Chapter 20
Lark
I’d never been inside the Warrior Security office. I’d driven past the building a hundred times on trips to Resting Warrior Ranch, dropped off animals for therapy sessions, waved at Hunter through the window. But I’d never had a reason to walk through the door.
Now I was sitting at a long table under fluorescent lights at three in the morning with a county map spread between my elbows and a fury in my chest that hadn’t dimmed since Logan told me what he suspected was happening on my land.
Someone had been using my property to move drugs through the county. My land. My fences, my back roads, my shed that I’d been meaning to clear out for five years.
I couldn’t do a damn thing about the mortgage or the grants or Pinnacle Property Group. But this, I could fight. And I was going to with every tool available to me.
The sharpest ones being the men who belonged to this office.
The door opened, and Beckett came in, hair pushed back like he hadn’t even bothered to try to fix it since it was three a.m. He dropped into a chair across from me and looked at my face for a second longer than he needed to before his normal smile showed up.
“Hey, Lark.”
“Hey, yourself. Sorry about the wake-up call.”
“Don’t be. Sleep is overrated.” He glanced at Logan, then back at me. “How are you doing with all this? I had to force Audra not to stow away in my truck to come check on you.”
I tried to smile myself, but I couldn’t. “I’m pissed off, Beckett.”
“Don’t blame you a bit there.”
Cooper came in behind him. He nodded at me once, pulled out a chair, and sat down. No rush, no tension. His eyes moved around the room and took in everything without hurrying past any of it.
Travis was already on the big monitor mounted on the far wall.
I could see the glow of multiple screens behind him and a Red Bull beside his keyboard.
His hair fell across his forehead, and he hadn’t bothered pushing it back.
He’d been mid-sentence with Hunter about satellite coverage when Sera appeared behind him and leaned into the frame.
“Hi, Lark. Sorry to hear about all this.”
It was good to see my friend’s face. “Hey, girl. Thanks.”
She squeezed Travis’s shoulder and disappeared from the screen. Travis kept talking without missing a beat.
Hunter stood at the head of the table with his arms crossed. He’d been the first one here, had the building open and the lights on before Logan and I pulled in. The maps were already out. He didn’t raise his voice and he didn’t need to. Every person in the room was already oriented toward him.
The last person through the door was Lachlan, Garnett Bend’s sheriff. He wore jeans and boots, his badge clipped to his belt instead of a uniform. He caught my eye as he sat down and gave me a nod that carried more weight than a greeting should at this hour.
I’d known Lachlan for years, even before he took over as sheriff. He’d always been steady, solid. He showed up at Pawsitive fundraisers and knew every animal by name. Seeing him here, at this table, at this hour, made the back of my neck prickle.
This was real, all of it. The fury bubbled back to the surface, and I struggled to keep it from erupting.
Logan walked the team through everything: the tire tracks, the cut fence, the shed, what we’d seen tonight.
His voice was measured and unhurried. For me, everything felt like such a personal affront, but this was another day at the office for these men.
This was what they did. By the time Logan finished, the room had gone quiet in a way that felt operational.
“How many access points off the county route?” Cooper asked.
“One that I’ve seen them use,” Logan said. “South boundary, where the road cuts in through the tree line.”
“Could be others,” Hunter said. “Travis, what are you seeing?”
“Pulling it up now.” Travis’s fingers moved across his keyboard. An aerial image of my property filled a second monitor, grainy but legible. I could make out fence lines, tree cover, the pale rectangle of the barn roof. “Give me the coordinates for the shed, and I’ll overlay the road network.”
Logan gave them from memory. I watched my property appear on the screen, reduced to coordinates and access points, and the fury tightened another notch.
“This fits,” Lachlan said. He’d been listening with his forearms on the table and his fingers laced together. “We’ve been dealing with this operation for months. They’re smart about it. They set up on a property, use it for a few weeks, clear out before anyone catches on, and move to the next one.”
He unlaced his fingers and spread his hands flat on the table.
“By the time I get the jurisdictional approvals to act, they’re already gone.
I’ve been one step behind at every turn, and the red tape is the reason.
I can’t move fast enough through official channels.
” He looked at me and Logan. “That’s why my department has been working with Warrior Security on this. ”
This was a man who knew what it felt like to fight a system that moved too slowly to help.
He was done watching people get hurt while he waited for permission to act.
“I’ve authorized Warrior Security to handle this operation.
My department will keep it official in the books, but they’ll be boots on the ground so we don’t lose these bastards again. ”
“The window on this is narrow,” Hunter said. “You guys didn’t confront them tonight, which works to our advantage. They left because they were done for the night, which means they plan to come back.”
“They had no idea we were there,” Logan said. “As far as they know, Pawsitive is still wide open.”
“Which means if we’re set up and waiting when they come back, we’ve got them,” Hunter said. “But every hour that passes is an hour something tips them off. We move tomorrow night.”
The room absorbed that. Tomorrow night. Less than twenty-four hours.
“We set up on the property before dark,” Hunter said. “Positions around the shed and the access road. When they come in, we’re already there. They drive into us before they know we’re waiting.”
He looked at me. “Which means we need to know that ground. Every sight line, every piece of cover, every way in and out.”
This, I could help with. Nobody knew that property better than me. “The shed is in the back corner of the property, behind a stand of Ponderosa pines. You can’t see it from the house or the barn. The trees screen it completely from the north and east.”
Everyone’s gaze shifted to me.
“The access road runs along the south boundary and connects to the county route about half a mile out. A vehicle can reach the shed from that road without coming anywhere near the main buildings.” I’d walked that boundary a hundred times. Checked that fence after every storm.
“There’s a ridge to the west,” Logan added. “Runs roughly north-south along the property line. After dark, anyone on that ridge with moonlight behind them is visible from below.”
“Which means overwatch from the ridge is out,” Cooper said.
“What’s overwatch?” I asked.
“A high position where someone can see the whole area and cover the team below,” Logan said.
“Then no, the ridge isn’t necessarily out.” I leaned forward. “It drops off on the west side into a gully. If you’re on the far side of the crest, nobody at the shed can see you, and you could move up to the crest to see the whole area when you needed to.”
Cooper leaned forward. “How deep is the gully?”
“Deep enough to stand in. The ground is rocky on that side, not soft. You won’t leave tracks.”
Cooper nodded, looking pleased.
“What about the tree line along the south boundary?” Hunter asked. “How thick is that?”
“Thick enough to conceal movement,” Logan said. “But there are gaps. If you know where to look, you can see through in places.”
“The thinnest stretch is about two hundred yards east of where the access road enters,” I added. “There’s a section where a couple of older pines came down two winters ago. I never cleared them because they weren’t in the way of anything. The canopy is thinner there, and the ground cover is low.”
Logan smiled at me. “That’s your entry point,” he said to Hunter.
Hunter nodded slowly.
“What about between the shed and the main property?” Beckett asked.
“There’s a low channel that cuts east to west across the property,” I said.
“Like a ditch, but natural. It runs between the back pasture and the shed. You can cross it on foot, but a vehicle can’t get through.
When we get heavy rain, it floods, and even when it’s dry, the banks are steep enough that you’d need to climb down and back up. ”
“Natural barrier,” Cooper said.
“Between the shed and anything that matters to me.” I heard my own voice harden. “Everything I care about is on the north side of that draw. The barn, the house, the animals. Whatever they’re doing, they’ve been doing it on the far side, but I still want them gone.”
Travis’s voice cut in from the monitor. “Cell service on the access road?”
“Spotty at best,” I said. “I’ve tried to make calls from the back fence line, and half the time they don’t go through. You’d need a booster or something.”
“I can set up a radio relay,” Travis said, already typing. “Along with cameras at the shed and the south fence. I’ll have eyes on both by this afternoon.”
The questions kept coming. Hunter asked about alternate routes onto the property from the north. Logan described the terrain he’d been walking at night when he couldn’t sleep, the ground conditions, the sight lines in the dark.
We handed the answers back and forth without stopping to decide who should speak. Logan described a tactical concern, and I filled in the physical detail. I mentioned a feature, and he added what it looked like after midnight.
Somewhere in the middle of it, I’d gotten to my feet without deciding to, my hands tracing the property layout on the map while I talked.
Logan stood beside me, and the ease of it surprised me.
We didn’t need negotiation about who answered what.
We were just two people who knew the same ground and both wanted the same thing: for Pawsitive to be safe.
The plan came together fast after that. Travis would have cameras and a comms relay in place by afternoon.
The team would stage on the property after dark, positioned at the points Logan and I had mapped.
Lachlan would hold the county route exit: anyone who ran would hit a badge before they hit pavement.
He’d also be ready to come in and make arrests on property.
“Logan, you take the north approach,” Hunter said. “You know that ground better than anyone.”
“No problem.” Logan’s voice was steady. No hesitation, no bravado.
“Lark.” Hunter turned to me. “You’re our relay from the house. If something changes on the ground, you know this property better than any of us. You hear something on the radio that doesn’t track, you tell us where to go.”
“I want to be out there.”
The words were out before I could measure them. Every head at the table turned.
“It’s my land.” I kept my voice steady. “I should be out there.”
“You should be where you’re most useful,” Hunter said.
He wasn’t dismissive. He wasn’t gentle either.
“And that’s at the radio. You know terrain none of us have walked.
If someone gets turned around in the dark or the situation shifts, you’re the one who can redirect in real time. That’s not a small job, Lark.”
He was right. I knew he was right. I’d be a liability in the field and an asset at the house, and wanting to be out there didn’t change that.
“Okay,” I said. “I can do that.”
Logan inched his hand over mine on the table. “This isn’t busywork. What you’ll be doing is critical to mission success. But it’s better for the people with tactical training to actually be the ones out there. We’re not babying you.”
The fact that he understood made me feel better. “I know. I’ll do my part, and you guys do yours. Just…everybody be careful.”
Hunter pushed back from the table. “We meet at the property at sundown. Travis, I want the feed live by noon.”
“It’ll be live by ten,” Travis said, and the monitor went dark without another word. Travis being Travis.
Chairs scraped. Beckett pushed back from the table. Cooper stood and stretched, unhurried as ever. Lachlan caught my eye on his way out and held it for a beat longer than necessary.
“We’ll get them off your land, Lark. And hopefully take them down for good.”
“I know you will.”
Everyone said their goodbyes and headed out.
Logan held the door, and I stepped into the parking area, where the air hit my skin and I realized how warm that room had been with all those bodies in it.
Truck engines turned over around us, headlights sweeping across gravel, and then the lot emptied and it was just us.
We got in the truck. Logan drove, headlights cutting a narrow channel on the ground through the darkness on either side. I sat in the passenger seat with my hands in my lap and watched the fence posts tick past and said nothing about the thing sitting in the center of my chest.
The team had a plan. Hopefully in twenty-four hours this would all be over.
“Rounds start at five thirty,” I said. “We should try to get an hour of sleep before then.”
“Yeah.”
“I need to move the medication log to the house before tomorrow night. And make sure the barn is locked up earlier than usual.”
“I’ll handle the barn.”
“The cats need their enrichment rotation updated. And Frank probably figured out where I hid the treats.”
“Little bird. It’s going to be okay.”
I looked at him. His profile was steady in the dashboard light, both hands on the wheel, eyes on the road. He didn’t say anything else. He didn’t need to. He knew what I was doing—filling the cab with logistics so there wasn’t room for the other thing.
I turned back to the window.
We pulled onto Pawsitive’s drive a short time later. The property sat dark and quiet, the barn’s silhouette black against the tree line. Beyond it, invisible in the darkness, the back acreage stretched toward the south boundary and the shed and the access road where tomorrow night would happen.
Twenty-four hours from now, it wouldn’t be quiet back there.
Logan’s hand found mine when we exited the truck. I held on and didn’t let go until we reached the house.