31. Deacon
DEACON
I closed the attic door behind me after catching one last glimpse of her shadowed outline.
The lamplight on the bedside table was all that illuminated her figure, and I swear with every glimpse I stole, it became harder to pull myself away.
She was hurting, like the rest of us. Shouldering guilt she had no business shouldering.
I wanted to help her in any way she needed.
Even if it meant being without us for a little while.
“Fucking hell, I looked everywhere for you guys,” Plug said as he dashed up the steps. “You have to come with me.”
I looked over at Gauge and Dallas as Plug started bounding back down the steps.
“Come on, no time to waste,” he said quickly.
I descended down the steps with Dallas and Gauge in tow.
Plug moved swiftly, dodging corners and swiveling himself around banisters just to move that much quicker.
I’d never seen a fire lit underneath his ass like that before.
The urgency in the way he moved worried me.
And when I found that we moved through an empty house, it didn’t shock me to find all of the guys gathered in our private sanctuary.
“What’s going on?” I asked as I entered the room full of men.
But all that answered me was Plug slamming his fist into the button on the wall to close the hidden door.
The hissing and groaning echoed out into the room as we all stood there, staring at our comrade.
He turned to face us the second the door closed, and the worry that furrowed his brow was a look I’d never seen before.
I hated it when my men didn’t fucking speak.
We were still missing things. I felt it the same way I felt it when the tire tracks went cold out in the desert.
Doc was still out there, radio silent since the night he threw that signal and disappeared.
Whether he was dead or running or somewhere in between, I didn’t know.
Whether he was connected to the woman or had simply gotten spooked, I didn’t know that either.
He was a thread I hadn’t been able to pull, and it ate at me every time the rest of the picture started to come into focus.
One problem at a time.
“Spit it out,” I said gruffly.
Plug pointed to the table. “I keep paper records of everything that I do. It’s why I’m always requisitioning filing cabinets. I print everything out, just in case shit like this were to ever happen.”
I turned to find a manilla folder sitting on top of the table. “What is that?”
Dallas charged through the crowd and scooped it up as Plug rattled on.
“When you guys first showed some interest in Char, I put together a file of everything I could find. You know, the research you guys wanted.”
“And?” Gauge asked.
“Well, I kept digging. I figured if she was gonna be a constant in our world, then we needed to know who she was and if she was safe.”
“Oh my God,” Dallas said breathlessly.
“What?” I asked as I dashed to his side. “What the fuck is it?”
“Someone better start talking quicker,” Dallas growled.
Gauge reached over him and snatched the folder out of his hand. “Let me see that.”
Plug slid his hands into his pockets. “When Char spouted her alternative theories as to what could have been going on, it got me thinking.”
“Oh fuck,” Gauge murmured.
I pivoted to Plug and hovered over him. “Punchline. Now.”
“Just look at the picture, Bossman.”
Gauge shoved the picture into my face and it took me a second to focus.
I hated being the odd man out. I hated the stories.
Why couldn’t my men just get to the fucking punchline when they spoke?
I yanked the piece of paper out of Gauge’s hand and held it away from my face.
I studied the colored photo, taking in the brown grass of a lawn in front of a dilapidated house.
On the ground, a man. Contorted and twisted, with his hands in the process of being cuffed behind his back.
On the porch was a crying little girl, her face scrunched up and her jaw unhinged as she outstretched her arm for the man.
But it was the woman holding the girl back who caught my eye.
A female officer, with her face in full view and a red circle around it.
Holy fuck, I knew that face.
“Oh. My. God,” I muttered.
“What the fuck is happening right now?” Gauge asked.
“Has everyone seen this?” Dallas asked breathlessly.
“We’ve all seen it,” Mace said as he stepped out of the crowd.
“That bitch knew Char from the start,” Rat growled from a corner.
“What if we’ve been looking at this all wrong?” Plug asked as he regained control of the picture. “What if this woman has been coming after Char, and is fucking with us to cover her tracks? What if she’s the target, and we’re just collateral?”
And as I raked my hands through my hair, a reality we hadn’t even considered finally cropped up as our reality. A reality that we could prove.
I looked back down at the picture. At the little girl on the porch with her arm outstretched, her face crumpled, reaching for a man being forced into the dirt. I saw that look before. On Char’s face in unguarded moments. That same desperate reaching for something that was already gone.
That little girl was her. And the woman holding her back was watching her ever since.
Holy God, the woman chasing us was part of Char’s father’s arrest.