28. Gauge
GAUGE
She fell asleep in my arms before I had a chance to lay her down in Dallas’s bed.
It was the only room that I figured she stood any chance of feeling safe in, and I figured he wouldn’t mind.
I still tucked her in anyway, though. I eased her out of those jeans and that ruined tank top first, and I kept my eyes where they belonged while I did it.
Even though she wasn’t awake to witness it, she deserved it.
She’d have welts that would need tending to in the morning.
Ligature marks around her wrists, too, that would need to be iced.
But there was nothing I could do about that.
What she needed in that moment was rest.
“Sleep well,” I whispered as I settled her into Dallas’s bed.
I knew I had to get out on my regular nightly patrol, but I still took my time tucking her in.
I pulled the comforter over her body and smoothed her hair away from her sweating forehead.
My knuckles grazed her cheek, taking with it the last few tears that fell from her eyes.
Or, maybe they were simply beads of sweat.
Either way, they didn’t deserve to sit upon the skin of one of the most beautiful women I’d ever seen.
I wanted to crawl in beside her and watch over her for the rest of the night.
But, duty called, and it pulled me away from her sleeping side.
It didn’t stop her sounds from filtering through my mind, however.
Her moans. Her groans. The way she sounded for him.
The way she begged. The way her skin echoed toward me as I stood out there in the hallway, watching over things while Deac proved his point.
Fucking hell, when I heard her orgasm, I damn near blew my load right there in my pants.
It wasn’t the first time he had run that gambit on unsuspecting women.
I’d stood outside that door many times while listening to him punish some sweet little thing who had a kink for more nefarious desires.
But, this sure as hell was the first time a woman had ever caved to him. Truly caved.
And goddamn it, how sexy she sounded doing it.
“Gauge?”
My earpiece came alive in my ear with Baitfish’s voice. “What?”
“I think I’ve got something.”
“Where?”
“The crossroads. Come as soon as you can. I’ll stay here until you arrive.”
Jesus fucking Christ, I hadn’t even started my own patrol route, and already Baitfish needed me to come look at something.
No matter. Better to be safe than sorry.
I forced my way out of Dallas’s bedroom and headed straight for my bike.
I bounded down the stairs, three at a time, just to get there quicker.
I usually enjoyed the ritual of putting on my leather jacket.
Swinging my leg over my bike. Revving my engine, just to feel its vibrations rattle my ribcage.
I didn’t relish any of it, though.
I was too anxious about getting to Baitfish to concern myself with it.
I chomped on the grit of the sand battering me in the face as I tore a trail toward Baitfish. The taste grounded me. The crackling kept my brain busy as I tried drowning out how absolutely delicious Char sounded up in that attic.
However, once Baitfish came into view, everything else fell to the wayside.
“Where?” I asked as I skidded to a stop next to him.
Baitfish pointed to the massive cactus on the side of the road. “There. I almost didn’t see it.”
I put my kickstand down and swung my leg over. “See what?”
He walked closer. “This. Right here.”
I squinted my eyes as I walked over. At first, I thought he was pulling my leg. Being paranoid, like we all were at that moment. But, right there, once I got close enough, was a small black…
“Is that a fucking camera?” I asked.
“I’m pretty sure it is,” Baitfish said. “It doesn’t have an LED light on it or anything, so for all I know, it’s dead.”
I touched it. “It’s plastic.”
“Matte plastic. Which means someone really didn’t want us to find it.”
I scoffed. “It’s small, black, and looks like an overgrown needle on this fucking thing. Of course, they didn’t want us to find it. How the hell did you find it, though?”
He shrugged. “If we’re being watched, there aren’t too many places to set up shit to help with the whole ‘being watched’ thing. So, I’ve been riding up and down checking bushes and cacti and all sorts of stash places along my regular route where someone might think to put one.”
“How many have you checked?”
“Two of my four routes.”
I nodded as a heavy sigh pushed its way up my throat. “Good work, Baitfish.”
I didn’t want to move it, but I sure as hell got up close and personal with it. The damned thing was cheap. As cheap as they came. Or, at least it looked like it. There were a lot of scratches, too, even though we hadn’t had a major dust storm as of late.
Which meant that camera had been there for a while.
“Fuck!” I bellowed.
I snatched it off the cactus and tossed it to Baitfish. “Get it to Plug. Now.”
“Sure thing.”
“Wake him up if you have to.”
“On it.”
And as I stood there, staring at that godforsaken cactus, I listened as Baitfish raced off with his motorcycle into the darkness.
How the hell were they powering it?
I walked around the plant and studied it.
I even pulled out my cell phone and turned on the flashlight just to get a better look than the stars and moon afforded me.
There were no wires. Not even small ones.
So, it wasn’t plugged into anything. It was much too small to be solar-powered, unless the scratched casing acted as one.
But, I wouldn’t know anything about that until Plug got his hands on it.
However, if it was battery powered in some way, that meant someone was sticking around to change them out.
I shook my head. I needed the thoughts to cease. I wouldn’t know anything until Plug did his technomagic wizardry with it. However, now that I knew what the hell I was looking for, and the places where I needed to be looking, that made things a hell of a lot easier.
So, I hopped back onto my bike and combed over the patrol routes myself.
“Mace, you biked up yet?” I asked as I whipped a U-turn next to the cactus.
“Yep, just got to my first route.”
“Stop and search every tree, cactus, bush, and tumbleweed on your route. Baitfish just found a camera attached to a cactus on one of his routes, and all it looked like from far away was a damn needle.”
Mace paused. “He actually found one?”
“He’s heading to Plug with it right now. Don’t search any other routes, just yours. But, look hard. They’re small and black, and they don’t have any wires attached to them.”
“How the hell are they being powered?—”
“Just do it, Mace,” I quipped.
“Yeah, yeah, I’ll stop and check. You know I will.”
I revved my engine and picked up the pace. “Thanks.”
The patrol was arduous. Two more of Baitfish’s routes along with the three I did on a nightly basis. The night didn’t feel as safe any longer. It didn’t bring me the kind of comfort it usually did. And as I got to the next route on Baitfish’s schedule, I headed toward the first bush that I found.
Only to find one of those same black cameras perched right on one of its front limbs.
“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me,” I growled.
One by one, I snatched them up. Five patrol routes, and I had six cameras in my possession.
All of them, black and cylindrical, with scratch marks that showcased how long they had been sitting there.
It felt like my head was about to burst into flames.
Anger consumed me as I charged toward every fucking cactus and big ass bush on the routes that were in my possession for the evening.
And when I finally pulled back up to the clubhouse, I found Deacon standing on the porch.
“How many?” he asked.
I got my bike situated before I hopped up onto the porch. “Six.”
He blinked. “What?”
I reached into the pocket of my leather jacket and pulled them out, showcasing all of them within my hand. Six cameras that I had found, and all of them could fit right there in the little groove of my palm.
“God fucking damn it!” Deac roared.
Dallas stuck his head out the front door. “The stage has officially been demolished.
Deac whipped around and bellowed right in his face. No words. No sentences. Nothing that I could make out. Just a bombastic, angry shout from a man who was being played left and fucking right.
Dallas’s eyebrows raised as Deac’s shouting ceased. “Who crawled into your panties and died?”
I outstretched my arm toward Dallas so that he could see the cameras. “These.”
That brought him out onto the porch. “Where the hell did you find those?”
“All along our patrol routes, apparently,” Plug said as his voice echoed from inside the clubhouse, “and you guys aren’t gonna like how they’re powered.”
“Inside. Now. All of you,” Deac commanded.
“Gauge?” Mace asked into my earpiece.
I groaned. “Let me guess, you found a camera.”
The guys froze and whipped toward me as Mace’s voice gave me the worst answer imaginable.
“Two, actually. I’m heading to my last route, but I’m sure I’ll find them there, too.”
I rolled my tongue over the front of my teeth. “Keep your wits about you.”
“Always.”
All of us migrated inside before Deac gave Plug permission to speak.
“How are they powered?” he asked as he flung the front door closed.
Plug looked down at my palm. “You’re joking.”
I thumbed with my free hand over my shoulder. “Mace has two more, and he’s not done with his routes for the evening.”
Plug sighed heavily as he scooped the cameras out of my hand. “They’re battery operated, you guys.”
Deac raked his hands through his hair. “Which means?—”
I nodded. “—someone is in town changing them out.”
“How many are there?” Dallas asked. “Are they connected that way?”
“Wrong question,” Plug said.
“Just spit it the fuck out,” Deac glowered.
Plug held up his hands in mock surrender. “They’ve been there at least a couple of months, if not longer.”
“That’s even longer than I thought,” I murmured.
“Can you confirm that?” Dallas asked.
Plug nodded. “I found basic data stored on a very small hard drive inside of the camera itself. It doesn’t clock much, but it does clock whenever information is uploaded.”
I paused. “Uploaded where?”
“I’m still working on that,” Plug said as he slipped the other cameras into his pocket. “But, the latest timestamp for uploads was last night.”
“When was the first one?” Deac asked.
“For this particular camera? Six weeks ago. And I guarantee you that once I look through the rest of these cameras, we’ll find that those beginning dates are staggered.”
“So, we can at least put together a basic timeframe for when the cameras were first put out,” Dallas said.
Plug pointed at him. “Bingo. That’s the plan for now. Any information that we can get on these, the better off they’ll be.”
“Fucking Christ,” Deac snarled.
In the blink of an eye, he whipped around and punched his fist directly through the wall behind him.
I stood there, rooted to my spot, as he ripped his hand back out trailing chunks of drywall and insulation, his knuckles split and bleeding.
He shook his hand out, spraying blood against the carpeted floor.
And as he drew in a deep breath, he turned back toward Plug.
“Pull absolutely everything you can off those cameras. I want them screaming for mercy by the time you’re done with them,” he commanded.
“That’s the plan, Bossman,” Plug said.
“Dallas,” he said as he turned to face the man, “go with Gauge and hit up all of our routes. All of them. I want a fresh set of eyes combing through every place where these fucking things could be stashed. We need to collect all of them.”
“You sure about that?” I asked.
“You did want us to keep a low profile,” Dallas said.
Deac shook his head, though. “Fuck a low profile. Someone is being strategic. Something is very wrong, and we have got to figure out who in the hell is watching us.”
And as Deac started for the steps, my heart dropped into my toes.
“Where are you going?” I asked.
“What room did you put her in, Gauge?”
I looked over at Dallas, and even I saw the panic behind his eyes. “What are you gonna do to her, Deac?”
He didn’t even turn around to look at us. “Gauge?”
“Don’t,” Dallas muttered.
I shot him a look. Had he lost his fucking mind? “Dallas’s room. I put her in Dallas’s room.”
“Shit,” he hissed.
“Thanks,” Deac said as he marched up the stairs. “It’s about damn time we knew who this bitch is working for, anyway.”
And it took everything that I had not to rush up those stairs and yank him away from where he was headed. Jesus Christ, even I knew that Char wasn’t that adept at what she was doing. Which meant there was only one logical conclusion as to why Deac thought Char was involved.
Because he was scared out of his fucking mind.