Chapter 9
Hunter and Ghost had returned to the glamping site the night before, Amber decided to stay at her grandparents. The following morning, Hunter came to the house, and they immediately got to work digging deeper into the cartel and Hell Speed’s latest activity. Amber searched social media again, pulling up any clues she could while Hunter worked the dark web using encryption and a VPN. Ghost was meeting with a state police contact of his who was a town over. Someone they could trust. An operator buddy.
The whir of the laptops mingled with the ticking clock on the wall. Amber”s fingers danced across the keys as she dug for clues. Hunter mirrored her posture on the opposite side of her grandmother’s kitchen table, his eyes scanning the screen before him, where a network of red lines connected incidents all too neatly.
“Look at this,” Amber murmured, breaking the silence. “There were three disappearances last month, all women of the same age, all here in Colorado. Do you think it could be them?”
Hunter leaned in, his gaze tracing the pattern she had uncovered. “Same MO as the cartel. It could be. Are they into more than drug trafficking? Rider just finished a year’s worth of human trafficking work. I’ll shoot him an email and see if he can connect those dots.”
“Maybe they are getting desperate,” Amber countered, her brown eyes fierce with the fire of revelation. Her linguistic prowess was not needed here; the language of crime spoke clearly in the stark data before them. “I mean, they are the rejects from the actual cartel. They’ve either decided to start their own cartel or they are trying to score big enough to be accepted back into the ranks of the original one.”
“Desperate is dangerous,” Hunter said, his voice low. He closed his laptop with a snap that sounded like a gunshot in the quiet house. “We need more concrete evidence. It’s about time we check out that cabin in the woods.”
“Agreed. We”ll need evidence they can”t refute.”
“Or can be ignored,” Hunter added, thinking of the way the local police had scoffed at them.
Hunter slung his backpack over his shoulder, its weight a familiar comfort against the uncertainty that lay ahead. Amber stood beside him, her own pack secured. Their footsteps crunched over gravel as they moved away from the safety of her grandparent”s ranch. The air was thick with the scent of pine and the faint musk of damp earth, the sun dipping low in the sky casting long shadows that stretched across the path like dark fingers. Hunter”s hand brushed the concealed sidearm under his jacket; habits honed in hostile territories now resurfacing with a vengeance.
They traveled through the dense underbrush, the quiet only broken by the occasional snap of a twig underfoot. The silence between them wasn”t uncomfortable. It was filled with shared focus, each absorbed in their thoughts and the gravity of the task at hand.
As the cabin came into view, it looked more like a specter than a structure, its dilapidated walls a testament to neglect. Hunter”s gaze lingered on the rotting wooden boards, each one groaning under the weight of years and secrets. The windows were like blind eyes, the glass broken or missing, offering no glimpse into the darkness within.
“Looks like a place ghosts would think twice about haunting,” Amber murmured, her voice barely above a whisper.
“Let”s just hope the living have been as hesitant,” Hunter replied, his throat tight. Every creak of the old wood underfoot sounded like a warning as they drew closer, the wind rustling through the leaves adding an eerie harmony to their approach. Hunter felt the hair on the back of his neck stand on end.
“Ready?” he asked, his voice barely audible.
“Let”s bring them down,” Amber said, her determination steeling her features as they stepped forward to face whatever horrors awaited them inside.
Hunter”s hand wrapped around the rusted doorknob, the metal cool and unforgiving beneath his grasp. With a measured push, the door groaned on its hinges, protesting the intrusion. The sound seemed to echo far beyond the confines of the neglected structure, and for a moment, Hunter held his breath, half-expecting an ambush. But only silence greeted them—a thick, expectant hush.
They stepped across the threshold, their flashlights cutting swathes through the gloom. Dust particles danced in the beams like wayward spirits. The air was stale, laced with the acrid scent of decay and the underlying hint of chemicals that had no place outside a laboratory.
“Looks recent,” Amber whispered, her light passing over an array of syringes and small plastic bags that littered the floor.
“Too recent,” Hunter agreed, feeling the weight of unseen eyes upon them. His pulse quickened with the knowledge that every second inside increased their risk. He wanted to get in, gather what evidence they could find and get out.
The cabin was a single room, with spaces delineated by function rather than walls. They split without a word — Hunter to the makeshift office area, Amber toward the storage spaces. Amber”s moved with precision as she pulled open drawers. Her fingers, which could fluently sign in three languages, now searched for secrets in the shadows. She cataloged everything with her camera, a silent witness to the crimes whispered by the empty space.
Meanwhile, Hunter approached the desk, its surface a chaotic landscape of papers. Each document was potentially a lifeline or a death sentence, and he treated them with equal parts reverence and suspicion. His focus narrowed as he sifted through the discarded papers, searching for something—anything—that might serve as a key to unlock the cartel”s grip on this place.
His hand brushed against a stained coffee cup, upending it. The hollow sound it made as it rolled off the desk seemed impossibly loud in the quiet cabin. He froze, listening for any response to the noise, but again, only silence enveloped them.
“Anything?” Amber called softly from across the room.
“Still looking,” he replied, his eyes scanning the scribbles and figures scattered before him. Why did he expect them to be stupid enough to leave evidence laying around? He hoped for something, anything to point them to their crimes. The numbers sprawled on the paper in front of him meant nothing. Rows of addition, a few initials. Nothing concrete. As Hunter examined each crumpled paper, discarded receipt, and cryptic note, Amber methodically pried at the seams of the cabin”s interior, determined to uncover its secrets. Somewhere within these walls lay the evidence they needed to bring the cartel to its knees, and they would find it.
Hunter”s fingers grazed the edge of a weathered ledger, it had been concealed in a fake bottom of a drawer. The room was shrouded in shadows, the only light coming from the narrow beam of his flashlight. He flipped open the cover, and his heart rate quickened. Names, dates, and figures lined the pages in meticulous handwriting. It was a detailed accounting of the cartel”s transactions, profits laid bare in ink that could just as easily have been blood. Idiots. Why would they leave this, albeit hidden, in the cabin? Hunter remembered how desperate this small band of men were, having been rejected by the cartel they’d been a large part of and wanted to find a way back into the fold.
“Got something,” he muttered under his breath. Each page he turned revealed more of the secretive operations—a ledger of darkness. Quickly, he pulled out his phone, snapping photos of every page, the camera shutter sound muted in the oppressive silence of the cabin. With these images, they could expose the criminal network that had sunk its claws into the area. But first, they had to get out alive. Finishing with his photos, he placed the ledger back where he’d found it.
“Hunter, over here.” Amber squatted and with careful force, she pried up a board, her breath catching at what lay beneath. “It was loose,” she explained as Hunter walked up.
Nestled within the hidden compartment was a cache of tightly wrapped bundles—drugs—and alongside them, a stack of passports. The faces staring back at her were hauntingly young, too many lives reduced to mere documents. Human trafficking. She understood multiple languages, but no words in any of them could express the horror of this discovery.
“Jesus,” Amber whispered, reaching for her own cell phone. Her hands, so steady when interviewing criminals for her documentary series, shook as she documented the evidence of unfathomable crimes. This wasn’t just about drugs; it was about stolen freedom, shattered lives. Not again. Not this again.
“Amber?” Hunter’s voice cut through her focus.
“Found more than drugs. They”re smuggling people. Some of these are missing girls that came up on my search today.”
“Damn it,” Hunter cursed. “Take what we need and let”s move,” Hunter commanded, pocketing his phone.
Amber carefully replaced the floorboard, hiding the monstrous truth once more before standing. Their mission had just escalated, and now, more than ever, they needed to remain unseen, unknown. They had to get the evidence to the right hands before it was too late—for the victims and for themselves.
“Looks like we”ve got a full ledger here,” Hunter said tersely, scrolling through the photos he”d taken of the cartel”s financial records. “Names, dates... It”s a direct line to the top if we can decode it.”
“Top?” Amber echoed, her mind racing. “You think this goes beyond the local cells?”
“Has to,” he replied, eyes hardening. “No small operation has this kind of reach. Look at this—” He pointed to a series of entries marked with codes she recognized as international bank transactions. “They”re funding something big. And with the passports...”
“We have to stop them,” Amber said.
Hunter nodded, his jaw set. “We will. I’m not leaving Colorado until we do. “Then it”s settled,” Amber decided. “We reach out, build a case so airtight not even a cartel lawyer can punch through it.”
“Exactly.” Hunter”s lips quirked in a tight smile. “Let”s get back and make some calls. It”s time to bring this whole damn thing down.”
Hunter”s eyes flicked across the room, a final sweep for anything missed before they left, but it was the glint of glass, not paper or powder, that caught his attention. A small camera, tucked in the corner where wall met ceiling, its lens an unblinking eye on them both. Instinctively, he moved, a silent shadow that reached up and twisted the device until it faced the wall.
“Camera,” he murmured to Amber, his voice barely above a whisper. “We”ve been watched.”
Amber”s muscles tensed, her posture snapping straight as she absorbed the implication. “Then they know we”re onto them.”
“If it’s active. Shit, looks like it.” Hunter examined the disabled camera, ensuring it was no longer recording. He worked with efficient precision despite the chill that crept up his spine. “But now we know they”re as worried as we are. Let”s go,” he said, his voice low but clear. “We don’t know if they are watching live and if they’ve dispatched someone out here.” He led the way out of the cabin, stepping over the threshold back into the wild. The air outside felt different now, charged with the knowledge of their trespass. Every crunch of pine needles underfoot seemed amplified, every rustle of leaves a potential alarm.
The trek back to the road where they stored their ATVs was a silent march, each lost in thought. Hunter replayed the day”s discoveries, the ledger entries etched into his memory alongside the terror in Amber”s eyes when she lifted the passports from their hidden grave.
“Ghost will want to see this immediately,” Amber broke the silence.
“And Jimmy and Cameron can help us start piecing together the network,” Hunter added, his training kicking in once more. It was a puzzle, complex and dangerous, but not insurmountable. He”d dismantled IEDs under fire; he could dismantle a cartel with the right team.
They reached the safety of the ATVs and headed back to the house.
“Let”s get to work,” Amber said, looking around the table where everyone had gathered.
Hunter”s thumb brushed the screen of his phone, casting an eerie glow on his stubbled face. He swiped through the photos they had taken.
“Anything we missed?” Amber asked.
“Doesn”t look like it.” Hunter”s reply was terse, his mind still back at the cabin, replaying every detail.
“Should we encrypt these?” Amber shifted beside him. “I mean if they—” The sudden buzz of Hunter”s phone interrupted her. A text message icon flashed against the darkened screen. Fingers tensed, he tapped the notification.
His eyes narrowed as he read the words that materialized in stark white letters: “They”re watching you. Be careful.” He turned the phone to show Amber.
“Who”s it from?” Amber leaned in, the light casting shadows across her worried features.
“Unknown,” he murmured, a cold sensation crawling up his spine. The vague warning, with no name attached, gnawed at him. Who knew they were there? He passed the phone to Ghost who grunted and handed it back. “I’ll send it to Elite. Our tech person can work wonders.”
“Could be a trap,” Amber suggested. “Or someone inside the cartel...”
“Or a friend who”s worried,” Hunter added. The message meant eyes were on them, eyes they couldn”t see. He didn’t like being watched one bit.