Chapter Six
Rob
I don’t know what I’m expecting to hear over this scanner, but so far, I ain’t hearing shit.
Unit 2-11, responding to a disturbance at the Get-N-Go. Possible intoxicated subject attempting to pet the ice machine.
Copy that, 2-11. Does he appear armed?
Negative. Just loud. Keeps yelling ‘You’re my only cold friend.’
I pinch the bridge of my nose.
I keep the thing tucked against the far wall, half-covered by a stack of old gear manuals and a fleece blanket that doesn’t fool anyone. The hum’s constant—white noise, barely there—but when the tone changes, I know it before the speaker even kicks in. It’s an older Uniden base, modded for trunked systems, hooked up to ProScan running twenty-four seven to log all the time stamps and frequencies at Tuck’s insistence and a patchy antenna line I ran through the window frame myself last spring. The signal’s better in the dead of night, less interference from all the bullshit power surges in town, but it’ll come through most hours of the day if you’re willing to strain.
Another crackle.
Advise subject is now licking the machine.
Jesus.
The scanner sputters again—more chatter about the gas station, something about a busted taillight, a deputy asking where to get coffee that won’t give him “gut death.”
Nothing about anything important. Nothing about us.
I lean back in the chair, rub my jaw.
Either they’ve moved to encrypted comms, or they’re just this fucking useless. And smart money’s on the latter.
I sigh and push back from my desk. My room’s not really set up for work, but it’s not really set up for sleeping either, since I haven’t been doing much of that lately.
I took the primary bedroom—obviously, because it’s my damn house. But all of these are so big that there’s hardly a difference anyway. I try to keep things reasonably comfortable and neat, but looking around at the rumpled bedsheets, the work shirts I’ve not-too-gracefully tossed on the armchair, the untied boots leaning by the door, I can see why Scarlet’s always carping about us getting a maid.
I don’t know what to do, and I don’t like not knowing what to do.
I’m stressed out, and that’s not my usual state of being. I leave that to Scarlet. Occasionally Tuck, if I need to be angry and punch something out, I’ve got LJ. Me? I usually just supply the...I don’t know. The brains of the operation. I’m an ideas man. I follow whims. That’s how we ended up with a random orphan girl in our house in the first place.
In hindsight, might have been a bad decision. But it was also the only decision I could make. And I don’t really know how any of us could have ended up in a traditional relationship, come to think of it. Going on dates, meeting the parents.
The parents. I look at the ceiling and bite my lip hard, putting my hands behind my head.
What would they think of her? Or think of the guys, for that matter? This whole damn situation their only son’s gotten himself in?
I don’t usually trouble myself too much with useless what-ifs. Dead is dead, and whether there’s any kind of hereafter isn’t any of my business and doesn’t really figure in to what I do here on earth anyway.
But lately...
Well, ain’t one of us in this house that doesn’t have daddy issues, let’s put it that way. Suppose I’m just letting mine come to the surface at last.
Must be the stress.
It’s not that I can’t fight off anyone who’d be coming after us. Wheatley’s boys are built out of donuts and fluffed-up timesheets to pad out to overtime. Hardly crack sharpshooters, especially if they’re not being paid—which, judging by the patter on the scanner, they aren’t.
And anyone else? Well—
A few raps at the door. Shave and a haircut, two bits.
I roll my eyes. “Come in.”
It’s Scarlet. Practically bangs the door open.
“Did you feel that?”
I don’t move, except to roll my eyes again. “Feel what?”
“It was...I don’t know. A surge of something.”
“Electrical?” I glance at the scanner. “Nothing like that.”
“No,” he says. “More like a—you know. Something...”
“Magic?” I finish for him. It’s funny how neither of us really like saying the word, even though there’s pretty much no better term for what we are and how we work.
“Yeah,” he says. “I was wondering if maybe it was something about what Tuck was talking about. Ley lines and that kind of thing...” Scarlet trails off, his eyes knifing sideways at me.
I get the message. He’s still pissed that I didn’t tell him all these big bad secrets I’ve apparently been sitting on. I don’t know how to tell him any more clearly than I already did—that it’s basically tall tales and family legends. Not like I spit in a tube and got a full DNA test back that shows I’m 100% shifter and know everyone I’m related to.
“Hey,” I say. “You know, I never talked to my folks about it either. Except in general terms. It’s not like they gave me a comprehensive your-body-is-changing talk, exactly.”
Will stuffs his hands in his pockets. “I know that.”
“And I know you know,” I say, mildly enough. “I’m just reminding you. I’m not denying I had an easier time of it, but...I don’t know. Don’t act like I’m some fount of knowledge, okay? That’s why we brought on Tuck, right?”
He smiles, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Yeah. Let’s hope he turns something up.” He quirks an eyebrow at me. “You really didn’t feel anything just now?”
“I wasn’t paying attention,” I admit. I gesture in the air. “Lost in thought. Wool-gathering. So on and so forth.”
Now he rolls his eyes. “Don’t choose now to get all philosophical.”
“Relax,” I say, pushing to my elbows. “I listened in. Didn’t hear anything to worry about.”
Will works his jaw. “That, in and of itself, is something to worry about.”
God damn him and his Yankee neurosis. “It’s a wonder you haven’t stroked out at this point in your life,” I remark. “Being so uptight like that. You ever consider that’s why you’re prematurely gray?”
He tucks his hair behind his ear, almost pouty. “That’s genetic,” he mutters. “Besides, Scarlets thrive on stress. It’s the Alzheimer’s and crippling alcoholism that usually does us in.” He flicks a glance around my room. “You know, at some point we should really think about—”
“I’m not getting a maid,” I interrupt him. “Let someone trample around in here? Come on.”
Will huffs.
“It’s my room,” I say. “And I don’t mind. Neither does Maren. She’s too focused on messing up the sheets to notice whether or not they got put on straight.”
“All right, all right,” he says. But he cracks a little smile at the same time I do. “I’ve got to give it a shot, that’s all.” He gives me a more serious look. “You feeling okay, though?”
I shrug. “Regular, I guess. How should I be feeling?”
“You tell me,” he says. “Your face is the one on wanted posters. Every Elmer Fudd in Sherwood’s gotta be polishing up his shotgun to see if he can bring you in.”
I roll a shoulder in a half-shrug. “Doesn’t sound like it so far.”
Before Scarlet can say anything else, there’s another knock. Well, not a knock, just the door flat-out opening.
This time, it’s LJ, all sweaty in his training gear—not that that’s much different from his regular attire—and drinking some kind of cloudy post-workout concoction.
He nods at me.
“Hear anything?”
I shrug. “From the boys in beige? Nothing interesting. Cats up trees, little old ladies can’t find their glasses—”
Scarlet groans and elbows me out of the way. “Here.”
“Hey!” I protest. He ignores me, like he always does.
“You’ve gotta try other channels,” he says. “Not just official law enforcement.” He fiddles with the dials, and I push all the way back, my palms in the air in surrender.
“I give up. Y’all clearly know better how to do my own business than I do.” I roll my eyes, drum my fingers on the arm of the chair. “Hey, how’d training go?”
LJ polishes off the rest of his drink. “Fine.”
I wait for more. There is none.
“Just fine?” I prompt.
He shrugs.
“Well, what did you try to teach her?”
LJ shifts in his seat, stone-faced all the while. Now, credit to him: he is not much for outward expression. Guantanamo couldn’t get shit out of my man. But there is the tiniest, most imperceptible flicker of a smile on his lips.
And then it’s gone.
But it’s enough.
“She has a lot to learn,” he mumbles. “I’ll put it that—”
Slam.
Scarlet sits up from the radio. “What the hell was that?”
I blink. “Sounds like a door slamming.”
I look at LJ, do some mental calculations. Think back to the other night. And to Maren’s current...attitude.
Damn. I can hardly resist a smile myself. That treacherous bastard.
“Oh.” Scarlet relaxes on the stool. Then frowns. “Tuck go out, or something?”
There’s a pause, then some heavy, stomping footsteps that are both too angry and too delicate to be Tuck’s.
“Nope,” I say. “He’s in the library.”
I cast a gaze around the room, ever so slowly.
LJ sits still. Suspiciously still. I rub my chin, eyeballing him.
“Interesting,” I murmur. “What could have the lady in such a state, I wonder?”
It’s only half-rhetorical, as questions go, because I have an inkling. Still, I watch.
“Hmm, hmm,” I say. “What could have her feeling so frustrated , so unsatisfied... ”
“Do you mind?” Scarlet snaps. “Reception is shit as it is without your thinking out loud.”
The footsteps get louder. Then my door snaps open.
And lord have mercy, but even angry as a hornet, that girl is gorgeous.
Her hair’s all messed up, hanging out of a ponytail in wild hanks, and her face is flushed, cheeks dark and eyes bright, which, along with the shimmer of sweat over her collarbone, indicates to me that LJ really put her through her paces in that training session.
In more ways that one, judging by the way she’s...standing at attention against that sports bra of hers.
To my disappointment, she folds her arms.
“My eyes are up here,” she informs me.
I bob my head. “Man’s gotta look,” I say in apology. I flick a glance at LJ, but he’s gone stony-faced as Mt. Rushmore. Bastard. Some kind of self-control, I have to say. I lick my lips and turn back to Maren, willing myself to think of baseball and paint drying and anything that’ll keep me from getting hard as a damn marble statue right now.
“You need something, pretty lady?”
A glimmer of suspicion dances in her eyes, and she purses her lips in a way that’s inadvertently sinful. “What do you mean?”
I cough. “Just, uh...to what do I owe the honor?”
She looks from me to Scarlet to LJ—her frown deepening—and then back to me. “Sounded like you were all listening to the scanners. Anything come in?”
“Not on official airwaves,” Will says. He’s rolled up his sleeves to fiddle with the knobs, like it’s some kind of delicate experiment. Maren tips her head, interested—maybe looking for a distraction—and steps over to size up the setup.
I bound off of bed, not one to let Scarlet get all the credit even though he set the whole thing up. “See, I usually keep it tuned to UHF,” I explain, pointing to the relevant display. “That’ll be police, fire, EMS, all your standards.”
She glances back at me. “And?”
“Nothing,” Will answers for me. “Which is why I’m dialing it down to CB—”
“CB?” This, from LJ. “What, you trying to push through to BJ and the Bear?”
Both Maren and I give him a look. Scarlet’s too enraptured with his toy to notice.
“What?” LJ says. “No TV Land growing up?”
“CB is citizens band,” I explain to Maren. “Low frequencies for truckers and old-school rednecks like me.”
“Look who knows his shit all of a sudden,” gripes Scarlet. “Nothing coming in there.”
“Try GMRS,” I say, pointing, but he swats me away.
“I’m trying, ” he says, “if you’d let me.” He darts an icy glare at me. “You didn’t think to do this before I showed up?”
“I had a lot on my mind.”
“Question?” Maren actually raises her hand, which is damned adorable. She seems to have cooled off a bit—although not entirely. And from this close, I can smell the honey-salt scent of her body, which is not helping matters. I bite the inside of my cheek. “GMRS?” she asks.
“Frequency for—”
“Walkie-talkies,” Scarlet cuts me off. “Nothing fancy. Just the kind you can buy at Bass Pro or MegaValu. Sort of thing that any—”
“Shh.” I lean in and punch him on the shoulder to hush him up. “What was that?”
“Ow,” Scarlet says pointedly, but twiddles the dials and gets it clearer and louder:
...seen movement near the ridge. Could be him.
Pause. Then a second voice:
Copy that. I’ll swing wide. Be better if we can get in before this damn rain.
Yeah, yeah. You got the tranqs?
Tranqs, cuffs, the whole damn party bag.
Copy that.
Another pause. Then a different voice—lower, older, like it’s been smoked over a campfire:
Remember, they want Locksley breathing. Don’t fuck him up too bad when you catch him.
Silence stretches. No one breathes.
“Did they say—” Maren starts.
“Yeah.” I know what my own damn name sounds like. And right now, I sure don’t like hearing it.
Will’s jaw ticks once.
“They’re nearby,” he says, voice low, steady. “Ridge? That’s not far.”
“Well, it’s...” My pulse is already in my throat. But I force a shrug. “It’s not close .” I swallow. “Lotta ridges in these woods.”
Wordlessly, LJ gets up and disappears, footsteps slamming. Which pisses me off just a little—ain’t like his name is the one going over the airwaves—but I have bigger fish to fry than dealing with his bad attitude.
I’m being hunted.
Maren’s hand is on my arm. I didn’t even feel her grab it. Scarlet screws around with dials, tries to pick up anything else, but our new friends appear to be off the air. After a minute or two, he leans back in his seat, raking his fingers through his hair.
“I don’t like this,” he says. “I don’t like this.”
“What, like I do ?” I bark, louder than I mean to. Maren withdraws her hand. I shake my head. “Sorry. But we should—”
“Look.”
I snap around. It’s LJ again—back. Holding something out.
Piece of paper. I take it.
“Deputy gave it to me last night,” LJ says. “Trying to get me in on the job. I didn’t even think—shit. I should’ve—”
I unfold it.
It’s a goddamn wanted poster.
With my face on it.
And a fat quarter-million dollar reward.