Chapter 2
Two
Finn let the back door of the police station swing shut behind him with a solid thud.
The unforgiving Territory sun pressed down, baking the gravel underfoot.
Beyond the meshed fence and token barbed wire, which made up the police station’s small compound, the town’s airstrip shimmered like a mirage.
Mickey, the airport mechanic, was out there in his oil-streaked coveralls, playing valet with his over-sized golf buggy as he towed a light plane toward the hangar like it was a fancy sports car.
Word of the Fed’s arrival had blown through town faster than a dry-season bushfire.
And Mickey, with his hate for tourists, would have given Taryn Hayes the full tour of nothing as the grouchy welcoming committee.
He’d, no doubt, made the Fed walk the long way around the airstrip just to make an entrance—suitcase, blazer, heels and all.
Finn smirked faintly.
She’d handled it, though. Didn’t crack. Even looking like she’d just rolled out of a wind tunnel, she still stood her ground with voice steady, and chin high.
Taryn hadn’t said much, but he’d seen enough to know she wasn’t just here to tick boxes and shuffle reports—and she definitely wasn’t here to help.
Which made her dangerous.
And—inconveniently—interesting.
But he had better things to do than babysit a bureaucrat.
Lydia and Brodie were waiting. And if they were right, Red was slipping stolen stock through the yards again.
He climbed into the troopy. The V8 engine rumbled to life, rough but reliable.
On the road, he spotted Cecil, the town’s unofficial mascot and full-time traffic hazard, munching weeds by the roadside like he owned the place. Finn slowed down to pass him.
Only in Elsie Creek would they have a reduced speed sign for a water buffalo. And only Cecil would be the one to ignore the road rules.
He shook his head, smirking to himself. Bloody town. Elsie Creek did something to a person. It took in the rough, the worn-out, the ones with nowhere else to go, and gave them something like a home in the dust.
Sure, it had its fair share of sticky beakers and serial gossipers, but it also had something rarer—real rural spirit. The kind where everyone knew everyone but still gave you space. And when things went belly up, you wouldn’t find a faster helping hand in the country.
Finn would never say it, but this town was different. Special.
This nowhere postcode? It was his—for now, at least.
The road out of town may be long, flat, and empty with a heated shimmering haze that met clear skies. But out here, there were no office doors to hide behind. No spin. No distractions in a land that remembered. And for those who didn’t respect it, the outback had a way of biting you back.
He rolled the window down, letting the hot wind whip through. It didn’t cool anything, but it cleared his head.
Taryn Hayes.
She was sharp. He’d give her that. She talked like she had the weight of the law behind her. And probably did. But she didn’t know this place or the people. She had no clue what the squad had already sacrificed just to be here.
He’d let her poke around, but he didn’t owe her any explanations, and he had no desire to be anywhere near her.
What sucked was that he had to. Didn’t mean he had to be nice about it.
Finn didn’t trust in justice anymore. Results drove him now, because if he wanted the Stock Squad to be permanent, he had to prove it mattered. And now he had to convince a stranger in a suit that this rough patch of country, and the people guarding it, were worth the fight.
That was the mission.
When Drew had first mentioned the audit, it hadn’t sat right. ‘Just part of the process of making it permanent. Every government department gets audited,’ he’d said.
But it was what Drew didn’t say that Finn heard louder. And that was the Fed, currently taking up space in his office, had the power to shut them down. For good!
With the town fading behind him, Finn turned right, crossed the railway tracks, and hit the red dirt roads that made up most of the Territory. To his left, a small church sat on the hill, its graveyard tucked beside it, the place the locals always said had the best view of the outback.
He turned again, using the back roads to the stockyards back lots where the sheds sat half-hidden in the dried long-grass. The old ag yard was mostly abandoned now, just rusty fencing wire and busted drums baking in the sun.
Lydia, the stockyard’s manager, chose this place. She wasn’t comfortable being seen with Finn in the office anymore. Not now they were investigating her husband, Grady Red Galloway—the Stock Agent.
Finn parked behind a stack of empty lick tubs and killed the engine. He peered around. No one was in sight.
Good.
He ducked through the side gate, his boots crunching quietly on the gravel. The back shed’s dented door was halfway open.
Inside, the air was stale and thick with grease and old hay, but the temperature had dropped considerably.
Lydia sat on an upturned milk crate, clipboard in hand, sunglasses perched on the brim of her stockman’s hat. Calm on the surface, and worried like hell underneath.
Young Brodie leaned against a ride-on mower, arms folded, cap pulled low over his eyes.
His jeans had more patches than denim, and the soles of his boots looked ready to part ways with the rest. But he had that lean, hungry look—like he’d do whatever it took just to be counted, and to do the right thing.
Finn recognised that in Brodie. Not just the attitude, but the weight behind the kid’s actions, reminding him of a younger version of himself—before life got complicated. Long before he’d learned that sometimes the people you trusted most were the ones who left the deepest scars.
‘Sorry I’m late. Had company,’ Finn muttered as he stepped into the shed. ‘The Fed’s landed.’
‘Aren’t you a fed, too?’ Brodie brows lifted.
A fair question. One Finn still hadn’t made peace with—not with his criminal record.
Lydia looked up, calm as ever. ‘I heard you’re being audited?’
‘Yeah. My first one.’ Happy anniversary to the Stock Squad. Well, since he’d set up shop in this town and started tapping on some shoulders to create a unique team.
‘I get audited all the time from different departments. All I do is give them a coffee, bring in a camping table and chair for their desk, and show them the files.’
‘That’s what I did. Kind of.’ He didn’t make people coffee. ‘Anyway, is there a reason you wanted to see me? Not that I’m complaining. I’m half tempted to help Brodie muck out the stalls than head back to the office—not with the Fed sitting in my seat.’
Brodie chuckled under his cap as Lydia handed Finn a clipboard.
‘What am I looking at?’ Finn flipped through the notes that held columns with tag numbers, weights, breeds, and dates.
‘Red’s pattern.’ Lydia’s voice wavered, as if strained.
‘We cracked the code.’ Brodie grinned, brushing the dust off his dirty shirt. It was nowhere near the amount of dust Finn had seen on Taryn’s suit.
‘What code?’
‘Brodie’s been watching what’s coming off the trucks,’ explained Lydia. ‘Then I’ve been comparing that with what Red logs into our stockyards. And it’s not matching up. Explain to Finn how.’ She gave Brodie an encouraging nod.
‘The mob that gets loaded at the stations is all legit. I’ve had a few of the stockmen take a video that they’ll DM me, to get ready for their feed and water, and they’ll warn me if any of the beasts are cranky.
Keeps the customers happy.’ Brodie scrolled open his phone.
‘That’s what I tell ‘em, anyway. But then I use that video as a comparison. See…’ Brodie played a video of white-coated Brahman being loaded onto a road train.
‘This lot was being loaded in the rear trailer at Tinderflats Station.’
Finn nodded at the boy, who shouldn’t be working undercover, but he wanted to do the right thing. ‘Go on.’
‘Well, this is that same trailer unloading in the yards a few hours later…’ Brodie played another video. ‘It’s a different load. Older, mixed breed. Half of them shouldn’t even be in the saleyard.’
Finn frowned at the video. ‘Can you forward this to me?’ Pity none of this was useable in a court, but it was enough to have his team scan for brands and tags.
‘Done.’ Brodie tapped away on his phone. He’d come a long way for a kid who could hardly read. The countless scars from cigarette burns were buried beneath the tan and dust, like old sins the sun couldn’t bleach out.
‘Any idea where the swapped cattle came from?’
Lydia leaned forward, her lips tight with worry.
‘We think the good cattle are getting offloaded somewhere—a paddock, a holding yard, we don’t know yet.
Then the dodgy ones are loaded up and delivered into this stockyard like nothing happened.
There’s no change to the number of stock received, where Red signs off on the original paperwork that gets dropped into my in-tray like normal.
’ Lydia tapped on the paperwork to show a name.
Finn looked up, frowning. ‘SW?’
‘We’ve noticed from the last few SW Rural Contracting shipments that the stock is below par. That’s why Brodie started getting the stockmen to film their loads.’
Finn frowned. SW Rural Contracting should’ve been shut down when his team had successfully closed their smuggling way station at Dixby Downs. He wasn’t going to forget he’d almost lost one of his team on that Wild Stock Case.
‘Wasn’t that Sawyer Dixby’s business?’ And he’d been buried, twice. Yet they still weren’t sure if the first time had been an accident.
‘I think they’ve just set up shop somewhere else,’ said Lydia, with Brodie nodding beside her.
‘At least we know where to start.’ Finn flicked over the paperwork, making a list of cattle station names. From there, he could work out the stock routes and the truck drivers.
Finn glanced up. ‘Are you still okay about doing this, Lydia?’ The poor woman. While she’d been instrumental as his informant, she was in a tricky situation with Red.
‘It’s always been a pet hate of mine, ever since someone stole stock from my father’s farm, where we all felt that loss as kids.
So, yeah, I’m still in. Just don’t ask me to watch Red get arrested.
I can’t. And I won’t testify in court against my husband.
But I’ll give you the paperwork and I’ll tell you what we see.
’ She slid her arm protectively around Brodie’s shoulders like a mother.
‘We’ll help how we can, quietly. But I can’t and I won’t risk Brodie. ’
‘But—’ Brodie butted in.
‘No.’ Her grip tightened around Brodie’s shoulders.
‘We’ve fought too hard to keep you safe from your parents.
You’re doing well with your lessons. You’re about to get your driver’s licence and your first car.
Once that happens, Cowboy Craig said he’ll give you a job at Dustfire, helping him out between Train Days.
Or you can work anywhere you want. You’ve got a bright future ahead of you, Brodie. ’
‘D’ya reckon Red knows?’ Again, Brodie scuffed his boot in the dirt.
Finn didn’t waste words. And he wasn’t good with the soft ones either.
‘Yeah,’ he said, brutally blunt as always. ‘Red’s smart enough to know someone’s watching. But he’s not spooked.’ Which made Red cocky or more intelligent than they’d realised. Either way, it made him dangerous.
‘Is that because Red thinks he’s covered, huh?’ Brodie squinted up at Finn.
‘Yeah. Because he thinks Lydia would never betray him.’
‘My husband is watching me.’ Lydia clutched her hands together as if trying to contain the worry. ‘Red now keeps all his paperwork locked in his ute, instead of leaving it on the kitchen table. And he’s asking me questions like he’s checking to see what I know.’
‘That’d be tense.’
‘It is. And I’ve lived with that man for thirty-three years. We know how to read each other. And I’ve been honest with him, too, Finn.’
Finn’s jaw ticked.
‘I’ve told Red something is wrong at the yards, ever since Amara’s horse got stolen—that the whole town knows about.
But Red also knows how much it upset me that someone would do that to us in the yards.
It hurts me more to know he’s behind it.
’ The heartbreak of the situation weighed heavily on her shoulders.
‘But I know my husband would never physically hurt me.’
‘But if he thinks he’s cornered…’ The prick would react like any other criminal. Finn had seen it plenty of times—when pushed too far, people often hurt the ones they loved.
He looked to Brodie. ‘From here on out, we move carefully, yeah? No shortcuts or taking any unnecessary risks. Just act normal, but keep your eyes and ears open, and call me if you need me.’
‘Got it, Boss.’ Brodie nodded, wearing the cheesy grin of a fearless teenager.
Finn then faced Lydia. ‘I’m sorry, Lydia, that you’re in this position. But we are going to get Red. I have to. We both know people’s livelihoods are on the line. The stockyard’s reputation is, too. It isn’t just a yard, it’s the beating heart of this town.’
Finn raked his nails through his hair. ‘I know that stock comes from families who’ve battled drought, fires, floods, and skyrocketing interest rates—who have so little, yet give everything to keep their cattle alive.
That includes the stockmen who chose this life.
The men and women who’ll carry a newborn calf across their saddle, bottle-feed it through the night, to maybe fight off wild dogs and scrub bulls just to give it a chance.
’ He looked between the two of them. ‘So, no—I’m not walking away from this. Not when it’s that work being stolen.’