by Diana Gardin
Sounds blend, whir, and then become more distinct before I ever open my eyes or realize I’m unconscious. Slowly, what I’m hearing clarifies, and I realize that someone nearby is sniffing. Someone’s crying, even though it’s so quiet it’s almost silent.
Why is someone crying? Who is it? Where am I?
The questions feel jumbled and broken as they fly through my head, coming at me like gunfire. My eyelids flutter, and I peel the top ones away from the bottom. My head roars in pain, the discomfort slamming into me so entirely that I snap them shut again.
Damn. That hurts.
A groan escapes without my permission, and my instincts kick into place too late. I go still, but the voice that greets me isn’t an enemy.
“GoGo? Oh, thank God.” The crying stops, replaced by the anxious and worried voice dripping with twang.
Prying my eyes open again, my focus swims until I find Frannie’s big eyes, glowing bright with fear, staring into mine.
I try to sit up straighter, ignoring the pain this time, and find I’m on a chair opposite Frannie. Her mascara is streaked down her face, her blond hair disheveled. But otherwise, she’s unhurt as far as I can see. Everything comes back to me as I blink once, twice.
“Fucking Hawke,” I spit. “Why’d he do this? Frannie, what happened while I was out?”
The look on Brandon’s face was full of remorse as he drove that car away. But he still did it, and I have to find out why before he or Eli shows up in this room.
The urgency in my tone makes Frannie’s eyes widen, but to her credit, she straightens and starts talking with clarity in her voice.
“I’m so, so sorry, GoGo. I never expected them to grab you too. How did this happen?”
Confused, I stare at Frannie. “Someone took you from the bar. I followed the car I saw Brandon Hawke get into. When I got here, they grabbed me too.”
Tears stream down Frannie’s face, and there’s real, stark fear standing in her eyes. “He found me, GoGo. I knew he would…I just thought I’d be able to run first.”
The blood drains from my face. “Frannie…what is your husband’s name?”
She swallows, spitting out the name like it tastes bad in her mouth. “Eli Ward. Brandon Hawke is his cousin. Only I never met him before and had no idea he lived here. If I had…How do you know Brandon?”
I close my eyes and hold a trembling hand to my forehead. Taking three deep breaths, I open them again and glance around. Cement floor, metal walls that hold no chance of escape.
The room isn’t very big, and there are boxes piled up on one side of it. Our two chairs and boxes, that’s all I can see. There’s a rolling door at one end, not as big as a garage door but made in the same style.
“Why did he bring us here?” Frannie’s voice is drained of emotion, almost like she’s resigned to whatever fate lies ahead of her.
I swear under my breath, looking at Frannie with a growing horror. “Fucking bastard. He was going to leave on the same ship as the cars. I bet he was going to take you with him. Frannie, Eli is a criminal. Do you know that? He runs a luxury car theft ring. The FBI has been after him for years.”
She glances away. “I’ve always known he doesn’t live on the right side of the law. I didn’t know about the cars, but…” She trails away. “I’m sorry you’ve been dragged into this, GoGo.”
“You didn’t drag me into anything. I was already in this, because my job led me here. I’m sorry you married the freaking devil.”
The remorse crawls through me with alarming speed, dragging through every part of my system and weighing me down. I allow myself a second to think of Lawson, to miss him, to wish Frannie and I had stayed at the apartment for a drink tonight instead of venturing out to the bar.
But that’s all the time I spare myself, because Lawson can’t help me now. Frannie and I are on our own, and I have to figure out how to get us out alive.
“What’s your real job?” Frannie asks the question like she doesn’t really want to know the answer, but needs the information to survive.
Which right now, she does.
I take a deep breath and look her in the eye. “I’m an undercover cop. And I’m part of the task force that’s been gathering evidence to bring Eli Ward down for good.”
24
LAWSON
Thirty fucking minutes.
Indigo’s been radio silent for half an hour. There’s a fist inside my stomach that’s been clenching and unclenching with increasing rapidness since she hung up on me. I haven’t heard from her again, even though I’ve called again and again since we last spoke.
Nothing.
What the fuck is going on?
Because I know her, and everything inside me is screaming that she went in alone. Her friend was in danger, and she never could have just sat back and waited. She’s proven that to me in the past.
Indigo doesn’t wait.
Sitting in the front seat of Thorn’s BMW, I slam a fist into the dash out of pure frustration.
“Man, stop. This is going to be okay, Sleuth. You hear me? We’re going to get her, and her friend, and then we’ll bring down the bastard who started all of this.”
Sayward’s voice comes through the speakers of Thorn’s car. “I can try to track her phone but if it’s off, it’s going to take a while.”
Thorn growls. “Yes. Keep us posted. Thanks, Sayward.”
Something in my blood is heating, spurring my actions in a way that’s pure instinct. There’s a reason my team calls me Sleuth, a reason I earned that name a long time ago in a desert across the world. Only now, I’m about to use my talent to find the woman I love, and this time…this time won’t end the way it did back then.
I’ll be damned if I let anything happen to Indigo. Not now…not ever.
Not this time.
My voice is steel. “We’re going to the Black Horse. I need to start there to figure out where that black sedan was headed. We’re going to find Indigo.”
“How long since you spoke to her?” Thorn’s tone is serious but cautious.
My teeth grind. “About forty-five minutes now.”
“Fuck.”
“I have to find her.” The edge in my voice sharpens to a razor.
Thorn’s silent for a minute, weaving down the dark and quiet roads with efficiency.
“You fell for her, didn’t you?” Thorn’s question is quiet, like he knows he’s treading on dangerous ground.
But Thorn doesn’t shy away from anything. If there’s a question that needs to be asked, he’ll ask. And this one’s important, for more reasons than the obvious one. Thorn wants to know if we’re looking for my partner, or if she’s more than that to me.
We’ve all seen the Rescue Ops team handle search and rescue for the women they love, and that kind of mission is a different animal than the usual kind. We work hard for every single one of our clients, would give our lives for them if necessary. But when the woman you love is out there, missing, possibly in the company of a monster…something inside you cracks. The team changes, morphs into something altogether different.
So I look Thorn in the eye when I answer him, and I expect him to take the information and act accordingly. “Yeah. I love her. She’s mine, and I’m bringing her home.”
He nods. “We’re bringing her home.”
He presses a button on the touchscreen on his dashboard, and Bain’s name comes up as the car dials his number.
“What?” Bain’s short bark as he answers is the usual from him.
Thorn pulls into the Black Horse parking lot. “Sleuth needs us all on standby. You should be hearing from Sayward soon. I’ll call you back shortly. Let Cowboy know.”
Bain grunts a response, and Thorn ends the call. He glances at the bar, then reaches into his glove compartment and pulls out his pistol.
“Let’s go.”
Heads turn toward us as we roll into the bar, but I let Thorn take it all in while I head straight for the tough-looking bartender standing be
hind the bar. He scans me as I approach, his mouth turning down behind his beard.
“You don’t look like you’re here for a drink.” His tone is gruff but casual, but I can see him watching Thorn out of the corner of his eye as he greets me.
I don’t bother wasting time. “I’m looking for my woman.” I don’t take my gaze from his face as I describe Indigo. “Long, dark hair and light brown eyes. Gorgeous face. Killer body. Inked up from head to toe. You seen her tonight?”
He leans back from the bar, arms folded across his chest. He assesses me, and I don’t know what he’s looking for exactly until he speaks again. “You a cop?”
I cock my head to one side. “Not a cop.”
He places both hands down on the counter and puffs out his broad chest. “I’ve known that girl since she was thirteen years old.” His voice is cold and hard. “She followed Brandon Hawke out of here tonight like her ass was on fire, and I’m only telling you this because you look like you can find that bastard and make sure she’s okay.”
Fuck. “Is Hawke a regular here?”
The bartender shakes his head. “Sometimes. He looked pretty interested in Indigo’s friend. Saw him chatting her up in the bathroom hallway.”
I scowl. “That’s all you know?”
He snarls. “That’s more than you knew before. Go find her.”
He turns away from me, heading toward the end of the bar where a customer calls for another drink.
I turn to Thorn. “You catch all that?”
His expression is grim. “Yeah. But Hawke’s supposed to be one of the good guys, right?”
I shake my head. “Yeah, but Indy said she saw him get into the car that she thought had Frannie. What would he want with her?”
Thorn’s expression turns to granite and ice, the only signal he’s about to go White Wolf on anyone in his path. “You ready to call in the boys?”
Nodding, I head for the door of the Black Horse. “Yeah. Tell them to meet us three blocks from Hawke’s garage.”
As individuals, we’re deadly enough. But as a team, we’re unstoppable. And as I look at the faces of the men I work with on a daily basis, the men I also call my brothers, I know without a doubt that we’ll bring Indigo home. The only question now is what condition she’ll be in when we find her, and my gut twists at the thought.
The four of us huddle in an alley a few blocks away from Hawke’s garage, and I look each of them in the eye in turn: Ben, who I’ve known the longest; Thorn, fellow SEAL; and Bain, the ex-Marine sniper I’d trust with my life.
“I don’t want Jacob to know about any of this. Not until I know more. I don’t know who to trust, and this isn’t a task force issue. Not yet. It’s a Delta Squad issue, and it’s just us for now. If that’s not cool with any of you, I get it. Jacob is our boss and our leader, and keeping him in the dark for any amount of time could put your job in jeopardy.”
Bain’s dark stare is unwavering. “Shut the fuck up, Sleuth, and tell us the plan. You think she’s in there?” He jerks his head in the direction of the street that leads to the garage.
I glance toward the street before meeting his cold eyes again. “I don’t know. All I know is that this is the next step leading to her. I go in alone—”
Ben swears and spits on the ground beside him. “Like fuck you go in alone.”
“Hawke knows me. He doesn’t know any of you. Maybe I can get more out of him if I’m on my own.”
Thorn shakes his head, the short blond strands glinting in the light from the alleyway. “I’m with Cowboy. Two go in. Two cover.”
True to his nature, Ben stands straighter. “I’m with you, Sleuth.”
I nod, tapping the earpiece Bain brought with him. The man tends to store equipment in his own mini-bunker, down in the basement of the house he owns out outside the city limits. I wasn’t surprised when he outfitted us with rifles, which we left in the cargo hold of his truck, and earpieces with a secure channel for us to communicate. There’s no telling what else he has with him.
“We’ll keep in touch through comms.”
Four nods, and then Ben and I are headed off down the alley toward the side street that will take us to the garage from the back. The place is dark as we approach, too late for business to be open. There are no lights showing in the windows of Hawke’s apartment up above the bays either.
“Dark,” Ben mutters aloud. “What now?”
I’m thankful for the sketchy location of the garage as we sidle around the side of the brick building and make our way toward the front garage bays. There’s no sound from inside, and something in my gut tells me that even if we break inside, I won’t find Indigo here.
“We go in.”
Five minutes later, we’re edging down the hallway leading from the garage bays to the back office. My flashlight beam bounces off the walls, and our feet don’t make a sound as we maneuver. The office door is closed and locked, and rather than wasting time with the lockpick that I used on the front door, one hard kick of my boot against the wood gets us inside.
Back here, where there are no windows to give us away from the outside, I switch on the light. And find the interior of the office completely torn apart.
The ratty furniture is overturned, couch knocked to the floor. Papers and writing utensils from the desk are strewn around the room, the drawers on the desk hanging open and askew. The room is a total fucking disaster.
“What the hell happened in here?” Ben’s voice breaks the stillness, quiet and subdued.
Dropping to a knee, I start rifling through the papers littering the floor. Utility bills, insurance forms.
A printed copy of a driver’s license catches my attention, half buried under a stack of bills.
It’s Frannie’s driver’s license, her photo smiling up at us from the page.
“Fucking hell,” I breathe, straightening with the paper in my hand.
“What?” There’s a note of curiosity in Ben’s voice, and I thrust the paper at his chest.
Ben curses just like I did. “What the fuck does this mean?”
I keep rifling through the papers on the desk until I come up with a flash drive. Inserting it into the computer on the desk, the screen lights up and a photo of Frannie comes up on the screen. I flip through the slide show, and there are at least a dozen pictures of Indigo’s friend, in various spots around the city. In front of her duplex, driving in her car, in front of the hospital where she works.
“The fucker was stalking her?” Thorn’s voice is nothing but a growl over my shoulder. “Why?”
Pacing the small space, I shake my head. “I don’t have a fucking clue. This is all connected to Frannie, not the cars. And Indigo just happened to get mixed up in it.”
Ben scans the room again, until his gaze stops on the pile of rubble on top of the desk. He grabs a paper buried halfway under some others. “This is a bill. For a storage facility down at the docks.”
He hands me the paper, and I read it thoroughly. The storage facility isn’t in Brandon Hawke’s name. The owner is a company I’ve never heard of before. “Bridgehall Automotive?”
My brain whirs. “If you were desperate enough to kidnap a woman, would you be stupid enough to take her to your house or a business you own?”
Ben shakes his head. “Nope.”
Darkness spreads inside me, because the more I think about Indigo alone with someone as desperate as Brandon’s got to be, someone she trusted and probably got the jump on her because of that trust…the more fear climbs up my throat.
“I wouldn’t either. But this storage locker? This might be exactly the place he would take her.”
Ben nods. “I agree.”
My earpiece crackles to life as Thorn’s voice weighs in. “So do I.”
I stride for the door. “Then let’s get the fuck out of here.”
25
INDIGO
“You’re a cop?”
Frannie’s eyes are full of doubt, of confusion. And…mistrust? “You�
��re a cop?”
I just stare at her, letting her know with my eyes that I wouldn’t lie to her about this. “I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you before, Frannie. The friendship, we’re developing…that’s real. I promise. But I’ve been on an undercover assignment and couldn’t tell you my real name or what I did for a living.”
She blinks. There’s silence, a silence so heavy I want to crack it with a hammer just to break through. “So are you and Logan together?” Her eyes cloud. “Wait…that’s not his real name either, is it? He’s a cop too?”
Shaking my head in frustration, I try to explain. “He’s not a cop, and his real name is Lawson. And no…we’re not married. We’re partners on this assignment. He works for the best private security firm on the East Coast, and they often do private contracts for the government. He was assigned to go undercover with me because we’re both members of the task force taking down the car theft ring.”
Frannie’s eyes roll skyward. “You’ve got to be kidding me. The first real friend I’ve made here in North Carolina and everything’s been a lie?”
I grit my teeth. “Are you even listening to me? Not everything.”
Frannie doesn’t respond for a moment. When she does, her tone is softer but anger and betrayal still flash in her eyes. And the way she’s looking at me now…like she doesn’t trust me.
Instead of looking at me, Frannie asks a question. “What are we supposed to do now? He’s going to come back eventually.”
I suck in a breath. “I know. And we’ll find out exactly what it is he wants.” I struggle with the zip ties binding my hands to the back of the chair. My feet are just as immobile, and when I glance at Frannie, I note that she’s tied up the same way.
“They took my weapons off me when I was unconscious. I can’t feel my gun or my knife.”
