Chapter 8
CHAPTER 8
T he monster seethed inside his soul. He’d not only failed Zoe, but he’d failed Kyle. Carlos was the fucking sheriff. He’d been in the goddamn store when Kyle had been taken right out from under his nose. He’d stepped away to help Mrs. Guthrie, an aging widow, get her groceries into her car. When he’d returned, he’d found Zoe in some sort of trance, just staring at the vitamins on the shelf before her.
He hadn’t even noticed the empty shopping cart at first.
The monster demanded retribution. He wanted blood and carnage and justice. How dare someone take Zoe’s son? Carlos knew he wasn’t the boy’s father but that didn’t mean he didn’t care for Kyle. Beyond that, he could be Kyle’s father in the future. He wanted to be. Along with any other children Zoe might one day give him.
Carlos had to get a grip on himself. He was shaking. He was the sheriff . He had to be professional…but how could he do that when this was Kyle ? His heart thundered in his chest, making it hard to hear around him.
It was like an echo inside his soul. Thump… Thump… Thump… Kyle… Kyle… Kyle…
He had to concentrate if he had any hopes of keeping his vow to Zoe.
Keys picked up his laptop and handed it to Carlos. Carlos accepted it, holding it over his left hand and arm. On the screen was a picture. He’d seen enough of them to know it came from a traffic camera. The vehicle itself was a nondescript black sedan. The windows were tinted as dark as the law allowed and the top three inches of the windshield were completely dark.
The man driving was wearing a baseball cap and sunglasses. He had his left hand raised to the side of his face, elbow balanced on the door, as if he was blocking the sunlight from his eyes. Carlos could have bought that as the reason if the sun wasn’t setting in the opposite direction. Based on the timestamp, the picture was taken less than ten minutes ago.
He probably would have gone unnoticed, except Carlos had a clear view of the bottom of his face, chin, and torso.
“Owen?” Carlos looked up at Keys. “Where was this taken?”
“Just outside of town. He’s headed northeast.”
Towards Philadelphia. “You think Owen has Kyle?” Why? What was the endgame? Why would he come to Mount Grove, show his face, and then take Kyle? He could have just as easily snatched Kyle and remained anonymous. After all, who would suspect a dead man?
“It’s as good a guess as any,” Keys argued. “He came here to warn you— us about a bounty hunter. Maybe he was trying to throw us off his trail.”
“What’s the point? Why would he take Kyle?”
From what little Carlos knew about Owen, the theory didn’t fit. Zoe trusted Owen. Or, rather, she’d trusted Conner . Conner had been her friend and ally. Owen had only been doing his brother a favor by helping. Yet twice now Owen had made an appearance in Mount Grove where people would suspect him of being his twin’s ghost. Why?
“Maybe he’s returning Kyle to the grandparents?” Keys suggested.
Carlos shook his head. “Owen took Kyle from the grandparents. Or at least his organization did. It doesn’t fit that he would do all of that then, only to return Kyle to the grandparents now.”
Keys shrugged. “Money’s a big motivator. There’s still a hefty reward for Kyle’s safe return.”
“It doesn’t fit,” Carlos insisted. Still, he wouldn’t be doing his job correctly if he didn’t look into it. He wanted to stare Owen in the eyes and judge for himself the man’s innocence. “Let’s go get him.”
Keys, though, shook his head. “I sent Ranger and Ghost after him. They were already scouting out by the main drag. They’ll be faster and more discreet.”
Carlos could appreciate Keys’ foresight but was still annoyed that he didn’t check with him first. He put Keys’ laptop down on the hood of the cruiser. “What else do you have?”
“I am looking into all of the registered offenders in the area with…histories,” Keys practically spat out the word, “with boys that fit Kyle’s description.”
“I keep a list of them too,” Carlos informed him. “The closest offender doesn’t live within forty-five minutes of us. His name is Ferris Hogan, but he’s into boys older than Kyle. The next is up in Johnstown. There are two in that area, William Butters and Simon Olivier. Butters is still on parole, but he’s never gone after boys. Likes teen girls thirteen to sixteen. Olivier was convicted of raping his nephew but is still very vocal about his innocence. The nephew was ten at the time of the assault.”
Keys stared gobsmacked at him. “You have all of that memorized ?”
“Of course, I do,” Carlos snapped. “You’re telling me that you don’t know that information?”
“Well, sure.” Keys held up his tablet. “But I don’t have it memorized.”
“My memory is not going to help us find Kyle. I’m going to contact Danny and have LEOs talk with the three offenders within in hour of us.” Carlos stepped away to speak into his radio. When he returned, he asked, “What about the bounty hunter Owen warned us about, Trapper?”
“Xzavier ‘Trapper’ Gallows.” Keys tapped twice on his tablet and then handed it over to Carlos. “Forty-three, dishonorably discharged from the Navy for repeated violent misconduct, endangerment of himself and others, and gambling.”
“What is that in civilian speak?” He didn’t have time to read the military rap sheet on the tablet in front of him.
“He started a secret fight club on the battleship,” Keys explained. “He’s hired himself out as a mercenary and recently took up bounty hunting.”
“He’s in our area. Why?”
Keys stretched his hand forward and scrolled on the tablet in Carlos’s hand. A surveillance picture appeared of two men leaving what could have been a restaurant or a store. One had a cigar in his mouth. The second was clearly armed.
“Santos Rivera. Escaped custody on the way to his courthouse appearance in Trenton, New Jersey. He’s rumored to be hiding out in Atlantic City and recently made his way down to Philly.”
“Philly’s five hours from us,” Carlos reminded him. “Is Trapper in Philly looking for Rivera?”
“Unconfirmed. I haven’t found evidence that he’s in Philly, though I can tell you that Rivera is.” Keys swiped the screen again. “This is the last known image of Trapper. It’s a couple of years old, but it’s the best I got.”
Carlos’s grip on the tablet tightened to the point where the screen moaned a protest. “ This is Trapper?”
Keys nodded once. “Last image I have of him. Why?”
Carlos thrust the tablet forcefully back at Keys. “Take the beard off of him,” Carlos snapped. He started towards his cruiser.
“Where are you going?” Keys called after him.
“He’s been in Mount Grove!” Carlos shouted over his shoulder at him. “He was in the diner two booths away from Zoe and me when we had our first date!”
“What?” Keys snapped. “How could you possibly know that?”
“Because I notice strangers in my town.” He threw the door open to his cruiser, grateful he wasn’t blocked in by the other cars or cruisers. “Find him!” Carlos ordered Keys. “I don’t know how and I don’t know why, but he has Kyle!”
Carlos was in the back of the diner going through their surveillance when there was a commotion out front. He looked away from the computer screen in time to see Owen burst through the doorway.
Kelly the waitress, who had gotten Carlos onto their surveillance system, gasped at the sight of him. No doubt she was thinking similar thoughts to when Carlos had first seen him. Conner might have only been a prospect with the VDMC but he was still known in town. His death had labeled him a small-town hero as the club made it well known that he’d died saving Harper’s life and, by default, the life of her baby.
Anyone who came into the clubhouse immediately saw the In Memoriam placard on the wall behind the bar and the framed cut underneath.
Yet here stood the mirror image of the man many had helped bury.
Owen, though, ignored Kelly and turned his furious gaze on Carlos. “You let Kyle be taken?! I warned you!” He pointed an accusing figure at Carlos. “They were your responsibility and you failed!”
Carlos looked past the finger in his face towards Ghost and Ranger in the doorway then to Kelly next to him. “Leave us.”
His voice brooked no argument.
Ranger and Ghost waited for Kelly to exit first and then they closed the door to the backroom, leaving Carlos alone with Owen. He pulled off his wide-brimmed hat and tossed it on the desk next to the keyboard.
He stepped right up to Owen, who had dropped his hand, and got nose to nose with the man. Carlos was taller than him, but Owen had an air of menace about him that Carlos lacked. Or he did—until someone kidnapped his woman’s son.
“Look me in the eye and tell me you had nothing to do with this. Tell me that you did not kidnap an innocent little boy away from his mother in broad daylight.”
Owen did not back down. He even took a step forward. “Never. I would never harm Kyle nor would I hurt Zoe like that. My brother loved her and I choose to honor him by protecting her and her son. I would never take him away from her unless it was what she asked of me.”
Carlos waited a heartbeat, studying those amber eyes, and then nodded once. He stepped back. “I suspect Trapper has him.”
“Trapper?”
Carlos indicated towards the computer screen. “This was our first date last week.” He took out his phone to show Owen the picture Keys had edited with a beardless Trapper. He held the two screens up next to each other.
Owen’s eyes narrowed. “Fuck it all. He was in Mount Grove. He shook my tail, but I was so sure he’d turned east. Why would he come here? There’s no way he knew about Zoe and Kyle.”
“Yet you warned me about him?”
“I wasn’t about to let a notorious bounty hunter with no morals within the same breathing air as them.” Owen leaned over the keyboard. “He was seated before you. How did he know you were going there on your date?”
“I don’t know,” Carlos answered. “It’s one of the reasons I recognized him, because I had to walk past him to get to my booth.”
“You saw him once at a glance and you recognized him a week later?” Owen looked over his shoulder, seeming as impressed as Keys had been.
“I’m good with faces,” Carlos growled through gritted teeth.
Owen turned back to the screen. “He leaves before the two of you too.”
“It would have been suspicious otherwise,” Carlos commented. “We were talking for so long Kelly had to come kick us out.”
“Where did you go after your date?”
“For a walk in the park and then I drove her back to the club’s property.”
“He must have followed you.”
“I moved her into my house the next day.” Shame filled Carlos. He was so sure he could protect Zoe and Kyle. That his badge would protect her. He’d been so foolish, stupid. Selfish.
Owen stood up. “He must have recognized Zoe despite her being heavier and changing her hair color.”
Carlos’s eyebrows drew down. Zoe was heavier now? Compared to what? She was perfect with curves and a little belly fat he attributed to her being a mom. She’d been thinner once? How? Why?
Owen’s voice was low as he added, “Her husband forced her to only eat vegetables after she gave birth. He didn’t like that she carried extra weight from the pregnancy.”
Carlos’s jaw snapped closed. The fucker! What he wouldn’t give for Davis Rutterson to still be alive.
But Carlos had a different revenge in mind regardless of Rutterson’s current deceased state: he planned to love, cherish, worship, and protect the man’s wife better than Rutterson ever could have. Additionally, he would raise the man’s son to be a better man, the best man.
Only, Carlos had to find Kyle first.
Jaw tight, he looked to Owen. “Why did you come to Mount Grove? If you weren’t tracking Trapper, why did you come? Why show your face?”
“To be honest, it had nothing to do with Kyle or Zoe. They were only an excuse. I’m looking for a man named Cap. I’ve heard he has ties to the MC but I haven’t been able to locate him in town. I figured I had the wrong MC. After all, if he knew your MC then he would have known Conner, which meant he would have known me.”
Carlos didn’t know anyone by that name. “Why are you looking for him?”
“Answering that will take longer than we have. If Trapper has Kyle, he’s heading to Philly.” Owen glanced behind him at the closed door. “Can you ride?”
“A motorcycle? Sure.”
Owen nodded to Carlos’s hip. “Lose the badge and the uniform, Sheriff. We’re going to be riding fast and riding hard.” Heading towards the door, Owen threw over his shoulder. “Hope you can keep up.”