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  Carey scooted backwards on his butt, then clambered to his feet, the blade opening a thin red line at Fiona’s throat as he manhandled her upright.

  Lou raised the gun and pointed it right at Carey’s head. “Police!” she said clearly. “Drop your weapon!”

  That bit was easy. It was instinctive. It was just lifting her arms. Saying the words.

  Carey grinned or scowled – it was impossible to tell. “A cop?” he barked. “Of course, you are. But what you going to do now, you nosy bitch? I’m dead anyway, might as well take the woman who ruined everything with me.”

  Fiona screamed as the blade slid deeper against her skin.

  “Drop your weapon!” Lou repeated. “Drop your weapon or I’ll shoot!”

  The doors still beeped. The gun was still steady in Lou’s hands. She was a good shot, in very close range, and Fiona was much shorter than Carey.

  She could do this. She could do this. This wasn’t like last time. It wasn’t her life at stake, it was Fiona’s.

  “Please!” Fiona begged, as blood dripped down to the notch at the base of her pale neck.

  She could do this. It was the right thing to do. Lethal force was the only thing to do.

  She let her finger tighten, just a little and—

  Blood and brains and bone exploded all over the carriage wall behind Carey, and everybody started screaming.

  Fiona, book lady, suit guy, and the teenagers. Screams and sobs.

  But Lou hadn’t pulled the trigger.

  She turned. Behind her stood two E-SWAT operators, each dressed in their distinctive black overalls, ballistic vest, balaclava, and helmet. Both held their AR-15 rifles. Lou had no idea who had just obliterated Brent Carey’s skull.

  Neither said a word, but the one closest – who’s dark grey eyes and a strip of tanned skin revealed by the balaclava were the only part of him not covered in black – said everything with his gaze.

  We couldn’t wait.

  For Lou to get her shit together and do her job. To save Fiona’s life.

  Finally, finally the beeping ceased, and the doors slid open. Suddenly the carriage was full – with paramedics and more police and who knew what else. There was so much talking, but Lou heard none of it.

  And then she was off the train.

  She was standing in the original great hall in the train station, with its century-old black and white tiles and sky-high ceilings – and currently home to the operation’s command post. A paramedic had blotted up the graze the bullet had burned against her neck, but it was barely a scratch. She didn’t even need a bandage.

  There were so many people in the great hall, so many people talking to her, checking her over, asking if she was okay.

  Lou had no idea what she said.

  She just knew that Nate was with the rest of the Elite SWAT team, and she was on her own. Standing awkwardly and pathetically, just as she deserved.

  She’d fucked up. Again.

  A touch on her arm made her jump. Nate.

  “We need to go back to HQ to debrief,” he said. He stood so close to her, far closer than was absolutely necessary. She didn’t tilt her chin to look up at him, instead she glared at the threads that were all that remained of the buttons that had been ripped off during his fight with Carey.

  Lou nodded. Her throat was tight and raw with frustration. She felt incapable of speech.

  Incapable of pretty much anything.

  Like the masochist she was, her gaze drifted to his wedding ring. Like she needed an additional kick in the guts right now, but hey, there it was.

  She’d almost let a woman die in front of her, and she was still sulking like a teenager girl about Nathan Rivers.

  She was pathetic.

  “Hey,” Nate said gruffly, “Can we talk later? I—”

  “No,” she said crisply and rubbed at her arms, even though it wasn’t cold in the slightest. “Let’s get back to HQ.”

  Elite SWAT HQ was just outside the city. Nate sat beside Lou in the back of one of the unmarked SUVs as Oscar drove away from Fremantle. They headed down Stirling Highway, the Indian Ocean perfect and navy blue to their left, and between the beach and the highway snaked the railway tracks they’d travelled not even an hour ago.

  Nate glanced at Lou. She was staring out the window, maybe at the tracks, her expression stiff, her lips pressed tightly together.

  Her hair was a mess, big chunks of it falling loose of what had been a neat braid. On her neck was a red mark, maybe five centimetres long. At a glance, it could be mistaken for something else – maybe a mosquito bite. Or a hickey, even.

  It had to say something about him that even now – even after what was definitely the biggest clusterfuck of his career – he could make space in his brain for imagining kissing her neck like that – branding her in that way.

  But it was fleeting. He forced it to be.

  Because that mark was the burn from a bullet. A bullet that had been so close to killing Lou.

  And maybe he could tell himself that he couldn’t have prevented that. That it hadn’t been his fault. Maybe he could even claim he’d saved her. That by tackling Carey when he had, he’d done enough to misdirect that bullet. But he didn’t believe any of it. She should never have been in that position. He should’ve done better. Earlier maybe, when he’d failed in his attempts to negotiate. Or when he’d failed to take the opportunity to disarm him.

  He knew he’d failed her.

  And he’d failed Fiona too. It had been seconds between Carey hitting the ground and his ex-wife leaping on top of him, but those seconds should never have existed.

  He’d had no right to pause, despite the proximity of the rest of the E-SWAT team. He should’ve been on top of Carey, securing him until Fridge and Smithy had boarded the train.

  But he had paused.

  To look at Lou.

  “He was a Notechi,” Oscar said. “E-SWAT covert ops took a while to confirm it for us.”

  “No-ta-kai?” Lou asked, her tone totally normal. As if she hadn’t almost died. As if she hasn’t just watched a man die.

  “It’s Latin,” Oscar explained. “Tiger Snakes.”

  Notechis being a genus of large venomous snakes native to Australia. The Notechi – who had butchered the pronunciation as predictably outlaw motorcycle gangs don’t give a shit about science or Latin – were a relatively new organisation. They’d splintered off from the Bald Eagles gang not even six months ago, so it was unsurprising Lou had no idea who they were.

  “Bikie gang,” Nate elaborated for Lou. “They’re expanding their ice business.”

  “More rapidly than we thought,” Oscar said. “Carey was a strong man for them. He’s been busy recently. Our intel was that he’s been sending a few messages to debtors, and after his arrest, he bashed one of the Notechi small fry to death. He thought the guy had leaked something to the cops, although he hadn’t of course. Dumb luck the street patrol caught him, nothing more.”

  “And this guy was on bail?” Lou asked, as Nate was thinking the exact same question.

  Oscar shrugged, his eyes on the road. “Our guy on the inside didn’t know about the death until the hostage situation was all over the news today. We didn’t even know he was a Notechi until someone talked and our guy let us know.”

  And then Carey had shot at Lou, the bullet had jammed some critical part of the door mechanism and kept all the doors locked in those critical seconds Nate had fucked up, and Carey had almost sliced his ex’s throat open.

  Nate looked at Lou again. The view beyond her was now of scrub, and not the ocean, as Stirling Highway wound its way from North Fremantle and into Mosman Park. As if sensing his gaze, she turned from her window to face him. She didn’t say anything, and he could read nothing in her expression. She kept her attention trained somewhere on his ruined shirt and didn’t meet his eyes.

  She’d been like this at the train station: silent and distant. Was she in shock? Was she angry with him?

  She should
probably be both.

  Nate hadn’t realised he’d moved his hand across the leather fabric of the seats until Lou snatched her own hand up and lay it in her lap, turning her body as she again looked out the window.

  What had he planned to do? Hold her hand?

  As if she’d want comfort from him – the man who’d deliberately broken her heart all those years ago and who today had almost got her killed?

  Yep. Unlikely.

  Inside the SUV remained silent all the way to HQ.

  At HQ, no one said much as they made their way to the briefing room. There, the tables were all joined up in a large U-shape, every operator involved in today’s hostage situation in attendance, and the large screen at the open end of the U displaying a man with too long hair, a week-old beard, a shit load of tatts – and a not unfamiliar face. It was Damon Nyhuis, one of the guys Nate went through E-SWAT selection training with more than five years earlier and who was, it would appear, in deep cover with the Notechi. Who knew what name he was using now, or where he was currently located – but he definitely wouldn’t ever be anywhere near Elite SWAT HQs until his undercover assignment was over.

  Sergeant Peters strode into the room shortly after Lou and Nate took their seats at the bottom end of the U.

  “Right,” he said, in his standard pissed-off-with-the-world tone, “you two going to let us all know what the fuck happened today?”

  Chapter Eight

  The briefing had been brutal. Several hours re-living those twenty-odd minutes on that train, with every choice, every decision she and Nate and the team had made, picked at like a scab.

  And this was only the beginning. There’d be a hell of a lot more of this: more analysis, more questions, more self-reflection, all with the aim of refining the well-oiled machine that Elite SWAT was. What could they learn from this? How could their procedures be refined? Who needed more training?

  It hadn’t been about laying blame today. It had been about facts.

  And the facts were that not one person at that table considered Lou part of the team. Lou was a witness in their eyes, nothing more, nothing less.

  That shouldn’t have surprised her. She was on desk duties. She’d been an actor in the surveillance exercise that now felt a million years ago.

  Yet, it still stung. Maybe it would’ve been just the same if she’d just randomly been on the train – if this had all happened a month ago, before her career had been flushed down the toilet. Maybe E-SWAT would’ve still kept her at a distance. She was a standard-issue cop after all, and they were the elite.

  Maybe.

  But it was impossible for Lou not to colour everything that happened now with the stain of her error that had landed her at Elite SWAT, and nothing she told herself changed that.

  After the briefing she went back to her desk. It was in the same room as the other non-uniform staff at E-SWAT – the receptionist, IT Support, a couple of physical trainers. The desks for the tactical operators were across the hall, and other E-SWAT teams were spread across the four levels of the building.

  It was late, well after six o’clock, and her office was empty. Lou dropped down into her seat, the crappy old chair barely moving on its ancient, sticky wheels. She logged into her equally archaic desktop computer and checked her email without really paying attention. She left the emails encouraging her to take advantage of the WA Police’s counselling services unread. She’d read them before, after all.

  Her lovely new office clothes were in a cloth shopping bag under her desk, and after briefly considering going home in the borrowed outfit she still wore: decorated with blood from Nate she hoped and not Carey, she dismissed the idea. Suddenly, remaining in these clothes that reminded her of yet another professional failure was impossible, and she headed for the showers.

  Being clean made absolutely no difference to her mood, and neither did re-applying her make-up.

  Lou questioned why she was bothering, as she held the mascara wand somewhere in the vicinity of her eyelashes. She just stared at herself, at her face neatly covered in the same brand of tinted moisturiser she’d worn each day since she was nineteen, and her long dark hair now neatly pulled back into a damp bun.

  But she didn’t bother lying to herself. She was putting on her make-up in case she bumped into Nate. A man who had probably already left to go home, and more importantly, had probably already gone home to his wife.

  Yet here she was.

  She put on her mascara anyway.

  Stuff it.

  She might be a professional failure who inexplicably harboured feelings for a man who’d dumped her more than ten years ago, but she was walking out of this Elite SWAT building looking damn good.

  So, she straightened her shoulders, and headed back to her desk to grab her handbag.

  But came to a halt just inside the door to her office. Nate stood, one hand resting on her L-shaped desk, waiting for her.

  “What do you want?” she said, not giving a stuff about how rude that sounded, then stalked over to her desk, keeping her gaze on her bag and not on him.

  Although it was impossible to ignore how good he looked in jeans and a black T-shirt that showed off the power of his shoulders and arms to perfection.

  “Are you okay?” Nate asked, as Lou hoisted her bag over her shoulder.

  “Sure,” she said, and turned to go.

  Nate’s touch at her arm made her go still.

  She looked down at his tanned fingers against her bare skin. His left hand.

  No ring.

  “Where’s your wedding ring?” Lou asked before she had a chance to think her question through.

  “Wedding ring?”

  Lou looked up to meet his gaze. “You know,” she said, deciding to brazen it out. “the ring customarily worn as a symbol of your unending love for your spouse?”

  Nate’s expression shifted from confusion to … speculation?

  “I don’t have a spouse,” he said, firmly. “I was wearing a ring today as it activates the microphone on the concealed comms system I was wearing.”

  “Oh,” Lou said. It seemed absolutely the only thing she could say.

  Her gaze dropped down again, landing on the small logo printed on Nate’s T-shirt, the word scrawled across the hard shape of his pectoral muscle.

  No. Not the best place to look.

  Her gaze dropped further. To the front of his jeans.

  No. Worse place.

  “Thank you,” she blurted out, knowing she should’ve led with this. Not only just now but hours ago.

  “For what?” Nate said, and Lou was so surprised her gaze shot back to meet with his.

  “For jumping on Carey when he shot at me,” Lou said. “You probably saved my life.”

  But Nate shook his head. “No,” he said. “I almost got you killed, I—”

  “Bullshit.”

  The voice came from the hallway, and both she and Nate turned towards it.

  It was Oscar Shepherd, Nate’s sergeant. Not as tall as Nate, but close, with hair clipped so short he was almost bald and the kind of rough-hewn, handsome face that totally pulled that look off.

  “It’s not bullshit, Macca, I—”

  “Bullshit,” Oscar repeated. “Honestly, if you could bottle the mope that you two have going on you’d keep a high school going for years.” He paused, and looked to Lou, then Nate and back again. “We’re going for a drink,” he said. “Let’s go.”

  There was a bar about a block from HQ that was the usual destination for send-off drinks, Friday night drinks, any-type-of-excuse drinks for anyone who worked at Elite SWAT. Oscar didn’t say a word during the short walk, and Nate found himself spending way too much time thinking about how good Lou had looked in her slim skirt and silky blouse when he’d first seen her framed in her office doorway.

  He’d never seen her dressed like this. At the academy she’d been in uniform or PT gear, and when they’d been dating they’d never really had an excuse to dress up. Jeans with heels had been a
bout it – and as much as he’d fucking loved how Lou had looked in the low-waisted, skin-tight jeans that had been her thing back then – he was definitely a fan of the high-waisted skirt that hugged her hips and butt, and the way her blouse puffed out and was just sheer enough that he got a hint of the straps of her bra.

  But as they walked, he kept his gaze focused straight ahead.

  What had Lou called him? Some dick who treated me like shit a decade ago.

  Yeah, that sounded about accurate.

  But – she’d thought he was married. And she’d cared about that.

  Because he wasn’t blind. He’d seen her expression shift from defiant, to confused and then to relieved. She’d been standing so close to him, looking pretty much everywhere as she avoided his gaze, and she’d definitely been glad he wasn’t married. Really glad.

  But what did that mean?

  Not surprisingly, the Alibi Bar was pretty empty, given it was a Monday, and not even seven o’clock. It was part of an old heritage building, with lots of exposed brick dimly lit by the Edison globes that hung haphazardly from the high ceiling. Oscar took a seat at the vacant bar, and Lou and Nate took a seat either side of him. They ordered drinks, although Nate barely tasted his beer.

  “You did well today, you two,” Oscar said.

  “No—” Nate began, just as Lou said exactly the same.

  But Oscar interrupted them both. “We got all the hostages off, alive,” Oscar said. “The bad guy was the only casualty. Who knows what would’ve happened if you two hadn’t been on that train?”

  “I should never have let Carey get that knife to Fiona,” Nate said, staring at the bubbles that slowly rose in his beer.

  “Correct,” Oscar said, in his no-nonsense way. “But you aren’t the type of man to make that sort of mistake twice.”

  Nate flicked his gaze up to meet Oscar’s. “No,” he said firmly.

  “I am, though,” Lou said. “The type of woman, I mean.”

  Nate rested his forearm on the bar so he could see Lou more clearly past Oscar. “What does that mean?”

  She rolled her eyes. “It’s how I ended up at E-SWAT, Nate. I choked when it mattered, simple as that.”