Death is Forever

least one of them is cashing two paychecks.”
    “I will look, but it is doubtful. The men were vetted with exquisite care before they were sent. Is it wise for you to be out of contact so long?”
    “Erin won’t abandon the hunt, so I don’t have any choice. We’re going to ground.”
    “But—”
    “Don’t send anyone after us you care about,” Cole cut in. “Understand?”
    He hung up before Wing could answer.

35
Kimberley Plateau A day later
    Sunlight and humidity turned the Rover into a four-wheel-drive sauna. Erin and Cole had camped the night before on a nameless patch of land beneath an acacia tree. They had awakened to heat and silence, because they were too far from water for any birds to be about. The Rover had consumed the silence. Now the vehicle was being consumed by the searing day.
    On the flats some speed was possible. Dog Four had been the most productive of Abe’s mines, so there was a road of sorts. Other than slamming on the brakes shortly after dawn to avoid a handful of cows, the ride had been uneventful.
    “After Dog Four, where are we going?” she asked.
    He flicked a sideways glance at her before he returned to watching the road—it had a tendency to vanish among termite mounds and spinifex.
    “Twenty miles beyond Dog Four there’s a place where the station land is joined by a mosaic of Abe’s mineral claims,” Cole said. “I’ve never been there. From the looks of the map, nobody else has either. But the satellite photo showed a highlands and what could be a karst drainage pattern. Maybe Bridget’s Hill is there.”
    “What’s a karst drainage pattern?”
    “Water flows underground rather than aboveground. It’s common in heavily eroded limestone areas.”
    “Does that mean caves?”
    “Sometimes.”
    While he spoke, his eyes checked the gauges on the dusty dashboard of the Rover. The electrical system showed a steady charge. The oversized fuel tank was above three-quarters. He wasn’t worried about petrol. With the extra cans he had lashed on the Rover, he had ample fuel to check out the most likely spots for a steep limestone outcropping, with enough gas left over to reach a neighboring station before the wet made the country impassable.
    Right now he was more worried about keeping Erin alive until the wet than about finding a diamond mine. Jason Street’s arrival meant that the Americans were divided about how to handle her legacy, or the rest of the cartel had ganged up and forced Street down Faulkner’s throat, or both. No matter what the reason, it left Erin exposed in a way she was too inexperienced to understand.
    It had been her American government connections that had prevented an outright assassination.
    United we stand, divided we fall.
    They were falling.
    “It’s running a little hot, isn’t it?” Erin asked, seeing Cole’s frown.
    “Not surprising. It’s about a hundred and ten in the sun. Close to the ground, where the engine is, the air is even hotter.” He looked at her. “Don’t worry. The Rover was built to take worse in Africa.”
    “But I wasn’t.” She plucked at her cotton tank top in a gesture that had become as automatic as brushing away the outback’s relentless hordes of flies.
    “I like the way you’re built,” he said. “Sleek, soft, and sweet. How much longer are you going to punish me for something that happened years before I met you?”
    For a moment she didn’t believe what she’d heard. Then she did. The flush on her cheeks deepened even as her heartbeat increased. She was aware of Cole with an intensity that had only increased since she’d refused to share his bed.
    “If you’d been the one to walk in on a tender little scene between me and a former lover,” Erin said finally, “what would you have thought?”
    There was a long silence followed by a savage word. “Try trusting me.”
    “If I didn’t trust you, I wouldn’t be alone with you in this rolling oven.”
    “Then why the cold shoulder?”
    “Cold? In this godforsaken climate?”
    “You know what I mean,” he said tightly.
    “Call it a period of adjustment.”
    “Meaning?”
    “Meaning I haven’t had as much experience as most women my age,” she said simply. “When it comes to what I should and shouldn’t expect from a lover, I’m still nineteen years old with stars in my eyes. I assumed any man who was my lover would be as exclusively interested in me as I was in him. Childish of me, but there it is.” She made an odd