Chapter 20
Cade
Renegade seemed lessthan impressed with me for tearing him away from his mate, but the moment his work vest had been strapped on, his demeanor changed as it always had. Damn I loved a well-trained canine.
On a long lead, the guys and I spaced out, radios in hand. We weren’t forming a search grid per se. Being as we were a small group, it was easier for us to pull up a map and split things into quadrants.
It was barely past eight in the morning and the sun was rising farther, the midsummer heat climbing along with it as we set forth. Come hell or high water, we hoped to find answers before the day’s end.
“Let’s go, Ren.” I headed us toward the entry point I’d seen the perp fade into, while the rest of the men did much of the same at a twenty to twenty-five-foot distance from one another.
“Got something,” Rex’s voice crackled through the radio.
It was after lunch. Last I’d heard from Aspen was that they’d reached Raleigh, and all was fine on the women’s end. After four and a half hours in the bush, I was antsy to know more about what Rex had found.
“What you got?” Dalton’s voice crackled through before I could say anything.
“You got a location?” I chimed in.
“Small shack. Not much left of it. East of you all,” Rex paused, then proceeded to rattle off the exact coordinates.
Rex hadn’t lied. By the time the team had reached the ramshackle remains of what had to have been a one-room shack—most likely for hunting—it was a smoldering heap of embers.
“Now what?” Brycen asked.
“We look through what we can to make sure no one was caught in this clusterfuck,” I answered. “If we do, then we alert the authorities.”
The men nodded.
Three hours later, we had nothing. If the place was where our perp had been holed up, then they’d made it out. Or they’d never been here to begin with. It had been impossible to even tell if anyone had been living there recently or not.
Aspen
By the time Devolin and I returned, the men were still out. It wasn’t until we stepped toward the cottage that I knew something was off.
First, my front door was left ajar, and I knew damn well Cade had locked it and still held the spare key on his person.
Second, Molly came simpering with a limp from around the back where the shed and chicken coop were located.
“The fuck?” Devolin took the words from my mouth. “The guys aren’t back yet, or we would know it by now.”
“No. You’re right.” I studied the front door, wondering what kind of chaos awaited me. “Someone would have called.”
“Should we go in?”
I shook my head, indicating the negative. “Probably not, but I’m not staying here to wait on them. I?—”
“We’re two to their one,” Devolin stated, walking back to the truck’s passenger side door. Opening it, she reached in what I figured was most likely be the glove compartment. After closing and locking things up, she made her way back to me—gun in hand.
My body grew taut, eyes widening. “What the hell?”
“Relax,” she smirked. “It’s impossible to be married to Dalton and not know how to handle one of these babies. Not when the clan seems to keep growing and trouble lurks at every turn.”
My body relaxed at her casual attitude, but my nerves were causing the lunch we’d eaten a few hours ago to churn about in my stomach. The woman sported some serious firepower for such a small revolver, and I hoped she knew it.
“Stay behind me,” she ordered, then proceeded to head for the cottage, her right hand holding the weapon, the left supporting the butt of it.
I didn’t bother to say anything. Instead, I took in the tiny sprite of a thing, the gun’s safety off, weapon at the ready, looking like a serious badass.
Yeah, she’s definitely going to be my next heroine, I thought, then shook myself out of the artistic mindset fog I had a tendency of falling into, because that wasn’t where my head should be right then.
One minute, we’re badass women on the prowl for my elusive BE perp, the next, we’re both too freaked out at what we’d seen, thus rushing out of the cottage, slamming the door behind us.
“What do you think this means?” Devolin asked, as she plopped down on one of the Adirondack chairs on my front porch, my ass collapsing into the one next to hers. “That shit is weird in there.”
“What the hell did I take from them? I’ve never stolen so much as a fucking piece of candy, and even then, Mom made me bring the money to the store clerk to pay for it, after I’d apologized,” I explained. “Don’t let me get into what else I had to do in order to pay my mother back for that one.”
Upon entering, it was clear that whoever had been inside my home had already left. The silence inside the small space was foreboding. Pillows had been shredded, books were scattered everywhere. My personal collection of my works had been shredded, page after page strewn everywhere, certain words circled. I was too shocked, and Devolin must have felt the same way, to even attempt to make anything out. Then again, she’d stopped me as I went to touch, warning me that it was all evidence, and until the guys got back, we shouldn’t tamper with anything.
Most creepy of all had been the, you took it away, now I’ll take it from you message and the second one, give it back that had been painted on my walls in something red, which I’d surmised to be some kind of paint. I never wandered toward my bedroom, not wanting to see any more of the chaos and destruction that awaited me.
“The guys are going to freak.” Devolin was definitely right.
I nodded, then added, “We should have waited for them.” As much as I hated admitting to it, the wreckage that was my cottage would have been better dealt with by someone else other than me. “I can’t unsee any of that.”
“Ladies.”
On a shriek, both Devolin and I were out of our chairs, the only exception was that I was manning a bat while Devolin had her revolver pointed at Brycen, who hit the deck with a hard thud. Renegade barked up a storm at the man as he came running from the opposite direction Brycen had shown up from.
“The fuck?” came from Cade next, who nearly tripped over Brycen as he came running.
“Should have known you’d find trouble,” Dalton stated as though this was a regular occurrence, taking large steps to his wife’s side while he reached out with a, “Gimme the gun, woman.” Once he pried the weapon from her grasp and tucked it in the back of his pants, he kissed her silly.
Meanwhile, Rex was leaning on the front deck railing, chuckling, Brycen was getting back to his feet, and Cade’s questioning gaze was focused on me.
Dropping the bat to the floorboards, I ran and jumped into his arms with a muffled, “Someone’s been in the cottage.”
I was sure no one heard his breath catch, but I sure felt the tremor that wracked through Cade’s body before it went rigid.
“Rex. Bryce. Check the cottage. Now,” Cade ground out. “D and I will deal with the ladies.” As he set me down on my feet, all it took was a single look in his eyes and I knew I was in for it—and not in a good way. A look over my shoulder toward Devolin and her husband garnered me a wide-eyed expression from the woman in question that bordered an unneeded verbalized oh shit.
Yes, we had definitely stepped into the proverbial doo-doo.