Chapter 4 #2
Brandt set a manila folder on the table and opened it.
Inside was a grainy, black-and-white photograph, clearly pulled from a security camera.
X leaned in. The image showed a parking lot at night, a white two-tone truck that had to be at least forty years old, and two figures running toward it—a woman with a guitar case, and a man with long dark hair and a beard. A huge black dog sat at the man’s feet.
“What the fuck?” River surged forward and snapped it up. “That’s Rainey.”
“Yes,” Brandt said. “This was taken last night, approximately 2300 hours. The Dead Marshall, forty miles northwest of Solace.”
“Last night—” River’s voice came out wrong, stripped of all the joy that had been in fifteen minutes ago. He braced both hands on the table edge. “She was here? Forty miles from here, and I had no idea—”
X took the photo from River’s hand and squinted at it. “Is that… Cole?”
Brandt placed a second printout on the table. A BOLO with Evander Cole’s name in bold, along with his truck’s description and his plates. “At approximately 2245, there was an altercation. A man was killed. John ‘Rux’ Granger, president of the Sons of Sin California chapter.”
“No mames?” X blurted.
“Jesus,” Boone said softly at the same time.
“Cole was identified as the assailant. According to witness statements, he attacked Granger without provocation, stabbed him with Granger’s own knife, and forcibly removed a female witness—your sister—from the premises.
” Brandt’s gaze stayed on River’s face. “Every person inside that bar gave the same account.”
“Bullshit,” Walker said. “Absolute bullshit. Evander doesn’t do anything without a reason. And he sure as hell doesn’t kidnap women.”
“Regardless of the truth, that is the story being told.” Brandt tapped the BOLO. “This went to every agency in the state within two hours. Cole’s wanted for murder and kidnapping. Your sister’s listed as a victim.”
River’s hands curled into fists on the table. The tendons stood out, the knuckles went white. The jokes were gone. The motion was gone. What was left was raw, and it scared the shit out of X to see it.
“My sister is not a victim,” River said.
“We don’t know anything for sure yet. Rainey’s truck was found three miles from the bar,” Brandt went on. “Out of gas. Her phone, wallet, backpack, clothes. Her guitar was missing—whatever happened, she carried it with her.”
River made a sound then, low and broken, and X felt it in his own chest. He set down the photo and put a steadying hand on his best friend’s back. “Easy, ese.”
“Traffic footage shows Cole’s truck heading east into the mountains,” Brandt said. “Not west toward Valor Ridge. He took her deeper into the backcountry, not toward help.”
“Why?” River’s voice cracked. “Where the fuck is he taking her?”
“We were hoping one of you would have some insight, since Cole was a resident here.”
“For only two days, eight years ago.” Boone uncrossed his arms and stepped forward, his boots heavy on the wood floor.
“He’d just gotten out of prison—court-martialed, served five years for disobeying a direct order that got his entire team killed.
Walker offered him a place here. He showed up, stayed two nights, and then he was gone. I couldn’t convince him to stay.”
“Where did he go when he left here?” Brandt asked.
“He bought property at the edge of Valor Ridge land,” Walker answered.
“A cabin, off-grid, up in the mountains. It flooded this spring—the creek jumped its banks and took out half the foundation. He stayed in a cabin here at the ranch for a couple weeks while he rebuilt, but we didn’t see much of him even then.
He hasn’t been back since. That was months ago. ”
“Does anyone know where he is now?” Brandt asked.
Boone shook his head. “No. He doesn’t keep in touch.”
“Greta might,” Bear spoke up. The big man didn’t say much, so when he had something to say, everyone listened.
“She’s…” He hesitated as if searching for the right word.
“I wouldn’t call them friends, but he’s friendlier with her than anyone else.
She’s used him as a backcountry guide for clients she couldn’t take herself.
And you all saw him this spring, when she was going through all that shit.
He showed up for her. So he might have told her. ”
“She around? Can I talk to her?” Brandt asked.
Bear shook his head. “She’s out on a kayaking trip and isn’t due back until the day before the wedding.”
River turned to Brandt, and X saw the desperation in his eyes—the kind of desperation that made men do stupid things. “We have to go after them. Now. Tonight. Rainey’s out there with a killer, and we’re standing here talking about property lines and flood damage.”
“River.” Brandt’s voice was calm, but there was steel underneath it.
“I understand you’re scared for your sister.
But a careless search could lead the Sons of Sin directly to her.
The club has placed a cash bounty on Evander Cole’s head, and they’ve ordered every Montana charter to find your sister.
If we go charging into the mountains with half the ranch, we might as well light a flare. ”
“So why are you involved, Brandt?” Jax asked. “A murder in a bar doesn’t seem like a case for the marshals.”
“It wouldn’t be normally, but Rainey Beckett is one of two federal witnesses in an ongoing RICO investigation.
We’ve lost touch with the other witness—a woman named Sylvie Granger, Rux Granger’s estranged daughter—and we presume she’s dead.
So the Sins have every incentive to silence Rainey before she can testify. ”
X felt the room tilt. Federal witness. RICO. Sons of Sin. This wasn’t just a family emergency—this was a goddamn war, and Rainey Beckett was standing in the middle of it with nothing but a guitar.
River’s hands were shaking. X wanted to reach out again, to say something, to do anything that would make this less terrible. But there was nothing to say. Nothing that would help.
“Where do we start?” River asked, and his voice was raw, stripped down to nothing. “Tell me where to start, and I’ll go. I’ll go alone if I have to.”
“You’re not going alone.” Boone’s voice cut through the room, low and certain. “We’ll figure this out. But we do it smart, not fast. Fast gets people killed.”
River turned on him, and for a second, X saw something in River’s face he’d never seen before—something wild and desperate and barely contained.
“That’s my sister out there, Boone. My little sister.
She’s been gone out of my life for nine years, and I finally had a chance to see her again, and now some psycho has her in the mountains, and you want me to be smart? ”
“Yes.” Boone didn’t flinch. “Because being stupid won’t bring her back. It’ll just get you killed too.”
The room went quiet. X watched River’s chest heave, watched the fight drain out of him, watched him fold in on himself like a house collapsing.
Gemma moved then, crossing the room to stand beside River, her hand finding his.
She didn’t say anything. She just stood there, solid and warm, and X felt a strange twist in his chest—something like envy, something like grief.
“We’re coordinating with local law enforcement,” Brandt said, breaking the silence. “But not Sheriff Goodwin. His office is compromised—we have reason to believe the Sons have reach inside it.”
“Of fucking course,” Ghost muttered.
A murmur went through the crowd, and someone muttered, “November can’t come fast enough,” referring to the upcoming election for sheriff in which Ghost’s fiancée Naomi Lefthand was on track to trounce Goodwin.
“I’ve already talked to Naomi and alerted the tribal police.
We’ll work through the federal task force, but that takes time.
Boone, you know Cole better than anyone here.
I need you to tell me everything you remember about him—his patterns, his habits, where he might go to ground.
Walker, I need you to reach out to your contacts, see if anyone’s heard anything. And River—”
Brandt paused, and when he spoke again, his voice was softer. “I need you to stay here. I need you to let us do our jobs. Can you do that?”
River didn’t answer. He was staring at the photograph on the table, at the grainy image of his sister standing beside a stranger, and X knew he wasn’t hearing a word Brandt said.
“I’m going to his cabin. The one on the north ridge.”
“Riv—” Boone started, but River pinned him with a hard stare.
“I’m going.”
“Not alone.”
“Then come with me, but you’re not stopping me.” With that, he strode out, and the screen door banged shut as he pushed out.
Gemma winced and glanced over at X. “Go with him?”
“Yeah.” He was already planning on it, even before she asked.