Tanner shook his head. “These preppers don’t trust anyone in authority, especially the feds. I promised I wouldn’t call them.”
“That was stupid,” his brother said dryly.
“Probably, but I was hoping you could do a little digging on your own and see what you can find out. And before you tell me that you don’t have any contacts in Wenatchee, I’m pretty sure this isn’t a local thing. I can’t explain why I think that, but my gut is telling me there’s something weird going on with these kidnappings.”
Cam regarded him curiously again but didn’t question his suspicions. “Okay, I’ll dig around and see what I can find. What are you and Zarina going to be doing in the meantime?”
Tanner shrugged. “We have a few more supplies to pick up before we head back up the mountain, but after that, the plan is to stay close to the prepper camp and hopefully keep anyone else from getting kidnapped.”
Cam’s brow furrowed. “That sounds dangerous. And stupid.”
“Probably,” Tanner agreed. “But I don’t have a choice.”
They spent a little while longer going over everything Tanner knew about the abductions, including when they’d happened, what the victims’ names were, what they looked like, and what kinds of weapons the kidnappers used, anything Cam thought might help him get a lead on either the missing people or the assholes who’d taken them. After that, the conversation slipped back into casual things, mostly Cam and his personal life…or lack thereof.
As they talked, Tanner realized he was eating more slowly now. He didn’t want this meal to end. It seemed like a lifetime since he’d talked to his brother. It felt good.
But at some point, the food was gone, and the conversation came to an end. When they slipped out of the booth, Tanner expected his brother to walk off, but instead, Cam gave him a hug. They missed each other more than either would want to admit, and Tanner hugged him back with the same fierceness.
At least neither of them started crying. That would have been awkward.
“You know,” Cam said as he stepped back, “I was serious about you seeing the rest of the family. I can see you’re not ready for that yet, but when you are, I’ll help make it happen.”
Tanner was still thinking about that as Cam gave Zarina a hug, too, telling her he was glad he’d had a chance to meet her and thanking her once again for helping Tanner.
“Something tells me I owe you for making this lunch happen,” he added with a smile. “Thank you for that, too.”
Without another word, his brother turned and walked out of the diner, leaving Tanner and Zarina standing there.
“Your brother’s an amazing person,” Zarina said.
Tanner chuckled. “Yeah, I guess he is. Other than the fact that he just stuck me with the tab for lunch.”
* * *
“It’s not London, but at least it’s a mission,” Tate muttered as he pulled into the parking lot of the funeral home.
Killing the engine, Tate got out of the rental car and walked past the sheriff’s patrol car, heading for the tree-shrouded building. Even though it was only a little after six p.m., it was getting dark. A lone streetlamp illuminated the entrance, casting the doorway in deep shadows and making the place seem even creepier. Not that funeral homes were inviting to begin with.
Landon had called him that morning, telling him to get his butt up to Oxford County, Maine, ASAP. The police had found a body that looked like it had been attacked by a wild animal, which wouldn’t have been odd except for the fact that the body had been found in a log cabin with the door closed.
Based on the last update he’d gotten from the DCO on the flight up, the locals seemed to be working hard to make the animal attack angle work. Probably because they had no other way to explain what the hell had happened to their victim. Maybe they assumed the animal that had attacked the victim was simply polite and had closed the door to the cabin after it was done because that’s what nice, polite animals did after they attacked a person.
Admittedly, the whole funeral-home thing was a new wrinkle for Tate. Every other time he wanted to see the victim of a crime, he stopped by the local coroner or medical examiner’s office. But in this case, the coroner had already finished with the autopsy and turned the body over to the funeral home outside Hiram for embalming. Apparently, the locals were completely comfortable with the animal attack explanation and were moving fast to close this case. If Landon hadn’t pulled some strings, the body might be in the ground already.
He didn’t doubt that the locals knew how to do their jobs, but because he was an agent with the DCO, he had access to more information on how the world really worked. Since this attack occurred less than three hours away from the mental institution in Old Town where Mahsood had been conducting his hybrid research a few months ago, Landon and Ivy had wanted someone up here to sniff around on the off chance the doctor was at it again.
Tate wouldn’t be surprised if he was. From everything Trevor and Alina had told him, Mahsood had been close to creating a fully in-control hybrid that could blend into the everyday population. If that was true, it was doubtful the psycho would stop his research now. Hard to believe he’d set up shop so close to the mental institution, though.
Of course, Landon and Ivy had suggested another rationale for the victim’s death—the possibility that Ashley Brannon had murdered the guy.
There had been a few sightings of the woman slipping back across the border from Canada, where she’d apparently been hiding out since July. It wasn’t that much of a leap to think she might have come this
