“This is the fucking place,” I say to Dex, pointing to the mask. “But where the fuck is she?”
“She’s been here,” he rumbles. “Do you smell that?”
“What? Piss?” I ask harshly.
He gives me a hard look. “No. Vanilla.”
I try to block out the rank smell and almost give up before a faint vanilla smell fills my nose. “Fuck,” I whisper. “Report in,” I tell the guys through comms. We told them to stay quiet until we asked for a report. We start getting all clear, and my heart starts to sink.
“Body on the first floor in the kitchen. Butcher knife sticking from the chest,” Micah says finally.
“What are they wearing?”
“Black with a white skull mask beside them,” he says excitedly, and I know he’s figured it out too.
“Body at the back entrance, same description,” another guy reports. “And trails of blood leading toward the tree line.”
“I got something you need to see,” Mani says.
He gives us directions on where to go, and we walk into a room full of monitors. We look closer; its cameras are all focused on Les’ businesses. Someone was watching us the whole time they had Les.
“Holden, can you get into this footage?”
“I can, but it’ll take forever. I can come there.”
I almost say no immediately but know he’s right. “Call someone and tell them to bring you.”
“I can drive, Ryder,” he says, and I can tell he’s already walking through the house.
“Damnit, Holden,” I grit out, “You haven’t driven on the main road yet.” I’ve taken him driving several times since I first taught him, but always in that abandoned lot. I know I’m overprotective of him, but I’ve already lost Les; I can’t lose Holden too.
“I’ll be fine. I’m on my way.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose, knowing there’s no use in arguing. “Keep your comms in the whole time. We’re searching the rest of the property.”
I hear his car door shut. “Do you think she’s still there?”
“If she is, we’ll find her.”
I call out to the other guys to meet us at the backdoor after I know Holden is on his way. We need to search every square inch of this property because I know she’s here.
“What if they moved her after whatever happened here?” Dex asks the same question I’ve thought when we look down at the guy with a snapped neck on the back porch.
Did someone else come and do this, or did Zane? Or Les? I know what Les can do, but I don’t think she’s strong enough to snap a grown man’s neck with her bare hands. But Zane is.
“I don’t know,” I answer. “We need to fan out and search. She was here, Dex.”
He nods. “I feel that too.”
The cameras watching her properties and her vanilla scent floating through that room aren’t coincidental.
Micah steps out on the back porch, and I see hope in his eyes for the first time. “Let’s go,” he says and nods toward the miles of woods behind the house.
We’re coming for you, Il mio sole.
Chapter 5
Dex
