Chapter 64
CHAPTER
SIXTY-FOUR
Duke tested the door handle.
It was unlocked.
Caution shifted in his chest.
He eased the door open anyway.
There was no squeal, no protest from the hinges.
The air inside carried the scent of dust and dry rot.
Duke swept the beam of his light across the narrow space.
A table. Two chairs. Bare counters.
No trash. No personal items. No mess.
No life.
“Clear left,” Ben said.
Duke moved down the hall, shoulders tight, senses flaring.
Bathroom. Empty.
Bedroom next. The bed was made, the blanket pulled taut.
Ranger stepped up behind him. “Nothing.”
Duke stood and turned back toward the main room.
That’s when Ben went still. “Duke.”
He followed Ben’s gaze to the floor near the table.
A small black device sat in plain view.
Rupert’s SafeStride tracker.
Duke crouched and picked it up, careful not to smudge any potential fingerprints.
This meant Rupert had been here recently.
Or the person who took him had been.
Someone most likely had placed this device here to send a message.
Duke slipped the tracker into a plastic bag—he always kept some with him—and then into his pocket. Pressure built behind his ribs.
“This guy knew Rupert had it,” Ben muttered, shaking his head with obvious disgust.
They hadn’t followed Rupert here, Duke realized. They’d been led to this location.
But why? How did this fit into the game?
Duke scanned the trailer again, slower now. Looking for anything that didn’t belong.
A chair sat pulled back from the table. Not shoved. Just enough to suggest someone had stood without urgency.
He leaned closer. Duct tape residue clung to one leg.
“Let’s check the outside for any type of prints that might indicate where they went,” Duke said.
Ranger and Ben followed him through the door.
As he stood on the steps and glanced around the desolate area, his pulse kicked harder.
Where had this guy taken Rupert?
Andi sat in the passenger seat, her hands braced on her knees, her eyes fixed on the trailer.
She watched as Duke, Ranger, and Ben filed out and began searching the perimeter.
As they did, her gaze dropped, tracing the line where the trailer met the ground.
Cinder blocks. Scrub grass. Discarded trash caught in the dirt.
Then—
A blink.
Faint. Quick. Almost nothing.
Her breath caught.
She leaned forward, pressing her forehead closer to the glass.
There it was again.
A pulse of red beneath the trailer.
Then darkness.
Then another pulse.
Cold spread through her chest, sharp and immediate.
“No,” she breathed.
Her pulse roared in her ears as pieces slammed together.
This wasn’t a holding site.
It was a trap.
She threw the door open.
“Bomb!” The word tore from her throat, raw and uncontained.
She sprinted toward the trailer, lungs burning, fear clawing up her spine.
“Move! Get away—now!”
Duke turned first.
She saw it in his posture—the shift from search to threat. Ranger spun. Ben lunged backward, momentum already changing direction.
Another blink.
Closer now.
Too close.
Andi waved her arms, heart hammering. “Get away from the trailer!”
Duke shouted something back—her name, maybe—but she couldn’t hear it over the rush of blood in her ears.
They ran.
Andi turned, legs pumping, gravel biting into her shoes as she veered away from the structure. She didn’t look back.
Then she dove onto the ground as the world split.