Chapter 6
LEIF
"I'll get it," I said, rolling off the bed.
"You're not answering the door naked," Woody said. He snatched up my pants from the floor and threw them at me.
I absolutely would have answered the door naked, but I pulled on my pants to humor him, and strode over to the door. I eased it open and peered through the gap.
Forrest stood outside, looking impatient.
I unbolted the door and opened it slowly. "Oh good, it looks like our food order arrived."
Forrest carried a bag in each hand.
"Ha fucking ha," he said sarcastically. He shoved past me and into the apartment.
"Did you find out anything?" I asked, keeping my voice low.
"As a matter of fact…” He placed the bags on the kitchen counter and started to pull out containers and smaller bags.
"Are you going to share?" I asked.
"Where are Woody and Sable?" He glanced toward the bedroom as they both appeared.
Unfortunately, Sable had also taken the time to get dressed. She looked adorable in her bright pink leggings, black t-shirt and hastily combed hair.
"Did you find her?" Sable asked.
Forrest rubbed a weary hand over his jaw. "No, I'm still working on that. I found out who our murder victim was though."
"Which one?" I grinned. We had quite the collection adding up behind us. I'd lost count a long time ago. No doubt Forrest was keeping a tally. Woody too, probably. I was in this for the justice, not the statistics.
"Who was it?" Woody opened a box of sushi and pulled out a slice before stuffing it into his mouth.
"His name was Addison Chambers." Forrest took the box from Woody and offered it to Sable. "Does the name ring a bell?"
She took a piece of sushi and nibbled at the side. "No, should it?"
"Potentially." Forrest said. "He played clarinet for an orchestra in which a couple of young women mysteriously disappeared over the time he was there."
Sable's face paled. "You think he had something to do with kidnapping them? You think he tried to take Savannah too?"
"I think it's possible," Forrest agreed. "Clearly he didn't take her. He was too dead for that."
"No, someone killed him before he could." I scratched the inside of my elbow. "Someone wanted to stop him from taking her?"
Forrest sighed. "I suspect there's more to it than that. Someone else wanted to take her instead."
Sable looked like she was going to be sick.
"What else?" I asked. "Whoever that was on the phone said to pay attention to everything. I'm guessing they left a clue behind."
"In a manner of speaking," Forrest agreed. "The knife in his chest had no fingerprints on it. It was clean, too clean."
I leaned my elbows on the counter. "They definitely wanted us to pay attention."
"Yeah, who the fuck are they though?" Woody asked. He grabbed another piece of sushi. Apparently, this conversation wasn't adversely impacting his appetite.
"That's what we need to find out," Forrest said. "I had our people do a thorough search of Savannah's apartment and they found a few interesting things."
He dug into his pocket and pulled out a couple of tiny plastic cameras barely the size of the tip of my little finger. Hiding them would have been easy.
"Someone was watching her."
"Oh my god." Sable glanced around, searching for more cameras like these.
"It seems so." Forrest placed them down on the counter. "They haven't been able to trace them back to anyone, but someone put them there. Their guess was they were there for less than a week.'"
"Someone was watching while Sable was in her apartment," I said. The sudden urge to find them and stab them in the neck was strong. They were watching our woman, and we had no idea.
"This is getting weird," Woody said. "Someone called Sable over to her place where there were cameras. Let me guess. Savannah and Sable were supposed to disappear." He sounded as angry as I felt.
"If we weren't locked out on the roof," I started slowly, "that might have been the outcome."
"Lock us up there and take them both," Woody said, "But Sable left the apartment to help us before they could take her."
"Why would they do that?" Sable whispered. "I'm just…"
"Beautiful, smart and sweet, not to mention sexy as hell. If I was going to buy a woman, you'd be it." I didn't mean that to sound as fucked up as it did, but here we were.
"Thanks, I think." She placed her half-eaten sushi down on the lid of the container and stepped back. "If they took her, then…" She shook her head.
I stepped over and placed my hands on her shoulders, pressing my chest against her back. "We'll find her before anything can happen to her." I wish I could add the words 'I promise,' but these people didn't tend to waste much time.
"So we know who Addison Chambers was," Woody said. "Assholes like him always have connections."
"Yes, they do, and we are working on finding them," Forrest said. "He was a long way down the chain." He hesitated.
"What?" Woody snapped.
"One of my contacts suspected he was an undercover cop," Forrest said. "My suspicion is he was close to uncovering what was really going on."
Sable swung around, almost making me stumble.
"He was there trying to save her." She closed her eyes and rubbed the heel of her hand across her forehead. "If we were there sooner…"
"We don't know what might have happened," Forrest said firmly. "Whoever killed him might have killed all of us. They might have taken you anyway. Tried. We won't let that happen."
"Of course we won't." I slid my arms around her, pulling her back to me and holding her close.
"No one but us is touching you." Especially now I'd had a taste of her.
The way her pussy clenched around my cock was nothing short of addictive.
The connection between us, undeniable. I'd never felt about anyone the way I felt about her.
It was too late to think 'if I'm not careful, I'll fall for her.
' I already had. I was all the way in with this woman, literally and figuratively.
"Agreed," Forrest said. "We'll do whatever we have to do to keep you safe."
"What about Savannah?" she asked. "We can't let them take her and do nothing."
"You know…" Woody said slowly.
"No," I said immediately.
"You didn't let me finish." We both knew what he was about to say. "This might be the only way to get her friend back."
Woody shrugged. He picked up the container of sushi and stepped away to finish it off.
"What might be the only way?" Sable asked. She looked over her shoulder at me.
"Setting a trap for them," I said. "Using you as bait."
"Oh." her shoulders slumped. "If that's what it takes."
"See, she's willing," Woody said.
"This isn't just up to her," I said. If we refused to go along with this, that would be the end of it, whether she and Woody liked it or not.
Forrest looked thoughtful. He hadn't given his opinion one way or the other, which made me nervous as hell. When Forrest decided on a course of action, there was nothing we could do to stop him from seeing it through. If he agreed we should do this…
"We make a plan," Forrest said.
I stared at him. "You can't be serious. I'm usually the one with the bad jokes."
"This isn't a joke," Forrest said.
"It absolutely is." I kept my arms around her like I could protect her from him and his bad decisions. "You'd honestly risk her?"
"I'll do it to get Savannah back," Sable whispered. "If it's the only way… I don't want to spend the rest of my life wondering what happened to her, thinking there was something I could do and I didn't do it."
"Sable is right," Woody said. "No one wants to live that way." His eyes glazed as he thought back to his missing sister. If anyone knew what it was like to endure it, it was him.
I felt sorry for him. I did. His situation sucked, but to risk Sable? That was crazy talk.
"We have the resources," Forrest said.
Fuck.
I knew that tone. That was his 'this decision has been made, and we'll be moving forward with it,' tone. The same one he used in court when he passed judgement and sentencing. His decision was final. No appeal would be considered.
I let her go and stepped back. "For the record, this is absolutely nuts. There has to be an alternative."
"If you can think of one, I'm listening," Forrest said. "These people knew the cops were onto them. They had no qualms about killing one of them. They're ruthless. So are we."
"Yeah, we are, but we're usually not stupid," I said.
"We're not going to be stupid now." Forrest's voice was perfectly even in spite of the exhaustion on his face. "We'll plan everything carefully and execute it like we always do."
"That's the word I'm worried about," I said, waving a finger at him. "Execute. You know they won't mind killing us if we get in their way, right?"
"If you're scared, you can sit this out," Forrest said.
Great. Of course, he'd hit me right in the ego. The one place he knew to aim to get me to do what he wanted.
"I'm not scared," I argued. "I haven't been scared a day in my life. I just think this is a bad idea."
"Then help us plan it so we don't fuck it up," Forrest said.
"You're not giving me a choice, are you?" Was I thinking about going along with this? Did I have a choice? They were going to do it with or without me. If they did it without me, chances were they'd miss something. Possibly something important. Even if it was something small, it could be vital.
If I sat out, they might get themselves killed.
If I didn't sit out, I could get myself killed, but what the hell?
We'd done dumber things in the past. I couldn't think of any right now, but no doubt there were some.
As meticulous as we were, we were more or less only human. Some of us more than others.
Yes, I'm referring to Woody. I love the guy, but he has his moments.
Setting fire to a house with Sable in it, for example.
Not that I thought for a minute he'd let her die.
He had a sadistic streak a mile wide and a very strange sense of humor.
Not to mention an enjoyment of setting things on fire.
Honestly, that house needed to be torn down anyway. If Woody off on the method of destruction, where was the harm? Sable got herself out before he got her. Lucky for him, or he would have been next. If he did anything like that again, I was going to choke the living shit out of him.
Fortunately for everyone, he seemed to have calmed down when it came to her. For now at least. He still shot daggers at her with his eyes, but I suspected that was because he couldn't deal with the fact he was falling for her, not because he didn't like her.
Woody was a complicated dude at best. Not to mention, slightly psychotic. Although, who standing in this room wasn't? I liked to make leather out of the skin of our victims.
Some would suggest that was a little unhinged.
Personally, I got enjoyment out of it, and it kept me busy and creative.
Everyone needs a creative outlet of some kind.
Making leather, and designing houses were mine.
I wouldn't judge other people for their unusual hobbies.
As long as they didn't hurt anyone who didn't deserve it, which of course I wouldn't.
That was why I'd agree to help them find Savannah. She was innocent in all of this. If we could get her back without any harm to Sable, then we owed it to her to try. What was the worst that could happen? We'd die in the process.
Goodie.
In case you didn't realize, that was sarcasm.
"Where do we start?" I said with a sigh.