Page 57 of Rough Stock

‘Don’t know, but I’m following their tracks now. They’re only ten minutes in front of me.’ Craig ripped open his ute’s door, tossed his rifle across the passenger seat with the box of bullets, and dropped heavily onto his seat behind the wheel.

‘URGH!’ The pain in his leg was excruciating. He saw stars as he tried to push in the heavy clutch. Huffing through the pain, he slammed the ute’s gears into neutral and was at least able to start the engine. He then wiped down the sweat from his face and prepared himself for the next bout of pain.

‘Can you drive?’ Finn demanded over the phone.

Craig didn’t answer that, gritting his teeth, pushing his leg down onto the clutch to at least get it into first gear, and the ute started rolling.

‘Craig, what are you doing?’

‘I’m following their tracks…’ Leaving the driver’s door open, he leaned down to study the soil while the ute rolled slowly across the rough terrain. ‘We’re about to lose phone signal. My house phone only goes so far, and we don’t get mobile reception out here.’

‘Do you have a UHF radio in your ute?’

‘I do.’ The air conditioning and car radio might not work, but his two-way radio did.

‘Good. Switch to channel 61 until I can get you kitted out with one of ours. In the future, you’ll get a satphone, too. Just keep following those tracks, and we’ll catch up. But do not engage. Do you hear me?’

‘Just get here. Now.’ Because Izzy’s life depended on it.

Nineteen

Izzy struggled to breathe, as sweat and tears stung her eyes, with her hands and feet bound and her mouth covered with tape. All she could do was curl into a ball as she bounced around in the back tray of a strange four-wheel-drive buggy. It was quiet, but it moved so quickly that she didn’t know where they were.

‘You didn’t tell me you were going to pinch the girl.’ The driver wore a large cowboy hat—leathery, dented, and stained with a ring of sweat just above the hatband. The sun-hardened crinkles around his eyes deepened to soften his eyes as he peered over his shoulder at Izzy. ‘You said to show you where his place was. That’s it. You never mentioned kidnapping.’

‘Just shut up and drive. I’ll take care of the girl.’ The other guy patted Izzy’s arm like she was a poodle or something. ‘Hello, Isobel. I never introduced myself when we first met. My name is Renzo.’

Renzo’s eyes were so cold, as if dead to any emotion. They matched his dark hair, slicked back, giving him a sinister presence, perfect for a man who’d murder a defenceless woman in a public car park.

Fear forced the scream to get stuck in her tight throat as she tried to shimmy as far away as she could across the back tray.

‘Uh-uh, we don’t want to lose you off the back of this thing. Not now we finally have you, Is-o-bel.’ Renzo rolled each syllable of Izzy’s name as he grabbed the shoulder straps of her trouser braces, effectively stopping her from throwing herself out. ‘I like these braces. But I didn’t like how you ran up those stairs and got away from me. It forced me to hide in this hellhole.’

Renzo scowled at the vacant scrublands of spindly gum trees, following a red dirt track with a simple wire fence running along one side. ‘I can’t believe you’d live out here.’ The wind whipped around them as Renzo smoothed back his slick hair.

Izzy murmured behind her gag, scowling at the guy.How did they find her?

‘I’m betting I can read minds.’ Renzo tapped his temple, squinting his eyes like a toddler pretending to not see. ‘Wait? Yes… I can hear it now. The lady wants to know how we found her.’

The driver, in his crusty cattleman’s hat, again peered over his shoulder at Izzy. ‘Your husband shouldn’t have shown you off around town like that, Miss.’ He gave her a meek shrug as if to saysorry for this messas he steered them down a bumpy track where the native pink flowering shrubs bashed against the sides of the open-air vehicle, showering her in tiny, honey-smelling pink flowers.

‘Imagine my surprise when Dane, here,’ Renzo said, tossing his thumb at the driver, ‘comes back from the pub to tell us that some cowboy’s mysterious wife has shown up to help her husband recover from his injuries. And that she was some fancy city lawyer, who goes by the name of Izzy Callahan.’ Renzo’s grin was thin, cold, and cruel, but those dead eyes were worse. He seemed like the type of guy who’d take great pleasure in skipping the judge and jury phase—going straight to executioner for anyone who dared cut him off in traffic or jump the queue at the supermarket. This man would kill for fun, not for profit.

Renzo leaned closer with a smug smirk, his spicy cologne mixing with the bitter stench of coffee on his breath. ‘Which name do you prefer? Izzy? Or Is-o-bel?’

The tears blurred her vision, while her ears whooshed with the fury of her hammering blood, pushing her frantic heartbeat to new heights. Her brain was so scattered with pure brutal panic she started hyperventilating.

‘What is wrong with her?’ Dane asked Renzo.

‘I dunno? I don’t generally take hostages. They usually don’t last this long.’ Enzo turned around and leered at her.

Izzy started gagging, now violently ill, desperate to get the gag off.

The tyres skidded on the dirt, and the ATV came to a standstill.

Dane jumped out of the driver’s seat and reached for Izzy. ‘Stop torturing the poor girl. She can’t breathe.’

She squealed, but the gag killed any sound as she struggled to get free.

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