Please let Cade be okay.
She didn’t know how long she filled the buckets, but when Tank came to tell them the fire was out, she collapsed against the counter beside T-Rex, soaked, sooty, and exhausted beyond belief. But she had only a moment of respite before Cade stalked into the kitchen.
“I thought I told you to take her home.” Cade rounded on poor T-Rex. “I give an order. I expect it to be obeyed. The Jacks are still outside. They got reinforcements through the northeast trail. I got enough to deal with and now I gotta worry about Dawn being here.”
“We needed all hands to put out the fire.” T-Rex swallowed but he didn’t back down. “We woulda lost the shed and all the weapons if it wasn’t for her idea to set up a fire line. We’d used up all the fire extinguishers and the hoses didn’t go out that far.”
“We’re fighting a damn war.” Cade cuffed T-Rex so hard, he staggered to the side. “You do what I fucking tell you to do or people die.”
“It was my decision.” Dawn pushed her way in front of Cade. “T-Rex wanted to take me home. I didn’t let him.”
“You’re half his fucking size,” Cade spat out. “If he wanted to take you home, there’s nothing you could do to stop him. I want you out of here. Now.” He gestured to Nick, who had just come in with the last of the buckets. “Take her home. Do what you gotta do to get the job done. If I see her here, or I find out she’s anywhere else, you’ll be picking your fucking teeth off the floor.”
*
“Oh my God. What are the police doing here?” Dawn slid off Nick’s bike and raced over to her house, glowing alternately red and blue from the lights of the two police cars parked out front. She ran up the sidewalk and hit Doug square in the chest as he stepped out her front door.
“Dawn! Thank goodness you’re okay. I heard a report of a break-in over the police radio and when I saw the address on the scanner I came right away. Where have you been?” His gaze drifted down her body, taking in her soaked hair, ruined dress, sooty skin, and bare feet. Too terrified to let her back in the house for her jacket and shoes, Nick had raced her out to his bike and ridden like hell was on his tail. It had been the coldest ride of her life.
“Party.” Her teeth chattered and consternation laced Doug’s brow. He slid off his jacket and wrapped it around her. “You look terrible. And cold. Who goes to a party without any shoes?” His gaze lifted and he spotted Nick on his bike across the street. “Oh, Dawn. You weren’t with the Sinners, were you?”
Shivering from the cold, and irritated by his patronizing tone, she pushed past him toward her house. “What happened here?”
“We got a call that your front door was ajar and one of your neighbors saw someone suspicious inside. I’ve been through the house and I have to say, I don’t think it was just an ordinary break-in. The intruder was looking for something.”
Dawn tapped the initials MD spray-painted in angry red on her front door. “Jimmy. And I’m guessing he was looking for me.”
Doug put an arm around her shoulders as she took a step forward. “Actually, I think he might have been looking for something else. Brace yourself. It’s not going to be easy to see.”
Now, that was understatement. Dawn stared at the destruction in her living room and kitchen, her breath catching in her throat. Every drawer had been opened and overturned; curtains were torn and cupboards emptied. Her bedroom had fared even worse: Clothes strewn across the floor. Ornaments cracked. Mattress slashed, and box spring broken. But it was the words scrawled across her dresser mirror in red lipstick, the handwriting sickeningly familiar, that sent her into the comfort of Doug’s arms.
WHERE IS THE FUCKING MONEY?
“Hey. It’s okay.” Doug ran his hand down her back. “We’ll catch him. On the bright side, someone must have scared him away because the rest of the rooms are untouched.”
“It’s definitely Jimmy.” She lifted her head, taking a breath to banish the almost cloying scent of his cologne. “I know his handwriting. But I don’t know what this is all about. I don’t know anything about any money.” She grabbed some clothes from the floor and excused herself to change, tugging on a pair of yoga pants and a hoodie before joining Doug in the hall and handing him back his jacket. “I need some fresh air.”
“Of course.” Doug placed a hand on her lower back and guided her out the door. He stopped to speak to the two police officers examining a set of footprints in the garden beneath her broken living room window, and then joined her on the front step. “Is there anything that might help us? Do you think this might have to do with your new biker friend?”