Chapter 3
Rue
Who the hell did this guy think he was? I wasn’t stupid or dead, so I didn’t miss the fact that he was hitting on me. Or that his eyes were well past hitting on me. And I was ignoring the fact that my body was responding to the heated looks he kept throwing my way.
First, he nearly beat the hell out of my partner. Gary didn’t always know when to keep his mouth shut, but he was a nice guy. The way his face had gone pale when this man in a leather cut and dirty boots had grabbed him would’ve been funny if the moment hadn’t been so charged with tension.
I’d worried the guy was going to start a brawl right there in the yard. Not that poor Gary would stand a chance. His new bride was keeping him fat and happy, so he’d packed on about ten pounds, but not in muscle.
Meanwhile the biker—what else could he be—looked like he’d been carved out of granite.
His t-shirt strained around his biceps and I was betting if I shoved that cut out of the way it would cling to his washboard abs.
No way his arms, shoulders, and pecs were that well defined and he didn’t have abs you could grate cheese on.
His arms were covered in tattoos and it really made me wonder where else he had them.
Not that I was noticing his body or tattoos.
Or I shouldn’t be anyway. I should only be focusing on the woman in my care right now.
We were taking her back to our hospital because we had some great doctors that could take care of her.
Since I didn’t suspect it was an emergency situation we bypassed one of the other hospitals that was a bit closer in favor of our own.
I worked over her, trying to ignore the way the man kept watching me. “What’s your name?”
“Overdrive.”
I looked over at him in bafflement. “I was talking to her.”
“Didn’t you already get her name?” he asked, arching a dark brow.
“No, I was too busy triaging her,” I muttered.
“It’s Camila,” the woman said, breaking apart our argument with a grin. She shot her friend a look I didn’t bother to decipher. “And your name?”
“I’m Rue.”
“That’s an interesting name,” she offered.
It was a nicer way of saying it was weird.
I’d heard every variation of opinion on my name over my twenty-eight years.
“My mom had an interesting sense of humor.” I didn’t bother to elaborate.
Camila seemed nice enough, but I wasn’t about to explain to her that my druggie mom had taken off on me and my younger brother when I’d been in high school and he was just out of diapers.
As a sixteen-year-old, I’d had to grow up fast in order to take care of a three-year-old, but I’d dropped out of school and gotten a job.
I’d managed to raise my brother to the best of my ability.
At least until last November. Swallowing the lump in my throat, I continued to take Camila’s vitals and ignored Overdrive’s steady gaze as grief swamped me.
Thinking about my brother still threatened to send me into a downward spiral. He turned sixteen last month, and I hadn’t seen him. He hadn’t been there to give him a cake or presents.
“You okay?”
I made the mistake of glancing up and meeting his dark brown eyes. Quickly averting my own, I nodded. “Of course. We’re here.”
Gary pulled the ambulance into the ER entrance of the hospital, putting a stop to any further questions.
I checked in on my patient before I took off for the evening. She was asleep, with Overdrive sitting next to her bed holding her good hand. Her other was in a cast to help set her broken wrist.
I’d already spoken to Dr. Mendez. She and the baby were going to be just fine.
It was a relief because Camila had looked at me with such terror in her eyes when I’d first approached her on those porch steps.
She’d be released soon, but I wasn’t going to stick around.
I didn’t like being thanked profusely by patients or their families.
It made me uncomfortable. I loved helping those who needed it, I just didn’t want the aftermath of gratitude. I really didn’t need it.
Besides, I had plans for tonight. I’d already changed in the locker room and checked in with my supervisor before clocking out.
I was employed by Saguaro Regency Hospital here in Phoenix, Arizona, and had been since I’d gotten through my training.
We were based out of this hospital but we took patients to any of the hospitals in the area, depending on which could help the individual patient the most.
I sucked in a breath of warm air as I walked outside.
It wasn’t summertime yet, but it was still starting to warm up.
So even though the sun was down, the heat still radiated off the concrete.
Jogging over to the parking garage, I got on my bike and started the engine.
It was just a small little sport bike, but it worked well for me.
I tugged on my leather jacket despite the warmth.
It would keep the skin on my bones if I got into a wreck. That was important to me.
Pulling on my helmet, I looked around and got on my way. I was running late. And if I missed this exchange, I might not find my brother again.
The ride across the city went quickly as I zoomed in and out of traffic. No one paid attention as I pulled over and parked my bike in an alleyway. I hoped I wasn’t going to have to wait long.
Nerves had my stomach twisting into knots as the time ticked by but, finally, there was movement out on the street.
The kind I was waiting for. A young kid in a hoodie walked quickly down the street, looking left and right before he climbed a set of stairs and hit one of the buttons on the intercom system.
He went back down the stairs, hands jammed in the pocket on the front of his sweatshirt as he waited.
I crept to the edge of the alleyway to make sure I could keep him in sight.
I’d been waiting for this for months. This was Teddy, one of Ryan’s friends from school.
I’d tried talking to him, getting him to tell me what he and my brother had gotten mixed up in, but he’d been too scared to tell me anything.
So I’d resorted to planting a tracker on him and watching the patterns of where he went via the app. This was a regular stop in the pattern.
A man came out of the apartment building and approached Teddy.
He was the kind of guy you didn’t want to meet in the type of alley I was currently standing in.
He was huge, at least six-four, bald, and looked like he ate nails for breakfast. His biceps had to be the size of my thigh or bigger.
And he looked mean. If Teddy and Ryan had gotten mixed up with some group that had a lot of pull and a lot of muscle—and this henchman was making me think they had—then they were both in deep shit.
But since I hadn’t been able to find Ryan again since the first time I’d managed to track him down, about two months after he went missing in the first place, then the only one I could help right now was Teddy.
He stared up at the man, nodding at whatever he was saying, then handed over a small package he’d pulled out of his sweatshirt.
He tried to back up when the guy grabbed him by the front of his hoodie and held him in place while he leaned down.
I still couldn’t hear but it was clear the guy was intimidating the teenager.
Real brave soul right there.
As much as I wanted to help, I couldn’t blow my cover.
And though Teddy looked like he was about to piss himself, he wasn’t being hurt or I’d have stepped in.
Teddy had dropped out of school when Ryan went missing.
He’d spent most his nights before that crashing on our couch because he’d come from a family that was as bad as our own. He was homeless now.
More than a few homeless kids had turned up dead over the last six months. It wasn’t until my kid brother had gone missing in November that I’d even realized something was happening. That there was a pattern. And how sad was that?
These lost kids were disappearing or losing their lives and there was no one around to mourn them. Or even recognize that something was happening to them. How many more were there that I wasn’t even seeing?
We’d been called to this neighborhood often enough that I started piecing together that something was going on. And I was sure Brutus out there had something to do with it.
As soon as the guy let Teddy go the teen ran off down the street, disappearing into the night.
I left the safety of the alley and caught the door to the apartments right before it shut.
I watched the elevator until it stopped on the fourth floor, then booked it up the stairs.
Too late. No one was in the hallway when I managed to get to the top.
Panting in the hallway, I swore under my breath as one of the doors down the hall opened and out came Brutus. He’d dropped whatever Teddy had given him in his apartment and was on his way back out. I stopped by a door and pulled out my keys, pretending to open the door as he strode by.
I had a choice to make and I needed to decide fast. Follow the scary looking guy, or break into his apartment? Eyeing the door, I decided on the former. I could always come back to the apartment later.
Hot footing it down the stairs, I peeked around the corner, waiting for the goon to go out the front door. I stuffed my hands in my pockets and stepped outside, following him down the sidewalk. I had no idea where he was going to lead me, but I couldn’t let this go. He could lead me to Ryan.
This group had lured my brother away and I was determined to get him back. No matter what it took. No matter who stood in the way. Ryan was the only family I had left.
I was a paramedic. I helped save lives. The thought of doing what it might take to find Ryan again made my blood run cold, but I couldn’t allow what happened to my brother and these other kids to keep happening to more innocents.
If I could just find him again, I was sure I could convince him to come home.
It didn’t matter that I’d failed the first time.
Going to the police wasn’t an option. They’d closed Ryan’s case so quickly my head had nearly spun.
A kid from the wrong side of town, out late at night, doing who knew what?
They didn’t have to say it out loud. They thought he was a piece of garbage and was doing something illegal.
Maybe he was. Something was making him choose this group over coming home to me.
Either way the cops really didn’t care. There just wasn’t anything to go on. No leads. No one in this neighborhood would even think about speaking to them. Even if they did manage to find him, he was choosing to stay where he was. So what could they do?
And when I did manage to find out what was going on? Who these guys were and why Ryan was so loyal to them now? I wasn’t sure I’d want to give the people responsible to the cops. They could end up incriminating my baby brother.
Taking a deep gulp of air and steeling my nerves, I hurried alone into the dark so I could follow a man I suspected of murder.
Or of working for a murderer. I wasn’t sure yet.
Even though both Ryan and Teddy were alive, there’d been plenty of bodies that had appeared in this area.
Someone was responsible for them. And I was going to find out who.