Chapter 2
Devon Randolph rolled over in the darkness, cursing up a blue streak at his cell phone. More accurately, he was cursing whoever was on the other end of his cell phone, making the fucking thing ring loud enough and long enough to yank him out of the first REM sleep he’d managed to snag in weeks.
There had better be grave goddamn danger attached to this call, otherwise he was going to kick someone’s ass halfway to China.
Business as usual.
“Hey, Dev. It’s Walker. Sorry to wake you, but I’ve got a situation on my hands, and I need your help.”
Devon read the seriousness between the lines of his fellow Ranger’s words, digesting them in a blink. Kellan Walker was a friend, a brother. If the guy needed backup, Devon was in, no questions asked.
“You straight at the fire house?” he asked.
Kellan had channeled his adrenaline into fighting fires after they’d gotten out of the Army three years ago.
Funny, really, that Devon put out fires, too—just that the heat he dealt with while freelancing private security jobs was a lot more figurative than literal.
“Yeah. This is actually a family thing. Not about me. Well, not directly, anyway.”
Devon took in the intel, keeping his surprise to himself. “Copy that. What’s going on?”
“Please tell me you’re still out there in the middle of nowhere.” Kellan’s voice stretched thin, barely covering the words.
“I’m crashing in Wyoming, not outer Mongolia,” Devon said for the sake of clarity.
After all, he and Kellan had done no less than a dozen ops in places more remote than Jackson, Wyoming, and Devon couldn’t help it that his last client—make that, his very rich last client—owned a 4,000-acre cattle farm here.
The client’s daughter had married the son of the second-most famous country-pop singer on Billboard’s Top 100 last weekend, and Devon had run the security for the event.
The paparazzi had been a pain in the ass, keeping him running until after the cake had been cut, so he’d decided to stick around Wyoming for a few days to recover.
There were worse corners of the world to kill time between jobs, and he and Kellan had been to most of them.
“But, if that’s what you mean, then yeah, I’m still in the zip code.
Figured I’d take a few days to recharge before heading back to the city. ”
His buddy exhaled a hard breath. “Thank fucking God. You remember my sister Kylie, right?”
“Yeah. Of course.” Probably five years had passed since Devon had met her when he’d hung with Kellan on R and R, but between her smart mouth and her tough-girl demeanor, Kylie would be difficult to forget. Especially since she and her brother were tight, to boot.
“I just got a phone call from her. She’s been working at some shitty bar in Coyote Flats for the last six months.”
Devon’s mind spun in calculated thought. “I passed through the town on my way here a few weeks ago. It’s about an hour from Jackson.” Not much to write home about, if he remembered right—and he always did. Why the hell would Kellan’s sister choose a town like that to live in?
At the worry in Kellan’s voice, he tabled the thought. “Well, that puts you a hell of a lot closer than me.” Kellan paused. “She’s jammed up pretty bad, Dev.”
Shit. “How bad?”
“Bad enough to call me and ask for help for the first time in our lives. She witnessed a local drug dealer by the name of Xavier Fagan murder her boss, and then the guy came after her.”
“Jesus,” Devon breathed. “Where is she now?”
“Safe,” Kellan said, and didn’t that explain why the guy hadn’t gone completely over the edge in the re-telling. “She managed to get away from Fagan, but she says the guy is no joke. Apparently he’s really well connected, all the way up to the Feds.”
On second thought, “shit” wasn’t even in the same hemisphere as this. “So, she can’t call the local cops.”
Kellan murmured an affirmative, followed by a couple of nasty curse words. “Exactly. I got her about fifty miles from Coyote Flats, and she’s safe for now, but the first flight out of North Carolina doesn’t leave until oh-seven-forty my time.”
“Which won’t put you in the middle of nowhere, Wyoming until nightfall.” Commercial flight across the country was a bitch and a half. The drive from the airport to a place like Coyote Flats? Even worse. “So, how do you want to run this?”
Kellan paused, his normally unshakeable demeanor sounding like someone had taken a whack at it with a tire iron. “Do you think you can sit on her and just make sure she’s okay ’til I can get there tonight? Kylie’s tough, and I’ve got her holed up pretty tight off the grid…”
Devon frowned, running a hand over his dark blond high and tight. “But?”
“But she’s my kid sister, and you’re the nearest resident badass,” Kellan said. “Fagan sounds like a nasty son of a bitch. I’d feel better knowing you’ve got eyes on her until I can get there.”
“Then I guess I’d better get eyes on her ASAP.” Devon tossed the sheet off his hips, skinning into the pair of jeans he’d left on top of his duffel at the foot of the bed.
“Thanks, man.” Relief marked his buddy’s words, but Devon didn’t even break stride in the search for his bruised and battered work boots. Everything he did, he did full throttle. Plus, he owed Kellan, and not a little.
And since Devon’s biggest fuck-up had nearly cost both their lives, the least he could do was get his ass out of bed and prove his worth by looking after the guy’s younger sister.
“No sweat,” Devon said, covering his shrug first with a white T-shirt, then his shoulder holster.
He didn’t have any family—at least, not the kind you could trace on one of those fancy ancestry sites—but he got it.
Kylie was Kellan’s only blood relative. Just because Devon wasn’t in possession of any of those, himself, didn’t mean he didn’t get Kellan’s need to look out for his family.
“I’m awake, and you need backup. What’s Kylie’s location? ”
Kellan released a slow breath over the phone line. “She stopped at the El Monaco Motel about an hour outside of Coyote Flats, room 202. She’s driving a red Mustang with California plates. I told her not to open the door for anyone, no matter what.”
Easy enough. “I’ll head out there, see what I can see.”
“Thanks, man. I really appreciate it.”
“You give her a code word so she’ll know I’m a friendly?” The last thing Devon needed was to have Kylie panic—or worse yet, run—in a case of mistaken identity.
“I wasn’t sure if I’d get you, but tell her you’re there to deliver the jelly donuts. That’s my code word with her, so she’ll know you’re solid.”
Under different circumstances, Devon would be tempted to give his buddy a ration of shit over his choice of code words. But they had a job to do, someone to protect, so this shit would have to wait. “Copy that.”
“Her cell reception’s pretty crappy, but I’ll try her back to let her know you’re coming. And Dev?”
“Yeah?” he asked, putting Kellan on speaker so he could use both hands on the job they were meant for.
“Do me a favor and watch your six, would you?” Kellan asked. “On the off chance Fagan gets lucky enough to find her, he won’t hesitate to hurt her. Or worse.”
For the first time in ages, Devon let loose with a smile, triple checking the clip in his SIG before turning to get his backup nine millimeter from its hidey hole under the bathroom sink.
“Trust me, Walker. I’m on my toes. Your sister will be safe with me until you get here. I swear it.”
The El Monaco Motel turned out to be twenty rooms of stop-and-screw about a mile off the highway.
After doing a drive-by to give himself a mental map of his surroundings, Devon parked his year-old Dodge Challenger around the back of the place, sinking low in his leather jacket as he walked the perimeter like a ghost. The motel was a good thirty minutes closer to Jackson than Coyote Flats, but then again, distance was different all the way out here.
The open stretches of land, the way the remote plains and uninhabited landscape unfurled on an endless loop, reminded Devon of a less dusty version of Afghanistan.
If you move, I will kill your friend.
“Knock it off,” he muttered, shaking himself back to the here and now.
Stepping so his shit-kickers remained silent on the cracked pavement, he scanned the space in front of him from left to right.
Two-story motel, ten rooms up top, ten ground level.
Points of entry open to either an outdoor walkway or the front parking lot itself.
Six vehicles in the lot beneath the blue neon sign boasting rooms for the night or by the hour.
Three pickup trucks, a newer-looking SUV, a rust-encrusted Toyota…
And hey, what do you know? A red Mustang with California plates.
“Hmmm.” Devon moved toward the vehicle, his eyes taking a quick tour of the empty interior. He flattened his palm on the hood, swinging his gaze up to the door marked 202 in cheap, reflective numbers.
The car was still warm. Kylie was here, but she hadn’t been for long.
“Don’t fucking move.”
The purposely roughed-up voice came from behind, accompanied by a steely nudge that told Devon he had his work cut out for him. God damn it, now he was going to have to break someone’s kneecaps before the sun even came up.
Bright side was, at least he’d get a workout.
“Alright,” Devon said, lifting his hands to feign submission. “Take it easy. I’m just looking for a friend.”
“A friend.” The voice dripped with sarcasm, but there was something weird about the disguised tone, something Devon couldn’t quite place.
The figure came into view in the reflection of the windshield for just a split second, but it was all he needed to gain the advantage.
Spinning around, he wound his arm over the guy’s above the elbow, capturing both his arm and his weapon in one decisive move as he pulled the guy forward—
And realized he wasn’t a guy at all.