17. Gauge
GAUGE
The bacon sizzled in the pan as the front door crashed in.
“Told you,” I muttered.
I felt a balled-up napkin bounce off the back of my head.
“Nice shot, Deac,” I said flatly.
“That bitch went to visit Char, just like I said she would,” Dallas glowered as he trudged into the kitchen.
“How long was she there for?” Deac asked as his chair skidded across the floor.
“Anyone want bacon?” I asked.
Dallas ignored me. “I only caught snippets because Char didn’t even let her into the damn apartment.”
“Good girl,” Deac said.
“Interesting,” I said as I reached over my head, “But seriously, I made a pound of bacon. Who wants some?”
“You think she suspects as well?” Deac asked.
I rolled my eyes as I grabbed plates anyway because I knew the second I chomped on my bacon, someone would come running.
I picked up a piece and tossed it into my mouth.
“Hey, that sounds good, you make some for all of us?” Dallas asked.
If it wasn’t so fucking typical, I would’ve rolled my eyes. “Gotcha a plate right here.”
“Hell yeah,” Dallas said as he came and peered around my body, “four of those. We got any bread in this place?”
“How the fuck can you guys eat at a time like this?” Deac asked. “Dallas, the hell did that bitch talk to Char about?”
I stacked Dallas’s plate and pointed him toward the bread box. “Half a loaf in there.”
“Dallas,” Deac said curtly.
I loaded up a plate of bacon for him and turned around. “Sure you don’t want some?”
I knew he couldn’t resist once his eyes fell to the plate. “Dallas.”
“Yep?”
“Bring that bread over here.”
Dallas chuckled. “Can do.”
“Now,” I said as I reached for my mug of coffee, “the hell were those two women talking about?”
Dallas launched the half a loaf of bread at Deac’s head. “Like I said, I only caught snippets. But that agent, whoever the fuck she is? She knows way too much.”
Deac took a bite of his bacon. “Such as?”
“For starters,” Dallas said as he walked his plate over to the table, “she knows about the explosion, and that we’re a man down.”
I looked over warily at our President as I reached for the bread myself.
“All right, what else?” Deac asked after he swallowed his food.
“She’s pestering Char for information she doesn’t know. She’s trying to use Char to get through us. For fuck’s sake, she knows I’m sleeping with her,” Dallas said.
Deac narrowed his eyes. “When?”
Dallas paused his food halfway to his mouth. “When, what?”
Deac leaned forward, leveling his eyes across the table at the man. “What fucking event does she know about?”
Dallas volleyed his eyes between ours. “After that dinner Char threw down for us?—”
“Fucking hell, you fucked in the kitchen, Dallas?” I asked.
“We’ll have to have the damn place sterilized,” Deac muttered.
“The point is,” Dallas said curtly before he cleared his throat, “the woman knows about it. She was there, somewhere, spying. Watching. She’s clocking Char’s every move. It’s just like I said: she’s not safe at that apartment without us.”
“Do you think she knows what we fear about the agent?” I asked.
Dallas leaned back and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I honestly don’t know. If she does, she’s not letting on to it.”
“Good girl,” Deac murmured before he took a massive bite of his bacon sandwich.
“God, that meal was so fucking good,” Dallas murmured.
I nodded. “The woman can cook.”
“She could cook for us some if she were here,” Deac said as his voice trailed off.
I turned my attention to him. “I’m actually with Dallas on this one. I don’t think she’s safe in that apartment without someone watching over her.”
“Besides,” Dallas said as he abandoned his sandwich on his plate, “if that agent can get to Char that easily, there’s no telling what Char may or may not be feeding her. You know, without realizing who she’s feeding it to, if Char believes that woman is an actual agent.”
“For all we know, she is,” Deac said flatly.
Dallas’s face fell. “You know damned good and well that bitch ain’t no agent.”
“I think the point stands, though,” I said before I took another massive bite of my sandwich.
I put my finger up and continued chewing as Dallas folded his arms over his chest.
“Really, Gauge? Now?” he asked.
I swallowed hard. “The point is, we don’t even know who she’s feeding this shit to. So?—”
“Well,” Plug said as he charged into the kitchen, “I can’t tell you who she is, but I can tell you who she isn’t.”
I watched him slap a stack of papers in the middle of our bacon-riddled plates.
“What’s this?” I asked, pointing with my sandwich in my hand.
I tossed the last little bit into my mouth as Plug plucked a chair from the table, spinning it around, and straddled it as he sat.
“Welcome to the whole of the ATF’s employee files,” Plug said.
Deac’s eyes widened. “Did you?—?”
“Take every single precaution known to man before wiping hard drives and tossing out computers? Yes,” Plug said as he reached out and tapped the papers with the tips of his fingers. “Guess who’s absent from these files?”
Deac shot up from his chair. “I fucking knew it.”
I pointed at the table before he could say another word. “I said that from the second Char told me about her. I said it and every single one of you told me I was paranoid.” I looked around at my men. “Who’s paranoid now?”
Dallas raked his hands through his hair as he leaned back in his chair. “Now granted, it’s just her name. We still don’t know what the fuck she looks like. But yeah, there’s no Special Agent Monica DeFleur at the ATF. Past or present.”
“Which means her credentials she flashed Char are fake,” I said.
“And you’ve gone through all of those files? Every single one?” Deac asked.
“I brought them down here for a fresh set of eyes, but Mace and I have pored through them. She’s not there,” Plug said.
She. I couldn’t help but think about the fact that we were chasing a woman. Bait kept talking about a woman, when he was strapped to that chair.
But was it the same woman?
Deac reached over and plucked a few papers off the top. “Come on, let’s scour them. We have to be sure.”
“We don’t even know what she looks like, though.” I asked. “Char’s the only one that’s actually seen her.”
He shot me a look. “You got anything else better to do? Look at the names, and we’ll have Char look at their faces later.”
After Dallas took his share, I slid the rest of the papers toward me.
One by one, I flipped through the sheets, trying not to stain the papers with my greasy fucking fingers.
I studied the photos and immediately discarded the men off to the side.
Even if the woman wore a wig and some makeup, there was no way that was a man walking around out there dressed as a woman.
Which narrowed the prospects of the ATF agents considerably.
“Anything?” Deac practically snarled.
Dallas shook his head as he shoved his stack of papers away. “Out of the twenty-five women in my stack, none of them are even close.”
“Gauge?”
I shook my head as I dropped my papers on top of Dallas’s. “There isn’t even an agent that looks like that woman walking around town, much less an agent with her actual fucking name.”
“And this is all of them, Plug?” Deac asked.
He nodded. “I searched their directory, their termination files, and their new hires and transfers. She’s nowhere, guys.”
I furrowed my brow. “How far back did you go in terminations?”
Plug stared me down. “Three fucking years.”
I shook my head. “Jesus Christ.”
Plug stood to his feet. “She’s nowhere, guys. I don’t know who the fuck that bitch is yet, but she’s not an ATF agent.”
I cleared my throat. “Any chance she’s responsible for the cameras we found all around town?”
Plug shook his head. “I don’t have any hard evidence to point in that direction.”
“What’s your gut telling you?” I asked.
He didn’t hesitate. “Yes, she’s the one responsible.”
“That’s what my gut’s telling me, too,” Dallas said as he stood.
Deac leaned forward, resting his forearms on the table. “All right, guys. Brainstorming time. Let’s go through what we know.”
Plug nodded. “We have an ATF agent that’s not an ATF agent putting cameras around town to track us. Theoretically, at least.”
I pointed at him. “But more than likely.”
“Exactly.”
Dallas sighed heavily. “We’ve also got an underground bunker that we still don’t have origins for?—”
“I can help with that,” Mace said as he stepped in from the back porch.
All of us watched him slap blue and white schematics onto the table before he pointed at what looked like a red circle on the map.
“Care to explain?” Deac asked.
Mace tapped his finger. “That’s where the bunker was.”
“That little dot you have circled?” Plug asked.
That’s when Mace grinned, and that man never grinned unless he had an ace up his sleeve.
“That little dot, you guys, is an old, decommissioned cold war bunker that doubled as an offsite interrogation building back when Layborn was nothing but deserted territory and empty stretches of cracked ground.”
I looked around at Deac and Dallas, who just stared at him with blank faces.
That is, until Dallas scoffed. “How the fuck did you even?—?”
“Wrong question,” I said.
Dallas whipped his attention to me. “You mean, you’re not even the least bit curious as to how he came across this information?”
“I am,” I said as I leaned back in my chair that cracked and groaned beneath my weight. “But right now, I’m more concerned with who the fuck would have access to something like that. Maybe that’s our connection between what happened to Bait and who this non-ATF bitch is.”
I felt Deac staring me down before he turned his attention back to Mace. “So is this shit family-owned? Or passed down through generations?”
Mace shook his head. “From what I found at the courthouse these last few days, it was purchased from The Alistair Family by the state after the Cold War, and it’s sat rogue ever since.”
I blinked. “Couldn’t pay the taxes on it or something?”
Mace snickered. “Pretty much.”
Dallas clicked his tongue. “Now can I ask?”
I tossed him a playful wink. “Go ahead, sweet cheeks.”
Deac barked with laughter, but Dallas wasn’t amused. “So you came across this at the courthouse?”
Mace shrugged. “More or less.”
“The fuck does that mean?” Deac asked, his laughter coming to a halt.
Mace sighed. “Schematics like this are available to the public to pull at any point in time. There were a lot of questions and side-eyes that I was given when I tried to requisition this, but they still gave it to me.”
“Side eyes, huh?” Deac asked.
Mace shot him a look. “Don’t go slaughtering people at the courthouse now. Their side eyes were less for intimidation and more because, well, I don’t think half of the people working at the courthouse even knew that bunker existed, much less its schematics.”
“How sure are you about that?” I asked.
Mace lobbed his head in my general direction. “Because everyone who works at the courthouse is technically retired. The fuck are they gonna do? Chase me out with their canes?”
I chuckled. “Fair.”
Deac chewed on the inside of his cheek. “If we can figure out who in the fuck has current access to that bunker, it could lead us right to where we need to be. It could give us the answer to who this woman is and lead us straight to whoever killed Baitfish.”
THUNK, A-DUNK.
All of us froze as we slowly tilted our heads toward the ceiling.
THUNK, A-DUNK.
Mace drew in a curt breath. “You think he’s?—”
“Sh,” Deac hissed.
THUNK, A-DUNK.
THUNK, A-DUNK.
THUNK, A-DUNK.
I stood from my seat. “I’ll make him some food.”
Dallas walked over to the coffee pot. “I’ll make a fresh batch.”
Deac stood and walked over to the entrance of the kitchen, peering around the corner as if he were a skittish child waiting for his pissed off father to come down the stairs.
THUNK, A-DUNK.
The lumbering footsteps trudged forward, stumbling down the stairs. I cranked up the pan and reheated the solidified bacon grease before I walked over to the fridge. He needed nutrients. A healthy start to his day.
Especially since he only sipped on smoothies and water for the last few days.
THUNK, A-DUNK.
THUNK, A-DUNK.
THUNK, A-DUNK.
“Hey there, Rat,” Dallas said as he poured a fresh mug of brewed coffee, “want some?”
It had been days since we’d seen him. Since our doctor patched him up in the back of Lone Star and hauled his ass back here to rest. His body was covered in bruises.
The stitches across his forehead shone like a red and purple beacon to anyone in the vicinity.
He had one good eye open while the other was still swollen shut, and his crooked form only exacerbated the limp he still walked with.
“Sausage or bacon?” I asked.
Rat looked over at me, but answered Dallas. “I’d love some coffee, thanks.”
So I simply repeated my question. “Sausage or bacon?”
Rat reached his hand out for the kitchen table and eased himself down. “Sure.”
I nodded. “A surprise, it is.”
Deac backtracked down the hallway. “Be back in a bit.”
“Everything all right?” I called out after him.
“Yep,” he called back, “just going to check on some things.”
Rat sighed heavily. “He’s going to clean up the room, isn’t he?”
Dallas walked his mug of coffee over to him. “Just let him have something to do. He’s been spinning his wheels for days.”
“Haven’t we all,” Rat murmured as he picked up his mug.
And as I grabbed some thawed out Italian sausage from the fridge, I started making some biscuits and gravy.
Something to stick to our bones. Something to fill our stomachs.
Because as we all sat there, in absolute silence, it was a good time to mourn Bait.
To remember the good times and cope with his loss.
What better way to do that than over his favorite meal?
“Fucking hell, he loved your biscuits and gravy, Gauge,” Rat said breathlessly.