“I’ve got him,” Drinkswine directed to the twats.
“What can you tell me?” I asked, serious and shaking off the other two. “Liv?”
Drinkswine gave a slight shake of his head. What the fuck did that mean? Was she dead? Was she gone? Was she the one in police custody? “What the hell does that mean, man?” I barked out.
“We’ve got the video, we’re going over it. But Ms. Baxter was gone and Mr. Longe, Smitty…” He paused. There was something about the way he said the man’s name. Shit. “He’ll be lucky to make it through the night.”
“Shot?”
Again, he shook his head. “Head wound.”
“I need a copy of that footage.”
“No,” he said swiftly. “It’s evidence in an open case. Leave it to the professionals.”
“Respect, Drinkswine. But you’ve got no idea what me and mine are capable of.” At that, I cut out, knowing there was no way he’d be handing anything over just yet. Time to call in the reinforcements.
When I got back to my truck, phone in hand, I reached out to my best friend.
“I need you, brother,” I said at the first sign of pick up. “He got to her. We put the safeties in place, but he got to her. Fuck. God dammit—I’m so fucking sorr—”
“You still in Virginia Beach? We’re coming.”
“Back in Smithfield.”
“It’s not your fault, brother,” Blood tried to assure me. “You were doing what your woman wanted. Sometimes we’ve got to go in soft. You were going in soft, I get it.” He says he gets it, but if I’d moved on her sooner, maybe she wouldn’t have met that fuck to begin with. Blood and Hero found her location early on. It took every ounce of reserve I had not to show up at her front door and drag her ass back to Kentucky. But I needed her to realize she needed me, wanted me, wanted to be a part of my life, or I risked losing her for good.
I should’ve gone after her.
“Get here. Sneak. Hero. Boss. Duke. Anyone who you think can help.”
“We’ll be there. Gimme the address. We’ll meet you.”
I gave him the address to type into his GPS, then hung up. The wait, the wait was the worst. Lost so deep in my head, lost in thoughts of what might be happening to Liv while I could do nothing but stand with my finger up my ass like an idiot until the cavalry arrived.
That’s how I ended up here, standing on a street corner in the center of town listening to that gloriously familiar rumble of Harley tailpipes hit Smithfield before my brothers ever do. I flag them down, waving my arm once in the air—not that they’d miss me. The whole of them pull over to the curb, dismounting alone and in pairs until they all stand surrounding me with Blood pushed to the front.
“Cops won’t turn over the camera footage,” I say. Several brothers grumble. “It was grim, man.” That said softer as I shake my head, attempting to shake away the memory.
No matter how many times I’ve seen it, brains and blood where a whole, breathing human being once stood, well, it turns my god damn stomach is what it does.
“Follow me back to Liv’s place. We can try to figure out a strategy.”
I walk over to hop into the driver’s seat of my truck and wait until the brothers are ready, engines revving. Then as one unit, we move out.
It’s only ten minutes before we turn down the long wooded drive. There’s a car I don’t recognize, a BMW parked next to Liv’s truck.
An old couple stand leaning against the trunk. Their heads turn to our approach. Her face appears splotchy, red and puffy. He just looks tired. Physically and emotionally tired. I know because it’s how I feel, and we’re only getting started.
“What can I do for you?” I call out, approaching slowly so as not to scare them. We’re a pretty imposing group.
“You don’t know me,” the woman starts, and her voice sounds thick as if she’d only just stopped crying, “but I know all about you. Actually, you look exactly like she described you.” She sniffles. “I’m Georgie, Smitty’s wife.”
Well, that explains about the crying.
“I’m sorry about wha—”
She holds her hand out to stop me. “That bastard hurt my husband. I guess he got an automatic notification on his phone from the security company… I don’t know what happened next, but his head…” She sniffs. “They kicked me out of ICU.” There’re more tears in the old broad’s eyes. Then she swallows hard. “I want to help you catch him.”
That’s when the old man speaks up. “We both do. I’m Jerry Grandville. I’ve been friends with Smitty for years, and I talk with Liv every morning.”
The fact that he calls her Liv lets me know he’s not bullshitting, which is good since it’s hard trusting anyone around here.
“So how do you want to play this?” I ask.
“My guess, they have the video footage, which you all probably need and I’d bet they wouldn’t share.” Dr. Grandville shifted on his hip to wrap a consoling arm around Georgie. “Chief Brandt is an old friend and his is a small department. We’re going to talk with him.”
“I contacted the security company first off,” Georgie cuts in. “They told me that the footage belonged to them, not to me, and due to the graphic nature would not release it to anyone but the police. Can you believe it?”
Fuck, yeah. I could believe it. Nice lady like her doesn’t need to have those images swimming inside her head for the rest of her life, and that’s exactly how long they’d stick around. Haunting her dreams at night. I feel like I owe her an answer, but sort of stand there stunned for a moment, not ever expecting this kind of help. Then again, what should I expect? That’s the power of Livvy Baxter.
Finally my brain kicks on, I clear my throat and I tell them, “That’d be a big help.” We exchange numbers, then I pocket my phone and he pockets his.
“Right, then we’re off.” Dr. Grandville pushes up off the trunk, moving his arm to Georgie’s forearm. He guides her to the passenger door to help her sit. Then, rounding the hood, he stops to hold a hand out to me.
He throws me off again when I reach over to shake it. “Get her back,” he says right before opening the door and sliding into his seat.
I blink, then motion for my brothers to clear the drive for them to leave.
The brothers shuffle inside. It looks better, smells better than it did the last time I’d been here with Liv. The restoration company really know their job.
Busying myself checking out the scene, I watch my brothers acclimate themselves to the space. Boss walks around the front room and stops, picking up one of Liv’s paperbacks that apparently the bastard hadn’t destroyed.
“Any idea what kind of car he drives?” he asks, flipping the book over to read the back cover. “Give Blood and Hero a place to start.”
“No, none—wait. Michael first approached her at a restaurant. What’d she call it?” I pause to think, going over our conversations in my head like flipping back pages in an eBook until I get to that day. Dissecting the conversation, I highlight each word until I see it behind my eyes. Sea Breeze’s. “The restaurant is called Sea Breeze’s. If we can contact them, find out how far back they keep video surveillance… With any luck, they’ll have a shot of the dick leaving his car.”
“You see him?” Boss asks.
“Nope. But Liv gave a detailed description. I’d be able to pick him out, I’m sure of it. And even if a couple fit the description, it still narrows our search.”
“Send Hero. Fewer tattoos, none visible. Good-looking and charming, women always want in his pants.” Duke had been listening in on our conversation. “Hero,” he bellows, as if the kid isn’t standing in the room with us.
“Right here, prez.”
“Restaurant called Sea Breeze’s. In town?” Duke turns to ask me. I nod. “In town. We need to know how far back their video footage goes. And if it’s older than a week, we need to see it. Yeah?”
“On it.” Hero flicks us all a two-finger salute. But I stop him before he leaves.
Hero nods my way, then strides out the door. I don’t have to remind him to flirt—the man can’t help it.
At least we had a definite place to start. I’d been going crazy before my brothers showed. Now I wouldn’t exactly say I’ve calmed, more like carry a sense of cautious optimism. But I need to get out and do something. Grandville’s out talking to the chief. Hero’s at the restaurant. What the fuck am I supposed to do?
It feels like I’m an animal caged in by a shock collar. One wrong step any way and I’m zapped back. Stuck in this spot despite the wide open space. I hate the feeling of being caged. None of us much like the feeling. Sneak sits at the edge of the sofa, bouncing his knee up and down at a frantic pace. I get it. He left his very pregnant wife at home to be here for me. Duke left his woman, Dr. Brennan of all people, and her—I guess now their little girl. Not to mention the way Boss left Elise. All vulnerable. We aren’t any closer to catching Houdini and yet they’re here helping get Liv back.
Fuck. I rake my fingers through my hair to keep from lashing out by picking up the closest whatever—I think it’s a single flower vase—and whipping it across the room. What if Houdini strikes while the men are gone? Yeah, they’re staying on the compound. Sure they’ve got guards in place at all times. We’d never leave the women unprotected. But I don’t know what I’d do if a brother’s old lady was hurt while they were here to help mine.
Just another thing to worry about.
To get a handle on myself, I lock my hands around the back of my neck and pace a path back and forth, trying to come up with some idea that could help us when my phone rings. Grandville.
“Got something already?” I ask without hello.
“Where do you want me to send the files?” he returns—again, no hello.
While waiting for my brothers to arrive, I’d driven out to the hotel to check out and retrieve our shit, including my computer. As I rattle off my email address, I jog outside to my truck to retrieve the laptop. The summer sun’s heating up nice and I can’t help but hope that wherever this sick fuck has my woman, he’s treating her well and allowing her to soak in some of the warmth.
She gets chilled so easy. Always laying her cold-as-ice feet against my back or my calves, shocking the shit out of me when I don’t expect it.
The smell of the sea hangs thick in the air. The birds singing, hidden in the tress, are annoying as hell. Chances are I’m gonna end up going crazy if we don’t find something soon.
“Chaos… Chaos? Are you still there, son?” He asks in my ear.
“Here—thanks. I’m out.”
No goodbyes. We hang up. I continue inside the house to set up on the farmhouse style dining table. Right away my phone lights up with a second call. Hero. Shit, that kid works fast. He’s been gone, what, forty-five minutes?
“Sending the files to your email,” he tells me.
“Perfect. See you when you get back.”
Firing up the laptop, I only have to wait as long as it takes me to log in. With working remotely, I’d gone for fast, not cheap. Now, with the weight of finding Liv pressing down on all of us, getting heavier each minute we leave her swinging out there on her own, it’s a damn good thing I did. Patience is not a virtue in the brotherhood. My phone as a hotspot to connect with Wi-Fi, the computer screen soon fills with my email homepage and I click on the new email.
There it is, the goddamn file. I move the cursor and click to download. The thing is massive and despite the lightning-fast processor, takes longer to load than I’d like, which I had my way, would be instantaneous.
“Gah!” I slam my fist down on the table. The waiting is driving me nuts.
“Calm the fuck down,” Duke orders. “Ain’t gonna load faster because you throw a hissy-fit.”
He’s right. I know he’s right, but… “It’s easy to tell me to calm when it’s not your woman in the hands of a psychopath.”
Our prez walks over to clamp a hand on my shoulder, squeezing just enough to get me paying attention. “You were busy tending to business, so you don’t know. But it was. Know damn well you heard I took three bullets to save Doc and Peaches. I fuckin’ know. Boss fuckin’ knows. You ain’t alone in this. Now I will repeat, and I fuckin’ hate to repeat myself. Calm. The fuck. Down.”
Given the time it took for him to get me to pull my shit together, I look back to check the screen to check how much is left to load and notice the file is ready to open. I double click on the icon and video feed fills my screen.
Each video is timestamped in the lower left corner, which means something’ll finally go easier for us. Using the timestamp on the text Liv sent me the day she texted ruffled by her first confrontation with the man, I scan back and back until the date in question shows in the left-hand corner.
I bend in close, scanning every frame with scrutinizing eyes. No way is this bastard gonna get away because I don’t pay close enough attention. A large, black SUV—it looks like a Yukon—drives into frame and turns into a parking spot. Then a tall, broad-shouldered man with brown hair and wearing an expensive suit drops down from the driver’s seat. As he turns, a full brown beard comes into focus.
“Yes,” I hiss. This is it. Michael, the fuck.
“Got something, brother?” Sneak asks, peering over my shoulder.
“That’s him.”
Boss bends in to get a closer look. “Can you enlarge the truck? Get the plate?”
Finger to touchpad, I point the cursor on the license plate and click to zoom. The plate is somewhat distorted from zooming, but we’re pretty sure we got the number and I stand from the chair and offer it up to Blood. He’s a hack wizard. It’s one of the reasons, only one of the myriad, that he’s so damn good at tracking. It won’t take long before he hacks his way into the police mainframe; from there he’ll use their own software to run the numbers.
Watching as his fingers caress the keys at lightning speed, I feel a twinge of hope forming in my gut. It’s too soon, but damn. The man’s talented. No denying it.
At the same time Blood calls, “in,” Boss’s phone dings with a text and the bottom drops out of the whole god damned plan.
13.
Livvy
My eyes blink open and close several times before they finally stay open—only I have to squint. The brownish-orange light, what there is of it, is dim, filling in around the seam of the door. My head hurts so badly. As I bring my hand up to rub the spot where the pain seems to radiate from, my fingers rub against grit. I pick at the grit and bring it back to look at. Dark red and crusty. No, not grit. Scab. The whole back right lobe of my head is covered in a scab.
No wonder my head hurts. It’s probably a concussion. All my joints ache terribly. How long have I been out? I stand to stretch and get my bearings. Long side walls, short at the endcaps. Corrugated metal. A semi-truck bed? I don’t think so. A heavy sliding door lines the long right wall. So railroad car? Either way, the space is only wide enough to accommodate the dirty full-size mattress I’d woken up on.
I shudder to think what those large brown stains are actually from. He’d left me without a blanket and with no heat, so it’s chilly inside. So best guess, it’s nighttime out. Two buckets sit side by side, butted up against the left wall. When I walk over to peek inside, one is empty and one has water. Well, I figure I know what the empty bucket is for.
Not that it’ll do any good; I already know it won’t. But still, what kind of kidnap victim would I be if I didn’t at least try to escape? A few good tugs on the door, it doesn’t so much as creak or groan, let alone budge. It was worth a try. Surprisingly, unlike the first time I’d been taken, a calmness washes over me.
The first time I’d freaked when I woke up in that dark box filling with water. Freaked out until I realized if I didn’t conserve air, I’d screw myself even faster than he could by putting me there in the first place.
Maybe,
maybe I’m just done being scared.
I don’t know, who knows?
What I do know is when I move back over to the mattress, I stumble over a horseshoe-shaped piece of metal welded to the floor of the car. It’s oddly jutting out for no apparent reason. I pull on the horseshoe thing, hoping for a weak spot in the floor. There isn’t one.
Palms to eyes, I press and force myself to breathe slowly in and out. Think, think, think, Liv…
Okay. Gage will be looking for me. This, I know. The one person in my life I can always count on. Missing him, I roll myself up into a ball, continuing to breathe in and out to hold the calm and close my eyes without the pressure this time. The phantom smell of his cologne fills my nose.
“We’re going to St. Louis?” I ask, clasping my hands together. I’ve never been to St. Louis. The arch, it’s iconic. My dad has never taken us on a trip before. He’s gone on plenty, but this’ll be a first for me and Raif. “I can’t believe we’re going on a trip.”
My brother has a strange look to his face, and he opens his mouth to say something when the old man lumbers in smelling strongly of whiskey and perfume. Not his wife’s brand. My stepmom Misti’s scent smells smoky and flowery. I can’t describe it. But if I had to, I’d call it biker class. This perfume reeks of cheap. Biker cheap.
“Who’s goin’ on a trip?” my father asks.
Regressing to the nervous habit I’ve had since I was a kid, I twist and untwist the ends of a rope of my hair around my finger. He has this way of making me feel so small and stupid without ever calling me a name; just the way he says all the other words.
“Speak up,” my father chides. The asshole gets off on making me uncomfortable.
“I…uh…” I stumble and stutter.
“I… uh…” he teases me, changing his voice to a lower, derogatory, what he always calls “country bumpkin.” “Come on, girl. You dumb like your mother?”
Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea (Brimstone Lords MC 3) Page 11