Chapter Four #2
There was a man leaning against the van, and she recognized him from photos in the news.
Jericho McKenna. His arms crossed over his chest, dark hair wind-tossed, aviators perched on his head as if he belonged in a recruiting poster and knew it.
His grin was cocky, sharp-edged, and somehow still friendly.
He straightened as they pulled in.
Cassidy barely had the truck in park before Jericho opened his mouth. “Damn, Maddox,” he said, shaking his head with mock pity. “You look like somebody dropped a cinderblock on your forehead and set your hair on fire.”
Kincade opened the passenger door and climbed out without reacting. “Good to see you too.”
Cassidy slid out behind him, her gaze sweeping the lot, then the clinic. Quiet. Too quiet.
Jericho moved to greet them, his smile slipping just a touch as he gave her a nod. “Deputy Prescott.”
“Cassidy,” she offered. “We appreciate the meet.”
Jericho’s gaze flicked toward the building behind them, then back. “You come empty-handed, or is there something I should be very interested in?”
She watched as Kincade pulled the burner phone from his pocket and handed it over to Jericho.
Jericho took it carefully, turning it over in his hand. “Let me guess—this needs a one-way trip to the lab?”
“Yeah,” Kincade said. “It was Travis’s. He left a message on it.”
Jericho glanced at him, more alert now. “What kind of message?”
“A warning,” Kincade said. “He told us not to trust the cops. Said the person who killed County Prosecutor Harlan is wearing a badge.”
Jericho’s brow lifted slightly, but he didn’t look surprised. He opened the passenger door of the van and reached into a locked compartment inside. The burner disappeared into a padded case.
“Travis didn’t kill Daniel Harlan,” Cassidy volunteered, and she left no room for argument about that in her tone.
Jericho shut the door and turned back toward her. “Obviously.”
That one word, dry and laced with mild exasperation, hit like a pressure valve releasing. The tight band in her chest eased just a little.
“Good,” she muttered. “Because we’re the only ones acting like that’s true. Everyone else seems to believe he did it.”
Jericho crossed his arms again, his stance loose but ready. “Not me, not Ruby. Not anybody else at Maverick Ops. And that means we work to find Travis and then work even harder to clear his name. Because this murder charge against him is bullshit.”
Cassidy gave a faint nod, her shoulders relaxing just a fraction more. They weren’t alone in this. Not completely.
Jericho motioned for them to follow and led them through a side entrance tucked behind the clinic. The interior smelled like disinfectant and stale air. The hallway lights flickered overhead, and a poster about childhood immunizations peeled from the wall near a cracked water fountain.
They passed a row of exam rooms before Jericho pushed open a door at the back. Inside was a small space that had definitely seen better days. Faded wallpaper with cartoon animals peeled at the corners, and the exam table in the middle looked nowhere near large enough to accommodate an adult.
The woman waiting inside was dressed in green scrubs and worn sneakers. She was maybe in her sixties, tall and wiry, with a steel-gray braid down her back and the kind of sharp, unimpressed eyes that had probably made generations of children behave without a word.
Jericho grinned and leaned in to kiss her cheek. “Dr. Pat,” he said. “She’s stitched me up a time or two,” he added to Cassidy.
The doctor snorted. “Right arm, stomach, and your left ass cheek.”
Cassidy blinked, then looked at Kincade, who somehow managed not to smile. Jericho looked damn proud of the tally.
Dr. Pat gave Kincade a once-over, then pointed to the tiny exam table. “Sit. I’ve got maybe ten minutes before I kick all of you out.”
Kincade sat down with a wince, his long frame awkward on the kid-sized surface. The doctor pulled on gloves and started cleaning the cut at his temple with practiced hands.
He didn’t flinch, but Cassidy saw the muscle in his jaw tick.
Dr. Pat clucked under her breath. “This needs X-rays. Probably a CT scan. Can’t do either here.”
“Just fix me up the best you can,” Kincade said, voice quiet but firm. “We don’t have time to wait on hospitals or paperwork.”
Dr. Pat didn’t argue. She just muttered something about stubborn operatives and reached for the antiseptic.
Cassidy stepped back, watching the way Kincade sat still, eyes fixed straight ahead, jaw tight. He didn’t complain. Didn’t ask questions. Just endured.
It made her chest tighten for reasons she didn’t want to examine.
Jericho stepped away from the exam table and pulled out his phone, thumbs tapping fast as Dr. Pat continued her work on Kincade’s head. Cassidy could hear the faint clink of metal against the tray, the quiet hum of fluorescent lights overhead.
“She’s got a drone in the air,” Jericho said, eyes still on his screen.
Cassidy frowned. “Ruby?”
“Yeah,” Jericho confirmed. “She called in a favor. Drone’s over the quarry now, circling wide.”
He angled the screen so they could see. The live feed showed an aerial view—sharp resolution, scanning the rocky terrain and tree line with practiced sweeps. Kincade shifted slightly to look as well, though the doctor swatted his shoulder with a muttered “Sit still.”
The video scrolled smoothly, but there was nothing but patrol cruisers and a couple of deputies moving in slow formation. No one else. No heat signatures beyond the K-9s and their handlers.
“No sign of your brother,” Jericho muttered.
Cassidy swallowed the spike of disappointment and nodded once. She didn’t need words to confirm what she already feared.
Then Jericho looked at her, his tone shifting with a spark of mischief. “So… are you and Kincade together-together?”
Her head snapped toward him. “What?”
Jericho kept a straight face. “Just checking. I mean, I only ask when one of my teammates is clearly pining away like a sad, tactical Romeo.”
Kincade scowled from the table. “Jericho.”
“What?” Jericho said, throwing up a hand like he was innocent. “It’s true. He hasn’t stopped watching you since you walked in.”
Cassidy opened her mouth, ready to fire back something, anything, but Jericho wasn’t finished.
“Besides, I was there when Travis told Ruby his kid sister was off-limits to anyone from Maverick Ops. Said he’d break the jaw of the first guy who tried.”
Cassidy blinked. “Wait. What?”
She turned to Kincade, but he only shrugged.
“Oh my God,” she muttered, realization dawning. “That’s why.”
His expression said it all. Apology, frustration, guilt. Everything she hadn’t understood back then suddenly clicked into place.
She huffed and turned away, arms crossed. Her gaze drifted to the scuffed linoleum as the memory surged. Of the night they’d ended up in bed together. The sharp sting of grief and guilt after a failed op. A hostage lost. Too many questions from the press. Not enough answers from Command.
They had both needed something to hold on to. For one night, they found it in each other. Heat, comfort, something raw and honest. And afterward, she’d thought maybe it could be something more. But then he’d gone silent. Distant. Practically ghosted her.
Now she knew why.
Travis had drawn a line in the sand, and Kincade had respected it. Even if it tore something open between them.
Jericho’s phone beeped, sharp and insistent. He swiped to check it, his expression shifting as he read the incoming notification. “It’s from the techs. Ruby had them compile traffic cam footage.”
Cassidy straightened. “Traffic cams?”
Jericho nodded, already opening the attached feed. “Yeah. Ruby pulled every camera—traffic lights, parking lots, business security—within a fifty-mile radius of the safe house.”
She stepped closer. “There aren’t any traffic cams out there.”
“Not directly at the house,” Jericho said. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t trace movement near it. The techs were running license plate searches, looking for both your brother’s vehicle and Kincade’s. And they found something.”
The air in the exam room seemed to go thin.
Cassidy leaned in beside him while Kincade sat forward slightly, ignoring Dr. Pat’s annoyed grumble as she dabbed more antiseptic on the gash at his temple.
Jericho tapped the screen. The video feed opened, timestamped from nearly thirty-six hours earlier.
The grainy view showed a county road, the camera angled from the corner of a feed store parking lot. Dust blew across the pavement as a dark truck came into frame.
“That’s my truck,” Kincade volunteered. She watched as the vehicle passed by and disappeared around a bend. “That’s when I was headed to meet Travis.”
Cassidy’s pulse ticked up. “So the time lines up.”
Jericho paused the footage, frowning at the screen. “We’re still pulling data. Got a few hits on a vehicle that could be your brother’s SUV. Same make and model, but we haven’t confirmed the plate yet.”
Cassidy’s pulse kicked harder. “What about after? Did they catch him leaving the area?”
Jericho shook his head. “Not yet.”
Cassidy crossed her arms tightly, trying to hold back the spiral in her chest. Seeing Kincade’s truck on the screen had made it real. He’d been there. Something had gone wrong after that. And now they were trying to piece together a timeline built on shadows and guesswork.
But Travis’s SUV still wasn’t confirmed.
Either he’d vanished without leaving a trail.
Or someone had made damn sure the trail was gone.
Jericho tapped at the screen again. “Hold up. Here we go.”
A new clip opened, timestamped just under an hour after Kincade’s appearance. The same road, different camera. A dark SUV moved into frame, speeding slightly.
“That’s him,” Cassidy whispered. “That’s Travis’s vehicle.”
Jericho didn’t reply right away, just scrubbed forward through the footage. The SUV moved past a gas station, then through a quiet intersection. Inside the cab, through the windshield, they could make out the faint silhouette of someone in the passenger seat.
Too shadowed to identify.
“Can you enhance?” Kincade asked quietly.
Jericho nodded and jumped to the next clip. “Wait. Got him at a red light. Front angle.”
The screen shifted to a frozen frame. The SUV had rolled to a stop under a traffic light, the windshield caught in just enough glare to make the figures blurry. But not invisible.
Jericho zoomed in.
The passenger’s face came into focus, clear enough to see under the glare of the streetlamp.
Cassidy’s breath caught.
Because the person in the passenger seat wasn’t a stranger.
It was Deputy Marlene Lang. And she wasn’t just riding along. She had a gun drawn, angled toward Travis.
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