A good two minutes ticked by before the lock popped open.
He bolted from his prison on hands and knees. When he made to stand, every muscle in his body revolted. He wobbled on legs that had been too long locked in a ninety-degree angle.
Dizziness hit. He steadied himself against the desk until the black spots retreated from his vision.
“Now what?”
He had no phone or car keys.
A desolate mewling rose behind him, reminding him of his cellmates—Mo, Larry, and Curly.
“Hey, kiddos.” He kneeled beside their crate. “How about we get the hell out of here?”
Mo and Larry paced the back of their prison, sending anxious looks Curly’s way.
He laid a hand on Curly, and waited.
No heartbeat thumped against his palm, only an unmistakable stillness.
“Fucking Harwoods.”
His outburst caused another round of pitiful sounds. “Sorry, kiddos.” His mind raced with his various options—contact Deke, get the cubs to safety, notify the authorities, kill the Harwood clan.
With no means of transportation, he couldn’t release the cubs. They would never survive these woods alone, without the protection of their mother.
He had only one option.
Leave the cubs behind.
38
“What do you mean you can’t let me into my brother’s storage unit?”
“Can’t say it any plainer,” Leo Benetti said, his back to them while he replenished his stock of boxes, packing tape, and bubble wrap. “Customer’s the only one with a key to the lock.”
“I was told you’re a friend of Dylan’s.”
“I am.”
“Can’t you help me out? I’m trying to find him.”
“Wish I could. But I don’t know you from Jack, and the law is the law.”
“What happens if your customer dies?”
“I’d need a copy of his will.”
“And if he doesn’t have a will?”
“A small estate affidavit will do the deed.” Benetti glanced over his shoulder. “Your brother missing or dead?”
“Which one’s going to get me into his unit faster?”
“Depends on whether the rent’s paid up.”
He bit back a curse.
Benetti boomed out a laugh. “Don’t matter none. I can’t let you in without a key or legal documents.” He went back to restocking. “You don’t have either one.”
Evie tangled her fingers with his and tugged, a silent demand to leave. She waited until they got back to the truck before asking, “What do we do now?”
“We make our own key.”
Evie stood in darkness. Her heart vibrated inside her chest, and a trickle of sweat meandered down the center of her back.
“Um, boss, who’s this?”
The woman’s voice sounded a lot like the techno-geek’s. With a black hood covering her head, Evie couldn’t see the other occupants. But their stares bore through the thin barrier.
Having run into a dead end, Deke needed to regroup with his team. Shock of all shockers, he invited her along—with one concession—the hood.
Since anonymity was a crucial element to the team’s success, he wanted to give each member a chance to vote on her temporary acceptance into the group.
“Evie Steele,” Deke said. “I’d like her to help us with the investigation.”
“Commander,” a deep male voice said, “can we speak in private?”
Commander? Did that mean Deke was their leader?
“Will you be okay for a few minutes?” Deke whispered in her ear.
“Of course.”
He guided her to a comfortable chair and squeezed her shoulder before moving away. Several pair of boots shook the wooden floor as the team moved into another room. Although she couldn’t make out their words, the tenor of their conversation sounded as though Deke had a lot of persuading to do.
Clenching her hands in her lap, she ached to yank off the stifling hood and have a peek. She wanted to see the people who got to spend so much time with him. People who placed their lives in his hands and vice versa.
She closed her eyes and prayed for his powers of persuasion to be on target today.
Boots filed back into the room. Chairs scraped against the floor. Fingers plucked her hood off.
An assortment of badass-looking men and women stared at her with a mixture of suspicion and curiosity.
Whiteboards and pegboards covered every available wall space of their mountaintop hideaway, each one littered with someone’s scribble and a multitude of photographs. Cubicle-style desks, stacked with thick file folders and bankers boxes, filled the floor space. Time zone clocks lined up over a wide doorway leading deeper into their haven.
Swallowing, she said, “Hello.”
Deke held out his hand. “I’ll introduce you. Jax,” he said, “meet Evie Steele.”
A lanky redhead peered over her bank of monitors. “Steele? Any relation to that hunky Britt Steele?”
“My brother.”
Someone snorted from the back of the room. Jax’s intelligent brown eyes zipped between Evie and Deke. “Does he know?”
“Jax,” Deke warned.
“Know what?” Evie asked.
The techno-geek’s lips twitched and her expression shifted. “That I’ve been in love with him for years.”
Somehow she didn’t think that was what Jax had wanted to say.
“As you might have guessed, Jax is our resident computer genius, otherwise known as an analyst. Or nerd. Take your pick.”
“Nerds rule,” Jax muttered around a mechanical pencil now between her teeth.
Deke strode into the maze of desks, chairs, and scary pieces of equipment. He indicated a vertically challenged woman with short-cropped, curly black hair and flawless black-hued skin. “Raelyn’s the best medic in the country. The Patch ’em Up Queen.”
“Only if I like you.” The medic shook her outstretched hand and gave her a sly, teasing—she hoped—smile.
“The two of you have a lot in common.”
Raelyn raised a brow.
“He exaggerates. I’m a budding nurse.”
“She travels around the hills in an RV, treating patients who can’t afford the care otherwise.”
“I assist a talented and experienced nurse practitioner.”
Raelyn’s expression warmed. “Welcome to the world of medicine, Evie Steele. May you save many lives.”
“The wanna-be cowboy lounging in the back corner is Wes.”
Wes tipped his Stetson in her direction. “I blow sh—stuff up.”
She guessed him to be a few years older than her, but something about his mannerism screamed old soul. “Sounds handy.”
Deke draped an arm over the shoulders of a large man with thick eyebrows and a to-die-for-tan. “This hunk of meat is Matteo, our engineer. He gets us to where we need to go and makes sure we have what we need when we get there.”
Aka Hot Italian.
She held out her hand. “I remember you from Dylan’s apartment.”
“Good memory.” Instead of clasping her hand, he waggled his eyebrows at Deke and wrapped her in a warm hug.
She smiled, returning the gesture.
“Back it off, loverboy.”
Matteo released her, but not before kissing her cheek and whispering something in Italian.
“Pardon?”
“If he’s crazy enough to let you get away, I’ll claim you for my own.”
“I might have something to say about the ‘claiming’ part.”
Matteo laughed and went back to his charts.
“Taji gathers intelligence,” Deke said. “He probably knows what you had for breakfast last Tuesday.”
Evie sent the Daniel Dae Kim lookalike a tentative smile.
He nodded. “I am not so good as that. My knowledge of your background only extends to last Wednesday.”
“Last but not least,” Deke said, “I give you King Keone.
He can track a gnat’s flight pattern once he’s on the scent.”
The guy who rose to greet her had to be the biggest—most beautiful—man she’d ever seen. And that was saying a lot with Deke standing beside her.
“Keone. Hawaiian?”
“Astute.” He produced a beautiful smile. “I like the smart ones.”
In one visual sweep, Evie took in every detail of the room. “All of this to stop poachers?”
“Illicit wildlife and plant trade is a multibillion-dollar business,” Keone said. “Many, many species are on the verge of extinction.”
Deke chimed in. “It’s our job to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
“How many cases do you work on at once?”
“Too many.” Deke rubbed the back of his neck. “But we do the best we can.”
“Is Dylan’s disappearance somehow linked to poaching?” Every pair of eyes turned toward her, and panic surged through Evie’s chest. Given SONR’s conservation mission, her question seemed logical. Had Deke’s supervisor authorized the use of government resources for an unconnected, personal case? “Did I say something wrong?”
Deke traded glances with several members of his team before answering. “You’re wondering why an anti-poaching unit would be investigating a murder case.”
“I suppose so. Your supervisor doesn’t mind?”
“He minds.”
“As long as we stay on top of our other cases,” Raelyn said, “they don’t have anything to bitch about.”
“Family comes first,” Wes added.
“I got a whiff of our headquarters spy a few minutes ago,” Jax said.
“Marisol?”
“Just a whiff, boss.”
“Don’t do anything we’ll regret,” he warned. “Report before you act.”
Jax pulled a pencil out of her ponytail and wrote something on a pad a paper. “Do they teach you that in Leadership Academy?”
“What?”
“How to ruin your team’s fun. If so, I’m never attending.”
“We call this area the Status Room.” Deke pushed a roller chair toward her. “Make yourself comfortable.” He pointed toward the wide corridor. “The fridge and restrooms are that way.”
Heading to the restroom, Evie took the opportunity to check her phone for messages. Three missed phone calls from Lisa and six text messages—two from Lisa, one from her mom, and the rest from friends.
Why hadn’t she felt her phone vibrate? She checked the settings and noticed it was set to Do Not Disturb. She’d toggled the feature before their interview with Tina. “Dammit.” She read her text messages from Lisa.
Feeling much better. Will catch up to you in Niles.
She should have seen this coming. It’d taken quite a bit of time for her to convince Lisa to postpone the tour. Lisa being Lisa, she would’ve made a run for it the moment she got the doctor’s consent.
After taking care of business, she returned to the Status Room in time to catch Deke’s question to Matteo.
“You and Wes dig up anything on Gracie Gilbert?”
“One of her neighbors would watch over the victim’s daughter when she’d get held up at work.”
“How’s that significant?”
“She would keep an eye on Gilbert’s house even when the owner was home.”
Deke sent Wes a save-me look. “Is there a shorter version?”
“The nosy neighbor spotted the brother visiting late at night. During the last week, another fella showed up an hour or so after the brother.”
“Got any guesses?”
“Nope.” Wes leaned way back in his chair and clasped his hands behind his neck. “We’ve got something better.”
When both Wes and Matteo smirked at Deke, he growled, “Don’t make me shoot you in front of our guest. What d’you have?”
“Fact,” Matteo said, grinning.
“We paid Ms. Gilbert’s brother a visit,” Wes said. “He has a nasty habit he can’t afford. Found himself a sugar daddy that doles out money in exchange for favors.”
“He offered up this information?”
“My Italian friend can be downright charming—and convincing—when he sets his mind to a task.”
“What was the favor?”
“Drug his sister and give his sponsor access to her for fifteen minutes.”
Nausea churned in her stomach. “He allowed someone to rape his sister?” She couldn’t even fathom such disgusting behavior. Her brothers protected her to the extreme. If a guy disrespected her in anyway, they made sure he never did so again. Steele style.
“Let’s not jump to conclusions,” Deke said, “even if the details point in that direction.” He pinned Wes with a don’t-give-me-any-bullshit look. “Did the brother give you a name?”
“Eli Harwood.”
Sonofabitch. Deke recognized the name. Everyone in the room did—except for maybe Evie.
“Y’all look like a black cat just walked down your back,” she said. “You know this Harwood guy.”
“Not personally,” Deke said. “Both boys were younger than me. Though I haven’t heard anything in recent years, I recall some town gossip about the family being a good, God-faring bunch, if not a little odd.”
“Odd how?” she asked.
“Dunno. Just odd.” Deke’s gaze skimmed across the room. “Anyone have more info?”
Everyone echoed the same sentiment. Odd. But no one could put a finger on anything specific.
Raelyn said, “The father, Blaze Harwood, is on the town council.”
“If not for sex, why would Harwood want fifteen minutes of private time with Gracie Gilbert?” Deke asked.
“Compromising pictures. Blackmail,” Raelyn offered.
Jax chimed in. “Money, money, mon-ey. Mon-ey.”
“Can’t think of anything else,” Matteo said. “Everything that comes to mind revolves around sex.”
“Big surprise,” Jax murmured.
“Zip it, Red.”
“Did the brother know anything about the Krocodil in Gracie’s system?” Deke asked.
“Claimed he’d never heard of the drug,” Wes said.
“What a croc,” Jax threw out in a heavy Boston accent. When no one laughed, she prodded, “Get it? Krocodil. Croc.”
Everyone stared at her. She turned back to her monitors, muttering “Stiffers” beneath her breath.
“Get anything from the Armstrong woman?” Raelyn asked.
“It’s as we thought,” Deke said. “She’s dealing to pay her sister’s doctor’s bills.”
Wanting to participate in the conversation, Evie said, “She denied texting Gracie Gilbert.”
“Did a Gremlin get ahold of her phone and send prank texts?” Matteo asked.
“She swore she didn’t see Gracie the day of her murder and has no idea about the text.”
“We made two other discoveries.”
With everyone’s attention on her, including Deke’s, she had to clear her throat before she was able to speak. “According to Tina, Gracie’s brother uses Krocodile, and Deke found a picture of Leah Bristow, Gracie, and Tina together.”
Wes whistled. “Thicker and thicker.”
“The victim’s brother uses Krocodil,” Raelyn ticked off on her fingers. “He drugs his sister, leaves her alone with a stranger, and she dies a violent death with the disgusting narcotic in her system. We gotta take that guy down.”
“We re-interviewed Leah. She told us about Dylan’s storage unit.”
“Sounds like we need to recruit Evie and make her our interrogation specialist,” Wes said.
She smiled. “Can’t claim the credit for that one, but thanks.” The anxiety she’d been trying to hide for the past forty-five minutes ebbed away. “We tried to access the unit, but Leo wouldn’t give us a key.”
“Leo?” Wes asked.
“The owner of the storage unit. He said we needed a key, Dylan’s will, or a small estate affidavit. None of which we have.”
“Which bring
s me to an important question,” Deke said.
Jax stopped typing. Wes righted his chair.
“How do y’all feel about breaking and entering?”
39
Night was falling.
Dylan found it harder and harder to stay upright. He’d chosen to stick to the woods rather than hitting the highway. With his luck, the first car he’d flag down would be that bastard Eli.
In a little while, he’d break cover and take his chances.
That was if he didn’t pass out first.
It’d been too long since he’d last eaten. His blood sugar was tanking by the minute. Blinking hard, he refocused on the large hickory tree ahead. That was how he’d made it this far. Chopping the miles of forest into smaller, achievable chunks. With the onset of night, his chunks got smaller and smaller.
A few feet.
He reached out to steady himself against the hickory, but his vision wavered, causing him to misjudge the distance. His face slammed into the rough, flaky bark. Something cracked, and his eyes teared up. His legs buckled. In the next second, he sprawled on his back, staring up at the darkened canopy.
Minutes passed without him moving. His dazed mind screamed for him to get to his feet. But his injured and dehydrated body began the slow process of shutting down.
He wanted to give into the temptation to rest, to sleep.
But Deke was in danger.
Rolling onto his side, he ignored the throbbing in his broken nose and braced himself for the physical challenge ahead. A large, oval yellow-brown pod lying a few feet away caught his attention. The near darkness made it hard to identify, though the sight triggered something in his subconscious. A memory. Faded with age. Dull around the edges. But there. Just there…out of…reach.
Saliva drenched his mouth as he caught a double-decade-old image of him, Deke, and Dara traipsing through the woodlands. Stopping to investigate the pint-size torpedoes, flinging them against tree trunks to reveal their fruity center.
He squinted at the branches, losing his equilibrium at the odd angle. He pinpointed the large, teardrop-shaped leaves clustered together in sets of six, hearing his big brother’s long ago voice identifying the small understory tree.
Roaming Wild (Steele Ridge Book 6) Page 20