10. Chapter 9
“So how’s your wife?” Berlin asked over the phone.
“Stop with that,” Bradford muttered as he watched Hope from his truck through the big window of the diner. She was saying her good-byes to Kim so he’d taken the chance to check in with one of his favorite people.
“Well it’s true… So I’ve started a run on both Killeen men—and Jed Tanner and his brother, the first two jerks to bother her. Not much so far on any of them, but I’m just getting started.” She sounded a little too gleeful and Bradford almost felt sorry for the assholes.
Almost.
“There’s something strange going on,” he said, “and we need to figure out what it is. I don’t believe in coincidence and there’s no way that some guys showed up to her place days ago saying her father owed money, then someone tried to break in last night.
Or today.” He scrubbed a hand over his face.
It was now Sunday morning, the sun already bathing the sky with purples and pinks.
“I don’t like any of it either. I’m looking into those coordinates you sent me too, trying to see if I can hack into a satellite or something.”
“And that’s why you’re my favorite,” he said as Hope slid into the passenger seat. He pointed to his phone and she simply nodded.
“Of course I am. You better remind Hailey of that. And Gage, for that matter,” she added.
“You want me to call them both up and tell them you’re my favorite?”
“Yep.”
“I’ll add it to my list of things that are never going to happen. Gotta go.”
“All right. I’ll be in touch.”
“Everything okay?” Hope asked as he pulled out of the parking spot.
“Yeah, just have a friend looking into the Killeens—and the Tanner brothers. And the coordinates Kim gave you. Did she say anything else when you said good-bye?”
“She just whispered to be careful.” Hope’s frown deepened. “I don’t like that she was afraid to talk about him. Or their family, I guess. There were only two people in the diner when we asked, and they weren’t even close by. And she was still cautious.”
“She said the son is spiteful, so we’ll see what my friend digs up. And she was probably right to be cautious. Edward Killeen knew you were at the diner.”
Hope was silent as he pulled down a side street, heading in the direction of her place. “So what kind of friend is this?” she finally asked.
He couldn’t tell if that was jealousy in her tone. She’d always been hard to read, and right now she was too locked down, too worried for him to get a solid read on her. “The kind of friend who lives in the gray area and can get information others can’t.”
“Okay, then. I’ve got some contacts through work as well, but…
I like to use them only for work stuff. This is too personal,” she muttered.
“So…you want to make our way to those coordinates? I looked them up on my phone and it’s somewhere on the property behind my dad’s…
Ah, behind mine. Hank’s four-wheeler is still working. We can take it out in the woods. ”
“We’re definitely going to check them out. I would say I’ll take care of it, but I know you too well.”
“You’re not leaving me behind.” Her tone was hard.
“That’s why I said we…but we need to change first and gather some provisions.”
“That sounds a lot like guns,” she said dryly.
“I mean, I’m bringing weapons too, but no.
I want to bring a small drone to do some aerial recon first and hopefully grab pictures.
Kim didn’t give us a lot to go on so I want to send in a drone first.” And he wanted to see what Berlin came up with before they ran in without backup.
He’d have to tell the others what was going on too—they were still in town from the funeral.
For that, he was grateful. Because it looked like this might be one of their off-the-books jobs. Not that Hope was a job to him, but he would do everything to keep her safe.
***
“You sure we have enough snacks?” Hope said with a laugh.
Bradford tossed in another couple fruit bars he knew that she liked into his “snack backpack.”
“Never.” Because you never knew when you were going to run into an emergency. Kinda like his friend Mari, who’d been in a plane crash recently. Having a backpack full of food and water had played a factor in helping her get to safety.
“Fair enough… I’m a little impressed your friend gave us live satellite images of the coordinates. And by impressed I mean terrified of her abilities.” Her tone was a little off, but Bradford couldn’t get a read on that. She’d be en through a lot.
“We’re all terrified of her.”
“So you guys work together?” she asked as they both slid into his truck.
He’d decided to drive his truck instead of using the four-wheeler to access the location.
Berlin had found an access road that would be much easier to use to get to the coordinates and it made more sense to drive his vehicle on the main roads.
Much less conspicuous. And faster if they ended up needing a quick getaway.
“Yeah, she actually worked at the same location with me in North Carolina, but we both ended up moving to New Orleans when they expanded. All the guys did—Tiago, Rowan and Ezra.”
“I love that you’re still close with them.”
He smiled at that. They’d been his family since he was eighteen. The one he chose every single day. “I know you met Ezra’s wife, but a little tidbit I didn’t get to tell you—she’s the one who got away before I even met him, and they have a now-grown son together.”
“I’m so happy for him! He once confessed how he’d lost someone but never spelled out the details. He’d just seemed depressed over the whole thing.”
“He did?” Bradford was surprised the other man had opened up at all.
“There were copious amounts of alcohol involved. I doubt he even remembers his little confession to me.”
“There wasn’t a good way to work their history into the introductions yesterday,” he said dryly. God, he loved talking to her like this, even if it was all surface.
Because he wanted to dig deeper between the two of them. But her father had just died and they were trying to figure out who the hell was harassing her—or more specifically, why—so he forced himself to be as normal as possible.
“Man, I’m so happy for him. Looks like they’re going to be parents for a second time soon. I mean…I didn’t want to say anything just in case, but I assume his wife is pregnant?”
Bradford let out a startled laugh. “Uh yeah . She’s about a month out.”
“I’ve seen that assumption go very wrong, so unless I see a head crowning, I’m never, ever going to assume someone is pregnant. Oh, I think that might be the turnoff.” She glanced down at his phone, which had been buzzing nonstop. “You need to grab that?”
He glanced at it—it was Mari and not an emergency. “Nah.” Other than the guys, the people who texted him the most were Mari, Berlin, and his friend Violet, who was dealing with some romantic drama.
Hope was silent as he slowed along the two-lane road surrounded by thick woods on either side.
“Doesn’t look like anyone’s fixed this road in a while,” she murmured after about a mile.
Nodding, he slowed even more as he checked the map. “I think we should pull over soon then head out on foot.” From the aerial images that Berlin had dug up, there was a whole lot of woods around here and nothing more.
“How far are we?” she asked, looking at the map. “Two-ish miles?”
He snickered slightly. “I see your map reading skills have improved.”
“I want to lie to you, but I’m really just more familiar with this area—and I was guessing.”
“Well it’s a good guess. We’re about three miles out.”
“Once we cross into Killeen land there’s a good chance they’ll have cameras,” she said. “And we’ll be trespassing.”
“I’m well aware of what we’re doing.”
“Okay, just throwing it out there.”
He held up a small device and grinned. “This will disrupt any cameras in a twenty-foot radius of us. But we should probably wear balaclavas just to be safe in case they have battery-powered trail cams.”
“I seriously hate you right now,” she groaned as he tossed her one. She started to pull her dark hair up into a braid and he resisted the urge to capture her mouth with his. He’d had way too many fantasies about her full lips, the way she tasted. “It’s a billion degrees out.”
“It’s either this or risk getting caught on camera.
” He did have some other options, but it was with high-tech stuff he couldn’t tell her he had access to.
He loved her, and in his gut, he didn’t think she would ever betray him.
But he wouldn’t risk the people he worked with, his family, by exposing any of them even in a small way.
“Before you throw it on, I’ll work the drone. See what we find.”
“Sounds good.” She got out of the truck with him and watched as he prepped everything. “I’ve never seen a drone like that.”
“Yeah, it’s next-level.”
“Hailey’s husband…the tech guy. Is this from one of his companies?”
So she had recognized him at the funeral. Hailey had introduced them of course, but Bradford wasn’t sure if she’d known who he was. He should have realized that of course she did.
He shrugged, which just made her sigh.
“Fine, be like that.” Her tone was tart, but she sat with him on the back of the tailgate.
It didn’t take him long to launch it, the faintest hint of a buzz as he steered it upward and through the treetops. Even though it was still early, the heat was already pressing in on them, so he was glad for the shade.
“It’s so quiet,” she whispered, even though there was no one but squirrels and birds around. Maybe a few deer.
“And check out this screen.”
She leaned in close to him as he held it out, and he tried not to inhale her scent like a demented weirdo. Then he decided he didn’t care and just savored having her pressed up against him as he directed the drone in the right direction.
“It’s so clear.” There was awe in her voice.
“If it senses an incoming attack, it goes into defensive mode and sends out an electric pulse if the attack is another drone. Or the automechanism takes over and it flies itself to safety—to its starting point. So it’ll fly back to us if it feels threatened.
” It had a lot more features, but those were some of his favorites.
They were both quiet as it reached the coordinates, watching the screen as the drone catalogued everything below. Which was basically trees and—
“That’s camouflage netting,” Hope said before he could.
“It blends really well.” He dipped down a little lower, but went slowly, not wanting to attract any attention if there was anyone there.
Nothing happened as he flew it even lower, skimming the top of the netting, knowing the cameras would catch anything for them to analyze later. Still nothing happened so he flew under it and slowly spun the drone, scanning… Nothing.
“I expected to see, like, drugs or something,” Hope murmured, the disappointment in her voice mirroring what he was feeling.
“Wait a minute…” He flew closer to the ground. “That’s a hatch. A door. That’s why there’s a camo netting. Whatever this leads to, the owner doesn’t want any eyes in the sky seeing.”
“Things just got more interesting,” she murmured. “We’re definitely going to have to go in on foot, see it in person.”
“You sound way too happy about that,” he muttered.
“I…like working with you.” And she sounded surprised by that.
“Fine, we head in on foot, but we’re not breaching that hatch until we know more. But we can get a little closer, see what, if any, kind of security cameras they have set up.”
“I didn’t see any on the screen.”
“They might be too small. We’ll find out soon enough.” He didn’t like taking her with him, but knew she’d just follow no matter what he did.
After this recon mission, he was looping in the rest of the crew whether she liked it or not. He still wasn’t sure what was going on, but he wanted backup.
Anything to keep Hope safe.