Chapter 7
Chapter
Seven
Axel opened the records databases Steel Protection used for cases and searched Reese's names. He kept the search narrow: Spokane County, marriage records, business filings, property records, vehicle registrations, and criminal dockets.
The marriage license came up first: Spokane County. Reese Walker married Wade Sutton four years ago. She was twenty-two and he was thirty-one. Reese had barely been out of her teens.
Business records showed Wade Sutton owned Sutton Residential Contracting LLC.
Active. The company was current on its filings and still operating.
Property records showed a house in Spokane in his name alone, purchased the year before they were married.
Vehicle records showed two vehicles: a pickup and a white 2019 Ford Transit registered to the LLC.
The house, the business, his trucks, all of it his. In four years of marriage her name turned up on exactly one document tying the two of them together, the marriage license.
He logged the plates and the VIN for the vehicles into the file.
He ran her own car next, the Corolla. The title was in her name and came back clean.
Wade couldn't call it in stolen and put every cop between here and Spokane on the lookout for his runaway wife.
Axel made a note to keep an eye on the registration anyway, because a man like this would think of it too.
He researched Sutton Residential Contracting next. It had a professional-looking website and forty-one reviews on Google Business with a 4.8-star average. The reviews described Wade as responsive, professional, and fair. One customer thanked him for leaving the jobsite cleaner than he'd found it.
There was a photo on the About page. It showed Wade Sutton standing beside a white Transit van, arms crossed, a friendly smile on his face.
Hundreds of people had trusted this man inside their homes.
Axel stared at the smile for a moment, then saved the photo to the file.
His inner wolf now had a target for his rage.
The licensing database returned a current Washington Concealed Pistol License under Wade's name. It had been issued eight years ago and was still active. Axel sat back. His inner wolf stood very still inside him, a low growl rumbling in his chest.
He checked the criminal docket last. What he found made his wolf nearly impossible to contain. Spokane Municipal Court. State v. Wade Allen Sutton. Assault in the fourth degree, domestic violence. He opened the incident report attached to the case and read through it.
A neighbor called 911 at 11:40 p.m. on March 14, 2024.
Responding officers noted the condition of the kitchen.
They documented a bruised, swelling eye and finger-shaped bruising on her arm and wrist, consistent with being grabbed.
She declined medical attention and refused to give a statement.
According to the report, she repeatedly told the officers, "Please don't make it worse.
" Five months later, the charge was dismissed because Reese didn't testify.
She'd said he was abusive. Now Axel had some of the details.
He couldn't sit still. He got up from his desk and paced the length of the office. The wolf was howling in him to go to her. It wasn't a thought. It was a physical urge to get up, walk out the door, and go to her apartment.
She was eleven minutes away on foot. The wolf wanted him keeping watch outside her building, tonight and every night. It had his hand on the door handle before he caught himself.
She had hired him to make her harder to find. She had not hired him to stand outside her building. He could not intrude into her life. It would just be more of what she was running from.
The wolf didn't care. It wanted her safe, and it kept trying to get him moving. He stood at the monitors and held still until it calmed down.
He filed removal orders on both names, Reese Sutton and Reese Walker, across every data broker that had indexed either one. He drafted escalation letters for the two that liked to stall. Then he built the monitoring flags for both names in every place Wade was likely to search.
The reroute came next. He set up a new mailing address, then mapped out the order for updating her lease, utilities, and car registration so her real address would stop appearing in public records.
He wrote the threat assessment for the case file last. Wade had a history of domestic violence, current access to firearms, independent financial resources, and a flexible work schedule.
He had established a long-term pattern of control over the client.
If Wade found her, the risk of violence was high.
His inner wolf flared with anger, but Axel kept him down. The facts did not need his anger.
He checked the system one more time before he shut it down. Both names were under watch. If anyone searched either name through a broker, his phone would alert before the result finished loading.
It was the closest thing to standing guard he could do without crossing her boundaries. He shut down the monitors and went upstairs in the dark.