Chapter Twelve
WARRANTS
“Federal marshals!”
The front door slammed inward hard enough to rattle the walls.
Axel crossed the threshold first.
The place should’ve been condemned years ago. The sagging porch gave beneath his weight but had held, thank fuck. Broken windows patched with plywood lined the sides of the washed-out yellow house.
They’d waded through knee-high grass across the front lawn, and he was pretty sure his boots would never be the same.
Inside, the smell hit him immediately: Rot, cigarette smoke, and something chemical. The stained carpet squished faintly beneath his boots. Like the floor was trying to spit him back outside.
Axel grimaced. “Clear left.”
Whip peeled toward the kitchen, and Axel swept the living room.
Dirty dishes and spilled beer cans littered the low, dark-brown coffee table. On a small cracked mirror, drugs sat in plain sight, a rolled-up dollar bill next to a line of white powder.
Four days chasing Cutter, and somehow, he always ended up standing in somebody else’s bad decisions.
Frank Delany was missing, and his place had been empty.
But other leads kept coming in. Some good. Most probably bullshit. Either way, every one of them had to be followed.
Hence the reason he was facing the two sketch heads sitting on a ripped, broken-down couch.
The woman launched to her feet as if to make a run for it.
“Sit your ass down.” Axel pointed his gun at her.
She spat at him from across the room, glaring through long, tangled black hair that hadn’t been washed in God only knew how long.
“That’s a felony,” Axel warned her.
She gaped at him. Too skinny to be healthy, with open sores across her jawline. The drugs were winning. Scratching at her arm, she dropped back onto the couch beside the man who hadn’t moved.
The guy wasn’t much better. Both looked like they’d lost a fight with life years ago.
“What the fuck?” the woman hissed.
“Hands where I can see them,” Axel said.
“The fuck you doing in my house?”
“Federal marshals.”
“Fucking feds!” she spat.
“Marshals,” he corrected her.
She glared, the hate clear in her washed-out pale eyes.
Axel rubbed at his chin. Four days of search warrants, interviews, and dead-end leads hadn’t improved anybody’s attitude, and this couple was no different.
The guy blinked at him slowly.
“You got a warrant?”
Axel leaned over and dropped the folded warrant onto the coffee table.
The guy picked it up and squinted at it.
“Do you know where Clay Cutter is?”
The woman barked a laugh.
“Christ, another one?”
Axel paused.
“Another one?”
“Do I look like I know where anybody is?”
Axel studied her for a second.
She looked exhausted, strung out, and angry at the world and everybody in it.
Not scared.
“Who else has been asking?”
Before she could answer, Whip appeared in the kitchen doorway looking like he’d already seen everything the place had to offer.
“Clear,” Whip said.
Axel returned his attention to the occupants.
Another voice came from deeper in the house.
“Clear back here,” Knox called.
The woman pointed toward the open front door.
“You assholes broke my damn door.”
“That door was one good breeze away from falling over,” Axel snorted.
The man beside her actually looked offended.
“That door was solid, man.”
The guy stared at him.
Axel stared right back.
Neither of them believed that.
“Bill me,” Axel said.
A moment later Knox emerged from one of the bedrooms.
“Nobody.”
“Shocking,” Axel muttered.
Knox rolled his eyes.
The woman spotted him, twisting her lips. She reached for the cigarette burning in the overflowing ashtray and took a drag. Smoke curled through her tangled hair.
“Oh good. They sent the Boy Scouts.”
Knox looked delighted. The kid worried him sometimes.
“That’s the nicest thing anybody’s said to me all week.”
The woman blinked.
Boots sounded on the porch and a second later Sheriff Tomas Mercer stepped inside. Rain darkened his black hair. He held a paper cup of coffee from the Gas & Go down the street like this was a casual Tuesday.
Grady was close behind, shaking water from his hair as he stepped around Tomas.
“Anything?” Axel asked.
“Nope, shed was empty,” Grady said. “That’s the third place today.”
“Fourth,” Axel corrected. “We already checked the mini-mart off Lincoln on the way here.”
“Ah.” Grady groused at Tomas. “Where’s my coffee?”
“You realize we’re in the middle of a warrant?” Tomas said, handing over the paper cup.
“I’m aware.” Grady smirked and took a swallow anyway.
Boots sounded on the porch.
Grant Mercer ducked through the doorway behind them, shaking off water.
Axel hadn’t seen Grant in probably a year. Tomas’s older brother was still built like a freight train. Broad shoulders nearly filled the doorway. Black hair that needed a trim. Green eyes that missed very little.
“Told you Cutter wouldn’t stay here,” Grant said.
His voice was deep with a hint of a drawl. Slow and unhurried, like he’d already thought about what he was going to say before opening his mouth.
Knox glanced over. Then again.
Grant didn’t seem to notice. Or maybe he just didn’t care.
Axel smirked. He and Grant had grown up together. The man had always been a force. He’d broken more than a few hearts over the years.
The woman threw her hands into the air.
“If you idiots are done tearing apart my house, get the hell out.”
“Tempting,” Axel said. “Now tell me, who else has been asking about Cutter?”
It took another ten minutes to get anything useful out of them. Mostly because neither seemed capable of answering a question without cussing first. The woman swore she’d never met Cutter. The guy swore he’d never heard of him.
Both changed their stories twice.
Neither seemed particularly committed to the truth.
The chemical smell hanging in the house made Axel’s teeth hurt. Between the drugs on the coffee table and the overflowing ashtrays, it was a miracle they’d managed to keep their stories straight.
In the end, all they got was a description.
Older Ford pickup. Primer-gray hood.
Seen a few days ago.
Same damn truck they’d been chasing since the witness call.
Gravel crunched outside.
Axel looked toward the doorway.
Two of Tomas’s deputies climbed out of a patrol unit.
Finally.
“Possession?” one deputy asked, stepping through the door and eyeing the coffee table.
“Yup,” Axel confirmed.
The woman immediately started yelling again.
The guy looked confused.
Axel wasn’t sure which one was more exhausting.
He suddenly needed air.
Axel stepped aside while the deputies moved in.
Four days, multiple warrants, numerous interviews, and they were still chasing Cutter.
Axel scrubbed a hand across his jaw.
The room stank. The lead was dead. There was nothing left to do here.
“Let’s go.”
There had to be a better lead somewhere.
Sunlight broke through the clouds overhead, glinting off wet pavement and flooded ditches as they drove away. Which meant the roads were only mostly trying to kill them now.
Axel rode shotgun while Whip drove.
Behind them, Tomas and Grady followed in a separate vehicle.
Grant rode with Knox.
The thought made Axel smirk.
Whip looked at him briefly before returning to the road.
“You smile like that and people assume you’re plotting something.”
“People? You mean you.”
“Fair.”
Axel stretched and settled deeper into the seat. Every muscle from his shoulders down reminded him they’d spent the better part of four days kicking in doors and chasing bad leads.
“Grady owes me twenty bucks.”
“For what?”
“He said Knox wouldn’t fall for the storage container trick.”
Whip snorted. “He almost didn’t.”
“That wasn’t my fault.”
“You locked him inside.”
“It was temporary.”
“It was four hours.”
“He had snacks.”
Whip laughed. Four days of dead ends felt a little less irritating when Whip was laughing.
“That’s your defense?” Whip murmured.
“It worked.”
“Boone threatened paperwork.”
“Boone threatens paperwork when the coffee pot is empty.”
That earned another laugh. The sound filled the SUV like it belonged there.
The radio crackled.
Static hissed through the speaker before fading again.
Then Grady’s voice.
“Repair shop is another five minutes.”
“Copy,” Whip answered. His hands rested loose on the steering wheel, blue eyes fixed on the highway ahead. Nothing about him looked tense, but Axel knew better. Whip remembered things normal people forgot.
Axel looked out the window.
Miles of wet highway stretched ahead of them. The rain had finally quit, but every dirt road branching off the highway looked like another place Cutter could disappear.
Somewhere out there, Cutter was still moving.
Four damn days.
Warrants.
Interviews.
Tips.
Witnesses.
The same damn truck. At this point, Axel was starting to wonder if the thing had its own zip code.
“Think he’s there?” Axel asked.
“The repair shop? No.”
“Good.”
Whip frowned.
“Good?”
“Means I won’t be disappointed when we kick the door in.”
A weathered sign appeared beside the road.
JONES’ ENGINE REPAIR.
Axel grunted. “This one definitely has drugs.”
“At Daniel’s?” Whip shook his head. “He’s a model citizen.”
“Fan-fucking-tastic.” Axel remembered the clean-cut bastard.
Whip pulled into the lot.
“Can’t you look on the bright side?”
Axel narrowed his eyes. “Somebody spits on Tomas?”
Whip barked a laugh and put the SUV in park.
Ahead of them, Knox climbed out of the truck. Grant followed. The big man glanced around once, calm and steady, like he’d seen it all before.
Axel opened his door.
“Let’s go disappoint ourselves.”
The repair shop looked nothing like the places they’d searched all week.
The gravel lot had been graded recently. Vehicles sat in neat rows. No junk piles. No broken appliances rusting in the weeds. Even the chain-link fence looked maintained.
It was the only decent engine repair on this side of the county.
The garage doors stood open. Inside, tools hung neatly on pegboards and the concrete floor looked clean enough to eat off.
“Why the hell would Cutter be at Daniel’s place anyway? Why do we have to stop here?” Axel asked as they crossed the lot.
Daniel Jones had spent most of high school drowning in male and female attention. Twenty years later, he was married with kids, ran the cleanest shop in the county, and somehow still looked like Daniel Jones.
None of that screamed fugitive accomplice.
“Daniel knows Cutter,” Whip said.
“Half the county knows Cutter.”
“True.”
Whip pointed toward a row of vehicles parked neatly along the side lot.
“Cutter might’ve brought the truck in to trade.”
Axel followed the gesture. A couple of pickups, an SUV, and an old sedan sat parked along the side lot. No primer-gray hood.
“No truck.”
“Not seeing one,” Whip agreed.
Axel squinted toward the garage. The place smelled faintly of oil and fresh rubber. Actual work. Actual business. For the first time all morning, he wasn’t standing in a building that looked one second away from collapsing.
“Let’s check it out anyway.”
“That’s usually how warrants work,” Whip drawled.
“Clown,” Axel muttered, heading for the office entrance instead of cutting through the open bay.
Whip chuckled and fell in beside him.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Daniel said, looking up from beneath the hood of a pickup.
Bright blue eyes landed on Whip first.
Of course they did.
Daniel’s grin appeared a second later.
Also for Whip.
Blond hair caught the sunlight pouring through the open bay doors, making him look less like a mechanic and more like somebody who should’ve been selling expensive watches in a magazine.
Twenty years later and the bastard was still unfairly good-looking.
“Whip Tauber.”
“Daniel Jones.”
The grin widened.
Axel immediately disliked how happy everybody seemed about this reunion.
“Long time.”
“Too long,” Daniel said, wiping his hands on the grease rag.
Axel cleared his throat.
Neither of them paid attention.
“Nice to see you too,” he muttered.
Daniel finally looked his way.
“Oh. Hey, Axel.”
Whip barked a laugh.
Axel narrowed his eyes and stalked toward the open bay doors.
Maybe this place did have drugs.