Chapter Eleven
MORNING
Whip woke up to the dull orange glow of embers in the hearth and the smell of smoke clinging to everything in the cabin.
And a crick in his neck.
The floor was hard beneath his ass, but he didn’t yet try to move.
Not yet.
It was quiet outside. The stillness carried a heavy weight, which meant the storm had moved on like a fugitive who’d crossed a state line and was still out there, just farther away.
Axel was still asleep.
He’d seen that before.
Axel sleeping in his passenger seat after fourteen-hour surveillance shifts. Napping in motel rooms after warrant runs that lasted until sunrise. Or crashing out in Boone’s office while waiting for a briefing that had gotten delayed two hours.
Axel could sleep anywhere if he was tired enough.
A lock of dark hair had fallen across his forehead and, without thinking, Whip reached down and pushed it back.
The gesture felt as automatic as handing Axel coffee on a long drive.
His hand lingered on the strands.
Partner.
Roommate.
Best friend.
The first person he looked for when things went sideways. The first voice he expected to hear when the phone rang after midnight.
The man he loved.
Not a realization.
Just a fact.
One he’d been collecting evidence for ever since Boone partnered them together. Sure, he’d been attracted to Axel through the years, but attraction was easy to ignore when somebody drifted in and out of your life. That got a lot harder when Axel became part of everyday life.
Axel made a noise, frowned, and opened one eye.
“Why are you staring at me?”
Whip pulled his hand back.
“Making sure you’re still alive.”
“Good. Keep doing that.” Axel closed his eyes again. “If I die in this cabin, tell Boone I blame him.”
He huffed a laugh.
“Smartass. Coffee?”
“A gallon.” Axel stretched, arms bumping him, the back of his neck digging into his thigh.
“Ya gotta move so I can make it,” he rasped.
Axel groaned like he had personally ruined his life.
Some mornings getting him vertical took more effort than most warrant arrests.
The cabin wasn’t much to look at in the daylight. One room. Small kitchen. Potbellied stove beside the woodpile. A rickety bed and a dresser along one wall. It looked like a hundred other hunting cabins he’d stepped through over the years.
These structures were scattered all over Oregon timberland. Logging shacks and places people used for a week and forgot about the rest of the year.
He’d been inside dozens of them. Most sat empty year-round. Which was why the instant coffee and canned goods Axel found in the cupboard bothered him.
Cutter had been here.
The question was why he’d left in such a hurry.
He opened his mouth—
A sharp crack echoed somewhere beyond the cabin walls, sharp enough to cut through the rain.
Axel rolled to his feet instantly, and Whip followed, reaching for his SIG.
“Take the window,” he ordered.
“I don’t have my shoes on,” Axel growled, hopping on one foot as he shoved a boot on.
“Jesus Christ. Again with the shoes?”
“You suck,” Axel groused, jamming the second boot on.
“You have no idea.”
Whip slid along the wall and used the barrel of his pistol to ease the old ratty curtain aside.
“Could’ve been a deer.”
“Could’ve been. Deer tend to be quieter than you, though.”
“That’s rich coming from the guy who fell through Granger’s deer blind.”
Whip eased the curtain back another inch.
Beyond the small grassy clearing, the tree line stood quiet beneath the steady rain. No movement.
“The ladder broke.”
“You screamed.”
“I did not.”
“Three counties heard you.”
“That was tactical communication.”
“Is that what that was?” Axel snorted.
“My story,” he murmured as he moved to the door.
His hand settled on the latch.
“You ready?”
Axel took up position on his flank.
“Yup.”
Whip eased the door open and cold air drifted inside.
He didn’t wait. He stepped out, and Axel followed.
The cabin’s warmth disappeared the second he stepped outside as Oregon wasted no time reminding him why he preferred summer.
Keeping low, he launched across the small clearing with Axel on his six.
The forest closed in around him. Towering evergreens left only patches of sky overhead. Everything dripped, and the thick carpet of needles, leaves, and mulch muted his and Axel’s footsteps.
Good country to disappear in.
Axel drifted right.
Whip angled left, but kept Axel within sight. Wet brush dragged against his jeans.
The branch had snapped somewhere nearby—at least it had sounded nearby.
Sometimes an echo was deceiving.
The only thing moving was the runoff rushing downhill beyond the trees. No deer. No muddy tracks. Just forest.
The forest could hide a lot of things, and today it wasn’t giving any of them up.
Sunlight broke through the clouds and speared between the trees. Typical Oregon. One minute trying to drown you. The next pretending none of it happened.
His dad called it the apology.
They combed through the area, expanded their search, and then circled back to the cabin.
“Find anything?” he asked softly.
“Nope,” Axel said, falling in beside him, bumping into his shoulder.
“Guess you weren’t looking hard enough.”
“I saw you checking out my ass earlier,” Axel smirked.
“I was covering your six.”
“Suuure you were.”
Axel looked entirely too pleased with himself.
“I have a SIG.”
Axel snorted a laugh and held up his hands.
Whip rolled his eyes and stopped beside a moss-covered cedar but continued to listen.
Nothing but the woods answered back.
Then Axel’s radio chirped.
“Whip? Axel? You copy?” Knox’s voice came through.
He released a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding and held out a hand.
Axel passed over the radio.
“Copy.”
Static crackled. Then another voice shoved its way through the transmission.
“Give me that damned thing.”
Whip winced, holding Axel’s gaze. Amusement flickered across Axel’s face.
A second later, Boone came on the radio.
“Where the hell are you?”
It wasn’t technically a bellow, but it was close. Their boss worried when one of his marshals went missing—in their case, two—so yelling was kind of mandatory.
Whip glanced toward the cabin hidden among the trees.
“Morning, Boone.”
“Don’t ‘Morning’ me. I’ve had half the county trying to find you idiots since sundown.”
Whip looked at Axel.
The smartass was trying not to smile.
“Miss us?” Axel said.
Boone made a sound that suggested violence anyway.
“Don’t poke the bear,” Whip mouthed, squinting at him.
“We’re at Delaney’s hunting cabin,” Whip cut in before Axel could make it worse.
“While you two were playing mountain man, we got a witness call,” Boone snarled.
Axel’s grin disappeared.
Whip tightened his grip on the radio.
“What kind of witness?” he asked
“Rancher off County Twelve called dispatch this morning. Said he saw an older Ford pickup come off one of the logging roads near your location sometime before the storm hit with Cutter in the passenger seat.”
So, Cutter wasn’t alone.
“What time yesterday?” Whip asked.
“Late afternoon.”
Damn it. They’d come up that road well after midnight. Cutter had been long gone way before they’d been fighting the mountain.
Boone continued.
“Witness thought it was strange because nobody with any sense was driving around with that storm coming.”
Whip looked back toward the cabin.
The canned goods. The coffee. The short stay. It looked less like a hideout and more like somewhere to wait.
The cabin hadn’t been a destination.
It had been a pickup point.
“What about the driver?” Axel asked.
“Working on it. Grady’s running the truck description now. I’ll have a BOLO out in a few minutes.”
The pieces fit better than they had last night. Cutter hadn’t abandoned the cabin because of the storm.
Someone had come for him.
Boone’s voice crackled across the radio again.
“Get off that mountain and get moving. Grady’s waiting for you in Paisley.”
Whip glanced toward the road, feeling the damp chill creeping back through his jacket now that he’d stopped moving.
“We need a tow out of the ditch. Road’s blocked,” he said.
The silence came charged through the radio and then a heavy sigh.
“Of course it is.”
Knox cut in then. “County crews are already headed that way. I talked to Grady, he says use the service road about a mile south of your position.”
“Yeah. That’ll connect back to Twelve if it’s still passable,” he said and immediately pictured the map.
“That old access road cutting west toward the highway?” Axel said from his spot close to his side.
So close that the man’s warm breath ghosted over his ear.
He was suddenly very glad Boone was still talking.
“Copy.”
“And Tauber?” Boone growled.
“Yeah?”
“Try not to disappear again.”
The radio went dead.
“It’s all your fault,” Axel pointed out, taking the radio from him and pocketing it.
“You followed me.”
“Still evaluating my choice.”
He snorted.
“Cutter didn’t ride out alone,” he reminded him.
“Somebody’s helping him,” Axel agreed.
“Come on.”
“Where we going?” Axel fell into step beside him.
Whip started toward the trees. “To find out who picked him up.”
“Good.”
Whip glanced over. “Why?”
Axel shrugged. “Because I’m gettin’ tired of hiking.”
Whip snorted.
“You realize we’re in Oregon, right?”
“One of its many flaws.”
Whip kept walking.
There was no fixing Axel.