A phone rang. “Go, Greer.” Kit and Angel walked into their room.
“A man called in a report to the Colorado State Patrol about a woman who waved him down on Highway 70 east of Denver. He said she was crying and acting odd. He saw two white vans on the opposite side of the road. Didn’t see license plate numbers, but said there were several men with her. When he asked the girl if she needed help, she said no and apologized for flagging him down, that it was just a college joke. He didn’t buy it, but either way, thought the cops ought to know about it. The girl matches Fiona’s description. They said she kept rambling about someone named Kelan.”
Kelan felt the muscles in his entire body tighten. She’d been where he and Angel just were. So whoever took her hadn’t separated her from her necklace—at that point, anyway. “When was that, Greer?”
“About two hours ago.”
“So about the time her necklace started pinging,” Kelan said.
“Yeah. We’ve been watching for those vans to cross the border. They haven’t yet. We have the State Patrol looking for them. Max is on his way to visit Pete. And Rocco just got back from Cheyenne. He found out from Yusef that Jafaar is supposedly in Denver. And this next thing may not have anything to do with Fiona, but it’s something else.”
Kelan and Angel exchanged looks.
Greer continued, “Lobo says there’s some buzz going through the sex traffickers about a big transaction happening. In Denver. This weekend. It’s not his investigation, so his boss isn’t sharing deets. Owen is pulling some strings to get more info.”
Kelan’s heart dropped. Thousands of people in the U.S. alone disappeared without a trace each year, many of them sucked into the sex-trafficking trade. And those were people without the enemies he had. Fiona could be anywhere in the world by now.
“If any of this has something to do with Fiona,” Greer said, “and we don’t know that it does, why her? They gotta know they’re starting a war by taking one of our own.”
“Maybe they anticipated exactly how we’d react,” Blade said, his voice a little farther from the phone. “Fiona’s abduction has made us shift gears, take our eyes off other aspects of King’s operation. It’s brilliant, really.”
Kelan had to bite back his visceral response to Blade. It wasn’t fucking brilliant, but he had to admit it was a good strategy.
“So what are we missing?” Angel asked. “What’s the bastard up to that he’s covering by shifting the clamshells?”
Kit shook his head. “Greer, if Owen’s successful at getting more info out of the FBI, dig into whatever he gets, see what you can find from the backend that might help us tonight. The rest of you see what the players from Bladen’s ledger and Greer’s spider chart are up to. Find the patterns,” Kit ordered.
Kelan put his weapons on the dresser, then stripped to his black boxer briefs. He was on his way to the shower when Kit came back into the room.
“Hey,” Kit said. “We ordered you a Caesar salad with double chicken.”
“I’m not hungry.”
Kit wasn’t happy with that response.
“What I need isn’t food,” Kelan said before Kit argued. “It’s quiet so that I can sit and listen.”
“If you think you can face what we’re heading toward weakened from not eating, then you might as well go on back to Blade’s, feel me?”
Kelan nodded. “I’ll eat.”
He went for the shower, wondering if Fiona was being fed. Had she been given water? Was she in pain? Afraid? He needed the silence so that he could feel her.
Why, why had they taken her? Was it a coincidence they’d nabbed her on her birthday weekend?
Chapter Three
Max stood in Pete’s apartment over the White Kingdom Brotherhood’s clubhouse. Of course the WKB prez wasn’t alone. Two women were in bed with him, naked and wasted like he was. None of them even knew he was there. He hauled Pete up over his shoulder and took him outside. The clubhouse had shut down a while ago. The September night was cold, so the guys had scattered to crash wherever they could find a warm bed.
Feral was the only one awake and keeping an eye out for the WKB’s president. That kid would take a bullet for his club. Too bad his club didn’t give a good goddamn about him.
Feral was standing by the bed of the truck Max had hot-wired. “Jesus, Mads. That’s the fucking president. What’re you doing’?”
“Taking him for a little convo.” He met the kid’s eyes. “You gotta problem with that?”
“You gonna kill him?” Feral asked.
“Not yet.”
“What’s goin’ on, Mad Dog?”
“A war, Feral.”
Feral rubbed his nose, shuffling his weight from one foot to the next. “Whatever. A war.” He shrugged.
Max looked at him and wondered if he’d ever known a world not at war. There’d been very little peace in the kid’s life—living with the WKB was like being in a constant war zone of sorts.
“You know I’m on your side,” Feral said.
“You don’t even know what my side is.”
“I know you’re solid. S’all I need to know.”
Max met his look then nodded. Pete wasn’t getting any lighter. He dumped him in the back of the truck. “Don’t worry about Pete. I’ll leave him the truck so he can drive back.”
Feral nodded, sniffled, then shoved his hands in his jeans pockets.
Max drove Pete to the overlook where he and Hope had shared a beer. Val had parked one of the team’s SUVs a little farther down the road. The big blond helped Max get Pete strung up on the large outcropping overlooking the ravine. The cool air and cold granite helped Pete begin to rouse from his nightly blackout.
Max nodded at Val, giving him the signal to wait out of sight. Max cracked open a plastic bottle and dribbled water over Pete’s face. Took half the bottle, but Pete finally gasped. When he opened his eyes and looked around, his hands scrabbled for a hold on the rough surface of the rock.