Chapter 14 - Timber
Timber sped back to the station, his cell phone ringing on his lap.
He’d been chasing leads on Dahlia Paige all day, but they’d turned out to be nothing.
He was hungry and a little irritated. It was dinnertime, and he was having a bad day.
He never had bad days! His department truck had broken down twice, he’d had coffee spilled on him, and he’d been attacked by an irate housecat and a vicious chihuahua working as a team.
Before he could pick up his phone, someone called him on the radio.
“Go.”
Timber pitched the mic onto the dashboard and grabbed his phone, too late.
It had been Sebastian, and he’d already hung up.
Timber threw his phone on the dashboard with the mic and scrubbed the stubble on his chin, already forgetting about Seb.
He was getting closer to Dahlia Paige; he could feel it in his bones; he just needed to get back to the bunker to connect all the dots.
He parked and ran inside a back door, into the tunnels, jogging toward the bunker, scenting that he had company.
He turned the corner and spotted Seb sitting in Canyon’s chair, black boots splayed out, throwing a football up in the air and catching it.
Seb was big—Hawaiian or Samoan or both maybe, with dark, shaggy hair and a lean, wolfish face, wearing a KSRT uniform.
On the desk in front of him, he had a grocery bag…
and somehow, his facial tattoos were missing. Interesting.
“Seb,” Timber said, sitting at his desk and getting to work.
“Ber,” Seb said back.
Timber snorted. “Whatcha got over there?”
Seb put the football on Canyon’s desk and opened the top of the bag so Timber could see it was full of snacks, all Timber’s favorites. Several types of beef jerky, some hardboiled eggs, cheese cubes, popcorn, smoked salami sticks, plus energy drinks.
“What do you want?” Timber asked, suddenly suspicious.
“Video,” Seb grunted. “Check for me if it’s been altered or not.”
Timber opened programs and entered data, talking as he worked. “I do that for free. It’s my job.”
“I need it now.”
Timber shook his head, typing in data. “No can do. I’m on a mission-critical One True Mate assignment.”
A packet of beef jerky landed on the desk, within Timber’s reach, and Seb growled, “I’ll wait.”
Timber downed the jerky, thinking about Canyon.
He went to the filing cabinet, rooted around inside it, then slipped behind it into the alcove, almost surprised to see Canyon still laying there, still fucking sleeping.
Timber knelt and poked him in the ribs. No response.
He put his hand on Canyon’s side, just to be sure Canyon was breathing.
He was, so Timber returned to the desks.
Seb still sat in Canyon’s chair, staring straight ahead at the wall of security monitors, throwing and catching the football.
Timber checked the output from his work, musing out loud as he read it.
“I’m trying to find Dahlia Paige, who’s supposed to be Crew’s One True Mate.
She lives in Serenity, but she’s changed her name more than once, and somehow, the name changes are expertly done and all traces of them are expunged, even out of the police files. I don’t know how she did it.”
“Angel powers,” Seb said.
“Yeah, maybe.” Timber waved at the screen. “The only lead I haven’t checked out is this Woodridge connection.”
He picked up the phone and called the duty sergeant to request checks at an address.
Timber hung up, then told Seb, “You’ve got until I hear back from him.”
“Thanks,” Seb growled, moving the bag of snacks from Canyon’s desk to Timber’s, then tossed a thumb drive onto his desk.
Timber picked it up. “I guess I’m Canyon today.” He motioned for Seb to move out of his way, then turned on Canyon’s computer and connected the drive.
“Where’s Canyon?”
“Assignment. Where’s your tattoos?”
Seb stared at him, eyes flat and dangerous. Timber grinned, thinking maybe he got under Seb’s skin a little—but instead the tattoos appeared, slowly. Black tribal tattoos that appeared in grayscale, then darkened, swirling around his jaw and cheeks.
Timber gave him a thumbs up. “Cool trick.”
He clicked a file and a video played on Canyon’s monitor.
It was of an ordinary-looking guy, middle-aged, lean and shrewd-looking, with short brown hair, watching someone off-camera.
The guy nodded, then took off his shirt to show a jacked physique.
He turned around to show the back of his left shoulder, revealing a star renqua.
Timber opened a program and fed the video into it. He nodded at the image. “Who’s this guy?”
“Names Rosenvelt Van Boeson. Lives in Chicago.”
“A Citlali?”
Seb didn’t say anything, and Timber turned to give him a questioning look.
“Yeah, I think he’s Citlali,” Seb growled, like Timber was challenging him.
Timber squinted at him. “What the fuck, bro?”
Seb shrugged. “He’s foxen,”
“No shit?” Timber turned back to the screen, leaning forward, studying it closely. “I thought foxen didn’t have Citlali.”
Again, Seb didn’t say anything.
Timber gave him a flat ‘what the fuck’ look.
Seb threw his hands in the air. “Brah. I took the video to Wade—he called it fake. He told me to forget it, then confiscated my fucking drive!”
“How’d you… you know what, never mind.” Timber waved a hand. “Wade’s got a personal problem with foxen. Thinks they’ve all got Khain bunking in their guest bedrooms.”
Seb shook his head, a disgusted look on his face. “What’s fucked up is this guy says a lot of things Wade should be interested in.”
“Like what?”
“Like the Tether. Heard of it?”
Timber shook his head.
“It’s invisible—” He pulled taut an imaginary cord between his hands.
“This thing connects foxen and Khain. It makes it so he can find ‘em, then he marks ‘em, and then he controls ‘em. This Van Boeson guy says foxen prophecy about the Tether can be broken and they want it broken. Most of ‘em don’t want to fight for him.”
“Foxen have prophecy? I mean… I guess if they have Citlali, they’re going to have prophecy, too, but that’s news to me. Does Wade kn—?”
Seb raised his eyebrows.
“Shit. We could go over Wade’s head.”
“To Burton? He’s cuckoo.”
Timber shook his head. “You ain’t wrong. Could be our little secret for now.”
Seb grunted. He didn’t care about protocol and orders. He cared about the mission, and about the truth.
Timber’s phone rang. He answered. “Go.”
“Wheeling, Rockford here. Dahlia Woodridge did live at that address a few months ago and we have a lead on where she might live now. Ready for it?”
Timber grabbed a pen and wrote the address down.
“Sarge, send someone out there for me asap, okay? We’ve got to find her. I’d go myself but I have a hunch I need to follow.”
“Will do.”
Motion on the security camera views at the front of the room caught their attention—Mac coming down the hallway, almost to them.
Sebastian stood up. He grabbed his drive off Timber’s desk and deposited the bag of snacks in its place. “Mahalo, brah. Later.”
He got up and loped over to the doorway, standing just to one side of it, looking like a big-ass wolf even as a man. Mac came in and Seb slipped out behind him. Mac sensed him and turned, then growled and followed Seb out.
Timber stashed the bag of snacks under his desk, opened the admin control panel for the building, hovering his mouse cursor as he watched Mac chase Seb down in the hallway. They traded a few words, then Seb showed his teeth and Mac raised his fists.
Timber didn’t wait until they started fighting. He pushed the button to trigger the sprinklers in the hallway. It worked—Mac turned murderous attention toward the door to the bunker and Seb sauntered away without a look around. Timber closed the program and got the hell away from his computer.
Mac steamrolled in the door, his hair and uniform wet, his nostrils flaring and his fists clenched. “Did you turn on the fucking sprinklers?”
“What? No. Anyway, look.” Timber waved the slip of paper. “I have progress on the One True Mate. Her last name is actually—”
“Woodridge,” Mac interrupted, flicking water out of his hair. “That’s what I was coming to tell you.”
“Shit,” Timber said. “If you knew, why didn’t you tell me?”
“I just got it. I still don’t know where she lives, or where she is.” He pounded on the desk and pointed at Timber. “She dies tonight if you don’t find her now.” He turned to leave but stopped at the doorway and growled, “Where the fuck’s Canyon? I haven’t seen him all fucking day.”
“In the field, checking addresses.”
Mac eyeballed him like maybe he smelled a lie, but Timber had already moved on.
He had a thought. If Canyon were here, he would try Predator, the new computer program.
Timber switched to Canyon’s chair and computer, ignoring Mac, who eventually left.
Timber’s fingers flew over the keyboard as he told Predator what was going on and requested the program cross-reference the latest address and the new last name.
“Bro,” Timber shouted over his shoulder. “I could use your help about now!”
No response. Not even a snore.
Timber let out a heavy sigh and kept working.