9. Finn
Gypsy, his Jeep, idled while Finn scouted the surrounding area. He had done this part many times. Watched. Waited. And waited some more. It always came down to assessing the danger—figuring out whether the situation was about to turn volatile.
It was his job to protect people, and he tried to save them whenever he could. Right now, his instincts were firing on all cylinders.
His Forest Ranger uniform made him look like just another passerby.
Darkness lingered in the corners. Shadows surveyed every step. The shop tried to disguise the vertigo with cheesy postcards and terrible puns on bumper stickers, but Finn could sniff it out like someone with a bad poker face.
He hadn’t seen Lucie yet, and it was gnawing at him. She was in trouble.
Finn killed the engine, pocketed the keys, and stepped out, tugging his cap lower as he approached the shop. The air smelled faintly of rust, gasoline, and something sweet—maybe the faded scent of old candy that had been sitting on the shelves too long.
Finn took a moment to stretch and play the role of a Ranger just passing by. His boots crunched on the gravel as he walked toward the shop.
An unsettling feeling had landed in his stomach hours ago. He’d tried to brush it off.
Not everyone had a childhood like his. Sometimes people had perfectly happy homes, and maybe he was reading too much into it.
This could be a case where he’d taken his job too far and was seeing problems where none existed.
Not every man was like his father. He didn’t go looking for him in others, but he brushed past similar men in his line of work. All men like his father had the same kind of eyes.
Dead. Dark. Vacant.
Like a great white shark right before it attacks. Just as Finn knew who those men were, they, in turn, recognized that Finn knew who they were—predators. Lucie’s father clocked him the second they laid eyes on each other.
The painted hours peeling off the front door signaled that the shop would close in fifteen minutes.
Upon entering, Finn scanned the aisles, searching for Lucie amid the clutter. But she was nowhere in sight. His stomach tightened. Still nothing. He forced himself to stay calm. Maybe she was just in the back. She was fine. She had to be.
He kicked himself mentally. He hardly knew her, yet he was ready to burn the place to the ground if he couldn’t find her.
He walked deeper into the shop, his eyes narrowed on Lucie’s dad, slumped behind the counter, counting money from the register. Tacky.
They’d only met once, and Finn hadn’t been impressed then. Today was no better. Her father was disheveled, with glazed eyes, a mustard stain on his beer-bellied shirt, and swaying slightly, as if he were on a ship.
Finn clenched his jaw, biting back the anger that simmered between his shoulder blades. He was itching for a fight.
“We’re about to close,” the man slurred, trying to sound steady, but his words wavered. Finn could smell the putrid stench of alcohol on his breath from here. The mouthwash might have fooled someone else, but Finn used to walk on eggshells around a different-looking man.
“Just looking for some supplies,” Finn said, forcing a tight smile.
Lucie’s dad squinted as if trying to place him.
Yeah, take a long, hard look, prick. It might just be the last face you ever see.
“Hey, you’re that forest guy, right? Saw you a couple of times the other week.” The man’s eyes seemed to clear, as if coming into focus.
Lucie’s father reached into his back pocket.
Instinctively, Finn’s hand touched the handle of the gun holstered at his back. The dirty man pulled out a green plastic can of nicotine pouches. Plopping three pouches, he lodged them along his gumline.
“Didn’t get your name?” her father grumbled.
Red warning flags waved around Finn’s head.
“Didn’t give one,” Finn said, still holding his gun’s handle. One shot. It would be so easy to let the bastard die.
“You buying or not?” Lucie’s father asked, straightening—or at least trying to.
One last time, Finn looked down the aisles, hoping Lucie would appear from behind them or from the employees-only door.
Lucie deserved better than this. Better than the excuses and neglect, wrapped up in a shitty bow and packaged to look like love.
“Haven’t seen your daughter around. She okay?”
The question hung in the air. The man’s eyes darted around, ignoring the unspoken accusation. He scoffed, crossing his arms and leaning hard against the counter.
“None of your damn business, Ranger. She’s busy. Got work to do. And last I checked, that badge on your shirt don’t mean shit. If you’re not buying anything, you can see yourself out. We’re closed.”
Finn bit the inside of his cheek until he tasted blood.
He didn’t want to make a scene, knowing that somewhere, Lucie might take the brunt of her father’s anger because of what he said.
But he also didn’t like the idea of Lucie being anywhere near this man in his current state.
He gave the shelves one last cursory glance, pretending to mull over supplies.
“Right,” Finn said at last, grabbing a case of water, a fifty-pound bag of rice, and a pack of gum, then tossing them onto the counter. “I’ll just take these.”
The vile man in front of him rang him up for triple the price. But Finn didn’t say a word.
The chill in her father’s eyes was impossible to ignore.
He’d been right to trust his gut—something was wrong.
He needed to find Lucie and talk to her without her father getting in the way or a bunch of tourists interrupting.
If nothing else, he needed to know she was okay; if she wasn’t, Finn was prepared to do his worst.
Finn glanced around the store one last time before heading back to his car with his new supplies. His mind ran through possibilities and worst-case scenarios. He was here to protect people, to save them when he could.
This was one mission he couldn’t fail.