Chapter 15

M aisie stared down at her hands, and at the handcuffs on her wrists.

What just happened? How did that just happen?!

The sound of the helicopter blades was loud in her ears despite the headset one of the men who'd grabbed her had jammed onto her.

She eyed each one of them in turn. None of them were looking at her, and none of them looked friendly.

And then, of course, there's Brent.

Brent was sitting diagonally across from her, and looking vaguely ill – pale and sweaty, and like he might throw up at any second.

He thought I was in on this – whatever this is – too. How did this happen?

She remembered the frantic look on Rhys's face as he'd been held back from following her by two other guys, but they'd locked eyes before she'd been shoved into the helicopter. She'd seen the promise in his eyes – that he'd come after her.

She trusted him. She had to.

But she'd also seen complete determination on his face that he wouldn't let anything happen to her, and somehow, she knew he'd be true to his unspoken promise.

Somehow. I don't know how he'll get me – or us – out of this, but I know he will. And I'll do everything I can to help him.

"I really don't know why I've been arrested for murder – attempted murder! I didn't attempt to murder anyone! I swear!"

Brent's panicky, shaky voice was barely audible over the hum of the propeller blades, but he was yelling pretty loudly and frantically.

Maisie shrank back against the seat, in between the two massive guys who flanked her. As annoying as Brent's outburst was, she was mainly annoyed because she knew the more he ranted and swore he wasn't a murderer, the less likely these guys were to listen to her when she tried to tell them the same thing.

"Babe, tell them! You know I wouldn't hurt a fly! I was set up – it was a total set-up. I just got told it was a shakedown job, nothing too bad. It wasn't anything to do with murder!"

The worst part of it was, Maisie kind of believed him – Brent might have been a jackass, an idiot, a poser and a bad boyfriend, but he wasn't a murderer.

Well, I don't think , anyway.

But… no. Brent didn't have the spine to murder anyone. Half the time he couldn't even get up the courage to text her when he was going to be late.

Though that might have been because he was always late.

She glared at him. Despite all of that, she wasn't about to join him in his begging. If she had to talk to these guys, who were about as silent and stern as a bunch of Easter Island statues, then she'd do it in a formal setting, with a lawyer present. At least until Rhys showed up to explain that this whole thing was some kind of colossal mistake.

Maybe her glare worked, because Brent shut up after that, though he spent the rest of the helicopter ride looking sick to his stomach.

It wasn't a long flight… or maybe , to Maisie's spinning mind, it just didn't seem that long. Thinking back on it as she felt the helicopter begin to descend, it had seemed both interminable and over in the blink of an eye.

She chanced a look out the windows, from around the burly shoulders of the men sitting either side of her. She wasn't really familiar with much of Queensland, having grown up entirely in country New South Wales and not having had much chance to holiday up north, but she did know Castle Hill – she had been the star of her high school geography quiz team, after all.

Townsville, then. For some reason.

Well, she guessed, it was closer than Brisbane, and helicopters didn't exactly fly all that far.

Rhys, where are you?

She had no doubt he'd come for her – there'd clearly been some incredibly bad misunderstanding. One day, they'd look back on this and laugh, she was sure of it.

Hey, remember the time you wrestled a snake in a pool? And then we had to escape a bunch of birds by running through a mini-golf course? Ha, and then a spy agency somehow thought I was some kind of evil espionage artist! It is to laugh!

This whole thing was too ridiculous to be real, Maisie decided, as the helicopter came in to land next to… some kind of resort, she thought? It certainly looked like a hotel, anyway.

The men didn't waste any time hustling her and Brent off the helicopter once they were on the ground, grabbing her arms roughly and pulling her along the tarmac.

"I can walk by myself, you know," she snapped at them, trying to jerk her arms free – she might have been certain this was all just a misunderstanding, but she wasn't about to let herself be manhandled either.

She got no answer. Not that she'd really expected one.

Maisie wasn't really sure what the best approach was. Should she be silent and cowed – even though, inside, she was burning up with fury? Or should she act righteously angry, astounded that she, an innocent citizen, should be accused of… whatever it was they thought she'd done?

Clearly Brent's carrying on hadn't made a dent in their stony fa?ade, she thought, as she watched him continuing to try to argue with them as they frog-marched him over the tarmac. Maybe she should just keep her mouth shut for now, and wait for Rhys.

I know he's coming.

She knew it in her soul – she didn't believe for a moment he wouldn't.

Now that the adrenaline was starting to wear off a bit, Maisie took the time to actually look around her, trying to figure out where, in fact, she was.

Definitely some sort of holiday accommodation, she thought, as they guided her down a path and through a gate. In the distance, she could hear the splash of a pool and the delighted screams of children. So… I guess out of the resort, into… another resort?

If they wanted to take her on a holiday, they could have just stayed where they were?!

"What exactly are we doing here?" she asked, unable to keep her vow of silence for more than a few minutes, as the agents who flanked her led her around a back way, to what seemed to be a service lift. "Is this a hotel or something?"

No one answered her. But again, she hadn't really been expecting anything.

But in that case, why not talk more? Maybe acting clueless would be better than… whatever it is Brent is doing.

Brent, as it happened, was wailing I'm an innocent man! I'm an innocent man! over and over again. She really hoped no one thought they were actually professional associates. Maisie decided she'd just conveniently forget they were exes.

What did I ever see in him?!

Oh, that's right – she'd thought he was a fixer-upper.

Okay, lesson learned – fixer-uppers are fine for houses, not for men.

Not that she thought she'd have any particular use for that life lesson anymore.

Blinking, she couldn't help but glance back over her shoulder at the endless blue of the sky as the lift ding! ed, and the men began hauling her into it.

There was no sign of any griffin-shaped silhouette against the blue, but Maisie wasn't any less certain Rhys was on his way.

"Um, so, is this like, your holiday getaway?" she asked, as the lift ascended. "Was it too crowded on Burr Island?"

Her voice was starting to sound weird to her own ears as it bounced off the walls of the lift. The agents were maintaining their silence, and it was getting disconcerting. Even Brent had reduced his output to the occasional sniveling whimper. It was just her and her own nervous ramblings.

Maybe I'll shut up for a bit. Don't want to go crazy before they've even done their first interrogation.

… Interrogation. Shit.

Kara was not going to believe what had happened to her on her holiday when she got back home.

If she got back home.

No, there was no point thinking like that. Rhys was going to come for her. She knew it.

Still, she wished that he would come before they got around to the interrogation. She didn't think that she was the type of person to hold up well over a long period of time. Especially since she really didn't know anything! How could she tell them what they wanted to hear if she didn't even know what that was?

The lift finally opened – it felt like she'd been in there forever, but it had probably only been a matter of seconds. The building wasn't that huge.

Despite everything, Maisie found herself curious as they pulled her into a room. Had they booked the room on the way in? Were they already here on their own secret agent holiday, which Maisie had so rudely interrupted? Had this enormous military-looking guy with the ridiculous flat-top haircut been called from his much-anticipated bubble bath? No wonder he was so cranky.

Who even has hair like that in this day and age?!

Perhaps she was already going crazy. Certainly she was starting to panic.

Just stay calm, she admonished herself, as she forced herself to take a slow breath in and hold it. You deal with stressful situations every day. You can do it. She let her breath out in a controlled, steady stream. You need to keep your mouth shut so you don't somehow incriminate yourself, and see if you can learn anything important.

The room, in the end, was pretty boring – some sort of conference room, she supposed – and she resigned herself to never knowing whether the military-looking guy was the type to put his clothes in the wardrobe when he stayed at a hotel.

"Tea?" Military Man asked gruffly, and Maisie was so taken aback that she nodded before she could even register how freaking weird this was.

He turned the kettle on. "How do you take it?"

"White, no sugar," she said automatically. And stone cold because I got called away to a patient before I had a chance to even take a sip , she didn't add.

He nodded. "Take a seat," he said, and she sat at the table. Brent slumped down across from her, looking extremely sorry for himself, and she averted her eyes. Just because she felt kind of bad for him, didn't mean she wanted anything to do with him. And she certainly didn't want him to think that she was showing any kind of interest in him whatsoever.

Instead, she looked around the room, hoping for something she could use to her advantage.

After several seconds of scrutinizing the room, she came to the conclusion that her only possible way out of here was by boring her captors to death.

Gray carpet, white laminate table, off-white walls, projector screen in the corner, singular kettle. The sole thing of even vague interest was the window, but that did nothing but remind her that she was several stories off the ground and would be horribly maimed if she tried to escape out of it. Even the teabags were the kind of cut-rate rubbish that flourished in cheapskate workplaces.

"Here." Military Man placed a cup of tea in front of her, then loosened her cuffs. Maisie had half a second to internally rejoice before he re-cuffed her in front of her body.

Well, it was nice while it lasted, she thought morosely as she took a sip of her too-hot tea. Not enough milk, but she supposed that captives couldn't be choosers.

He came back with a biscuit on a piece of paper towel, again placing it in front of her. Disappointedly, she realized that these cheap bastards hadn't even bothered to spring for a pack of Assorted Creams, and she was instead stuck with a Scotch Finger… but, she supposed, things could be worse. And she was hungry.

She snapped the biscuit in half, sending crumbs flying everywhere, and bit into the buttery, crumbly goodness. Belatedly she hoped that they hadn't poisoned it with truth serum or something, but surely even they wouldn't sink so low as to poison a biscuit?

"Hey!" Brent called out, his bravado apparently making a comeback. "Where's my tea?"

Military Man stared at him for a long moment, before turning and walking over to the kettle without a word.

"White, three sugars!" Brent yelled after him, and Maisie rolled her eyes as she sipped her own cup. She would've liked to have thought that this situation might've caused him to grow a little as a person, but obviously that was too much to ask for. Not for the first time today, she wondered how she'd ever managed to go out with this guy for even three minutes, let alone three months.

The military guy dunked a teabag three times into a cup of water, dumped in some sugar without stirring, and poured in a dash of milk, before setting it roughly in front of Brent and stalking off again.

"Hey!" Brent yelled again. "What about these?"

He was obviously trying to gesture to make his point, but was unable to do so due to his hands being cuffed behind his back… which, Maisie supposed, was the point.

"What about them?" Military Man asked.

Brent gave him an ingratiating smile that was definitely not half as charming as Maisie knew he thought it was. "How am I supposed to drink? Could you do me a favor and cuff me 'round the front? She got cuffed 'round the front, and she's here on spying charges! She even got a biscuit! Where's my biscuit?!"

Maisie stared her filthiest daggers in Brent's direction, while Military Man favored him with an impressively impassive stare. "You're a shifter. You attempted to commit murder. You get cuffed behind the back."

The expression on Brent's face was truly pathetic. "But… my tea!"

Military Man's face, if anything, somehow became even more rock-like in its impassivity. "You'll work something out." Almost as if he were bestowing a kindness upon him, he dropped a Milk Arrowroot biscuit into Brent's cup of tea, where it promptly started disintegrating.

Maisie watched, somehow not even feeling any surprise, as Brent leaned forward and noisily slurped at his tea, winced as he burned himself, and then tried again half a second later, trying to pull the sodden biscuit into his mouth.

She glanced up at Military Man and actually caught his eye for half a second, before he looked away as if she didn't even exist. She would've liked to have thought that they'd shared a moment, that she'd managed to convey I'm not a threat or I didn't do it or even just I'm guilty as hell, but I have nothing to do with this idiot , but she didn't like her chances. Guy was completely unreadable.

Taking another bite of her biscuit, Maisie thought back on the conversation that had just occurred – and then sprayed crumbs all over the table, as well as all over Brent, who was still sucking at his cup of tea.

"Wait – you're a shifter ?!" she demanded. "You've got to be kidding me! We were going out for three months!! When were you planning on telling me – after the wedding?!"

She thought she saw the slightest hint of surprise on Military Man's face at her outburst – and, she supposed, it didn't make much sense for her not to know this if they were in cahoots, as he apparently thought – but she was more concerned with the issue at hand. Which was that Brent had been going out with her for three months, and not once had he thought to mention that he could, oh, turn into an animal at will.

Brent's eyes went wide, and Maisie was reminded of how he had always been a terrible liar.

"Haha, babe, what? What's a shifter? Have you been getting into the supply cupboard at work?" Brent asked, his eyes shifting around in a way that Maisie could easily term frantic.

"Brent, I know what shifters are," she snapped – omitting that until a few days ago, she actually hadn't. "So just cut the shit."

Brent slumped back, looking vaguely offended. "Babe –"

"And stop calling me that!" Maisie snapped.

"All right, all right." Military Man leaned over slightly, rubbing his temples, and Maisie couldn't say she was entirely unsympathetic. "I've had about enough of your lovers' spats."

"We're not lovers, he's my ex. Very much my ex," Maisie said. If she could keep him distracted, maybe Rhys would have time to get here before this interrogation could begin, not that she had anything to reveal.

"I don't care!" Military Man burst out – and just at the same time, there was a knock at the door, followed by three of the guys who'd escorted them to the helicopter entering the room.

"Thank God," Military Man muttered. "Get this guy out of here and find out what the hell he knows."

The men who'd just entered only nodded, before they hauled Brent to his feet and hurried him out of the room, completely ignoring his protestations that he hadn't even finished his cup of tea and his biscuit yet.

As the door slammed behind them, Maisie swallowed. She didn't think she'd ever feel sorry to see the back of Brent, but now, alone, she wondered if she'd rather have the company, even his.

"So."

Maisie resisted the urge to bite her lip as Military Man sat down across from her. What could she say to convince him she really didn't have any idea what was going on here? Whatever Brent was mixed up in, he'd never told her anything, though she guessed it made more sense now why he was always standing her up for ‘work' reasons.

I guess when you're a shifter criminal standover guy, you don't work regular hours. And you're probably on call a lot.

She'd hardly worked regular hours herself, so she'd been sympathetic to Brent, at first. But there'd been only so many last-minute cancelations or outright standing her ups that she could take.

Not that that's all that relevant right now!

"I'm going to ask some questions," Military Man continued after a tense moment of silence. "And I'm going to expect you to answer them."

Maisie grimaced. "Well, I'll try. But really, I've told you everything I know already. Which is… not much. I didn't even know Brent was a shifter until just now. So what else he's been hiding or who he's working for is really beyond me."

She could tell from the flat stare the man gave her that he didn't believe a word of what she was saying.

But there wasn't a lot she could do about it – it was the truth.

But clearly, what these people want isn't really the truth.

"I'll only make this offer once," Military Man said. "You tell us what you know about this Brent guy and who you're both working for, and I'll make sure you're protected. Tell us what we need, and maybe we can go a little easy on you."

Maisie had seen way too many police procedurals in her time not to know what was happening here, or not to guess that, wherever Brent was right now, the guys who'd led him off were probably saying the exact same thing to him. And knowing Brent, he was probably singing like a canary.

Except I can't sing! I don't know any of the songs they want!

But Maisie knew she'd have to say something – even if it was just to take up the time until Rhys got here. And she had no doubt he was on his way right now.

Please Rhys, just get here soon!

But, she guessed, it was time to start the performance.

"Okay, okay," she said, slumping her shoulders in what she hoped was a convincing way. "I'll tell you everything I know."