“Are they friends of yours?” Maisie murmured, as Rhys placed her down on the ground with a gentleness that was belied by the fact he’d just spent the last fifteen minutes hitting men with chairs and kicking down doors.
“Yeah.” Rhys gave her a reassuring nod. “Don’t worry, I’m sure we can trustthem.”
Maisie decided to believe him – the certainty in his voice made it impossible for her to do anything else.
“We have to get to a boat, or a helicopter, or some other way back to Sydney,” Rhys said, as the guys he’d called Trent andEuan started running over toward them. “Or anywhere that’s not here. This place is crawling with agents, and we’re not going to get them off our backs until we’ve been able to tell the truth about everything.”
“But what evenisthe truth?” Maisie asked. “And why do they think I’m the culprit?”
“I don’t know that yet,” Rhys said grimly, as he took her hand once more, urging her to run. “But Iwillfind out. Michael’s sent me some info I’ll have to take some time to read over. But then, whoever did this is goingdown.”
A warm shiver ran through her at the heated, dangerous tone of Rhys’s voice. She couldn’t help it, she guessed – she just loved a bad boy.
“All ready to go, are we?” the taller of the two men Rhys had called to said when they reached them. “Packed your bags?”
“Save the jokes, Trent,” Rhys snapped. “We need to get back to the boat. Has it got enough fuel to get us out of here?”
“Far enough,” the tall man – Trent – replied. “Not as far as Sydney, but far enough.”
“Then let’s go,” Rhys said grimly.
The four of them set off at a run. Maisie didn’t know Townsville at all, but she had seen enough on the way in to know that they were heading in the direction of the ocean, and that it wasn’t far at all.
We can do it.
Her heart thudded as her feet pounded on the footpath, the closeness of their goal giving her the energy boost she needed to power through. She’d probably sleep for a week after all this, but right now she felt alert and energized.
She chanced a glance over her shoulder, and saw what were obviously a large number of agents exiting from the hotel grounds and sprinting after them. They were far enough back that Maisie thought they wouldn’t be able to catch up – but evenso, she put on an extra burst of speed she hadn’t even known herself to be capable of, sweat pouring off of her in the humid warmth of the afternoon.
Almost there.
She ran on, keeping pace with the other three, hoping that they weren’t drawing too much attention. The last thing they needed was to draw the ire of the local cops by looking like they were escaping from a crime scene!
Even though we kind of are.
A row of palm trees and flagpoles appeared in the distance, and beyond them, a blue sliver of ocean.
And, in front of them, a whole lot of cars.
Maisie skidded to a stop, her heart dropping in dismay.
Traffic? Here?!
She knew that Townsville wasn’t a tiny country town, but it wasn’t exactly the kind of place where one would experience major traffic problems. Or so she’d thought.
Because the scene in front of her was what one might politely describe as ‘traffic chaos’.
It wasn’t a traffic jam – they could’ve dealt with that simply by running between the cars. No, this was cars moving just slowly enough to cause a backlog, and just quickly enough to be dangerous. Not to mention the honking, swerving, and people yelling excitedly and leaning out of car windows to get a look at something.
What the hell is going on?
Beside her, Rhys swore.
Maisie stood up on her tiptoes, trying to work out what the hold-up was. As a car moved out of the way, she caught a glimpse: in the middle of the roundabout a crocodile was happily sunning itself, lifting its head lazily when curious onlookers dared to get too close. Unlike the one at the mini-golf course, this one seemed to be very much an actual croc.
Well, Ididwant a Queensland holiday,Maisie thought.Looks like they pulled out all the stops.
Rhys turned to Trent. “Can you jump over this traffic while holding Maisie?” he asked urgently, as cars streamed past. “I don’t want to have to shift and fly her over, but I will if I have to, and deal with the consequences later.”
