“I’ll be right there.”
“Do you need us?”Grey’s voice crackled across the walkie.
“I’ll let you know, but be on alert,” Crew said.
“I’m up too,” Ford said.“If you need a hand.”
Avi stayed locked on the spot where he’d seen the glimmer of something until Crew joined him.
Avi pointed upward into the tree line.“I saw something flash like metal, high up.”
“Let’s take a look.I’ll grab a flashlight.”
After securing a flashlight, Avi and Crew headed toward the trees, moving as quietly as possible.They walked right to the area where Avi had seen the glint, but now that they were in the trees, he didn’t see anything but shadows.Frustrated, he let out a grumble, but then he saw it again.
“I see it,” Avi said.He trained the flashlight on the trunk in front of him and slowly inched it upward until he saw a very small camera.It was wedged between branches and expertly camouflaged to blend in with the bark and leaves.“That’s not ours.”
They had stationed security cameras and motion detectors around the farm, but they wouldn’t have gone to so much trouble to hide them.
“Nope.This is too well hidden.We’re being spied on.In our own damn territory,” Crew said.
“It has to be Colton.”
“Definitely.He’s been watching us and that’s probably how he knew you and Fallon were staying in the barn and he didn’t just attack the farmhouse with the paintballs.”
Avi shuddered.He wondered how long Colton had been watching them.
“Let’s get Ford and Grey out here.We’ll do a full sweep of the territory now that we know what to look for,” Crew said.
With a boost from Crew, Avi managed to climb up to the camera and turn it off, then bring it down with him when he jumped to the ground.
“What a fucking asshole,” Crew said, glaring at the camera.
When Ford and Grey joined them in the woods with walkies and flashlights, they started the long trek around the territory, each male looking carefully and thoroughly for cameras high and low.
By the time the sun peeked over the trees and bathed the farm in morning light, they’d found a dozen cameras, all hidden in the trees.
Avi was most upset about the one they found near the field, right where Fallon had seen something the day before.
He’d cursed a blue streak when Ford found it.“She was right, damn it,” Avi said, wanting to throw something in his frustration.
“We believed her,” Crew pointed out, “we just didn’t see anything.”
“I should have seen it, I should have looked harder,” Avi fumed.
“We both missed it, so it’s not on you.She trusted her gut and told us what she saw, but we missed it.You can apologize after we finish our sweep.”
He couldn’t believe that they’d been monitored by Colton for who the hell knew how long, and Fallon had actually seen one of the cameras.
He wanted to kick his own ass.And Colton’s.
* * *
After finishing the sweep of the territory, Avi walked into the farmhouse just as pissed as he’d been when he started his shift.It had taken them hours to carefully check the territory, and none of them were certain they’d found every camera.Another sweep with fresh eyes in a few hours was planned, and Avi was going to be right there.
He found Fallon in the kitchen drinking a cup of coffee with Zara and Tatum.
He went right to her and pulled her up gently from the chair and hugged her.“I’m so sorry, sweetheart.”
