Temp Roicks Pty Ltd.
A rural contractor for fencing and mustering jobs.Legit enough on paper.But it also owned the same quarry where Two-bob Bob had been babysitting the airstrip and the so-called office.
Whoever was behind it wasn’t just smart.They were buried under layers of companies, paper-thin identities, with just the right level of misdirection.
But she was close.Taryn could feel it.They were all connected to each other, fake companies, stacked like a ladder—each one owning the next.Every time she dug deeper, another company name surfaced:
Merc Topski
Spick Metro Ltd
Priscom Tek
Corp Stimek
M.T.Spiker Co
Spertick Nominees
E.Mockstrip & Co
Plus a dozen more.
And at the very top of the food chain satStokemir PC Inc.An offshore entity, posing as an international parent company.No records.No office, or even registered owners.Just a name in the finest of fine print that you’d miss if you blinked.
And she’d blinked a few times, missing it completely, until the other day.
Taryn was just waiting on confirmation about that offshore company to see where the next breadcrumb would lead her.Hoping for that same someone who’d helped bury Meghan.
After burying the pregnancy test deep in the waste bin, she forced herself back to her office, dropping behind her desk, and opening the folder on her desktop.
Her office smelled like paper and jasmine, thanks to the scented candle she never lit, but luckily it didn’t make her heave.
How she missed being able to open a window, to not hear congested traffic and screaming sirens, or people talking about nothing in their all-important rush to and from work.
Hard to believe it had only been six weeks since she’d first landed at Elsie Creek Airport—which wasn’t really an airport at all, just a sunbaked airstrip run by a grey-haired grump named Mickey.
For their last encounter, he’d given her a proper serve, grumbling aboutbloody touristsand how the town wasn’t some sightseeing stopover, all while chucking her bag into the belly of the mail plane with a grunt.
As the propellers spun to life, Tanisha waved at her from the back fence of the police station, which Taryn had dared to cross to catch her plane.No way was she going to walk the long way around again.
As for the rest of the Stock Squad, they were on the job, especially Finn, keeping up the pretence that Taryn was still their enemy and wasn’t seen near her in public.Even though she’d been staying at his house for days.
She’d expected the radio silence when she left.They’d agreed on it during those last three days spent side by side in Finn’s house, sleeping together, trading theories, maps, and whispered truths.Anything more would’ve risked everything: her report, her position, and the covert work she was doing—not just for Finn, but for Meghan.
If one person let slip that she’d been sleeping with the supposed enemy, the stock smugglers would bury their trail before the ink on her report dried, and the integrity of her work would be void.Goodbye promotion.
When she’d reached her hotel room in Darwin, at the start of her trek back to Canberra, she’d found a burner phone in the lining of her bag, along with a note in Finn’s handwriting that simply saidOnly use in emergencies.
She recognised it as standard operating procedure, especially in offices like hers, where informants couldn’t afford to be traced.A trick her boss, and her father, had taught her.But she’d never needed a burner before.Not until Finn.
Even then, they didn’t talk.They didn’t call.But every few days, without fail, the screen would light up with a single message:Still breathing?All in the simple style of Finn.
And every time, it punched her square in the chest.
Only for her to stare at the screen like a teenager, agonising over a reply that was smart but casual, guarded but warm.Because under all the strategy, the silence, the cloak-and-dagger subterfuge, they were still them.And she missed him more with every message.
But now she might possibly, accidentally, phantomly—be pregnant.
