CHAPTER 20 #2
“Dax.” Carson’s voice was careful. “You need to stay calm. Stay focused. Quinn needs you thinking clearly.”
“I am thinking clearly.” Dax’s voice was deadly quiet. “I’m thinking Wheeler took her. I’m thinking he’s had her for—” He checked his watch. Nathan said he’d called around 11:58. “At least an hour. And I’m thinking every second we waste processing a scene is a second he has to hurt her.”
“We have procedures—”
“Fuck procedures.” Dax turned away, his mind racing. Think. Think like a detective. Where would Wheeler take her?
Not his house. Too obvious, too easily searched. He was out on bail with an ankle monitor. He’d be the first suspect.
But Wheeler had people. Employees. Properties. Fronts and shells and layers of deniability.
The auto dealership. Wheeler Auto Sales. That’s where Carson had said the street cameras tracked the SUV heading. East on Riverside toward the warehouse district. Toward Wheeler’s businesses.
Dax pulled out his phone and called dispatch. “This is Detective Mercer, badge 4-7-9-2. I need every street camera and traffic cam feed for Riverside Avenue between Quinn Barrett’s address and the warehouse district. Time frame 11:30 PM to midnight. Priority one.”
“Copy that, Detective. I’ll have it for you in ten.”
“Make it five.”
Dax hung up and looked at Carson. “I’m going to Wheeler’s dealership. That’s where they took her.”
“You don’t know that—”
“I know Wheeler. I know how he operates. He owns three properties within a two-block radius of that dealership. Shell companies, paper trails, layers of separation.” Dax was already walking toward his truck.
“One of those buildings is where he keeps his problems. Where he takes people who need to disappear.”
“Dax, wait—” Carson caught his arm. “You can’t go in there alone. Not without a warrant, not without backup. If you’re wrong, if Wheeler lawyers up—”
“If I’m wrong, I’ll deal with the consequences.” Dax pulled his arm free. “But I’m not wrong. And Quinn doesn’t have time for me to wait for warrants and backup and procedure.”
“At least take me with you.”
Dax paused. Looked at his partner—his friend—and saw the worry and fear there. Saw that Carson understood. That he’d do the same thing if it were someone he loved.
“Call SWAT,” Dax said. “Tell them to mobilize to the warehouse district. But tell them to stage two blocks out. If Wheeler’s people see lights and sirens, they’ll kill her.”
If they haven’t already.
Dax pushed that thought away viciously.
“What are you going to do?” Carson asked.
“Whatever it takes.”
Dax turned and ran for his truck. His phone buzzed as he climbed in. Dispatch.
“Detective Mercer, we’ve got your camera feeds. Tracking a black Chevy Suburban, no plates visible, heading east on Riverside at 11:47 PM. Lost visual at the intersection of Riverside and Industrial. We’ve got nothing after that. No cameras in that area.”
“What buildings are at that intersection?”
“Multiple commercial properties. Give me a second.” The sound of typing followed. “Okay, registered owners include Wheeler Auto Sales, a shell company called Riverside Holdings LLC, and—wait. Riverside Holdings owns a property at 847 Industrial. Former auto body shop, listed as under renovation.”
Riverside Holdings. One of Wheeler’s shells. Dax knew it.
“That’s it.” His voice was hard with certainty. “That’s where they took her.”
“Detective, do you want me to send units—”
“No. No units. Tell SWAT to stage at Riverside and Fifth. No lights, no sirens. Wait for my signal.”
“Sir, I really think—”
“That’s an order.”
Dax hung up and started the truck.
847 Industrial Avenue. Former auto body shop. Perfect place to hold someone. Isolated, surrounded by closed businesses, no residential neighbors to hear screaming.
Dax’s hands tightened on the steering wheel as he pulled out, driving fast but not recklessly now. He needed to arrive with surprise on his side. Needed Wheeler’s people to not know he was coming.
Needed every advantage he could get because he was going in alone, without backup, without a plan beyond finding Quinn and getting her out.
His phone rang again. Not dispatch this time. Captain Holloway.
Dax almost didn’t answer. But ignoring his captain would only make things worse when this was over.
When. Not if.
“Mercer,” Captain Holloway’s voice was tight with barely controlled anger, “Carson just called me. He says you’re about to do something monumentally stupid.”
“With respect, sir, Quinn Barrett has been kidnapped. Every second matters.”
“Which is why we’re mobilizing SWAT. Which is why we’re doing this by the book, with a warrant and a tactical plan and backup.” Holloway’s voice rose. “Not with a suspended detective going cowboy because his girlfriend—”
“I’m not suspended—”
“You are now.” The words hit like a hammer. “As of this moment, you are suspended pending an investigation into your relationship with a witness. Turn in your badge and weapon. Go home. Let the professionals handle this.”
Dax’s jaw clenched so hard his teeth ached. “No.”
“That’s not a request, Detective. That’s an order.”
“Then write me up. Fire me. I don’t care.” Dax’s voice was raw. “But I’m not going home. I’m not standing by while Quinn—” He couldn’t finish. Couldn’t say the words.
While Quinn died.
Holloway was quiet for a long moment. Then, softly, “She left the cabin because you were suffocating her. And now you’re going to get yourself killed trying to save her. You see the pattern here, Mercer?”
The words stung because they were true.
“I see that the woman I love is in the hands of a murderer,” Dax said quietly.
“And I see that I’m the reason she’s there.
Because I drove her away. Because I was so afraid of losing her that I pushed her right into danger.
” His voice cracked. “So yeah, I see the pattern. And I’m going to break it. Even if it kills me.”
“Dax—”
“I have to go, sir. Thank you for everything.”
Dax hung up and turned off his phone with a deliberate press of his thumb, the screen going dark with a soft chirp. The sudden silence in the truck cab was absolute—no more calls, no more voices telling him to stand down, to wait, to follow procedure.
No more anything except the sound of his own ragged breathing and the thunder of his pulse in his ears.
Just him and the road and the desperate need to get to Quinn before it was too late.
Before Wheeler hurt her. Before Wheeler killed her. Before Dax lost the only person left in this world who made him want to keep living.
The warehouse district was dark and empty at this time of night—a graveyard of commerce, silent and still.
Closed businesses squatted behind chain-link fences, their windows dark or broken, graffiti tagging the walls in violent splashes of color that looked black in the sodium-yellow streetlights.
Those lights flickered or didn’t work at all, creating pockets of shadow deep enough to hide anything.
The perfect place for Wheeler to hide his crimes.
Dax’s hands were white-knuckled on the steering wheel, his shoulders so tight they ached. Every muscle in his body was coiled spring-tight, ready to explode into action. His jaw hurt from clenching. His chest hurt from the way his heart was trying to pound its way through his ribs.
He forced himself to breathe. In through his nose, slow and controlled. Out through his mouth. The way they’d taught him in the service. The way he’d learned to manage combat stress, to function when everything inside him was screaming.
Breathe. Focus. Move.
Dax drove past 847 Industrial Avenue once, slowly, his headlights off now, navigating by moonlight and the few working streetlamps. Taking in the layout with the tactical part of his brain that could still function despite the terror clawing at his throat.
The building was exactly as described—a former auto body shop, squat and industrial.
Two stories of dirty brick and corrugated metal, with faded paint that might once have been red but had weathered to a rust-brown that looked like dried blood.
The second-floor windows were broken, jagged glass teeth still clinging to the frames.
The first-floor windows had been boarded up with plywood that was warped and water-stained.
A chain-link fence surrounded the property, eight feet tall, topped with three strands of barbed wire that gleamed dully in what little light reached it. The rolling gate with wheels was closed but not locked. The padlock hung open on its chain, swinging slightly in the night breeze.
An invitation. Or a trap.
And in the parking lot, visible through the fence, a black Chevy Suburban. Covered in road dust. No plates on the back bumper, just empty bolt holes.
Dax’s heart stopped.
Literally stopped for one long, terrible second before kicking back into a rhythm so hard and fast it made him dizzy.
That was the vehicle. The one that had taken Quinn.
She was here.
His hands trembled on the steering wheel. His vision blurred. He blinked hard, realizing he was crying again, hot tears tracking down his face to drip off his jaw.
Quinn was here. In that building. Maybe fifty yards away from him right now.
Alive or dead. Hurt or unharmed. Conscious or still drugged.
But here.
Dax drove past without slowing, his movements mechanical now, his training taking over.
Turned the corner onto a side street lined with abandoned warehouses, their loading docks empty, their doors chained shut.
Parked two blocks away in the shadows behind a particularly decrepit building, its walls covered in graffiti and its windows nothing but gaping holes.
He killed the engine. The sudden silence was deafening.
Dax sat in the darkness, his breath coming in short, sharp gasps that fogged the windshield. His hands were shaking so badly he had to grip the steering wheel to keep them still.
This was it.
Quinn was in that building.
And Dax was going to get her out.
Or die trying.