Chapter 23

Chapter

Twenty-Three

PATCH

" D on't freak out, Sugar Bear. Running silent for a bit."

Then he shut off his comm.

He. Shut. Off. His. Comm.

No explanations, no brainstorming, just that message followed by dead silence as he clicked off. A part of my brain registered the conversation Remy was having with the man from the diner. The man really wanted Remy to leave. He was all but begging him to go, because if he was caught talking to an outsider it could go badly.

Another part of my brain tracked Locke's interaction with the vet. The man was almost too genial, too easy going, and too—"good ole boy"— was the only description I could come up with. But like Mark Reynolds in his little apartment over the barber shop, Dr. Townsend was not enthusiastic about having any conversation with Locke.

"So, you can handle cattle and horses, but not ferrets?" Locke was asking in a voice filled with genuine curiosity. "We've got dogs and cats too, but the ferrets—I worry about them."

When he'd started the questioning, the vet had tried to answer him directly and get him out of his place. But the more he tried to brush off Locke, the more questions Locke came up with. The minute he brought up a chinchilla though, I had to shake my head.

"Look, you don't understand," Mark Reynolds was saying to Remy. "This whole town is bad news. Just get your guys, get in your car, and get out of here."

"You don't know us, but you seem to know why we shouldn't be here." The measured tenor of his voice encouraged confidence. Or maybe it was just that I liked the sound of it.

Locke had already dropped a couple of well-placed cameras, allowing me a better look inside the veterinarian's hospital. It was pretty straightforward from what I could see. I split my attention between that screen, the main street still visible on the other cameras, the glimpse I had inside of Reynolds' place via the street camera so I could keep an eye on Remy and his target, while I scanned the others to find McQuade.

He'd said don't freak out and then just vanished . It was irritating me. The town didn't seem to have a lot of surveillance installed. At least not where they didn't want to be looking, which suggested the cameras were placed in areas the people who ran this town thought they were needed.

Food for thought.

It could mean there was nothing to see, and at the same time, too much to see. Every answer yielded more questions.

So many more questions. A dull headache flared behind one eye. I rubbed a hand against my forehead, trying to massage my temples without dislodging my headset or losing track of which camera angle I studied.

McQuade was out there and he was running alone, without me to watch his back. While it was hardly the first time, I didn't care for the lack of notice. At least when he went quiet before, I had a clock to count down or I could track him.

This…

"Mr.—" The vet interrupted Locke's soliloquy on the relationship between mental health and pygmy goats. I needed to ask him about that later. He seemed to know a great deal about the creatures.

"Eregion," Locke said smoothly. "Linden Eregion, but you can just call me Linden."

I almost choked. That was straight out of Lord of the Rings, here was hoping the doctor hadn't heard of it.

"Mr. Eregion," the man's easy drawl seemed less easy and far more strained. "I have clients with patients I need to see. As you can tell, my office staff has the day off, so I really need to send you on your way, and get back to work."

"Well, why didn't you say so? Don't have to get testy." I could hear the smirk reflected in his words. "Just trying to be friendly."

The doctor didn't quite manage to mask his glare, but I took advantage of his direct look to screenshot his face, then put it to work on a secondary search. Something about him was bugging me, beginning with his absolute lack of digital footprint.

It just wasn't normal.

"I don't know you," Reynolds was saying, the man's guarded voice betrayed a distinctly Eastern seaboard accent. Mid-Atlantic? "I don't want to know you."

No, more northeast. Not New York. Boston?

"Tell me what has you afraid," Remy said, seemingly unmoved by the man's urgency. Unfortunately for Mr. Reynolds, Remy could be furious and his pulse would barely blip. His self-control and discipline were crucial to his work.

Did make reading him frustrating.

But I was getting better at it.

"Why?" Reynolds demanded. "I'm trying to do you a favor. I don't know what the hell is going on with these people. They could be cartel, or criminals, aliens, or just some people whacked out on happy juice trying to form their own cult."

That was a lot to take in. Locke was on his way out of the vet's office, whistling. "Can you see McQuade?" I asked him before I could even think twice about it.

"Nope," he said, switching from whistling to humming. "Need me to punch him for you?"

Surprise bubbled up at the offer and I laughed. "No, I just— Never mind."

He was running quiet. He was a grown man. He could handle it.

I apparently couldn't, but he could.

"Remy is getting some conflicting info from Reynolds. Head toward the barber so you're in place for extraction. We need to get in the sheriff's office." Yes, it was stream of consciousness.

"I don't mind getting arrested for you, sweet, but I think we should wait until later. This town probably closes at sundown. I'll get you all the eyes and ears you could want."

"You might be on to something." It wasn't a bad plan. I switched to the screen where I could see McQuade's comm, it was in standby mode. Not connected.

Annoying man.

"The problem," Reynolds was saying as I tuned back into the conversation and continued paging through all the angles I had on the town. Where the hell had McQuade gone? "The people in this town ain't playing. I came here to follow up on a story…"

"You're a journalist." Remy's cool tone masked his personal feelings but I gritted my teeth. A journalist could be in a lot of trouble here.

A lot.

"Yeah, I am and you have fed written all over you, only you're British, so maybe you're a foreign operative. Either way, you don't need to be here," Reynolds told him firmly.

"By that logic," Remy replied. "Neither do you."

"I have a job to do. A job I'm going to do. Now, they're watching me which means they know you came up here…"

"No, they don't," Remy told him, and I caught Remy's movement as he shifted to glance out the window before drifting back. It was just a shadow, but I knew who it was. I had to give Reynolds credit, he didn't look like he was talking to anyone.

"They have eyes everywhere."

"So do I," Remy said. "They won't know I'm here. What are you investigating?"

The man pulled out a tape recorder. "If you get to ask questions, so do I."

I chuckled. "I like him."

"I like you," Remy said, echoing the sentiment.

"We can't read him in. Not enough info. But I'm running him now."

I flicked a look at the clock. It was closing in on forty-five minutes since McQuade told me to not freak out.

"Liking me isn't answering my questions," Reynolds said.

"No, it isn't. I'm not entirely sure what to do with you."

That last was a question for me. Locke was making his way down the street. "Still no eyes on him?" The question asked me a lot of things. Was I worried? Did I want him to find him?

"No, Remy disengage with Reynolds. Leave him in play. We may have compromised ourselves with him but I don't think so. I'll keep fishing. Join Locke, McQuade's gone missing and we don't have eyes on him."

Frustration scraped through me. Where the hell was McQuade? Remy left Reynolds as silently as he arrived. I could track him, but I was also scrubbing their surveillance so they couldn't see him.

At fifty minutes, I activated a ping to hit McQuade's comm. If it was off, it would still send a signal back. I could triangulate using the signals and that part of town.

"The town isn't that large," Remy said as he linked up with Locke. "Which way did he go?"

"Mechanic's shop." I answered in unison with Locke. It was also where the ping returned from. "I don't have eyes, so I can't see what you're walking into. They have no cameras there, or if they do they are well shielded against intrusion."

Irritating, but if they did have them, I'd find a way to crack it.

"We can handle it, luv," Remy said, his voice soothing some of the rougher edges of my worries. "Don't mind McQuade, he's a cantankerous prick, but he can handle himself."

Yes, he could. It didn't mean I had to like it.

Silence relayed down the line. Then Locke said, "We've got a car pulling out from behind the shop, it's heading south and away from town. I got a picture, but couldn't catch the plate."

Oh, please let McQuade not be in that car. But I kept my words locked down, not trusting myself. The conversations with the vet and Reynolds may not have netted much, but they had served as a distraction.

"Watch your backs." The nearest camera I had to their location was rapidly losing them. I couldn't help them if I couldn't see what was there.

What was with the cameras on this side? Most of the town had flimsy security but this side was battened down tighter than a skif at the CIA.

"Got him," Locke said, but the tightness in his voice had me digging my nails into my palms.

"He's—fine." I couldn't get a read on Remy's tone, was he amused? Annoyed? Or just observant?

"You're fine…" Locke said, as if belatedly agreeing. "We came to…"

"Save me?" McQuade said, the sarcasm ever present in his voice. "Good job. I'm all safe now."

Anger struck a match inside of me. He was fine…

"Status?" It came out far more clipped than I cared to admit.

"Bruised, still ugly, and definitely not the best personality," Locke offered his assessment. "But he took out two guys here. Getting photos for you."

"I've got some info," McQuade was saying—to them. Not to me. To them. Because he hadn't turned his damn comm back on. "We should probably blow town for a bit. We might be compromised…"

"What happened?" Remy asked.

"TLDR—someone recognized me. I recognized them. We need to go. I'll fill you in later."

I tapped one nail against the desktop as I continued to scroll the images through town—there they were. They were moving at a relaxed, if brisk, pace back to the car. McQuade walked with his hands in his pockets and his chin down.

The air backed up in my lungs as they got closer to the car and I could see them on our cameras. Bruises marked McQuade's face. There was blood on the corner of his mouth.

His comm was still off.

Then they were in the car and Remy took over the driving with Locke sliding in the back. McQuade was up front.

"We're secure," Remy said. "On our way back to you."

"Brief us now," Locke said. "She can hear us and she's already working on a dozen other threads."

McQuade sighed.

Yes, briefing now meant he'd turn his comm back on, not that I couldn't hear him via theirs. But he couldn't hear me and he had to know I wasn't going to put up with that. If he didn't know, he was going to find out.

I waited.

The click as it came back online echoed in my ear. McQuade blew out a breath. "Online, Sugar Bear."

I stared at the screen.

Then back at the town. "Then brief the boys," I suggested, fighting for a professional tone. "I'll have my report for you when you get back. Going silent."

I shut it off before he could say anything. Shut all of them down, then yanked the headset off. My heart hammered so loud, it echoed in my ears and my hands were shaking.

Worse, I couldn't decide if I wanted to cry, throw up, scream, or hit something. I pressed the heel of my hand against my eye as my head thundered with every beat of my pulse.

McQuade had gone silent and had been in some kind of fight. He'd been recognized. Recognized someone who was there. But he'd been running alone.

He could have been killed.

The more my thoughts chased around in circles, the worse my headache got. Doors swung both ways, you could open and shut communications. He'd been offline… anything could have happened.

I'd just gone offline when…

No sooner did my mind go there than it retreated. I shoved away from the desk and headed for the little kitchenette. I retrieved a bottle of water from the fridge and pressed the icy plastic against my suddenly flushed face.

I had no idea how long I stood there, how long I fought to get the shallow breaths to deepen, and to stop panting. I was still there when the alarm alerted me to their arrival. The slam of the car doors echoed through the silence. Their footfalls, a soft shush of shoe on the metal floors and then quieted more when they hit the rubber mats that lined everything for traction.

Then they were walking around the corner, McQuade in the lead. I had no idea what I was going to do before I did it, but when he grinned with his bloodstained lips, I saw red. Then I threw the water bottle as hard as I could and it smacked him upside the head, bouncing once before he caught it.

Locke and Remy froze in place and McQuade stared at me. "What the hell?"

"Apparently, I needed to freak out ."