He came in with a worried look on his face a little after four in the afternoon.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, seeing the look and feeling a knot of dread fill my stomach.
“That lead you had on Cannel,” he said. “I followed it up. Asked a few questions of the man that used to live in the area where she disappeared. He said about a week before Cannel disappeared—though he signifies this with the week that the catfish stopped biting, not when Cannel disappeared—something happened in a swampy area that he used to hunt alligators. Something about the water going super-duper low for about two days. So he traveled upriver for a bit and found that a dam had been set.”
I sat forward. “Okay.”
“Anyway, some ‘douchewad beaver,’ his word not mine, had decided to put a dam in. As he was destroying it, he remembers seeing a big air boat with ‘fancy stickers’ on it. He remembers the stickers being bright with a massive gorilla on it with purple writing. I followed that up with a few local marinas in the area, and they told me that the boat actually had ‘Gorilla Bait’ on it. But they hadn’t seen the boating company in a while. A year at least.” His eyes gleamed. “So then I did a search of companies in the area and found them. That was the search I had you run last night. Do you want to know where the ‘Gorilla Bait’ company moved to?”
I knew exactly what he was saying.
“I pulled them up on Facebook,” I said, switching between screens. “This one right here.”
Trouper glanced at the photos on the screen and grinned. “Yep. That’s them. And do you want to know what river they run off of now?”
My eyes gleamed. “Please tell me it’s close.”
“It’s close,” he confirmed. “The river is actually connected to Caddo Lake. It’s about forty miles from here. Right next to the fuckin’ prison that I just got out of.”
I was already gathering up my things.
“Let’s go,” I said.
He was already shaking his head. “No can do. Remember, your mother called about Hiro. She and your dad have a thing tonight. Either you have to stay home, or I do.”
I plopped back into my seat.
“Shit,” I grumbled. “Just call me if you get anything, okay?”
He winked and moved so that he was pressed against me, his mouth only inches from mine.
“Love you, baby.”
My ire melted somewhat. “Love you, too, Troup.”
Then he was gone, leaving me alone in my office all over again.
It was four days later that we caught our first break.
At least where it came to Cannel.
The other ladies that were funneled out of the city didn’t have the same lucky break.
• • •
“Are you sure this is it?” I asked as I stared at the wall.
The rather large, rather high, brick wall with razor wire topping the massive thing.
“According to the legwork that you and your husband did, and the computer searches that Hunt did, this is it,” Trick grumbled.
Trick and Hunt were two of the five men that Lynn had somehow finagled their butts out of prison.
Trick, Hunt, Sin, and Zach were here today on this op.
Four very large, very intimidating, quite likeable despite the fact that they’d all gone to prison for murder, attempted murder, and fraud, men.
Men that I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, would protect me if shit hit the fan as we breached the compound.
I didn’t know them all that well.
They were all standoffish. All of them were also quite tight-lipped when it came to their personal information.
Talking to any of them was like talking to a man that had zero things to say.
However, I knew that they were all good men.
Good men sometimes did things for bad reasons.
Patrick Wheat, better known as Trick, was one of those men.
“I know,” I said to Trick. “But what I’m saying is, it looks like no one is home.”
“Maybe that’s the point,” Sin commented.
I looked over at him.
He was wearing a tight black t-shirt, black jeans, and black motorcycle boots.
The black motorcycle cut that he’d been wearing over the t-shirt was currently on the ground by his feet while he shrugged into a bulletproof vest.
“I think that you’re supposed to treat that better,” Laric said as he kicked dirt toward where Sin had laid his cut onto the ground.
“He is,” Zach snapped.
Zach was the only one of them all that had come from a motorcycle club background. His father was actually a current member of the Dixie Wardens MC. The Dixie Wardens was one of the biggest clubs in the United States.
If anyone would know, Zach would. I could also offer my observations from being around my uncle Trance, who also happened to be a part of the Dixie Wardens MC.
“Well I didn’t know what to do with it while I put this stupid thing on that she’s insisting I wear,” Sin grumbled.
“People will see you fuckin’ around with it like that, people like my father, and know that you’re not serious,” Zach grumbled.
“You told your father the truth,” Sin countered. “So it doesn’t matter what we do and don’t do around him.”
“If you want people to think we’re a real motorcycle club, we have to act like it,” Zach contradicted as he shoved the magazine into his gun and racked a bullet into the chamber. “Now, what are we waiting for? I have a burger that’s calling my name.”
“One of those ones from the corner store in Souls Chapel?” Hunt teased from his position in the van.
Though Hunt was very capable of protecting himself while invading a building, he would be hanging back with me while the rest of them breached it.
A, he needed to be where he was to keep an eye on the cameras and an ear out for anything going wrong in the cyberworld. B, Trouper didn’t want me left alone.
With the possibility of Cannel being in the building behind that gate,
