‘Pregnancy?’Oh no.And the cigarette butts—what?She glanced over his heavily inked arms and hands.
‘I had a baby sister,’ Finn whispered, drawing her attention to his eyes, and the pain that made them darken.
He looked away.‘Took her years to get her tongue around Miri and called herselfMi-wii.Even longer to try Miriam—that always came out like Miwiam.’A rough laugh escaped him.‘Damn cute kid she was, too.’He scraped a hand down his face.‘They say she killed herself, targeted by bullies for being different.’
Her gasp was quiet, but she felt his pain.
‘My old man had refused to get her diagnosed, to see if they could help her, because he didn’t think she was his kid.And Mum didn’t want to admit she had an addiction that had affected Miri during the pregnancy.And maybe Miri, that poor kid, never stopped wondering if Dad was right, that she was the product of…’
Taryn gripped his hand, stunned by the blunt and yet brutal revelations.But the way he stared at the fire, he wasn’t done.
‘Three years after I first met Drew, there he was again.Same man.Same soda.I was thirteen, shirt torn, nose bloodied, and officially expelled from school.Bree sat beside me, not a scratch on her—except for the red handprint across her cheek.’
‘What happened?’
‘Some rich kid cracked a joke about my mum.By then, I understood what had happened to her.So did Bree.So she fired back a cracker abouthismum and the pool guy.Turned out it was true, and he wasn’t happy about it, so he hit her.And that’s when I lost it.’He exhaled heavily with heat.‘I laid that prick out flat in the dorm hallway, where he curled in a ball screaming for his mummy.’
She now understood why Bree and Finn were tight.‘What happened?’
‘Bree got suspended.I got expelled.But the prick who’d started it, his parents wanted to press charges.And that’s when Drew showed up… Even back then, he was a smooth-talking politician-in-training, who talked them down, promising to get the two troublemakers out of town.’Finn even grinned for a fleeting second.
‘Back then, Drew wasn’t some fed, he was just a Queensland city cop who’d upset someone and got sent bush.But he had pull in the right places.Made a few calls.And got us into another school.’
‘Your parents?Bree’s—’
‘We were bush kids.Back then, unless you had School of the Air and a generator that worked, you got shipped off interstate to boarding school.’
‘Right.’That made sense.
‘So while Bree and I waited for the bus to take us to our new school, there was Drew in his shiny police uniform, babysitting us.His pen tapping against a word puzzle book—one of those grids where you find words hidden in little squares, like he was trying to crack a case.But that day he put us on the bus, I remember him saying to me,One day, when the world stops chewing you up, come find me.’
Taryn’s chest felt tight, the ache building behind her ribs.‘You did.’
‘At sixteen.I’d stumbled onto a bunch of blokes stealing cattle out in the sticks during a muster.They tried to cut me in, but I liked the boss and his family—and they stole that man’s stock.So I dragged them to the local cop shop myself, in the cattle truck full of stolen beef.And there was Drew.His printer had jammed, and he was swearing at everything that wasn’t nailed down, with another one of those half-finished word puzzle books on his desk.’Finn smiled faintly.‘Didn’t need to remind him who I was.He hadn’t forgotten the kid from his first day on the job.And from that moment on, he was on my back, telling me when I came of age and got sick of playing stockman, I should apply to the academy.So I did.Drew wrote the recommendation himself.Nicest thing anyone ever said about me—on paper, anyway.’
The fire crackled, popped and sparked to the stars, Taryn silently listened as he paused, cradling that beer stubby in two hands.
‘But he did more than that… Drew not only backed my application, he also turned up to my graduation and stood right next to Bree, who I’d married by then.Told me I could be more than a statistic and was worth something.Which meant a lot back then.’He drank deep, as if needing that breather for the next part.
‘Years later, when I was recruited for that undercover job, Drew warned me.Said the OIC had a bad rep, and being out-of-state, I wouldn’t have the same backup.Drew told me he couldn’t help if things went sideways.But I took the job anyway.’
‘That was a big bust.’
‘And that OIC still screwed me over.He blocked everything—including any messages—to make sure that bust stayed on track.My phone was full of messages from Bree, my old work partners, even Drew… and myson—that last message from my son…’ He dropped his head as if weighed down by the burden.
Taryn’s blinked as she sat taller.‘You missed the message?’She glanced up at him, eyes widening.‘You missed it, like I did from Meghan, before she was murdered.’
He met her eyes, and something unspoken passed between them.‘Yeah.I know…’
‘That’s why you gave me the file.’She remembered that moment in the car and how he’d looked at her like he understood her.
Only he had.Deeper than anyone had before.
Even now, Finn looked at her with that same steady gaze that read everything about her like lines on a page.
‘You had that look, the one people wear when they’re living with a ghost,’ he said.
He was right.
