35. Our Land

Riggs

The next night, Riggs woke in the middle of it, knowing something wasn't right.

His body got solid when he opened his eyes and saw the flashing police lights coming through the windows of his room.

Yeah.

Something wasn't right.

Fuck.

He threw the covers back and bolted off the bed, grabbing a pair of jeans from his chair and tugged them up on the move.

He also buttoned them on the way, his heart in his throat, his feet moving fast.

He got to the front door, yanked it open, and saw Wade Dickerson out on his deck, in uniform, his head bent to his phone, probably to call Riggs so he didn't ring the doorbell and wake, therefore alarm, Ledger.

Wade's head jerked up when he opened the door, and he said, "Hey, man. Everything's okay. She's all right."

She.

His gut dropped.

Riggs unlocked the screen door and pushed it open.

Wade came inside, and when he stopped with Riggs on the landing, Riggs demanded, "Talk to me."

"Someone's fucking with Nadia again, and they're escalating that shit."

Goddammit.

"Why didn't she call me?" Riggs muttered a question he assumed Wade didn't have an answer to, about to make a move back to his stairs to finish getting dressed.

But Wade did have an answer.

"She told Harry she didn't want you disturbed. Said she'd tell you tomorrow. Murphy left today, and she knew you were here with Ledger, and you couldn't leave him, you couldn't bring him with you. But Harry knows you'd lose your shit if he didn't tell you, so he sent me here to stay with Ledge so you could head over there."

That was when Riggs moved, and he did it saying, "You know how to make coffee, bud. Make some if you want, anything else you want is yours."

His stairs weren't designed to take two at a time, but by damn, he took them that way.

He hit his room, pulled on a tee, tugged on his running shoes, then he jogged back out.

Wade was sitting on a stool at his kitchen bar, doing something on his phone, and Riggs bid, "Owe you one. Later," and raced out the door.

By the time he got in his truck, started it up and made his way to the cabin, he could run there, so that was what he did.

Riggs sprinted down the trail, only memory and moonlight to lead his way, until her cabin came into view.

And it was all lit up, shining like a beacon. Every light inside and out seemed to have been turned on.

When he got close, he saw the back door was open, so he made his way there.

The loose hold he had on his shit got weaker when he saw the state of Nadia's back porch.

There were two rocks on the porch, big, around the size of a couple of softballs, one in the seat of one of the wicker chairs, and two of Brenda's pots had been smashed by two more rocks, dirt and flowers all over the place.

Two women inside, middle of the night, those big stones hitting the porch, they had to be terrified.

His head hazy with anger, he hit the back security door, went through and knew how edgy the vibe was because of three things.

One, Gia growled at him before she realized who he was. Only then did she whimper and make her approach.

Two, Maribeth looked freaked right the fuck out.

And three, Harry looked pissed, but Riggs knew him well enough to know this was hiding concern.

Riggs took a moment to get a hold on it, because the two women were still in their pajamas—Nadia had pulled on her robe, and Maribeth had tugged on a sweater, but they were alive and unharmed.

So he bent to give Gia a rubdown, thinking, Maribeth didn't leave until tomorrow. They'd had a long enough spell of good times, good friends and other really good shit, that Riggs thought he'd wake up tomorrow morning knowing Nadia and Maribeth were going to head to Aromacobana at around nine to grab coffees before they hit the road to get Maribeth to the airport in Seattle for her flight.

Which meant Riggs's afternoon plans were meeting Nadia around two at the cabin, which would be plenty of time for a quickie. Not to mention, time for him to inform her that he was going to give it another week before he sat Ledger down and asked him if he was cool with Nadia spending the night a few times a week (Riggs was going to go for five, maybe six), doing this in his dad's bed.

Murphy had walked Maribeth back to the cabin last night, while Nadia stayed with Riggs, since Ledge was at his gramme's.

But he'd been alone again tonight, and he was done with this sleeping alone shit, and that wasn't because of the state of play right then.

This schedule would leave Nadia zero time to rebut his plans to talk with his son before he had to kiss her and go get his boy from school.

Now, their good stretch was shot to shit.

But his plans weren't because that six nights a week at his house was going to be seven if this crap didn't stop.

Nadia came right to him.

"I told Harry not to tell you," she said when she made it to him and had her hands on his chest. "I'm fine. It's good. I was going to give you a call tomorrow."

He was in no mood to field that right now.

"What happened?" he asked through his teeth, and he didn't ask Nadia.

He asked Harry.

But Nadia answered. "Riggs, it's okay. It's just kids being jerks again."

He looked down at her. "You set Gia on them?"

She shook her head. "No. Because it's just kids. She might have hurt them."

"Riggs, a word," Harry said tightly.

He was already walking Riggs's way.

He passed him without Riggs responding, but stopped, looked back, and aimed a hard stare at Nadia. "Please do not follow us."

"Come here, sis," Maribeth called. "I'm going to mix us a cocktail."

He felt Nadia's attention on him as he followed Harry out the back door.

Harry moved off the porch into the cleared back area and off to the south side.

Riggs followed him there too and stopped where his friend stopped, well out of hearing of the cabin.

"What's the deal?" Riggs asked, watching his friend carefully.

"I'll show you the deal in a second, but first, have a word with your woman. She has an exceptionally trained guard dog. If she's got people on her patch who should not be on her patch, I don't give a fuck it's Greta Thunberg scouting a location for a protest, she…lets…that animal…out."

"Okay. I got a loose hold, Harry, and you're not helping."

"Gia started barking well before they started throwing rocks, the barking waking those women," Harry explained. "Nadia said it's been happening since she got her because Gia isn't used to her new space and all the critters who are moving around in the night, and that makes sense. Except for the fact Hutch lives more secluded than you, and that dog has grown from puppy to now, every night, hearing animals moving around all day and all fucking night."

Jesus Christ.

Nadia, babying her baby.

Fuck.

Harry kept at it.

"Maribeth says Gia eventually started losing it. What she didn't say out loud in front of Nadia was, the dog was giving a clear warning shit was going down, and it wasn't going to get better, and Nadia still didn't let her out. They apparently had words, because Maribeth wanted her to let Gia do her job, but Nadia was dead set against it. In the end, Nadia called my station, but she didn't let Gia loose."

"You think Bryce wants payback?" Riggs asked.

"No," Harry forced out. "Now, I'm gonna tell you, they took out three of your cameras physically. Southside, back, and the one trained this way."

"God fucking dammit," Riggs bit out.

"But we checked the feeds, and Maribeth reported timings on what we viewed, and about ten minutes before Gia started barking, the feeds all went to static."

Riggs chin went into his neck. "Jammed?"

"Yeah," Harry confirmed. "So we got no visual this time."

"Grimes saw that video of last time," Riggs reminded him. "He knows there are cameras. Why don't you think it's him?"

"Rus and Karen are here. Wade saw the tracks, and they've spent the last half hour following them."

"Where do they lead?"

Harry locked eyes with him. "To the access road."

"Fucking shit," Riggs snarled.

"Brace, brother, and come with me," Harry said.

Then he moved in the direction of where the stables used to be, and Riggs didn't like that, but he followed.

He stopped in what Riggs figured was the middle of where those stables were, switched on his Maglite and held it high but aimed to the ground.

Riggs looked that way and felt a chill enter his bloodstream.

Stones were arranged on the ground to make words.

Get Off

Our Land

"Use of an unused access road," Harry began. "Tracks are the same we saw, male and female. Access to resources, the Wi-Fi jammer. And the word ‘our.' There are only three people alive who would refer to this land as ‘our,' and they're all suspects in three homicides."

Fuck.

"I've never asked, because I thought it was all horseshit, but what kind of crap went down to chase other people off this property?" Riggs queried. "I know about the scratching, anything else?"

"Heard word of whispering outside the windows, as well as scratching on them. What sounded like rocks being smacked together unnaturally. Loud noises of movement in the night in this area, where we are now, that was not the movement of animals. The sound of horses whinnying when there shouldn't be horses anywhere near. And this isn't the first message written in stone either."

Damn.

Harry wasn't done.

"I know of at least one small, contained fire that was lit in this same area that the people in this cabin didn't light, but they woke up when the light of it was coming in their windows. Porch furniture moved around during the night. Messages written on windshields in soap, a lot like this one, though ‘our land' is new. It was more ‘go away,' ‘leave,' and ‘you're not welcome.' One incident that was reported to Dern we just uncovered in the audit was a shit ton of blood spilled all over the back porch steps. It turned out to be pig's blood, but it understandably scared the fuck out of the tenants, and they broke their lease the day after they walked out to see that on their porch. And a couple of times that I know of, a woman's scream, then shotgun blasts."

Damn.

Thank fuck they hadn't pulled that kind of shit on Nadia.

Harry still wasn't done.

"Both those times, not one, but two fires of the gun. Which I'm sure you can imagine a scream and a couple shotgun blasts in the middle of the night would scare the shit out of about anyone, including me. And that's just what's gone down at the cabin. The litany of shit that's gone down at your house before you took possession is just as long. Straight up, when you moved in, I had reservations because this crap has been so relentless. Though, as you know, they've left you alone since that time, they haven't done the same with the renters Brenda and Dave have tried to put in this cabin."

Fuck.

He should have asked his question sooner.

That wasn't just kids messing around.

That was someone who was pretty damned determined to scare people off this land.

Nadia had told him about the rock noises, and that didn't happen in the middle of the night. It happened when she was awake, alone and couldn't miss it. But it stopped when he approached the cabin.

So that wasn't Bryce.

That was these fucks, whoever they were.

"I want all the footage on your cloud," Harry went on. "If they knew there were cameras they had to deal with, that means they've cased the place sometime recently. Maybe one of the cameras caught them while they were doing that."

"I haven't noticed any indication anyone's been around who shouldn't be, except what we found, and Nadia and I searched all around this cabin. Cade, Jace, Jess and Rus have been looking too. They've all finished their patches. Nothing. Jace and Jess were going to head to the other side of the lake tomorrow."

"They might have had warning we're suspicious, if Sharon Swindell gave them a heads up. Now they're covering their tracks. Taking more care."

"Who the fuck is Sharon Swindell?"

"Roosevelt's assistant. You told me last night of Maribeth's new theory, and I don't know if it holds water, but I sure as fuck am not gonna discount it."

Riggs pulled a calming breath through his nose.

It didn't calm him.

Then he asked, "That Seattle cop nosing around? Is that what tweaked them to escalate things?"

"He didn't warn me, but he's my first call in the morning. Then again, if Swindell is involved, Rus and my visit to her would be enough to tweak them."

"So, we got all this shit, and the fact that Gia's been barking and maybe warning Nadia that someone is out here, and she's been doing that for days," Riggs broke it down.

"That's what we got," Harry confirmed.

Riggs pulled in another calming breath.

It again failed to calm him.

"Nadia know about this message?" Riggs asked, jerking his head to indicate the ground.

"No. Sorry. I gotta take 'em where I can get 'em, so that's gonna be your job."

Great.

"That all you got for me?" he asked Harry.

"For now. Get me those feeds. First thing."

Riggs nodded then turned and jogged back to the cabin.

When he hit the main room, he ordered the women, who were both sitting at the kitchen island sipping at martini glasses, "Pack up. You're spending the rest of the night at mine."

Maribeth looked relieved and immediately put down her drink and moved to the closet.

"What did Harry say?" Nadia asked Riggs.

"He's pissed you didn't use the resource I paid fifteen large for in order to protect your ass."

He heard Maribeth's gasp from the closet.

"You paid already?" Nadia demanded.

"Nadia," he said slowly, then thumped his fist twice on his chest. "You're right there, honey. But, Jesus, fuck, I'm in no mood right now."

Maribeth stuck her head out of the closet. "You tell her, brother."

Her head disappeared.

"Thanks for the help!" Nadia shouted toward the closet.

Nope.

He was in no mood.

And with this situation, she needed to be in the same mood as him.

"There's a message for you outside in the dirt," Riggs told her.

She looked back at him. "What's it say?"

"Get off our land."

The color drained from her face.

"Yeah, princess. Now…pack."

She dashed to the closet.

Gia sat her ass beside him.

He looked down at the dog.

She looked up at him, panting, but she closed her mouth to swallow before she opened it to lick his hand.

He scratched her head for a while then, not long later, he adjusted the driver's seat of Nadia's Range Rover to accommodate his longer legs and cracked a window in the back for Gia to sniff at when he drove all three females to his house.