Finding Trust (Centre Games)

by Natalie Gayle

  “Put your seat belt on now,” he growled as he slid into the car.

  He was in beside her and had the engine started in a split second. Her head was thrown back against the seat as the car lurched backwards and then forwards as Bray slammed the car into drive, spun the wheel and planted his right foot.

  “Ahhhh,” she screamed as they narrowly missed the black sedan as it seemed to be trying to block their exit. It was only due to Brayden ripping the wheel one way and then immediately back the other that they avoided the collision.

  “Bray, what’s going on?”

  “Not now, babe, I’m kind of busy.”

  They were on the street and heading for the freeway, the black sedan trying to gain on them. Parked cars flashed by and they’d nearly collided with cars at the two intersections he’d run through against the traffic.

  Rihanna could do nothing but hold firm, one hand on the door handle and the other on the dashboard to protect her from the abrupt acceleration and vicious braking.

  “Look out—there’s another car coming from the left,” she screamed.

  Bray glanced left and noticed what Rihanna was screaming about. They were a split second away from being T-boned. Bray floored it and the car shot forward even faster. The car coming from the left skidded to a halt, the driver laying on the horn and shaking his fist.

  He took the exit to the expressway on what seemed and sounded like two wheels. The tyres screamed their protest at the speed in which the corner was negotiated. As they merged, Bray immediately started weaving in and out of traffic, trying to gain an advantage. The black sedan refused to be shaken free.

  Cars and trucks were approaching the front bumper of the car at an alarming speed. Her world was running on fast forward. The engine of the car was screaming in response to Brayden’s right boot planted firmly against the floor.

  She snuck a glance at Brayden; he seemed totally focused but icily calm amongst the madness that seemed to be operating at warp speed.

  “They’re still there, Rih. Hang on, babe, I’m gonna try something.”

  She looked up and to the right and immediately she understood what he planned. Bray had moved the vehicle into the service lane. A break in the shrubs separated the north and southbound lanes for emergency vehicles.

  At the last second, he stomped on the brakes and yanked the wheel to the right, sending the car into a four-wheel power slide between the north and southbound lanes. Her head slammed into the window from the G force of the manoeuvre. Pain shot down her left side.

  By the grace of God, there was a gap in the far-right lane of the northbound traffic and Bray managed to correct the car’s course by using both the outside and service lane. They were racing northbound again, dodging in and out of traffic. The smell of burning rubber was still pungent in her nostrils.

  “Can you see them?” she shrieked.

  “I think we’ve lost them,” he said, remarkably calm as he took the next northbound exit.

  Rihanna relaxed enough to realise she’d been holding her breath. Bray kept driving at a speed significantly more than the speed limit but nowhere near the breakneck speed he’d been travelling at moments ago.

  “Where are we going?” she asked, confused by his selection of roads.

  “We’re going to take the back roads home. I’m not risking putting us back on the highway. It’ll take a little longer but we’ll get there.”

  She took another few deep, cleansing breaths.

  “Bray, we need to call the police. That was totally out of control crazy. We’ve just been in a fucking car chase down the M1. What the hell’s that about?”

  To Rihanna’s complete astonishment, he threw his head back and laughed. Full-bellied laughing his ass off laughter.

  She glared at him, temper fuming. “What the fuck are you laughing about? We could have been killed or worse still, killed other people on the road.”

  He stopped laughing long enough to take a quick sideways glance at her. “I know it felt bad but we were almost perfectly safe.” He grinned.

  “What drugs are you on? Perfectly safe, my arse. It was a fucking car chase,” she stormed.

  Her anger seemed to act as an antidote for his laughter. “Rih, it may be small consolation now but I’m fully trained in high speed and defensive driving. The Centre also makes sure we have refreshers at least once a year. I do agree that these sort of things are not appropriate for public streets.” He glanced at her, checking to see how she was taking his comments. “My gut feeling is that the guys in the black sedan were part of the group that we’re tracking. I think Matthews alerted them to us being in the building. I need to call this in to the boss.”

  Before she had time to add anything further, he set about making that call. “Call Tom Anderson mobile,” he instructed the audio system.

  “Calling,” the automated reply responded.

  “Anderson.”

  “Boss, it’s Bray and Rihanna. Time to rethink the plan. Shit hit the fan in a big way.”

  “What’s happened?”

  “We’ve just had a carload of suspects try to engage us.” He paused. “It resulted in a rather public high-speed car chase down the M1.”

  “Fuck. Did you recognise any of them?”

  “No but I’ve had a weird gut feeling all day, and it got a lot worse this afternoon. They did the demo and then Matthews disappeared to some page that felt like a setup to me. I got Rihanna out of there immediately and as we came out of the building, a black sedan tried to run us down. The car chase ensued. We’ve evaded them now and are snaking our way home through back roads.”

  “Watch for tails. I’ll see what I can get happening here with regard to surveillance. Do you have a make and registration number?”

  “Yeah—black, EB Commodore; 876 SPU were the plates.”

  “Did you get a look at the occupants?”

  “Not a great look. Windows seemed to be darker than legal tint. But I got enough of a view to be confident they’re of Asian descent; at a guess, I’d say northern Chinese. They were big boys.”

  “Fuck, this just gets better all the time. What was the outcome of the demos this afternoon?”

  Brayden glanced at Rihanna and motioned for her to answer.

  “The tests confirmed the information presented this morning. They’ve created a weapon. In water vapour, the virus has a concentration rate of eighty-two percent and in gas form sixty-seven percent. It also has an exposure life of approximately eight hours.”

  “Jesus Christ,” came the boss’s quick response through the speaker system.

  “Boss, I think we’ve got a bigger problem than that. I believe from what we saw today, Matthews is involved somehow. You need to get that lab locked down immediately. It may already be too late.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Rihanna got Sullivan talking and it seems they’ve had the virus stable in this form for the last couple of weeks.”

  “Get home, Brayden. We need to prepare for a full-scale terrorist incident. I’ll mobilise a team to lock down the lab and I’ll smooth over any police issues resulting from your afternoon activities.”

  The line went dead. Rihanna was beginning to realise it was Anderson’s normal approach to ending a phone call. “He always just hang up?”

  “Yep. He’s not one for pleasantries.”

  “So what do we do now?”

  “Exactly as he said. Go home and we’ll get further instructions shortly.” Brayden seemed relaxed, concentrating on the road.

  “Doesn’t this seem like it’s just getting totally out of hand to you?” she said, feeling completely emotionally overwhelmed by everything that had happened today. “I’ve discovered that some scientist has managed to create a synthetic delivery method to stabilise the Hendra virus, which means it’s now essentially a weapon.” She emphasised her disdain for the man by creating inverted commas with finger gestures. “I’ve been involved in yet another attempted abduction and a high-speed car chase. Then
to top it off, the boss of some super-secret Centre believes we need to prepare for a full-scale terrorist attack.”

  He went to say something but she cut him off again. “Oh, and just for good measure, it seems that the grubby little prick Matthews may have already handed the virus over to the bad guys.” She turned to Brayden.

  “This stuff doesn’t happen in my world. In fact, I didn’t think it happened in anybody’s world. I look after horses. I stitch up cuts, I take x-rays, I run blood tests, and I spend every other spare moment researching to try to find a vaccine to prevent the horses from contracting Hendra. What I don’t do is get involved in stuff like this, because this isn’t real. This is movie stuff.”

  She took a breath and realised belatedly that she’d been waving her arms around like a mad woman. God, this stuff was making her crazy. Brayden was making her crazy. He was part of this crazy assed unreal world.

  She had to get off the bus.

  “I can’t do this, Brayden. This is not me. I’m a vet, for God’s sake, not a damn super spy.”

  “I know, Rih. It all seems a bit unreal. But you have to see it through.”

  “Last time I checked, Australia was a free country and I haven’t committed any crimes, therefore I’m free to get off this bus anytime I want.”

  “I agree everything you say is true,” he said calmly.

  She spun her head to stare at him. She hadn’t been expecting him to agree.

  “But you can’t get off the bus, as you put it, for two reasons. Firstly, these guys are going to keep coming after you until they have you or you’re dead.” The bluntness of his words caused Rihanna to stiffen in her seat. “The second reason is that we agreed we were going to give this thing between us a go. I didn’t take you for a coward.”

  “I’m not a coward but I can’t live like this, Brayden.” There, she’d said it. She was done.

  He reached out and took her hand. “I understand that, Rih, but you need to understand something.” He took his eyes from the road and held her eyes with his. “I won’t let you die. And if you get off the bus now, as you so succinctly put it, then the coroner might as well sign your death certificate right now.”

  The word death was a very sobering thought for Rihanna. This virus wasn’t worth dying over but she knew she had to see it through, otherwise thousands of innocent, unsuspecting people could be exposed to a slow and agonising death. It was her responsibility to be part of the solution.

  Responsibility was something she readily understood. Doing the right thing was something she understood. Finishing something she started, she understood. She had no choice—she’d do the right thing. She couldn’t live with herself otherwise.

  “So, Minky, like it or not, you’ve got me until at least the virus situation is sorted. And from my perspective, it’s no hardship.”

  “For the first time in my life, I’m truly scared, Brayden.” She blinked back tears, wondering what the hell was making her confess her deepest secrets. “I’m terrified of what the virus could do, I’m terrified for my father and the practice, and I’m terrified that what’s between us is nothing more than a by-product of the situation.”

  He said nothing, his silence in many ways more telling. She was opening herself up to him. She was baring her soul to his most intense scrutiny. What was he giving her back?

  “I’ll see it through…somehow.”

  “That’s my girl. It’ll be okay. We’ll make it okay,” he said, absently rubbing his thumb over the underside of her wrist.

  Did he really think of her as his girl?

  Her heart warmed at the thought, chasing out some of the fear.

  She let herself hope for the first time in days.

  Maybe forever.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Rory and Quade were out sipping cold beers by the pool when Brayden and Rihanna arrived home. It was still stinking hot. And obviously they’d thought so, too, clearly drying off from a dip in the pool. All long, lean, male yumminess. The only thing that could make the picture better would be for Brayden to decide he wanted a swim as well.

  “Hear you guys had some excitement,” Rory called in greeting.

  “Yeah, just a little,” Bray quipped back.

  “Well, if that’s a little, count me out for a lot. I’m over being the number-one abduction target around here.” She huffed.

  “Someone didn’t have a good day,” Quade said coolly, almost under his breath.

  “Just look at it as a way you can legitimately be all over each other,” Rory suggested helpfully.

  She couldn’t help but smile at that.

  “See, every cloud has a silver lining and you get to hang out with me and Quade as well. What more could you want?” he said, sarcasm dripping from every word.

  “Umm, I was quite happy with my quite boring life. Thanks all the same,” she responded with a nervous giggle.

  “No, Minky, you just thought you were, because you didn’t know what else was out there,” Brayden gently corrected her.

  “Well, I certainly don’t need another attempted abduction.”

  “That’s true. We’ll see if we can avoid another one of those. Hey, fellas.”

  “You’re slipping, Stud. Can’t believe you let ’em get that close.” Rory was joking but she could tell that there was some level of truth to what he was saying.

  “My skin was prickling all day. Took everything I had not to bail us out of there earlier. It was a close call but Rihanna did get all the information she needed.”

  “So I’m guessing you’re not heading back up there tomorrow.” A huge grin split Rory’s face.

  “Ahh, let me think about that for a second.” Brayden pretended to ponder the question. “No.”

  They all burst out laughing at that.

  “Cool. You guys can help us track down a few more leads that the boss has been shotting over all day,” Rory suggested helpfully.

  The look Brayden shot him was as close to “in your dreams, buddy” as he could manage without actually saying the words.

  “Well, from the looks of it, you guys haven’t managed to achieve much today.” Bray gestured towards their damp board shorts and beers in hand.

  “Hey, Quade, I take offence to this tone. What about you, man?” Rory turned to Quade, seeking his support.

  “Definitely out of line, mate.”

  Rihanna noticed a sly glance pass between the two men. All of a sudden, Rory emerged from the chair and leapt through the air, catching Bray around the middle and taking him with him into the pool with a huge splash.

  A second later, they both emerged from the water, laughing like loons.

  Rihanna stood on the edge of the pool, shaking her head at grown men clowning around like a bunch of crazy kids. She heard a chair scrape but before she could register what was happening, she felt her legs being swept out from underneath her. She, too, was flying through the air only to be enveloped a split second later with cool, refreshing water.

  She came up spluttering and gasping for air, totally shocked that Quade had done that. Rory she could understand, but Quade she would never have picked.

  Bray waded over and pulled her from Quade’s arms. He released her but not before giving her a rakish grin. The man was dangerous and Rihanna was only starting to realise the extent of it.

  “I can’t believe he did that,” she said, still not quite believing Quade would do something like that.

  “Oh, baby, believe it. I did warn you to watch out for him. He’ll surprise you with something when you least expect it.”

  She turned and saw Quade smirk at her. The right side of his finely sculptured lips rose up and his eyes twinkled with mischief. She joined them in their laughter and antics. What else could she do? And if she was truthful, the water was damn good and seemed to be just the thing she needed to relax after the crazy day she’d had.

  They messed around, playing tag and ducking one another for a few minutes. It really did feel good to be a complete child and not
be judged for behaving as such. Eventually, Brayden decided it was time to eat.

  “I’m going to get dinner started,” he announced, moving to the edge of the pool and easily levering himself up, the complete picture of masculine grace.

  Rihanna had followed him to the edge and he leant down, offering her a hand. She immediately took it and was hauled from the water as if she weighed nothing. That, she knew, not to be true. Not only was she tall and no lightweight, but she also had the added weight and resistance of being fully clothed. Gosh, he was strong.

  Bray handed her a towel and she immediately started patting at her damp hair.

  “Babe, I wouldn’t worry about your hair. Cover your top unless you want to give the guys something further to think about. Me, I already know how gorgeous your breasts are.” He nodded discreetly at her chest.

  She looked down and realised what he was getting at. The lightweight cotton blouse she had on was white. And to make matters worse, the sheer bra she had on was also white. Even she could see the mulberry outline of her peaked nipples.

  She looked at him with what she was sure was horror in her eyes and hastily threw the towel around her shoulders and closed it fast over her chest.

  “You could have said something earlier,” she hissed at his ear closest to her.

  “Don’t worry, they won’t say anything,” he assured her.

  “Yeah, right! Just like they didn’t say anything this morning,” she rightly complained.

  He guided her to the veranda and in through a door behind the kitchen that turned out to be a huge laundry/wet room with a large bathroom in the corner.

  “Strip off the wet clothes, Minky,” he instructed. He already had his shirt off and was partway through dropping his jeans where he stood.

  She looked around hastily and decided to duck into the bathroom and shut the door for some privacy. She couldn’t risk Rory and Quade following them in.

  Next second, the door opened and Bray stepped in, a towel wrapped around his waist, another in his extended hand.