Chapter 12
Twelve
Most mornings, Taryn had stood shoulder to shoulder with the locals at the train station’s food van.
She was still an outsider, even in boots and jeans, but she’d started earning polite nods now.
They’d tip their stockman’s hat, and offer that polite wave to let her step ahead of them with a mumbled ladies first.
A pleasant change from the city where it was every man for himself, where people spent their time staring at their phones, and ignoring the noisy world.
Here, they chatted, bartered and bantered while waiting in line for coffee, as if in a forgotten time, before mobile phones and social media were invented.
Only this morning, Taryn didn’t go to the police station and claim her space in the Batcave. This morning, she’d reserved a table far enough away from anyone to overhear and set down her workbag and waited.
A sun-faded red ute rumbled around the edge of the green, belonging to Cowboy Craig. It pulled up in the same usual unhurried way he’d walked the corridors of the police station. Then he elaborately opened the passenger door as if for a queen.
There she was. Isobel Callahan—Izzy—wearing snappy suspenders that accentuated her posture. In pinstriped trousers and a white shirt, the picture of a big-city lawyer.
Holding her hand, Craig leaned down and kissed the back of it like a gentleman in love.
Aww. Taryn sighed.
Izzy beamed at her husband as he muttered something in her ear. She laughed, kissed his cheek, then made her way across the lawn.
‘Hope I’m not late? Craig had to stop and say hi to three dogs and a horse on the way here.’
‘All good, I—’
‘I don’t drink coffee,’ Izzy cut in, ‘but if you’ve ordered a peppermint tea, you’ve already won me over.’ She took a seat opposite Taryn.
Taryn grinned as she pushed a cup across the table. ‘Peppermint and ginger with a dollop of honey. I believe it’s your homegrown honey, too.’
Izzy lit up. ‘Oh, you did your homework. I like that.’
Then came the pause, as if waiting to see who’d make the first move.
Taryn was predicting Izzy would speak first. Having learned all she could about the reputation and habits of the top-notch criminal lawyer with quirks, because this was the interview Taryn had been waiting for.
‘Do you want to talk about cattle and the weather? Or something really interesting?’ Izzy swirled her cup like it might reveal their secrets in the tea leaves.
‘How about, are you missing life as a big-city lawyer?’
‘Hell, no.’ Izzy gave a theatrical sigh.
‘It’s quieter. Fewer death threats. Even though it’s mostly wills and property law, there’s still plenty of drama.
Plus I’m about to have a cooking class with Bree.
We’re canning my first harvest of tomatoes.
Pro-tip: don’t empty the whole packet of seeds on a windy day, thinking it’ll never work.
I have tomatoes growing everywhere like weeds. ’
‘From high courtrooms to canning tomatoes,’ Taryn said with a soft smile. ‘That’s quite the pivot.’
Izzy shrugged lightly. ‘Turns out, growing and harvesting your own produce is oddly satisfying. No one’s ever tried to bribe me with zucchinis. But eggs are becoming quite the commodity of currency, of late.’
Taryn leaned in with curiosity. ‘Don’t you miss it at all? The rush, the wins, the pressure?’
‘Some days. That thrill of chasing down the answers, to then sort it all into a neat box, sure. But I don’t miss who I was.
’ Izzy sighed, glancing around the train station.
‘Craig taught me that different isn’t always bad.
And I needed stillness, to make the time to stare at the stars, and I needed… here.’
Izzy sat back, her tea forgotten, to study Taryn again—like really study her.
Taryn should have read that as a warning.
‘You know, you’re not the only one who does her homework.’
Taryn blinked. ‘Excuse me?’
‘Your mother’s a high-ranking officer. Only one step off from becoming a judge for…
what do they call it officially? Judge Advocate General?
Not the Americanised JAG, like your everyday military lawyer, but the real deal—the highest judicial officer in uniform.
’ She paused. ‘Or do you just call it JAG?’
‘I grew up calling it JAG. Less of a mouthful.’
‘Either way, your mother is a woman well-known for being methodical, and by the book. But also unafraid to challenge protocol when justice requires it.’
Another pause.
Taryn wasn’t sure whether to fill it.
‘Your father works in intelligence, not sure which department, but cybersecurity is his forte, with career postings to various embassies across the globe. Rarely photographed. Rarely quoted.’ She looked directly at Taryn. ‘A very private strategist.’
Taryn held her gaze, letting Izzy say her piece.
‘So, with your mother’s military discipline and your father’s analytical mind, you were raised sharp, emotionally restrained, and rule focused.
Moving from one military base to another, getting an elite education—especially when stationed with the embassy—only added to it.
It gave you the skills to quickly climb the ladder in federal investigations.
In particular, high-value corporate fraud, the white-collar crimes, with a high conviction rate.
You deserve a lot more than your gazetted wage as a reward. ’
Izzy leaned forward, her voice dropping as if sharing some secret. ‘Rumour has it you’re being groomed to run your own division and already have that office with a view.’
Izzy sat back, her eyes wandering over Taryn’s clothing. ‘And yet here you are, in boots and jeans. Auditing the Stock Squad’s books, which a first-year grad or a half-decent clerk could handle. In a town that most people couldn’t even find without a paper map.’
Well, audit me sideways and ruffle through all my inner files, why don’t you?
And the worst part?
Izzy wasn’t wrong.
Taryn had spent a lifetime staying two steps ahead—out-thinking, outworking, and outlasting the competitors, office politics, and the bad guys. But somehow, in less than a minute, Isobel Callahan had laid out her entire life, without any theatrics or malice.
This wasn’t just a lawyer casually sipping peppermint tea and thinking about canning tomatoes.
This was the woman who’d once faced down a kidnapping and turned it into a federal case file so airtight it should have made headlines.
Where most of Izzy’s cases did end up. So, of course, she saw it all.
But then something else clicked. ‘You told them.’
Izzy’s smile didn’t fade. ‘Told who, what?’
‘Finn. Amara. Craig. Stone. That’s why they’ve been on the defensive ever since I got here. You told them—’
‘That they don’t send someone like you just to dig through receipts in the middle of nowhere,’ Izzy finished, calm as ever.
Taryn shared a dry laugh. ‘You’re right.’
‘So why did they send you out here?’
Taryn sat back. ‘I have my orders.’
‘No, it’s more than that…’ Izzy tilted her head at Taryn as if seeing straight through her. ‘It’s Everlight. That’s the big fish that got you out of bed.’
Izzy shared a slight curve of a smile that had Taryn panicking. What else did Izzy see?
‘You like him, don’t you?’
‘Who?’
‘Finn.’
‘What? Where did that come from?’
‘Craig said Finn’s been weird lately. Slamming doors and avoiding the Batcave. He also told me there’s this tension between you two.’
It was rare for Taryn’s conversations to get flipped on its head like this, especially since she was supposed to be asking all the questions. ‘I don’t—’
‘Like him?’ Izzy arched a brow. ‘Come now, Taryn, you’re a well-seasoned federal investigator. You know better than to answer a yes-or-no question that fast.’
Taryn opened her mouth, then closed it again. She hated how warm her face felt right now.
‘It’s not a crime, you know.’ Izzy leaned back, wearing a satisfied expression. ‘But if you’re planning to tear down the house, while falling for the man who built it… Well, that’s a very complicated manoeuvre. Don’t you think?’
Taryn cleared her throat, desperate to get this conversation under control.
‘Everlight is the real game plan for being here. For the fraud and all those manipulated grants that were dressed up as clean energy. Where you and the Stock Squad presented a case that pointed to a major prosecution—until it all just disappeared.’
Izzy’s smile faded. ‘Were charges ever laid?’
‘No.’ Taryn held her gaze. ‘Nothing.’
‘What?’ Izzy’s face paled. ‘Drew—’
‘Passed it to an investigative department. The paper trail from his office is there. But after that… No press release. No court filings. No trial. When, by rights, the Stock Squad should’ve been recognised for their part.
You especially, Izzy. What you uncovered about Everlight, and the millions you saved the government, you should’ve received a medal. ’
‘Is that flattery, Agent Hayes?’
‘No. It’s a fact. And it’s partly why I’m here.’ Yet, Taryn couldn’t reveal everything. ‘You’re the reason I flew up here. Just to speak to you.’
Izzy lifted her chin. ‘Ah, so the truth is finally revealed.’
‘I’ve read the file, what’s left of it, as most of it’s been heavily redacted. But I got my hands on an older copy that has your name in there. You were doing searches on shell companies, following the paper trail, trying to find Everlight’s owner. Did you?’
‘No. I found a legal firm with no clients. A trust linked to a registered lobbyist who hadn’t paid tax in a decade.
And a bunch of bankrupt companies that shouldn’t have been trading.
’ Izzy tapped her fingers against her teacup.
‘I could find the properties that Everlight had bought and, like you, went through their receipts and found they were faking their solar farms. They were using the land protestors to stall the building phase—yet they had phoney contractor bills for construction and installation of massive solar panels.’
‘But there weren’t any?’
‘No. They were empty parcels of land, with just a shed, a sign, and a few solar panels creating just enough power for the shed, like an onsite construction manager’s office. The rest were nothing more than ghost towns.’ Izzy fiddled with her paper cup, as the frustration laced her voice.
Taryn stayed quiet.
‘You know, they killed my assistant. Meghan… I’ve had other assistants who couldn’t keep up or got frustrated with how my brain works, because it gets demanding or scattered when I crash.
But not her. Meghan had this way of grounding me, like nothing rattled her.
’ Izzy smiled faintly, the kind that held more grief than joy.
‘She’d laugh so easily and had this gift for finding fun.
Even when we were stuck in these underground archive rooms, rifling through paper, with dust on our skirts, you could hear her laugh echo between the compactus shelves…
’ Izzy frowned, shuffling in her seat. ‘You know, I never felt Meghan got the justice she deserved, not after what happened to her.’
‘I have to ask… how did your assistant die?’
Izzy looked up slowly, a small frown forming. ‘That’s in the report.’
Taryn shook her head. ‘Not anymore. As I said before, the file’s been redacted. Her name’s gone. And the state police file was pulled, too.’
Izzy blinked like she’d been slapped. ‘They pulled all of it?’
‘Everything. No court documents. No arrest logs. No mention of your kidnapping, or the guys who did it.’
‘Dane Carter and Renzo.’ Izzy shivered at the names.
Now we’re getting somewhere. ‘All I’ve got is lines of black ink, done by someone who went to great lengths to hide the truth.
’ Taryn sighed heavily. ‘It’s been frustrating.
The closed doors and continuous setbacks, made it feel like I’m taking one step forward and ten steps back.
’ Taryn leaned in a little closer, her voice quieter.
‘I’ve had to be careful. One misstep, and the wrong people will start to take notice of what I’m doing. ’
‘So you’re not just here to tick boxes.’
‘No. And yes.’ Taryn held her gaze. ‘I’m hoping you’ve kept a copy of the original case files, or will let me look at any notes you may have, so I can start putting the pieces together.’
‘You want to find out who owns Everlight?’
Taryn nodded.
‘It’s dangerous.’
Taryn wasn’t going to state the obvious to spook the woman on the other side of the table, who was already weighing up the pros and cons in the blink of an eye.
Izzy took another sip of her tea, straightened out her napkin, then grabbed a few more from the square metal napkin holder. She then laid them all out in a neat line across the table, as if filing her thoughts into order.
It wasn’t promising.
The cons—like life in danger again—were winning.
‘I’ve got an untraceable laptop my father built for me, to follow trails that don’t want to be found. And he’s only a call away if I need that extra push for deeper research. He’s very good at finding ghosts.’ She hoped, with fingers and toes crossed, that Izzy would come to the party.
But Izzy refolded the napkins, one by one, stacking them neatly back to their original state.
Taryn’s pulse kicked.
No. That wasn’t good. That looked like a retreat.
Taryn couldn’t afford to walk away with nothing. She needed to push on a weak spot, so she asked again, ‘How did your assistant, Meghan, die?’
Izzy let out a quick breath as if she’d been sucker-punched.
It had Taryn regretting that question.
‘Meghan was murdered just before lunchtime, in a public car park next to a government building where I’d been collecting company reports and research results. I remember it was full of security cameras, but all of them were non-operational.’
For real? ‘Go on, what did you see?’
‘Renzo pulled up in a vehicle behind our work car. He then got out, smiling, and stabbed her. Before she’d hit the floor, he came after me.
But I ran.’ Izzy stared at her hands in her lap.
‘I still feel guilty for not being able to help her, you know. And now you’re telling me poor Meghan’s death doesn’t even exist in the case file? ’
Taryn nodded as she tenderly put her hand on Izzy’s. ‘But you can help her now. You can help me give Meghan the justice she deserves.’
‘How?’
‘Help me find out who owns Everlight Energy Solutions.’