Chapter 3
Float noticed the dark windows first.
Ozark Light should have been lit up at six p.m. on a Wednesday—the photographer who ran the place did steady business with engagement shoots and family portraits, and midweek evenings were prime booking hours.
He'd driven past the studio a dozen times on club runs, noticed the warm glow through the windows, the Jeep in the gravel lot.
Tonight the windows were dark. The Jeep was there, but no lights inside.
He pulled his bike into the lot and cut the engine.
None of his business. The club hadn't sent him here. He was running an errand for Current—dropping off paperwork at a marina three miles down the road—and Ozark Light was just a building he happened to pass.
But the cameras Cottonmouth had mentioned were still rattling around in his head. Private surveillance. Professional installation. Somebody watching Ridgerunner properties who wasn't law enforcement.
Float swung off his bike and walked to the studio door.
It opened before he could knock.
The woman on the other side had a portable hard drive in one hand and something sharp in her eyes that made him reassess everything he'd assumed about small-town photographers.
She was maybe five-six, lean in a way that spoke to efficiency rather than vanity, dark hair pulled back from a face that was assessing him the same way he was assessing her.
"Studio's closed." Her voice was flat. Controlled. The voice of someone who'd decided not to show fear.
"I can see that." Float didn't move from the doorway. "Noticed your lights were out. Wanted to make sure everything was okay."
"Everything's fine."
It wasn't. He could see past her into the studio—broken glass swept into a pile near the wall, a smashed camera laid out on the table like evidence, the laptop she'd clearly been working on still glowing in the darkness.
"That why you're working in the dark with a weapon in your hand?"
Her eyes flickered. She didn't look down at the hard drive, didn't acknowledge that he'd caught her mid-escape. But something in her posture shifted—a fraction less defensive, a fraction more curious.
"Who are you?"
"Float." He let her see the cut, the Ridgerunner patch. "I ride with the club up on the lake."
"The motorcycle club." Not a question. She knew who they were. Everyone in this part of the Ozarks knew who the Ridgerunners were.
"That camera didn't break itself." Float nodded toward the wreckage on the table. "Neither did your face when you answered the door."
Her jaw tightened. "I don't know what that means."
"Means you're scared of something, and whatever it is, you're too smart to call the cops about it." He held her gaze. "I know that look. Seen it on people who've figured out that official channels don't handle certain kinds of problems."
Silence stretched between them. Float waited. Prospects learned patience—you couldn't rush a delivery or force a contact to trust you. You showed up, you stayed steady, and you let people decide for themselves.
"A man broke into my studio two days ago." Her voice stayed flat, but something underneath cracked just slightly. "He wanted me to delete photos from a property shoot. When I refused, he destroyed my camera and told me next time it wouldn't be equipment."
Float's blood went cold.
"What property?"
"Rental cabin on Brush Creek Road. I shot listing photos six weeks ago." She stepped back from the doorway, a silent invitation. "I didn't think anything of it until I looked at the images. There were men in the background installing something on the exterior. Small cameras. The kind you hide."
The kind Cottonmouth had found in the Ridgerunner rental.
Float walked into the studio and looked at the smashed camera. Eighteen thousand dollars of equipment, minimum—he knew enough about professional gear to recognize quality when he saw it broken. Whoever had done this wasn't sending a message. They were making a statement.
"You still have the photos?"
She hesitated. Just a heartbeat, but he caught it.
"I have backups."
"Where?"
Her chin came up. "Why does a biker care about my property photos?"
Float turned to face her fully. In the dim light from the laptop screen, her features were sharp—high cheekbones, stubborn mouth, eyes that had seen things she didn't talk about.
Something about the way she held herself reminded him of the veterans he'd met through the club.
The ones who'd traded one kind of fight for another.
"Because the club found cameras like that in one of our properties last week.
Same kind of installation. Professional work.
" He kept his voice level, watched her process the information.
"Someone's running surveillance on the Ozarks, and you accidentally photographed their operation.
That makes you a problem they want to disappear. "
"I figured that out when he smashed my camera."
"You figured out you were in danger. You didn't figure out how much.
" Float moved closer, close enough to see the tension in her shoulders and the steadiness in her hands.
"These people have resources. Money. Crews.
If they're watching our properties, they've been watching yours too.
They know your schedule, your routes, your habits. "
Something flickered in her eyes—not fear, exactly. Recognition. Like she'd already considered that possibility and filed it away.
"You were Army." It wasn't a question.
"Photographer." She didn't flinch from the identification. "Four years documenting things that don't officially exist."
That explained the posture. The controlled voice. The way she'd answered the door ready to fight instead of ready to run.
"Then you know how this works." Float closed the distance between them to something that was probably too close, too intimate for strangers.
He couldn't help it. Something about this woman made him want to put himself between her and every threat in the Ozarks.
"You've got evidence they need to destroy.
That makes you a target until they get it or you're not a problem anymore. "
"I'm aware of my situation."
"Are you aware that you can't handle this alone?"
Fire flashed in her eyes. There it was—the backbone he'd sensed under all that control. She wasn't just strong. She was stubborn in a way that would probably drive him insane.
"I've been handling things alone for a long time."
"Yeah?" Float didn't back off. "How's that working out for your camera?"
She laughed. The sound surprised both of them—sharp, unexpected, genuine. It transformed her face, softened the edges that stress and fear had sharpened.
"That's fair." She shook her head. "Fine. What exactly are you proposing?"
"I'm proposing you let me call the club." Float pulled his phone from his cut. "If these surveillance assholes are running operations through Ridgerunner territory, that makes them our problem. And we handle our problems."
"With violence."
"You got a better solution?"
She looked at the broken camera on the table. At the hard drive still clutched in her hand. At the darkness outside the windows where anyone could be watching.
"No," she admitted. "I don't."
"Then let me make a call."
Cottonmouth answered on the second ring. Float gave him the short version: photographer on the lake road, property shoot that captured surveillance installation, intimidation visit, smashed equipment, threat of escalation.
"Same cameras?" Cottonmouth's voice was flat.
"Same type. Same professional installation. She's got photos of the crew doing the work."
Silence. Float could hear the Sergeant at Arms thinking, calculating threat levels and response requirements.
"Bring her in."
"She's not going to—"
"I didn't ask what she wants. Someone's running surveillance on Ridgerunner territory and threatening women who document it. That's club business now." A pause. "Get her to the compound. Tonight."
The line went dead.
Float looked at Delaney, who'd been watching him with those sharp, assessing eyes throughout the conversation.
"The club wants to meet you."
"I heard." She didn't look pleased. "I don't need to be rescued."
"Nobody said anything about rescue." Float moved toward the door, expecting her to follow.
When she didn't, he turned back. "You said the man who threatened you would be back.
You've got evidence they want destroyed and a face they need to make sure stays quiet.
How long you think you have before they come for both? "
Her jaw worked. He watched her calculate odds, weigh options, assess threats—all the things a woman with her background would do when the situation turned tactical.
"My Jeep has everything I need," she finally said. "If I'm leaving, I'm driving myself."
"Fair enough." Float didn't argue. She needed control right now, and he wasn't going to take it from her. "Follow me to the compound. Stay close."
He walked to his bike, swung on, and waited.
A moment later, she killed the studio lights, locked the door, and climbed into her Jeep with the hard drive still in her hand.
Float started his engine and pulled out of the lot with the Jeep's headlights in his mirrors.
The woman was stubborn, fierce, and smart enough to recognize a threat she couldn't handle alone. She'd stood in her studio with broken equipment at her feet and hadn't run, hadn't crumbled, hadn't begged for help. She'd calculated and documented and prepared.
Something about that got under his skin in ways he didn't want to examine too closely.
He called the compound again as he rode, the phone pressed to his ear against the wind.
"Cottonmouth. Garvey's surveillance operation—it's running through our properties and others. The photographer's got proof. She documented a crew installing cameras at a rental on Brush Creek Road, and they're coming for her to destroy the evidence."
"How many?"
"Unknown. The one who threatened her was just the messenger.
There's a bigger operation behind this." Float checked his mirrors.
The Jeep was still there, headlights steady.
"She's got military background. Knows how to handle herself.
But she's got something they need, and they've already proven they're willing to get violent. "
"Get her to the compound. We'll figure out the rest when we know what we're dealing with."
Float ended the call and focused on the road.
Behind him, Delaney drove with the backup drive in her Jeep and the evidence that made her worth killing hidden where they couldn't reach it.
He didn't know why he'd stopped at that studio. Didn't know why dark windows and a missing light had been enough to pull him off his route.
But he knew one thing: whatever was coming, she wasn't facing it alone.
The club protected its territory. Its people. Its own.
And something in Float's gut said this woman was about to become all three.