15. Gauge
GAUGE
“We got incoming!” I bellowed.
I recognized the white van as it tore through the desert. Finally, someone got in touch with Rat and the gang. I bolted away from the bunker, flagging the three of them down as that little white dot grew bigger against the massive backdrop of sand the tires kicked up.
“Driving like a bat outta hell,” I murmured as I waved my hands above my head.
Nielson wasted no time in getting off-duty deputies out there to scour the fucking place.
We had at least half a dozen people with crime scene kits crawling all over the place, and the last thing we needed was Rat trying to storm the damn place.
I stood my ground as the van came to a grinding halt.
I heard people behind me chatting about DNA kits and dusting for prints while Nielson barked orders.
I, however, caught Rat the second he slipped out of that driver’s seat. “Did you get Doc to, well, Doc?”
Rat stared around me, though. He didn’t answer my question, nor did he even look up at me.
The look on his face that etched itself into stone was one I’d never forget.
The pain behind his eyes matched the full force of his anger as it turned his lips down into a frown.
His face grew red as he balled up his fists at his side.
“Rat?” I asked as I stepped into his field of vision. “Did you get Captain Murphy dropped off with Dr. Agemon?”
“We did,” Deadlock said as he came around from the back of the van.
“I gave Agemon my number in case there were any updates while we’re out here,” Rico said.
I nodded, but my gaze didn’t waver from Rat. “Hey, you good?”
He moved for the first time after jumping out of that van, and he simply nodded. “You really mean to tell me we’re just gonna stand around here with our thumbs up our asses while they do all the work?”
“Yes,” I said plainly, “we are. Because now, this is an active crime scene.”
“Wait, what?” Deadlock asked.
“You found Bait?” Rico asked.
Rat tilted his head. “An active crime scene means you found something.”
I grinned. “We found a lot of somethings.”
He held out his arms. “Care to fill me in?”
“If I do, are you going to charge those guys and kill them just to get them out of your way?”
His eye twitched. “I make no promises.”
“Then, I don’t talk.”
Rat rolled his eyes. “Fine, fine. Jesus. Just—what did you find?”
I took a look at Deadlock and Rico before focusing back on Rat. “Once we moved all of the sand, I found a hallway behind one of those doors that line the hallway.”
“Uh huh,” he said with a nod of his head.
“And that hallway sort of wraps around the room and dead ends into another room.”
“Uh huh…?”
“And that room has explosives in it that didn’t detonate.”
Rat blinked. “They didn’t detonate.”
I shook my head. “No, they didn’t detonate. It’s why the bunker is still intact. Once we removed all of the sand?—”
“BAAAAAAAAIT!”
Rat bellowed at the top of his lungs before he took off. I swept my arms through the air, trying to move as quickly as him so that I could stop him. But goddamn it, Rat was always a slippery motherfuck.
“Someone stop him!” I exclaimed as he ducked beneath my arms.
“Baaaaaaait! I’m comiiiiiiiing!” Rat called out at the top of his lungs.
But it was Deac that stepped in front of the man and wrapped his arms around him.
“Nope,” Deac commanded.
Rat kicked his legs in the air as our President picked him up. “Bait! I have to see him! Let me see him!”
“Nope,” Deac said again.
“Let me fucking go you goddamn beluga whale!”
“Nope.”
“Goddamn it! Bait! Baaaaaaaaaaait!”
I watched as Dallas went over to Deac and Rat. They got him pinned to the ground with his hands behind his back, and all I could do was watch. Everyone stared. Everyone looked at him. And it boiled my blood. If it were me, I wouldn’t want anyone looking at me.
I whistled at the top of my lungs. “Circle! Rat! Now!”
The guys all moved in unison while Nielson and his deputies kept coming out to their trucks before heading back into the bunker.
We rushed toward Deac and Rat, gathering in a circle around him with our backs to them.
I clasped my hands behind my back as we shielded Rat’s crying.
I heard him audibly sobbing. A grown man that never so much as flinched, and he cried like a schoolyard kid who missed his best friend.
It broke something inside of me that I knew would never be whole again.
“It’s okay, we gotcha,” Dallas murmured.
“Just take deep breaths, Rat. Just like that,” Deac said.
“Uh, guys?” Nielson asked.
“Can’t move,” I said with a shake of my head.
He came around to me. “You guys probably aren’t going to want to be here for what’s about to happen.”
My eyes darkened. “What’s about to happen?”
He tilted his head. “Why don’t you guys head on back home? We can’t have anyone compromising the scene anyway, and we’re about to get into some sensitive stuff trying to clean this place up so we can keep searching for DNA and fingerprints.”
“Have you found anything?” Rat asked as he pulled himself up from the ground.
We parted like the Red Sea as he came to stand beside me.
“Nothing that I can talk about as of yet. We still have to get what we have found off to the lab for it to be processed,” Nielson said.
“Right, right,” Rat said mindlessly.
“What’s in that towel?” Deadlock asked.
We all turned toward the bunker’s descent and watched as Carlyle carried something in his arms. The second he crested the hill, he looked over at Nielson, and it didn’t take a genius to know what was happening.
“Oh hell no,” I murmured.
“Yep. I’ll see you assholes back at the clubhouse,” Rat said as he stormed back toward the van.
Another deputy emerged behind Carlyle, bridal carrying something else that was wrapped neatly in a towel. I knew without a shadow of a doubt that it was Bait, too. The pieces of him that were scattered across the room in the explosion. That’s why Nielson wanted us to leave.
It was time for them to bring up his corpse.
“I got him,” Deadlock said as he moved away from the group.
“I’ll make sure they get back to the clubhouse,” Rico said.
I nodded. “We’ll be there eventually.”
“And Rico?” Deac asked.
“Yeah, Boss?”
“Make sure he stays out of trouble. He’s a hell of a drunk when he’s mad.”
He playfully saluted. “No drinking, got it.”
Saliva gathered in my mouth, and I spat it out onto the dusty desert ground.
My stomach felt like it was about to turn itself inside out again.
I placed my hands on my knees and drew in deep breaths through my nose, trying my damnedest to get my gut to settle down.
But as I continued spitting mouthfuls of saliva onto the ground, a rapid tapping thunked repeatedly between my shoulder blades.
“The sheriff is smiling, look alive,” Deac said quickly.
I never whipped up so fast in all my life. The entire fucking world tilted around me, I moved so quickly. And when I spun around to find Nielson, I saw him walking beside four deputies that were hauling the chair Bait had sat in.
“Do you have something?” Plug asked as Nielson walked up with a bright smile on his face.
“You wanna know the issue with cocky people?” he asked as he ripped off his rubber gloves.
“What?” I asked.
He tucked his dirty gloves into his back pocket. “They never dedicate themselves to the clean up.”
I narrowed my eyes. “The fuck does that mean?”
I took a step toward the man, but Dallas shoved his arm in between the two of us. “It’s a valid question.”
Nielson’s smile only grew, though. “That place is completely clean. The walls. The floors. The doors. Even Bait’s body.”
Mace’s back stiffened. “There some good news in there somewhere, Sheriff?”
He chuckled as he shook his head. “The C-4 we found? And that little black box detonator? The chair that Bait sat in? They’re fucking covered in prints.”
I blinked. “You’re joking.”
He shook his head. “Not a damn bit. And if we’re lucky, the prints I lifted from a coffee cup of Marcie’s earlier this morning should match.”
Dallas quirked an eyebrow. “You lifted the agent’s prints?”
Carlyle trotted up to us. “Hey, Char’s not the only one working behind the scenes.”
I cracked my neck. “How long will it take us to know whose prints they are?”
Nielson tucked his thumbs into the belt loops of his jeans. “Obviously, I’ll put a rush on them. But since it’s past dinner time as we speak, it won’t be until sometime tomorrow.”
I growled, but Deac was the one who answered. “I want a phone call the second you know.”
“Oh, absolutely,” Nielson said as he turned to his truck. “But in the meantime, I gotta get your man to the morgue.”
Plug raked his hands through his hair. “We had Rico, Deadlock, and Rat drop off Murphy’s body to Dr. Agemon this afternoon. Make sure he’s the one who receives Bait, too.”
Nielson nodded. “I won’t hand him off to anyone else, you have my word.”
“Thank you,” Deac said as he held his hand out to the man.
The sheriff shook it in stride. “Hey, you’d do the same if it was one of our people.”
“Damn straight, we would,” I glowered.
I didn’t know what else to do, so I stood there and watched them.
I watched them drive off with all of the evidence.
I watched them drive off with Bait’s body.
I watched them drive off with our hope, our sanity, and our future.
And as we stood there like a bunch of dumbasses, I finally realized how low the sun had gotten in the sky.
Damn it, we’d been out there all fucking day.
“So,” Deac said as he cleared his throat, “Char’s got a lawyer she’s talking to and she’s working on an insanity plea.”
“Good girl,” Dallas murmured.
“Hey, if there’s anyone that can pull it off, it’s her,” Mace said mindlessly.
“She’s okay for now, though, and that’s what matters,” Plug said.
“And if we have our way,” Deac said as he placed a hand on my shoulder, “she’ll be home with us soon.”
I finally found the strength to speak without feeling like I’d murder someone in the process.
“Back to the clubhouse?” I asked.
Deac grinned. “Back to the fucking clubhouse.”
Where we’d sit and wait like a bunch of kept little women.
At least we’ve finally got that bitch right where we want her.