Chapter 11
eleven
. . .
FINN
Over the next few days, I threw myself into work, doing everything I could to move past recent events.
To forget Reagan’s reappearance in my life.
Even if she came back to Dusk Valley, it wouldn’t be for me. It would be to find out what happened to her sister, and I wouldn’t stand in her way. I wouldn’t be a distraction she didn’t need.
Instead, I’d do everything in my power to ensure we found her sister alive—and brought the fucker who had taken her to justice.
Trying, of course, was different than doing, and no amount of working with the horses currently boarded in the barn or feeding the various ranch animals managed to turn my mind away from the Lindsey sisters.
West and I joined the Army because while neither of us had any desire to go to college, we both had delusions of grandeur where our places in the world were concerned. We’d been reckless—and nearly broke Mama’s heart the day we signed our contracts.
Those first four years passed in a blink, and somehow, inexplicably, we liked it.
Liked the structure, the training, the men and women we served with.
The service had shaved off the edges of our recklessness, uncovering our natural protective instincts and honing us into weapons instead of agents of chaos.
So we extended another two years.
At the tail end of that extension, we were approached to consider joining the Rangers.
Twenty-four years old and they wanted us to join one of the most elite military forces in the world?
The choice had been easy.
Maintaining physical fitness for the normal Army branch had been difficult but nothing compared to the shit we’d faced for the Rangers.
We’d pushed our bodies to the brink, endured sleep deprivation, and were subjected to the advanced interrogation techniques we’d later use on enemy prisoners.
Ranger training had been grueling mentally as well.
All that to say, there was some deep-seated part of me that, as a Lawless, had always demanded I protect those around me. Those weaker, less fortunate, anyone who found themselves down on their luck and in need of saving.
Being a soldier only rooted that desire deeper.
And Reagan was a textbook damsel in distress, signaling for my help. The beast in my chest perked up like she’d given off a distress signal I couldn’t ignore.
The following Tuesday, four days after I’d last seen Reagan and a week after the last time anyone had seen or heard from Lainey, I was damn near coming out of my skin from feeling so fucking useless.
I took off my hat and wiped a sweaty and dirt-streaked forearm across my equally sweaty and dirty face, doing nothing but spreading both further around.
It had been a long ass day in the fields, making sure crops had been planted properly and were surviving.
All hands had been on deck, pulling any that hadn’t survived.
As we sold quite a bit of the corn, wheat, and soybeans, both to other outfits and in other products such as Mama’s line of homemade soaps, lotions, and candles, West, our foreman Abel, and I were unyielding in the quality of what we grew.
I clicked my tongue, and Raider trotted over, abandoning the patch of grass he’d been munching on.
He was wholly in his element out here, content to roam around, though never too far from me.
He was my soul horse, a bond we’d developed over the years that was the strongest connection I’d ever had with a living thing besides my twin.
As usual, I was the last one in the field, the rest of the workers having disappeared back to their homes and families hours ago. But the sun was going down, and a quick check of my watch told me it was nearly eight p.m.
Damn, later than I’d intended.
I’d thrown my leg over Raider and settled into the saddle when my phone vibrated against my ass. Shifting, I withdrew it from my pocket and found Lane’s name on the readout.
“Yo.”
“You home?” he asked.
“Headed that way,” I said, collecting Raider’s reins in one hand and digging my heels into his sides, turning us around to head back to my house.
We had a barn with plenty of stalls for boarding him, but when I’d built my own home years ago, I also constructed a smaller barn with stalls for four more horses. I liked having Raider nearby, making it easier to get up and go should the need arise.
Sure, I had a truck, but in my opinion, there was no better way to navigate my family’s land than on horseback.
At the edge of my property was my guest house, about a hundred yards from mine. It rarely got much use, mostly from Owen when he and his wife, Delia, came to visit—though they hadn’t been to town since their son, Jace, was born last November.
Lately, Aria had been staying there more and more often, though.
Some nights, I’d come home after a long day and find the lights on inside.
I’d invite her over for dinner as a way of keeping an eye on her.
While I knew she loved our mother and all six of us boys, I couldn’t imagine how difficult it was for her to be not only the baby of the family, but also the only girl.
Instead of growing up with a dad, she’d gotten six alpha-male, overprotective father figures in the form of her big brothers.
But she wasn’t a little girl anymore, and I got the sense that Aria had been looking for a way out for a long time.
If staying in my guest house gave her a little taste of the freedom she so desperately craved, I was happy to be the one to provide that to her.
I gave Raider his head as we trotted toward home.
“I need a favor,” Lane said, reminding me I was on the phone with him.
Warily, I asked, “What kind of favor?”
“You, West, Trey, the Swallow.”
“Shit, Sheriff. You askin’ me to get drunk?” I teased. I’d been in this position a few times before, and I knew it seriously irked my brother to have to ask for help. There was nothing I loved more than knocking him further off balance.
Lane huffed in annoyance, knowing he’d have to give me more information than that. “I need you to ask around about Lainey Lindsey.”
“You got a lead?” I asked, breathless with…hope? I couldn’t entirely name it. All I knew was when Raider crested the hill, the downside leading to a little hollow where my house, barn, and small paddock were located, I felt weightless.
Maybe Lainey’s story wouldn’t end here in Dusk Valley after all.
“Kind of?” he said, though it sounded more like a question. “Before she left, Reagan let me know Lainey had a rental car, and she handed over all of Lainey’s personal effects she found in her hotel room, and—”
“Did you do a sweep?”
I could practically see Lane’s eyes roll through the phone.
“Did I do my job? Yes, Finn, we did a fucking sweep. Sent all the results up to the crime lab in Boise, and we’re still waiting on results.
Not likely anything will pop since it’s not like those housekeepers exactly sterilize those rooms, but we have to exhaust every option. ”
“So what’s this ‘kind of’ lead, then?”
“We haven’t managed to locate Lainey’s phone, and it’s looking like her ID and credit cards being on that dead girl were a fluke. Likely a theft kind of situation. But her laptop was in her motel room, and I also sent that up to Boise—”
“Let me guess, Addie?”
Addison “Addie” Caldwell was an FBI agent who worked out of the Boise field office. Over the years, she and Lane had developed a close working relationship—though our entire family often wondered if it went beyond that.
But then there was that inexplicable thing between him and Sutton Rausch that always made us question if there was more to that relationship than met the eyes.
Whatever.
Not my monkey, not my circus.
“Yes,” he said grudgingly.
“And?” I prompted.
“Her phone is turned off, but the last place it pinged was right outside the Swallow. We also found her rental car in the lot. Whoever took her, took her from there.”
“That bar really needs to increase its exterior security,” I gritted out. “Hire a fucking guard or something.”
“You’ll get no argument from me.”
Last year, right around this same time, Aspen was abducted right outside the Swallow too and held captive for a full day at a remote cabin in the woods before her assailant left her to die in a fire.
Crew saved her life, and now they were getting married in a few months.
Theirs was the kind of love story people wrote books about, and I hoped like hell Lainey’s had a similarly happy ending.
“So what do you want us to do?”
“Well, Trey is going in to get security footage from the night she went missing, as well as anything he can get from seven years ago.”
I blinked in surprise. Now that Lane had gotten over himself and brought Trey on, but that he thought we’d be able to get our hands on anything like that after so much time had passed.
Raider slowed to a gentle trot as we neared my barn, and I slid off, leading him inside and into a stall. We’d taken it easy on the way back, so there was no need to cool him down. I’d untack him when I hung up with Lane.
“You think they’ve kept those kinds of records?” I asked as I absently ran a hand down Raider’s chestnut flank.
“Honestly? I doubt it, but if anyone can make something out of nothing where this shit is concerned, it’s Trey.”
True. Our second oldest brother was one of the best in the country, making a pretty penny in private and cyber security after he’d left the Secret Service and returned to Dusk Valley nearly a decade ago.
“I want you and West to ask around,” Lane continued. “The good ole boys will talk to you.”
Another truth. Small towns treated military vets like superheroes, and though a lot of what we’d done in the Rangers was classified, they all knew we’d been part of several important missions.
To them, West and I were practically gods.
If we bought them a few drinks and let them relive their own glory days in the service, they’d sing like canaries.
“You call West yet?”
“I was going to after I got off with you. And I’m going to send you a picture of Lainey that you can flash around, okay?”
“Sure,” I said. “Give me an hour to untack and groom Raider, shower, and we’ll head in.”
“Thanks brother,” Lane said, his relief evident. “I owe you one.”
“I’ll be taking you up on that,” I assured him before hanging up, my phone beeping a moment after with the promised photo.
Little did he know, I’d do it for free, no quid pro quo necessary.
If it meant giving Reagan her sister back, safe and whole and unharmed, I’d do whatever it took.