Page 71 of Robb

“It was nice of James to let us know all about you,” she went on. “How many years was he feeding your secrets back to us again? Oh, sorry – I forgot that you can’t answer. But it was more of a rhetorical question, anyway.”

James?! Robb thought, his dingo’s hackles raising at the name – but it made perfect sense.

Robb had always operated under the assumption that James had spilled any number of the Agency’s secrets to Hargreaves over the years he spent as a mole.

What Robb hadn’t known, though, was that James knew that Robb and Tahnee were mates. He’d never told a soul, never hinted at it in any of his reports.

Maybe his confusion showed, because Anne laughed again.

“It didn’t take much for him to work it out,” she said. “You pursue this woman relentlessly, then suddenly give up with a feeble excuse as to why you couldn’t arrest her? Come on now, Mr. Lockwood.” She shook her head. “James told us all about you. You think you’re so good at hiding your emotions, but you’re actually an open book to anyone who knows how to read you. And James definitely knew how. Knows how.” She looked at her watch. “Oh! Speaking of James, he should be on his way here about now.”

What?!

That was impossible. James was locked up securely in the high-security shifter prison located in the below-ground levels of the Agency’s Sydney office.

It was a small space, reserved for those who had been found guilty of serious crimes within shifter society and who posed a major escape threat. Specially trained agents were always on guard, and the whole space was fitted out with the most sophisticated anti-shifter tech.

There was nowhere else in the country that could hold a dangerous shifter more securely.

But then suddenly, the last pieces of the puzzle fell into place… and Robb’s heart dropped.

My team. That’s why they were trying to call me. That’s why I couldn’t get in contact with them…

We will tear this woman limb from limb, the dingo snarled, with an anger that was almost frightening. Robb had never known it to lose control like this – and all shifters had to learn how to control their animal sides, or else they could end up losing their human side to them, and never be able to shift back. But then again, it had never been faced with the possibility of their team having been killed, either, while their mate was also being lured into deadly peril.

I have to believe that my team is still alive, he thought grimly. Until there’s some sort of proof otherwise, I have to operate under that assumption. And Tahnee isn’t here yet. Maybe she didn’t fall for whatever lies they told her.

He wasn’t doing a great job of convincing himself, but he knew that he had to try. If he fell apart now, he would be no good to anybody.

Robb was suddenly aware that Anne was watching him closely, obviously looking to gauge his reaction. Well, he didn’t want to give her the satisfaction.

She stared at him for a moment longer, before the slightest hint of annoyance crossed her face. It was the smallest of victories, but right now, he was going to take whatever he could get.

“Bruce,” she said sharply, and the lyrebird stirred from where it had been tucked up under a set of shelves in the corner, before hopping back up onto the table.

“Bruce, your services are required once more,” she said. “We’re calling Mr. Lockwood’s colleagues in Sydney. Proceed as we discussed earlier.”

The lyrebird nodded, while Robb felt a sudden surge of mixed emotions.

The thought of Hargreaves calling up his team and pretending to be him was pretty horrendous… but since a corpse couldn’t answer a phone, Anne also seemed to be implying that they were still alive. Which was the most important thing, by a long shot.

She used Robb’s fingerprint to unlock his phone again, and Robb didn’t even mind as much as he had the previous time. If it meant that he could get confirmation of his team’s status, she could make all the phone calls she wanted.

He listened in closely as the phone rang.

“Robb?!”

Euan.

Robb sagged a little in his chair with relief, while the dingo relaxed ever so slightly. Euan sounded harried, but very much alive, and not like he was about to bleed out at any second.

“Where have you been?!” Euan exclaimed, with more emotion in his voice than Robb had ever heard. “We’ve been trying to get a hold of you for hours.”

“Why?” said the lyrebird in Robb’s voice, with the same flat affect it had used earlier that it probably thought was Robb’s standard speech pattern. There really wasn’t much nuance to its performance.

I guess Hargreaves agents probably don’t get the chance to go to NIDA.

“Why?” Euan repeated, before apparently remembering who he was – supposedly – talking to. His tone of voice became more formal. “We came under attack. Prison break, with some help from heavily armed outside forces. I can only assume it was Hargreaves, given that –”