Chapter 23

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

SHEP

"I get that this person wanted to meet with all of us, but I'm thinking he doesn't have to. Three go in, and two stay outside just in case." Nick was typing on the computer as he talked.

"I went over there—place is a regular laundromat. There's a tax office attached, a dollar store, two empty shops. Nothing out of the ordinary for that area." Noel sat next to Nick and opened his laptop.

"I'm hearing five of you. You know Mason and I are people, right?" JJ cocked his head, brows furrowed angrily.

"And who's gonna watch Max and Four?" Angel raised a good point.

JJ narrowed his eyes, then acquiesced. "Okay, I accept that answer."

"All right, let's get moving. We have forty-five minutes. The earlier we get there, the better." I slid my holster on and righted my guns before putting on my leather coat.

"Be careful." JJ gripped the lapels of my jacket and pulled me close until our lips touched.

"I will be," I said against his lips, taking a few extra seconds to enjoy his taste.

"Come on," Angel grunted.

On the drive over we decided that Noel, Angel, and myself would go into the laundromat and Nick and Gabe would stay back.

We drove around the strip mall; it wasn't very large and appeared to be quite worn from the years. Across the street was a dentist's office, and the only way we knew that was because someone had written on the large window, Dr. Ross's Dentistry… Yeah, like I'd trust my pearly whites to that place.

"Howesville is a nice town." Noel chuckled as the three of us walked toward the laundromat. Angel was carrying a bag of sheets to make it look as though we were truly there to do laundry.

"Towns like this used to flourish years ago. Now it's all big-box stores and chains." Angel shook his head. "Makes me sick."

"It's the way of the world." Noel shrugged, earning a glare from Angel.

I was sure if we hadn't reached the door it would have turned into an argument about Noel having his head in technology and not paying attention to the struggles of real people…but I'd never know, and I was fine with that.

"I'll get the coins." I made to move, but Noel stopped me.

"Actually, it's a card." He pointed to a machine that said, Prepaid Laundry Cards.

"That's ridiculous." I made my way over, slipped a five dollar bill into the machine since we really only had one load, and got my stupid card.

"Do we know who we're meeting?" Angel started pulling out the sheets Mason had asked us to wash while we were there.

"Not a clue." I began stuffing them into the large machine.

"Uh…" Noel scrunched his nose. "We have no detergent or fabric softener."

The way I dragged my feet to the main desk, you'd think I was being led to my death. How were the three of us so inept about doing laundry? Growing up, our adoptive parents had taught us all the basics and made us do our own clothes. I brushed it off, blaming all that I had on my mind.

The lady took my money and handed me a small container of detergent and another of fabric softener, plus dryer sheets.

Once we finally had the washer going, we sat on a bench and waited for whoever wanted to meet with us.

"Oh, guess what?" Noel slapped my arm.

"Why hit me, dickbag? I'm literally right next to you."

He rolled his eyes, not addressing my question. "Nick and I were going through the security for the house because Angel wanted us to make sure our wires weren't in a knot." Noel snorted and Angel sighed.

"That's not how I put it."

Noel waved him off. "Anyway. Apparently in mine and Nick's infinite wisdom, when the house was built and property secured, we put up blockers."

I stared at him and waited for him to realize I had no fucking idea what he was talking about.

"Right, you're tech-challenged." Noel pulled out his phone and tapped a few buttons. "This is our property. All those red dots are what Nick and I call boomerangs."

"Okay, and?" I gestured for him to go on.

"Right. So I say blockers but what that means is, say the mailman comes to our house to drop something off. He enters here." Noel pointed to the top of the long road we live on. "Goes to our house and plops it down."

"Thank you for explaining the intricacies of a postal worker's job," I deadpanned.

"Asshole." He wiggled the phone. "There at the top of our road is a red dot, and more are strategically placed along the rest of the property. Now…say the postal worker went missing and they wanted to track his phone, they'd follow his route blah, blah but the second he came to our street, it would bounce to a different location."

"So, it's like he was never there, instead somewhere else?" I asked, thinking how brilliant that was.

"Exactly. When the house was done, Nick and I talked about it and he implemented it. We just forgot until we were doing checks."

I tilted my head. "So, Four's chip was never an issue?"

Noel winced. "So, um, I guess we could have just removed it at the house and crushed it, but c'est la vie ." He shrugged.

"And because of that, the Investigators might try and track Four, but they'll see his tracker bounce him to some other location downtown," Angel added.

"Ha. I bet JJ will be happy to hear that."

Noel and Angel hummed. I watched the sheets spin, the motion actually quite lulling.

"It's nine fifteen. Where is this fucker?" Angel huffed.

"What about the shop?"

Noel looked at me. "Like for the boomerangs?"

I nodded. "Do you have them up there?"

Noel started playing on his phone, and I watched the laundry while he searched for the answer.

"Nope. Nothing at the shop."

"So when JJ brought Four there, they did in fact have that location." I nodded. "Which means this person who told Wes they wanted to meet with us knew that was where to find us."

"If it's the consortium people who called it." Angel was right. It could have been someone needing our services.

By the time we put the sheets in the dryer, I was beginning to think no one was coming. I texted JJ, asking how things were there and updating him on what was happening here.

Aziza had arrived and was still talking with Four and all was quiet there.

"This is a bust." Noel stood and paced the floor.

"Maybe Wes got the message wrong," I wondered. "I'll call the shop."

Lizzy picked up on the third ring, "Saintly Sweets, how may I help you?"

"Hey, Lizzy, is Wes there?"

"Sure, hang on."

A few seconds later, I heard him say hello.

"Hey, so the message, are you sure that address and town are right? We've been here but no one has showed."

"Huh, bizarre. I even read it back to the guy to be sure."

I shook my head when Noel and Angel looked my way. "Okay, thanks, Wes."

I disconnected the call and shrugged. "Let's just go home once the sheets are done; this is a bust."

With no argument, we waited the ten more minutes until the dryer buzzed. Angel tossed the sheets into the bag without folding them, I was sure Mason would give him an earful for that, and we left the laundromat.

"What a waste of time," Gabe complained as soon as we were in the SUV.

We were halfway home when something dawned on me. "Stop the car!"

Nick pulled off to the side of the road and all of them turned to me.

"What?" Angel asked.

"Noel, you explained there are boomerangs, right?"

"What the fuck are you talking about?" Gabe wasn't made aware so Nick explained quickly. "Okay, cool, but what's that got to do with you yelling at Nick to stop?"

"If they can't ping a location on us, they'd find another way." I raised my eyebrows. Clearly, I had too much faith in my brothers to realize what I was saying. "Wow, okay, I'll dumb it down. Did you ever think that they brought us to a location so that they could follow us to our house?"

In unison their eyes widened.

"Fuck." Noel's head whipped around, searching out of all the windows.

"But they could have just followed us from the shop if they wanted to follow us. They obviously knew where to find us." Angel wasn't wrong.

"It's near impossible to follow us from the shop." Gabe snorted. "We're close by, and it would be obvious. Or they aren't one hundred percent sure and…" He nodded. "I think you're right, Shep. They might be following us to see where we live and stake out the place."

"I still don't understand. Why not do it from the shop?" Angel wondered.

"They arrived this morning to give us that message, which means they knew Four was at the shop at some point, but maybe they don't know that he's with us. They spend their lives being a secret; they aren't about to stick out like sore thumbs. They are doing it their way, and if we lead them right back to the house, they'll find out somehow." I had to text JJ and let him know.

"So we what, never go home?" Nick chuckled.

I looked up at Nick. "No, Plan B."

Gabe nodded. "I'll let Mason know."

"I got JJ."

Nick started driving and went to the first place he saw, which was a diner. We'd need to camp out a bit until we knew the others were safe.

How could we have been so stupid and not seen this for what it was? A way to trap us all.