“To Australia,” Robb clarified. “Where she has no links at all. That anyone knows about.”
Except that at one point, she met you.
Trent could feel Robb’s unspoken words hanging in the air between them. He swallowed heavily, picking his words carefully.
“Maybe that’s exactlywhyshe’s coming here?” he suggested. “Exactlybecauseshe has no links here? In that case, why would anyone suspect it, as opposed to somewhere she has known associates?”
Robb leaned back in his chair. “Maybe so,” he said, after a long pause.
Trent could feel the seconds ticking by as Robb gazed at him, his expression totally unreadable.
“Well. I’m sorry I couldn’t be more helpful,” Trent said finally, doing his best not to fidget. He felt like he often felt when subjected to Robb’s scrutiny: like he was Frodo Baggins doing his best to evade the eye of Sauron.
“Apparently not.” Robb’s tone was neutral, but his eyes were hard. Clearly, he suspected Trent knew more than he was letting on – but Robb hadn’t gotten to where he was by being easy to put one over on, Trent supposed. He guessed he should just feel lucky that Robb had chosen not to force the issue – for now, anyway.
“Can I go, then?” he asked hopefully, cocking his head. “I swear if I think of something, you’ll be the first to know.”
Robb stared at him a moment longer, before giving a quick, slight nod of his head. “All right.”
Trent stood up gratefully, almost forgetting his cup of coffee in his haste to get out of his boss’s sight.
Still, he didn’t feel completely comfortable, even when the office door was firmly closed behind him. Somehow, he felt Robb was watching him, even through the solid wood of the door.
But that feeling paled in comparison to the roaring unease that was tearing through his gut. A feeling that no shifter could help but feel when they knew their mate was in trouble.
We have to find her and help her,Trent’s kangaroo insisted – he felt like it was kicking at him, tearing at his chest with the claws on its powerful hind legs in its state of agitation. It was clear that it had gotten sick of being ignored, and it wasn’t going to let him push it away anymore.
I know we do,he told it sharply, shaking his head to try to clear it of the kangaroo’s frantic, aggressive insistence.But when I do, it has to actuallyhelpher. Not land her in more trouble than she’s already in. No matterwhyshe’s in it.
Despite its fury, the kangaroo actually seemed to see the sense in that. It backed off slightly, narrowing its eyes.
I don’t know how you can be so calm when our mate needs us,it said accusingly.Our mate needs us, and you’re drinking disgusting caffeinated water –
Don’t you think I want to help her as much as you do?Trent asked it, cutting it off angrily. To be honest, sometimes sharing his head with a massive, prehistoric kangaroo was like sharing a house with a belligerent housemate: it wanted everything done theexactway it wanted it done, and it wanted it donenow.
Thankfully, he’d learned how to reason with it over the years, otherwise he wasn’t sure he wouldn’t have just given up his shifter heritage and buried the animal so far in his psyche he never heard from it again.
“I need some time to think,” he muttered, as he headed down the corridor. If Robb’s friends were right and Zinawasin Australia, then that was good. At least he wouldn’t have to think up some excuse to head overseas to go looking for her.
But there’s just one problem.Well, two problems.
The first problem was that Australia was a big country, and Zina could be literally anywhere.
The second was that, while Trent knew down to his bones that Zina Alden was his mate, she didn’t seem to know at all thathewashers.
Chapter 2
Three years earlier – in London
Trent glanced up, watching as the last office worker rose from his desk, stretched, and then started shrugging on his heavy winter coat.
He’d been undercover here, posing as a cleaner, for the last four weeks. He’d been given the new name of Tony Landers, a totally clean background, and the credentials to spend his evenings here dumping rubbish out of people’s desk bins, running a vacuum over the carpet, and scrubbing the toilets. It was hardly the most glamorous of assignments, but then, one thing he’d quickly had to learn about this job was that it was ninety percent waiting around for something to happen, and only ten percent things actuallyhappening.
Well, at least something’s going to happen tonight,Trent thought, shaking out the rubbish from a desk bin into the bag he was carrying as the office worker ambled his way toward the exit. He’d finally gotten word that it was time to make a move.
It was funny how appearances could be deceiving – this place mightlooklike any other completely ordinary office, albeit with some pretty slick, modern interiors and some pretty fancy hardware sitting on the desks for what was supposedly an accountancy firm. And there was no doubt most of the people herehadbeen hired as accountants and staff, and probably had absolutely no idea what this company – Equitix Accounting – sidelined in.
But what they were, was a very, very high-end fencing organization – or in other words, a company that bought stolen goods and sold them on to the highest bidder.
