Chapter 37
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
It took everything in me to leave her in bed, but this couldn't wait. Twenty minutes after she fell asleep, I carefully slipped out of bed and met Slater in the booth. Now we’re here.
My jaw ticks.
The van had disappeared clean off city cameras. No traffic hits. No plate reads. No trace. It hasn’t been spotted anywhere since the day we saw it in the commuter lot. Now, it’s sitting in a different commuter lot about a mile away from Perdition.
It feels too easy.
We all stare at it, expecting it to disappear again if we blink. Cole circles it once slowly, his hands tucked into his jacket. Maverick and Nick talk somewhere to the left of me. Elias stands by the driver's side peering into the window.
“Too clean,” Cole mutters.
He’s right. Still no tags, no VIN. No dust clinging to the paint.
“No prints,” Elias adds, now looking at places where handprint smudges are typically left.
Maverick steps to the passenger side of the vehicle, and tries the handle with a gloved hand.
To our surprise, the lock releases and the door pops open.
None of us say anything, our eyes bouncing back and forth between each other in shock.
He doesn’t open it right away. His hand rests on the edge of the handle, jaw tight as he looks at me.
“Feels like bait.”
“Because it is,” Nick says quietly.
Still, Maverick slowly pulls the door open as we all move to his side. The interior is empty. No trash, no tools, no personal items or smells. Nothing. Like it’s never been used. Cole leans down, scanning the floorboards.
“Not even dirt,” he mutters.
A van that’s supposedly been kidnapping and running people to god knows where shouldn’t look as if it’s just rolled off the showroom floor. Cole reaches toward the center console, then stops short.
“Don’t.”
I don't raise my voice, but he freezes anyway feeling the tension laced in my tone.
“This wasn’t dumped,” I continue, stepping closer. “It was placed.”
Nick nods once. “Someone wanted us to find it.”
Maverick straightens. “Question is why now?”
My eyes scan the lot. It’s too public, too open, too visible. And yet–nobody’s watching. At least no one obvious.
A slow pressure builds behind my ribs.
“Nick, that cop you were working on…he yours now?” Maverick asks. Nick nods. “Let’s get him over here to secure this thing. I’ll have Slater come down to do a full sweep before he gets here.”
Both men pull out their phones and step away from the vehicle. Cole glances up at me.
“You think it’s wired?”
I don’t answer, and Elias shrugs. The real problem isn’t what may or may not be inside of it. It’s what finding it means. Someone is fucking with us.
If they’re done hiding, they may be gearing up to make a move. And we just stepped exactly where they wanted us.
I drag my gaze from the van to the treeline bordering the lot. The shadows are wrong. Everything around us is still, the kind of still that feels staged.
“Why would they bring it back?” Cole asks, straightening slowly.
“To get us here,” I say, my jaw ticking.
Nick ends his call first, slipping his phone back into his pocket and rejoining us.
“He’s on his way. Ten minutes.”
Maverick nods but doesn’t relax.
“Slater?” Elias asks.
“Already moving.”
Good. I don’t like this. Not the timing. Not the presentation. And definitely not the silence. No rush job, no panic and no attempt to hide it. Just delivered, like a message.
“You think this is a flex?” Cole says, stepping closer to me.
“No,” I say. A flex is loud. This is quiet and intentional.
Controlled. My eyes move over the windshield again.
No smear marks from the wipers, no streaks.
Nothing disturbed. Even the tires are clean, which is out of place for Oregon in the spring.
Even the cleanest cars have some mud on them somewhere.
Someone wiped this down, inside and out. And very recently.
“Someone’s confident,” Nick murmurs.
“Or bored,” Mav adds.
Neither option sits well.
Looking over my shoulder, Slater’s car pulls into the parking lot and stops in front of the van. He steps out, his shoulders tense and jaw set in a hard line.
“I’ll be happy when this fucking thing leads us to where it needs to and I can blow it the fuck up,” he says tightly as he approaches us.
“Yeah, well I don’t think this is doing anything more than laughing in our faces,” Elias says, rubbing the back of his neck.
“Once you and the officer Nick called get this thing cleared, I want people at every lot within five miles of this place,” I say.
Cole raises a brow. “You think there’s more than one?”
My phone buzzes in my pocket, but I don’t check it. Instead, I take a step back from the van.
“Probably,” Nick answers.
“I don’t think this is about transportation anymore,” my arms gesture to the lot. “No one to watch it, no sign of anyone either.”
Slater studies me. “Then what is it about?”
My gut answers before my brain does.
Distraction.
I don’t say it out loud yet. Instead, I scan the perimeter again. Lot six sits open on three sides. Chain link fence on the back stretch, a row of pines lining the far edge. And no cameras pointed directly at the van. It’s convenient.
“They wanted it to be seen,” I say finally.
Cole shifts beside me, uncomfortable. “Not too smart for kidnappers.”
Silence stretches. The realization settles in all of us at the same time. Nick exhales slowly.
“They wanted you distracted.”
“All of us,” I correct, grinding my molars.
Maverick drags a hand down his beard. “They wanted us out of Perdition.”
No one argues, because it’s obvious now. Slater steps toward the open back door, crouching slightly but doesn't touch anything yet.
“You thinking secondary target?” he asks.
“Always.” I crack my neck.
Cole glances toward the lot entrance. “You want someone heading back?”
I don't answer right away. Because the question hits somewhere deeper in my bones than it should. A quiet instinct I don’t like.
“Not yet. We have four more still on property,” Maverick says, then nods to Slater. “Loop them in.”
Slater says nothing as he pulls out his phone, texting Kellen, Declan, Levi and Owen. My hand flexes at my side as Elias finally breaks the silence.
“If this is a distraction, what’s the play?”
“Timing,” Nick answers.
“Or access,” Mav adds.
My eyes flick to the van. Pristine, inviting us to focus on it. To stay here and keep digging. To waste time. I start stepping backward without thinking.
“Officer’s two minutes out,” Nick tells us. I nod once.
“Once it’s cleared, I want to know every vehicle that’s entered this lot in the last twelve hours.”
“Someone had to sit on it,” Nick mutters. Maverick curses under his breath, watching me. Because now I’m not just stepping back, I’m leaving. His eyebrows furrow.
My phone buzzes again. Finally fishing it out, Jeremy’s name lights up the screen. Something heavy settles in my chest. The kind of feeling that comes from instinct and experience. From knowing something’s wrong before you can prove it. And everything about this feels wrong.
“I gotta go,” I mutter and turn, jogging the rest of the way to the Camaro then drop down in the driver’s seat. My phone screen goes black, before lighting up again with Jeremy’s call.
It’s the third one.
The unease in my chest grows, because Jeremy never calls unless something is wrong.