit up bare-knuckle brawls between stockmen, drawing a crowd, while in the car park, there was a roaring trade of bootlegged gear like some outlaw outback bazaar.
And Finn had been watching it for days, with the Gaps File in his lap.
But today he no longer held the Gaps File, Taryn Hayes did.Gripping onto it like it was a newborn as she climbed out of his passenger seat.
She stared at his set-up—two chairs, an old gas cooker, the battered esky—and gave him a look like he’d just offered her a bed of nails.
‘You didn’t say we were camping,’ she said, dragging out her hefty workbag.
‘Can’t you see this is rural hospitality at its finest?’He dusted off the chairs, ready to watch another sunset bleed out across the scrub while watching over that red dirt road below.
The plan was to listen for the hum of engines beneath the wind, with eyes scanning for dust plumes rising like smoke signals.
SW Contracting’s shipment was due to roll through soon—but from which station?And when?
He glanced at his watch.The team were due within the hour.
Then he turned his gaze to the land that stretched wide, free from the world of concrete boxes and artificial light.Just saltbush and shadows that grew, as the scent of dry spinifex cooled beneath a sky so wide it felt like the heavens were just in reach.
He still loved that.The taste of freedom.The silence.With the sun on his skin and no one else around—and knew how rare it was.
But now Taryn was here, gripping onto the Gaps File like she owned it, which meant she was about to do his head in with questions.
Surprisingly, she didn’t speak.Just dropped into the nearest camp chair and dragged over his esky like she was setting up shop.No thanks.No pleasantries.Just a whack of the file on the esky lid and the soft flick of paper, along with the scratch of her pen.
He fiddled at the back of his troopy, waiting, hoping her questions were smart enough to create new leads.
Izzy said Taryn had the kind of mind that could see things others missed, like a crocodile overlooked in floodwaters.Smart.Patient.With the kind of bite that didn’t need to show their teeth until it was far too late.
But trusting her?That was a whole other thing.
Taryn flipped through the pages and started sorting the paperwork into neat piles across the esky lid like it was a table.Then she found a few flat rocks, a bare patch of dirt and laid out the rest like she was building a damn war map.
Finn wasn’t sure whether to feel violated or impressed.It was like inviting someone over for a visit, only for the woman to suddenly decide to move in and rearrange his bloody house.
‘Are you planning to interrogate me, or just rearrange my notes?’He was hoping for something out of her, not this silence.
