Chapter 31
Evan’s words jar me out of my heart-pounding haze as I round the corner to the backside of Truck’s bungalow. “There’s no way someone grabbed her out of that house with Truck?—”
Truck catches up to us and interrupts Evan. “I was on the phone. As you can see, the window doesn’t have bars. We shouldn’t rule it out.”
The three of us go into tracking mode and scan the ground.
I drop to my haunches, brushing my fingers over the strange sandy soil that makes up Vandemora’s landscape. “I got a print over here. Right size for her. Barefoot.”
I stare at the little mark, it’s smaller than my hand. “Why the hell would she be barefoot?”
“Got some over here. Boot-tread. These are too big to be hers,” Evan says from the corner of the building.
Truck stalks toward the woods, working his gaze back and forth over the ground. “You’re right, she was barefoot. Here’s another print. I remember thinking it was odd that she was barefoot. She didn’t have any shoes when she came to my place. I figured she had them in her pack.”
I stand up and scan the edge of the woods with a crazy, twitchy energy pulsing through me. “She must have forgotten her boots when she left with you. I saw them by the door in my place. Where is her pack now?”
“I’ll check to see if it’s inside.” Truck limps off, heading around to the front of his rental.
I’m forcing myself to analyze everything instead of running off thrashing through the woods like a madman.
Every second counts. I can’t make the mistake of going in the wrong direction.
Evan walks closer to the edge of the woods, slowly inspecting the ground as he goes. “Whether she left on foot, or under duress, they would have to go through the woods. I think we would have seen them otherwise.”
I grunt and drop down to look at the prints Evan found. A man’s prints, made from a large boot with an aggressive tread. Like a combat boot. Something one of my men, or an armed rebel might wear.
Cold sweat rises on my neck.
“So, Scout has suspect number one with him. You saw suspect number two in town just a few moments ago. It would be hard for him to get here and have time to do this. That means, this could be another party…” I curse, “Goddamn. Even the rebels.”
Evan moves to stand beside me and clamps my shoulder with a firm hand. “Those dudes are pretty reckless. I can’t see them sneaking behind this bungalow. How would they even know where she was?”
Think, Lucas. You’ve got to have your focus dialed.
“The only way is if they were watching us…”
I stride around to the front of the bungalows and look for places where someone could have been hiding, someplace with an elevated view.
The trees are dense and the small houses are protected from view from the hillsides.
Truck emerges from his bungalow with Camile’s backpack. “She didn’t take this.”
A cold tendril of fear slides down my throat. “I don’t think she’d leave without that.”
“Unless she was planning on coming back,” Evan says.
I look at him with my pulse throbbing in my temples. He’s trying to keep my head level. It’s not working. “Something fucked up is going on.”
Scout must have heard the ruckus because he comes out to the courtyard. “What’s wrong?”
I scrub my hand over my eyes. “Camile’s gone.”
His face creases into a hard mask. “How?”
“The window of Truck’s place. But she’s barefoot and her pack is here.”
Scout scans our faces as he processes these new revelations. “Is she in the wind or did someone grab her?”
“I’m guessing in the wind.” God, it fucking pisses me off to say that.
He swings his eyes around, taking in the entire scene around us. “I don’t like this.”
With a red fog clouding my vision, I clench my hands. “She’s a wildcard. I can’t tell you what she’d do.”
Evan pipes up. “I think you’re right. The odds of someone grabbing her from here are low. They’d have to have balls of fucking titanium to grab someone from the midst of our encampment.”
My voice comes out rough as I fight through the debris inside my head. “The facts are Camile was upset. Her job might be gone. It’s obvious she takes that seriously. So, she might be trying to handle this. I should have helped her deal with that first, instead of being all fired up, set on scaring that asshole mindless. He could have waited.”
Truck looks disturbed. “Uh, guys. I have a feeling I didn’t help this situation.”
“How’s that?” I ask as a storm of weird energy plays out behind his hard gaze.
“I was kind of shaking her down.”
The red haze in my field of view turns into a storm cloud bursting with deadly lightning. My words come out low, feral, and full of all that crackling energy. “What the fuck?”
“You said you thought she was hiding something. I don’t appreciate her deceiving you. I tried to get her to show her cards.”
The air—even though we are outdoors—goes dead silent. Not even a bird or a bug dares make a sound. As I glare at my friend, my long-time teammate, I fight for control.
“Fucking hell.”
Something inside me snaps. I lunge at Truck.