Chapter 24

CHAPTER

TWENTY-FOUR

As soon as he and Theo hit the door of the Eagle's Nest, they were running. Colton got the comms unit out of his pocket, flipped it to automatic so he could talk freely, and stuck it in his ear.

"Somebody update me."

"Suspect moved toward your truck," Callum said. "We didn't realize what we had on our hands until she stuck a letter and picture in the crack of the door. She took off when we approached. Heading south on Grant Street. I'm in my vehicle. Lincoln is on foot."

"She's fast." Lincoln's labored breathing punctuated the words.

If Lincoln was saying she was fast, it was no joke. The other man might be a computer genius, but he also kept himself in top physical shape.

"There's only so much I can do in a vehicle," Callum said. "Too many side roads and alleys in town."

"Theo and I are coming on foot." Colton pushed himself for more speed. He wasn't going to let her get away, no matter how fast she was.

"I had Derek and Lilah stay at the bar with Ella, just in case." Theo was right next to Colton, step for step.

Knowing Ella was protected allowed Colton to just focus on the chase. This woman might be ahead of them—and fast—but she didn't know Oak Creek the way they did. They would use that to their advantage.

"Linc, see if you can get her to cut down Broadmoor. That will eventually lead to a dead end," he said.

"Colton is right," Callum added. "Lincoln, actually, if you get her to cut down any side street south of Main, I'll be there to cut her off."

"Roger that," Lincoln responded. "I think she's going to— shit ."

"What?" Lincoln wasn't one to express frustration in curse words.

"She just cut down Lexington," the other man said.

They all muttered curses. The stalker had just gotten extremely lucky—Lexington gave her more exits out of town than any other street she could've picked to dash down.

"We're going to have to split up." Colton ran the options in his head.

"Agreed," Callum said. "I'll stay on Grant in the car in case she spins back around. Theo, you go down Baxter Road. Lincoln, try to force her west. Colton, you come around from the east side and box her in."

They muttered agreements and pushed for speed.

"She's not slowing down," Lincoln said. "And I'm not making any gains on her."

Just their luck his stalker was some sort of Olympic sprinter.

Colton and Theo split off from each other without a word. They both knew where they needed to go.

Everyone ran in silence for a few moments before Lincoln's voice came through the comms system again. "She turned south on Branch."

Colton muttered another curse through labored breath. Damn it. This woman was making all the right choices—her change in direction down that road would also give her a way out of town. So much for trapping her .

But Colton knew a shorter way. It required him to cut through an alley and leap over a damn trash can, but he did it.

"Almost to you, Lincoln." Colton could hear the clanging sound of someone trying to climb the fence and knew that they had her now. He turned the corner, and, sure enough, the woman—and in a black hoodie, no less—was climbing up a chain link fence. If she made it over that, she'd be pretty much home free.

Colton didn't think about it; he leaped—landing hard against the woman and then pulling them both down to the ground, knocking the wind out of himself.

Shit, that hurt .

It didn't feel any better when the woman swung her fist out and caught him in the jaw. "Goddamn it."

Colton wasn't one to hit women, but neither was he one to sit there and get his ass kicked just because she was female. But Lincoln caught up to them and did a flying tackle of his own, taking her down completely so she was face first on the ground, Lincoln pulling her arms behind her.

"Get the fuck off me, man."

Wait. That wasn't a woman's voice at all. What the hell?

A knife clattered out of the guy's pocket as Lincoln flipped him around so they could see his face.

Hell, not a woman, but not really a man either—a fucking teenager .

Colton kicked the knife out of the way, and Lincoln pulled him so he was sitting up against the fence. Colton and Lincoln stood there for a long minute staring down at him, trying to catch their breaths and figure out what the hell was going on.

"Colton, Lincoln, come in." Callum's voice came over the comms. "Update."

"We're at the end of Adams Street. We caught our perp," Colton got out, breathing almost normally enough to talk in full sentences.

"Okay. I'll be there in less than one minute. Don't do anything to her."

"Oh, believe me, we won't do anything to her. "

"Teenager, what is your name?" Lincoln asked.

"My name is Fuck You, Man ," the kid spat out.

Lincoln narrowed his eyes. "I'm fairly certain that is not your actual name."

"Lincoln, he's baiting you. Just ignore him."

Colton watched as the teen's muscles tensed. He was about to make a run for it. Colton squatted down closer to him. "If you make me run after you again, I will catch you. But you won't like it when I do."

"I don't even know why you guys were chasing me in the first place. That's why I was running. What was I supposed to do?" The kid was lying, but his muscles relaxed, so at least he wasn't about to take off again.

"We were chasing you because we told you to stop, and you ran," Lincoln stated.

Colton shook his head. Talking reasonably with this kid wasn't going to get them far, but reason and logic were the only things Lincoln knew.

Sure enough, the teen turned to Lincoln, eyes wide. "I'm just a kid, man. I see grown men running toward me, and yeah, I'm going to take off. How did I know you weren't going to kidnap me or something?"

Colton could see that Lincoln was about to debate the issue with him. "He's baiting you again, Linc. Trying to distract us so he can make a run for it again."

"Are you fucking kidding me right now?" Lincoln was stopped from arguing with the kid further by Callum walking up behind them. "Jeremy Ritter?"

"Shit," the kid muttered.

"You know him?" Colton asked as he stood back up.

Callum raised an eyebrow. "Jeremy and I go way back. A couple of misdemeanor B&Es, underage drinking, and recreational drug use."

Colton scrubbed a hand down his face. "There is no way this is my stalker. Hell, even if we got the gender wrong, there is no way this punk is my stalker."

"Got anything to say, Jeremy?" Callum asked.

"Dude, these guys were chasing me, and how was I supposed to know if they were going to take me back to their love cave or something."

Lincoln and Colton both rolled their eyes. Even Lincoln could recognize the absurdity of this statement.

Theo arrived in a rush a few seconds later, saw the kid, and immediately surmised the situation. "Great."

"Who put you up to this, Jeremy?" Callum crouched down beside him.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Somebody paid you to put a knife and the picture on that truck, right? If you tell me who did that, we could pretend like there's no problem."

Jeremy shrugged. "I have no idea what you mean."

Colton reached over and grabbed the knife off the ground, holding it by the handle in front of the kid. "Let me guess, you were supposed to use this to put the letter and picture into my truck door, but you decided to keep the knife for yourself."

Jeremy looked away, and Colton knew he'd discovered the truth.

"Who was it?" he pressed. "Who told you to do this?"

The kid caved. "Look, I don't know. I got a text earlier today, offering me some money to deliver some stuff. I didn't know what it was I'd be delivering."

Callum shook his head. "Let me guess, you thought it would be drugs? You know you're only a half step from juvie, Jeremy."

He shook his head. "No. As a matter of fact, I was very clear that I couldn't do anything illegal. So yeah, when I heard it was just putting a love letter and a picture on a truck, it seemed like easy money."

"And the knife?" Colton asked.

Jeremy shrugged. "Seemed like a waste to just leave it there if I could get the letter and picture to stay attached to the truck without it. Listen, I didn't know any of this was illegal."

"Who paid you?" Callum asked. "Did you get a name?"

"Well, I asked for a business card and a few references, but…" Jeremy rolled his eyes. "No, man, I didn't get a name."

Colton didn't know whether to smack the kid or laugh at him for being such a wiseass. But he didn't need to ask him any more questions to know that this was probably going to be a dead end.

"Was it a woman?" he asked.

Jeremy shrugged. "I couldn't tell by the texts."

"How did you get paid? Electronically?" Lincoln asked.

"No, actually, there was cash in the bag with the stuff I was supposed to leave on the truck."

Lincoln grimaced. "I was hoping our stalker had paid him through some sort of app—I could've traced that, no problem."

Jeremy looked over at Callum. "Like I said, I really didn't think this was something illegal. Yeah, I got a little spooked when you guys started chasing me, but I wasn't trying to get into trouble."

Callum looked over at Colton while rubbing his neck. "Technically…"

"Yeah, I know," Colton responded, knowing what Callum was going to say. Jeremy was right that he hadn't actually broken the law.

"Do you still have the text that started this whole thing?" he asked Jeremy.

Jeremy pulled out his phone. "Yeah, right here."

Lincoln reached for it, and none of them protested. "Give me a couple hours with this phone, and I'll see what I can find. But it looks like it was a third-party app that hides identification, so I'm not terribly hopeful."

"I'm going to take Jeremy back to my office, and we'll go over this again," Callum stood up, pulling Jeremy up by the arm. "If anything comes of it, I'll let you know."

Colton handed the older man the knife, and Callum led the kid off in the direction of his car, the kid whining the whole time .

Colton began walking back toward the Eagle's Nest with Theo and Lincoln.

"She somehow knew this was a sting," Theo said.

Lincoln was still studying the phone in his hand. "Either that or she has always used someone else to deliver the messages."

Colton shook his head. "That's possible, but I've always felt like part of her MO was to deliver them in person. To try to get as close to me as possible. At least, that's what it felt like until I got to Oak Creek, when things started to take a turn for the more vicious."

"She doesn't like that you're here," Theo said.

"Seems that way. And I don't want to be bringing trouble to the people I care about the most. Maybe it's time for me to leave, at least until this is settled."

But hell if that was what he wanted. But what he wanted didn't matter. Making sure Ella was safe was what mattered.

"Maybe," Theo agreed. The other man knew what it was to need to keep his loved ones safe. His wife Eva had had her own stalker who had nearly cost her her life. "But why don't you see if Callum or Lincoln can get any further info first? Let's take the kids on the wilderness adventure—there's no way some stalker is going to find you there. When we get back in a couple of days, maybe we'll have more info to go on."

Colton wasn't very hopeful, but neither was he going to back out on Bear and those kids. Everyone had really been looking forward to this, especially Marshall. Colton couldn't renege now and miss it.

But no matter what, this stalker was going down.