The crazy thing was, the house was ten miles from Hiram and the cabin Bell had been found dead in. It made Tate wonder if the man had been heading here to check the place out and make sure it was safe for Mahsood when he’d been grabbed by the people who’d killed him. Kind of ironic if that was the case.
“We going to go take a look around?” Chase asked. “At least see if Mahsood has been here?”
Tate glanced at the deputy. “You seem to be getting awfully comfortable with this breaking-and-entering thing. First Bell’s house, then a UPS store, and now the house of a sitting member of Congress. If your sheriff hears about this, you’re toast for sure.”
“I’ll just claim you told me you had federal warrants. Nobody up here trusts the feds. So they’ll have no problem believing me over you.”
Tate couldn’t find fault with that logic.
They moved slowly through the woods, using the trees for cover and coming at the house from a direction they hoped provided cover if Mahsood happened to be in there looking out a window. It took a few extra minutes, but they were able to slip all the way up to the back of the house and onto the deck overlooking the lake without raising an alarm. Tate considered that a fair trade.
“You’re damn good at picking locks,” Chase pointed out softly as Tate opened the French doors leading into the fancy house. “Homeland teach you that?”
“They wish,” Tate whispered before moving into the huge living room that looked out over the deck. “But I owe it all to my misspent youth. Maybe I’ll tell you about it someday.”
Chase didn’t say anything as they spread out to search the house. The place was eerily quiet, making Tate think there was no one else there. Once again, he wished he had Declan with him. The bear shifter’s nose would have told them in a flash if they were wasting their time.
While Chase headed toward the kitchen, Tate moved down a long hallway to a room that was supposed to be a library, then a large office. He thought “supposed to” because the floor plans Kendra had gotten for the place had been a decade old. A lot could have changed since then.
He peeked his head into the first doorway on the left, relaxing a little when he saw that it was indeed a library. Well, their intel was right. Unfortunately, the room was empty, and there was no sign anyone had been there recently.
He kept one ear cocked for sounds of trouble from the other side of the house as he made his way down the hall. Not that he was too concerned about Mahsood getting the drop on Chase. He didn’t see that happening.
The office was an interior room, which made it darker than the library. But he saw enough to know there wasn’t much reason to check it out. Mahsood wasn’t in there unless he was hiding under the desk. But then a glow on the surface of the desktop caught his attention.
He flipped on the overhead light and moved around the desk to check it out. The glow he’d seen was from the computer monitor sitting there. Specifically from the six black-and-white camera images displayed there in two even rows. Even as he watched, the images changed, showing him different views of the outside of the house, including the lake and the woods surrounding the home. One of those places was where he and Chase had been standing as they surveyed the property.
Mahsood had been here and seen them coming. Since they hadn’t seen or heard a vehicle speed away, that meant their doctor was trying to get away on foot.
“Shit.”
Tate ran out of the room and down the hall. Chase was just coming out of the kitchen as Tate reached it. He motioned toward the front door.
“Mahsood picked us up on security cameras before we even got close,” he shouted. “He’s probably hauling ass through the woods right now!”
Tate expected the deputy to immediately head for the door, but instead, Chase shook his head and slowly walked across the living room, lifting his hands at the same time.
“I don’t think so,” Chase said. “In fact, I’m pretty sure he’s still in the house.”
Mahsood stepped out of the kitchen behind Chase. He was dressed in jeans, loafers, and a cardigan, a small automatic pistol in his hand, pointed at the cop’s back.
Tate stopped to stare at Chase incredulously. “Are you shitting me? You let a guy in slip-on loafers sneak up on you? That was the marines you were in, right, not your high school marching band?”
“Stop right there, or I’ll shoot!” Mahsood warned, shaking his weapon in Tate’s general direction, while still attempting to keep it aimed at Chase, too.
“Hey, if you haven’t noticed, loafers can be really quiet,” Chase said angrily as he moved, putting more space between him and the doctor. “And if you think I’m going to let you badmouth the marines, buddy, you are so fucking wrong.”
Mahsood was trying to interrupt the argument when Tate darted past Chase and knocked the doctor’s right arm—and the gun—to the side. Then he flipped the older man over his hip, ripping the weapon out of his hand at the same time. Mahsood crashed to the floor and lay there groaning as Tate unloaded and cleared the .380 auto. At least the man had remembered to take the safety off before threatening them with it.
“Why the hell are you pointing a gun at us?” Tate demanded before tossing the empty weapon on one couch and the full clip on another. “We’re not the ones you’ve been hiding from. I’m with the DCO.”
Chase gave him a confused look at that, but Tate shook his head. Explanations would have to wait until later.
“How was I to know that?” Mahsood winced as
