Chapter 15

Chapter

Fifteen

ALPHABET

A n update came through just as I pulled into the garage. Bones and Voodoo were on my shit list. Lunchbox’s too based on his reaction. We’d dropped the borrowed cars with a guy to clean them up before we went to the airport. The flight back was uneventful, particularly because we hadn’t had Gracie with us.

No, Bones pulled rank and sent her with Voodoo. The fucker didn’t even bother to tell us. He just left with her before dawn with only a two-line note for explanation.

Transporting the client. See you at house.

See us at the house. That was going to take him a day or two to drive her there. Longer if they ran into trouble. Bones only said they would be fine and we needed to head home.

“We should have tagged her,” Lunchbox said as he opened the back door of my car. Goblin hopped down and circled around to wait for me.

“Not sure if you noticed,” I said as I levered myself out of the car. “We were a little busy.”

“I noticed.” Lunchbox snagged my gear along with his before he headed inside. I’d bitch, but my back was hurting and my leg hadn’t shut the fuck up in two days. Pain sizzled along my quad and up to my hip where it joined the flash fire in my back.

Rather than leave me to limp alone, Goblin moved along with me. “I’m good, buddy,” I assured him, not that the Staffy seemed to be buying what I was selling. Not getting underfoot, he twisted to check on me regularly as we made our way to the door that Lunchbox left open.

Unsurprisingly, our duffels were left in the mudroom. He was likely sweeping the house. I paused at the control panel. I checked base regularly when we were on the road. Multiple cameras, motion sensors, and alarms kept us in the loop. We brought no one here and did the majority of the work on the place ourselves.

Goblin stayed with me while I entered my code, then pulled up the log. Nothing had changed since my last check-in, but it was always better to be certain. Just because we were paranoid didn’t mean everyone wasn’t out to get us.

Work like we did earned enemies. We tried not to leave any behind us that weren’t already six feet under, but we couldn’t claim a perfect record. Hope for the best and plan for the worst.

The scanner showed movement on the second floor. Lunchbox was finishing his sweep. I waited for his all clear on my phone before I entered the code which would send the messages to Bones and Voodoo that we were tucked in securely.

“Come on, Gobs,” I said to the dog watching me so closely. He rose to follow me inside as I headed for the kitchen. I wanted coffee. I kind of wanted food but with Lunchbox in the house, I’d leave the meal planning to him.

It was generally safer for all involved. I got the coffee loaded and the water refilled. Pausing at the fridge, I scanned the contents. We needed a restock run.

That was Voodoo’s job.

Goblin settled in the middle of the kitchen while I moved around. As much as I wanted to sit, I needed to stretch. So, I’d take the light exercise while the coffee brewed. I pulled out one of the bigger dental treats for my buddy.

He watched me, not leaping up from his resting position until I clicked my tongue. Then he was up and in front of me, waiting patiently.

“Good boy,” I told him before I handed it to him. He carried the treat over to eat it under the table while I flipped open the cupboard. Protein bars were still in stock, I grabbed a couple to shove in my pocket.

I’d take them to my office with me.

“I’m grabbing a shower,” Lunchbox said over the intercom. It was easier to just broadcast if we needed to pass a message and we didn’t know where the others were. “I’ll take care of dinner after. See if you can figure out how far away they are?”

“They won’t be here tonight,” I informed him without touching any of the buttons. It wouldn’t be a surprise to him either. When the coffee was ready, I poured half of the carafe into a tumbler, then carried it and the protein bars to my office with Goblin trailing behind me.

I shoved the barn door wide. Roughly ten by fifteen feet, my office was a comfortable rectangle. There was an emergency exit located in the middle. The room could also be shut down with one push, dropping shields over the windows and the door.

Once engaged, safe room mode could only be lifted from the inside. The same with the emergency exit. It couldn’t be opened from outside. Right now the windows overlooked a huge meadow with three board fencing visible in the distance.

A barn was set up on the property. It hadn’t been renovated when we did the house. Instead, we kept it as it was. The plan was to remodel it later. For now, it worked to store some equipment and for target practice. Outside of Goblin, we didn’t want animals here. We didn’t keep a staff and we could be gone for weeks at a time.

“Take a break,” I said to Goblin and he headed right over to the giant dog bed in the corner. It was big enough I could sprawl in it, and had before. Gobs and I had taken more than one nap right there.

Coffee on the desk, I brought my systems up from shutdown then let them run through their cleanup programs as they came up one at a time. I plugged my phone into a charger, then eased down into the chair. I could make myself more comfortable and just use my crutches, but I wasn’t in the mood right now.

Once I was in my seat, I lifted my left leg and rested it on the bench meant for the purpose. The relief was almost immediate and I blew out a breath before I downed a swallow of coffee.

It could clean the pipes, it was so damn strong. Just what the doctor ordered. Another message popped on my phone as I began logging into my machines. Bones had detoured.

I frowned, then pulled it to me to read more firmly.

He detoured to backup Voodoo with Grace. I scrolled to check the other messages that had come in. They were circumspect, mostly delivered in code on the off chance someone hacked our system.

Voodoo had proven a theory that just planning takeout didn’t mean we could skip on the bill. They would come looking for it.

She had a tracker.

A string of invectives fell as I pulled up the server that let me track the guys when they were out. These trackers were specific to our phones. Easier to never leave anyone behind if we knew where they were.

Same for Doc, but we kept that part to ourselves. He rarely left Braxton Harbor and his clinic. If he did, however, and needed us, we’d find him. It was why we’d gone the moment he called us about the trucks and the passengers.

Three offers were in the inbox. I ignored that for now as I zeroed in on Voodoo’s phone. They’d have been on the road for hours, and they’d be nowhere near here. So where were they?

They weren’t far from St. Louis, Missouri. What the hell was in St. Louis? We had a handful of connections there, including at least two certified physicians within The Network. Another swallow of coffee, as I tracked Voodoo’s phone by tower pings.

It was stationary.

Clinic.

I ground my teeth but kept my eye on the prize. The clinic had a decent system, but they allowed you to log in from beyond the firewall to see what was going on.

It took me ten minutes to get in. I’d need to shore those up before I left, for now, I flipped through the camera angles.

Reception.

Waiting room.

Hall.

Doctor’s office.

Exam rooms—only external cameras for each door.

I pulled up three windows to keep an eye on all of them while I checked the lot outside of the clinic. There was Voodoo’s Jeep.

It looked fine, no signs of visible damage. I flicked a look back to the other three as an exam room door opened. The angle wasn’t great, but I caught Voodoo’s profile.

They were in exam room two.

Since I was already in part of their system, I went digging into the patient files. I didn’t care about the others but I wanted to see who’d been checked in recently. The door was visible and the colored flag was set to red. That usually meant occupied.

Brittany Talbot. She did not look remotely like a Brittany. She was there for possible illness, flu or pneumonia. Smart, that meant he brought her in masked. Reduced the chances of her being identified.

The doctor was talking to one of the nurses, then he went down the hall and disappeared into his office. He wasn’t there long before he returned to the exam room. The patient in there left. The patient in one didn’t make an appearance.

A nurse didn’t join the doctor in the room with Voodoo and Gracie. That would fly in the face of protocol. Not that I was worried about the physician getting frisky. Voodoo was right there.

Still, the other cameras showed the staff and patients trickling out. The doors locked. The clinic closed, and the whole time the door to exam room two stayed closed. Then it was just the doctor left and everything else was secure.

He opened the exam room door and Voodoo stepped out, his gaze tracked right to the camera. With care, I tapped a message to him using the red light. Instead of surprised, Voodoo just shook his head at me before he looked at the doctor again.

Then he held out a hand to the woman inside and I got my first good look at Gracie since Voodoo took off with her. She was pale. Paler than I liked to see. She also had a smudge on her cheek and she was dressed in an x-ray gown.

Oh, that was excellent. Probably trying to block any signal from the tracker. It had to be working, they were still in the clinic. If I had the right equipment, I could do a search for the signal and try to jam it.

The smell of burgers and peppers reached me a beat before Lunchbox did. He’d made his favorite. The man would put chilis on just about anything. It was fine, I didn’t mind them on my burgers.

“Found her,” Lunchbox said. “They getting her tracker out?”

“Not yet, I don’t think. Probably waited for the clinic to empty.”

“Makes sense.” He pulled up a chair and settled at the corner of my desk. We both ate in silence as I tracked her to an actual x-ray room.

“That’s helpful.” If they had to find the thing.

“Can you get into the…”

“Machine?” Since I already had a window open to let myself into their equipment. I spared him a look. “Who are you talking to?”

“Just checking,” Lunchbox said.

The screen generated an image and we both found the tracker almost immediately. It was in her back. Not somewhere easily accessible. Thankfully, they did a full set of scans to make sure she didn’t have any others.

I bit into my burger while we waited. Scrolling the images let me watch their backs. Unsurprising was when Bones arrived. Of course, he’d go there to spell Voodoo out. Even if they drove all night they were easily a little under twenty-four hours away.

They wouldn’t drive all night. Not when they would want to make sure they’d flushed any possible tails and verify that her tracker was gone. Then they could bring her here.

Lunchbox’s phone rang and he showed me the contact was Bones before he answered it by hitting speaker. “You’ve got both of us here.”

“I figured,” Bones said, his tone dry. “Find us a place to stay for the night. She’s going to need rack time and Voodoo’s been running point all day.”

“Funny how that happens,” Lunchbox said in a droll tone. “Particularly with both of us right there. We could have all been on the road with her and no one would be tired.”

“Save your bitching for later,” Bones said. “Just get us a secure bunk for the night. Once we’re in the clear, we’ll head to you.”

“You planning to let her call her sister while out there?” I already knew the answer when I asked. At the same time, it was the one thing most vibrantly important to her. More delays would just upset her.

They didn’t want her calling. Didn’t mean I couldn’t hunt.

“Save it for later,” Bones said. “I’ll check in when we’re back on the road.”

Then he was gone. It didn’t take long for me to track down a decent place. It wasn’t fancy, but it was available for online rental and you didn’t need to have contact with anyone. After I booked it, I forwarded all the information to Bones.

It took about an hour, but Gracie emerged from the x-ray room with a definite look of discomfort on her face. They had a brief conversation, then they were leaving. I tracked them all the way to the car.

No one was watching that I could see. No one to deal with, so while they drove, I started up a new search window.

“I’ll get us more coffee,” Lunchbox said. “Then help with the search.”

I nodded as I typed in Amorette Black’s name.

Let’s see what we could see.