Lori Callahan catches forgeries for a living. She's never found one with her own surname on it.
She reads old paper: Queensland mining registers, transfer deeds, the dull documents that decide who owns what's underneath. So she knows what an altered date looks like. This one makes her father's claim die four years early.
Then the letter arrives: YOUR FATHER'S CLAIM WAS NEVER CLOSED.
Noah Mercer has driven eleven hours to tell her the rest. A single receipt ties the worst day of his family's life to the Callahan ground, and to money somebody used the claim to hide.
The proof exists. That's the problem. Surveillance becomes a pickup bearing down on them along a one-lane track. A court order seals the ground. Fire takes a workshop, floodwater cuts the roads, and the paper that could clear her father keeps disappearing.
Following the trail will take them into abandoned workings and across ground Lori has been ordered not to enter. By the time permission comes, the evidence may be gone.
For fans of Blood & Treasure and Mystery Road: clean Outback action-adventure with procedural bite.
Book 2 in The Mercer Files; it can be read as a standalone.