Chapter 25
TWENTY-FIVE
GABE
“Gabe, Gabe.”
Someone was shaking his shoulder.
“Wha?” He blinked his eyes open. He’d put his head down on his arms for just a minute and had fallen asleep at Knute’s kitchen table. His back was not going to thank him for this. In fact, it was lodging a complaint with the local chiropractor already.
“Greta called. When you didn’t answer, she called me,” Elton explained.
Gabe sat up too fast, his spine crackling and popping like it was the Fourth of July. Yup, there was a bottle of ibuprofen in his future.
“What did she say?” he rasped, blinking through his panic.
The weak sunlight drifting in through the dusty glass slider told him that morning had arrived while he’d been napping.
Napping while Casey was fucking missing.
What was wrong with him? Leaning forward, Gabe dragged his fingers across the top of his head and tugged at his hair hard enough for it to hurt his scalp.
Elton set a hand on his shoulder. “Gabriel, Casey’s okay.
Rescuers found him, and he’s on the way to the hospital.
We’ll know more after they assess his injuries.
He was conscious when they got to him. Knocked his head pretty good, hurt his ankle, and has moderate hypothermia from being out all night.
Sounds like he’s damn lucky he’s so big and wears thick clothing. ”
The word injuries had Gabe shooting to his feet. He patted himself down, frantically searching for his cell phone and car keys. Getting to the hospital was paramount.
“Gabe.”
A wave of dizziness overcame him, enough that he had to grab the back of a chair. Gabe glanced around the kitchen floor. Where were his keys?
“Gabe,” Elton said, louder this time.
“What?” He scanned Knute’s counters, looking for his keys. He needed to be at the hospital ASAP and see Casey with his own eyes.
“Your car isn’t here. It’s at your house.”
It wasn’t that he’d forgotten the flight from his home last night, but with Casey missing—it was that he’d forgotten.
“Fucking hell,” Gabe groaned, staring up at the ceiling and willing himself patience.
“People are here, and they want to talk to you. Casey is safe, Gabriel. They airlifted him to the hospital, and good people are taking care of him. He was awake and alert, but they’ve got him resting now. Casey is safe,” Elton repeated.
Casey was safe. Injured but safe.
Gabe took in his friend’s earnest expression. Elton had been worried about Casey too and hadn’t slept much more than Gabe had.
“Thanks, Elton.”
“I’ll just go get Knute and see if he’ll get the coffee going. We’re going to need it.”
“Is that the time?” Gabe squinted at the stove clock that claimed it was almost eight. “Who the fuck wants to talk to me? I need a handful of Advil and a ride to the hospital.”
A man around Gabe’s age appeared in the kitchen doorway.
The stranger was shorter than Gabe, with the build of a linebacker.
His dark hair was flecked with silver, and the suit he wore screamed federal agent.
If the man ever smiled, it wasn’t reflected by the lines around his mouth or between his eyebrows. Those were caused by frowns.
What is the phrase, Chance? A frown is a smile upside down?
“Good morning,” the stranger said.
“Is it though?” Gabe asked. Elton brushed past the stranger and disappeared down a hallway to the left. “It’s early, I haven’t had a drop of coffee, and I want to go see my partner. He’s in the hospital.”
Suit Man stepped into the kitchen and held out a badge for Gabe to inspect. “I’m very glad he’s been found. SAC Adam Klay. We spoke last night. This was the soonest my team and I could get here.”
Gabe blinked and looked around Klay and through the doorway. Three more suits were looming in Knute’s living room. He was going to need a gallon of coffee for whatever this meeting was. He breathed out a sigh of relief when Elton returned with Knute in tow.
Klay half turned toward his compatriots. “Agents Hernandez, Weir, and Richardson.”
“Four of you?” Gabe rasped. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Seems like a lot of agents.”
Gabe spotted not one but two shiny black Escalades out Knute’s front window.
“You guys do know those vehicles are a dead giveaway, right?”
The merest hint of amusement glinted in Klay’s eyes.
“Better to sweep you away to our local office.”
Gabe waved at the looming suits. “Didn’t you just bring the local office here?”
“You ask a lot of questions. But we don’t actually have a local office on the OP.” Klay turned and glanced around the living room. “Let’s have a seat.”
Gabe sat at the end of the couch, and Agent Hernandez perched on the other end. Klay took the overstuffed recliner while the other two remained standing. He could hear Elton and Knute bickering in the kitchen, which almost made him smile.
Klay leaned forward, hands clasped together. “We are invested in apprehending the men who attempted to break into your home. Your statement confirms that they are cleanup for someone else. Someone bigger.”
Knute appeared in the kitchen doorway. “Coffee’s ready.”
The agents declined—smart people—but Gabe gratefully accepted a mug of what he now knew to be the thickest, darkest coffee he’d had in his life. Fucking delicious.
“Thank you, Knute.” Caffeine in hand, Gabe nodded at Klay. “Start talking.”
It was a close thing, but Gabe didn’t choke on his drink during Klay’s entire monologue. Better yet, he didn’t spit it back out when Klay finally stopped talking and raised his eyebrows at him.
“You want me to be bait?”
“I suppose. If you insist on putting it that way.”
One of the other agents snorted; Gabe thought it was Agent Weir.
“Sure sounds like bait to me. Don’t you think these guys are smarter than that?”
“No, actually, we don’t,” Hernandez interjected, his tone fierce.
“From other information recently received, we now believe Mikal Petyr is in the area. He’s that someone bigger Klay mentioned.
The goons are invested in carrying out their orders, and Mikal is not a man who suffers disappointment well.
He’s played it safe for the last few years, kept out of the headlines.
Which means for the first time in six years, we have a very good chance of catching up with him and putting the last Petyr behind bars where he belongs. ”
Which was how Gabe ended up behind the wheel of Elton’s truck with Agent Weir riding shotgun. Weir did a decent job of looking like an eighty-year-old man.
“I’m still not convinced this will fool them,” Gabe muttered as he took the turn past the egg booth.
“The chance that these guys paid much attention to your octogenarian friend is somewhere below ten percent. You told us they were focused on the waitress.”
“Fine,” said Gabe. “I just want to get this over with and see my partner. Although it occurs to me that we should be more worried about the waitress, Nicole, than we are.”
“Richardson will be talking to the owner of the diner.”
“Elton and I followed her. Well,” he corrected, “we were behind her. I think she lives close by. I’m pretty sure she has a kid too. Foxy and his pal wanted her for something and maybe me being bait is less important if they’ve found her.”
Weir groaned. “Why do I always get the difficult ones? Why? Couldn’t you have said anything about this half an hour ago?”
“You guys woke me up. I’ve had one cup of coffee, no breakfast, and about two hours of sleep.
My partner was missing and is now in the hospital, and you all won’t let me go see him because you want me to be fucking bait.
I think I get a pass. But I am concerned about Nicole.
I think she’s in danger. You should’ve seen her peel out of the Geoduck.
Elton and I were going to do a drive-by, but obviously.
” Gabe took one hand off the steering wheel and waved it around, indicating the state of his life.
“Obviously.”
Gabe could hear the agent’s scowl. How did they do that?
“How far away is this road?” Weir asked.
“Five minutes. We passed the turn on our way here.”
“Fine.” Weir bit out the word.
“That’s my line.”
One fabulous U-turn later and Gabe was directing them back to the street that he and Elton had seen Nicole turn down the day before.
The road was short and dead-ended near the bay.
Only a few houses had been built on it. It wouldn’t be hard work to find her truck, unless, of course, she had a garage.
Gabe had been correct. The truck they’d seen at the Geoduck Inn—and then nearly rear-ended—was parked beside an almost cottage-sized clapboard house.
A nondescript black sedan had stopped in front of the house.
Plastic toys littered the yard, reminding Gabe of his escape the night before and confirming his suspicion that she had a kid.
“This is it?” Weir glanced at him.
“Your guess is as good as mine. Looks like the right truck, so I’d say it is. There was a child’s seat in the back of her pickup.”
“Klay is going to kill me for going off book. Again.”
“How often does that happen?” Gabe asked.
He had an inkling that Weir might be a G-man he appreciated.
“More often than he’d like,” Weir confirmed. “Ah, well, ask forgiveness later and all that.”
“I think she’ll recognize me from the diner, so let me do the talking. In fact, stay here.”
Without waiting for an answer, Gabe hopped out, jogged to the front door, and knocked lightly. Behind him, he heard Weir open his door. Gabe rolled his eyes. Of course, a fed wouldn’t obey a mere human.
Unless Nicole had another car, she was home. Weir quickly peeked through one of the truck’s windows. “Child seat in the back.”
Shushing Weir with the wave of a hand, Gabe strained to pick up signs of life inside. Maybe he heard murmuring, but he couldn’t be sure.