His buddy exhaled a hard breath. “Thank fucking God. You remember my sister Kylie, right?”
“Yeah. Of course.” Probably five years had passed since Devon had met her when he’d hung with Kellan on R and R, but between her smart mouth and her tough-girl demeanor, Kylie would be difficult to forget. Especially since she and her brother were tight, to boot.
“I just got a phone call from her. She’s been working at some shitty bar in Coyote Flats for the last six months.”
Devon’s mind spun in calculated thought. “I passed through the town on my way here a few weeks ago. It’s about an hour from Jackson.” Not much to write home about, if he remembered right—and he always did. Why the hell would Kellan’s sister choose a town like that to live in?
At the worry in Kellan’s voice, he tabled the thought. “Well, that puts you a hell of a lot closer than me.” Kellan paused. “She’s jammed up pretty bad, Dev.”
Shit. “How bad?”
“Bad enough to call me and ask for help for the first time in our lives. She witnessed a local drug dealer by the name of Xavier Fagan murder her boss, and then the guy came after her.”
“Jesus,” Devon breathed. “Where is she now?”
“Safe,” Kellan said, and didn’t that explain why the guy hadn’t gone completely over the edge in the re-telling. “She managed to get away from Fagan, but she says the guy is no joke. Apparently he’s really well connected, all the way up to the Feds.”
On second thought, “shit” wasn’t even in the same hemisphere as this. “So, she can’t call the local cops.”
Kellan murmured an affirmative, followed by a couple of nasty curse words. “Exactly. I got her about fifty miles from Coyote Flats, and she’s safe for now, but the first flight out of North Carolina doesn’t leave until oh-seven-forty my time.”
“Which won’t put you in the middle of nowhere, Wyoming until nightfall.” Commercial flight across the country was a bitch and a half. The drive from the airport to a place like Coyote Flats? Even worse. “So, how do you want to run this?”
Kellan paused, his normally unshakeable demeanor sounding like someone had taken a whack at it with a tire iron. “Do you think you can sit on her and just make sure she’s okay ’til I can get there tonight? Kylie’s tough, and I’ve got her holed up pretty tight off the grid…”
Devon frowned, running a hand over his dark blond high and tight. “But?”
“But she’s my kid sister, and you’re the nearest resident badass,” Kellan said. “Fagan sounds like a nasty son of a bitch. I’d feel better knowing you’ve got eyes on her until I can get there.”
“Then I guess I’d better get eyes on her ASAP.” Devon tossed the sheet off his hips, skinning into the pair of jeans he’d left on top of his duffel at the foot of the bed.
“Thanks, man.” Relief marked his buddy’s words, but Devon didn’t even break stride in the search for his bruised and battered work boots. Everything he did, he did full throttle. Plus, he owed Kellan, and not a little.
And since Devon’s biggest fuck-up had nearly cost both their lives, the least he could do was get his ass out of bed and prove his worth by looking after the guy’s younger sister.
“No sweat,” Devon said, covering his shrug first with a white T-shirt, then his shoulder holster. He didn’t have any family—at least, not the kind you could trace on one of those fancy ancestry sites—but he got it. Kylie was Kellan’s only blood relative. Just because Devon wasn’t in possession of any of those, himself, didn’t mean he didn’t get Kellan’s need to look out for his family. “I’m awake, and you need backup. What’s Kylie’s location?”
Kellan released a slow breath over the phone line. “She stopped at the El Monaco Motel about an hour outside of Coyote Flats, room 202. She’s driving a red Mustang with California plates. I told her not to open the door for anyone, no matter what.”
Easy enough. “I’ll head out there, see what I can see.”
“Thanks, man. I really appreciate it.”
“You give her a code word so she’ll know I’m a friendly?” The last thing Devon needed was to have Kylie panic—or worse yet, run—in a case of mistaken identity.
“I wasn’t sure if I’d get you, but tell her you’re there to deliver the jelly donuts. That’s my code word with her, so she’ll know you’re solid.”
Under different circumstances, Devon would be tempted to give his buddy a ration of shit over his choice of code words. But they had a job to do, someone to protect, so this shit would have to wait. “Copy that.”
“Her cell reception’s pretty crappy, but I’ll try her back to let her know you’re coming. And Dev?”
“Yeah?” he asked, putting Kellan on speaker so he could use both hands on the job they were meant for.
“Do me a favor and watch your six, would you?” Kellan asked. “On the off chance Fagan gets lucky enough to find her, he won’t hesitate to hurt her. Or worse.”
For the first time in ages, Devon let loose with a smile, triple checking the clip in his SIG before turning to get his backup nine millimeter from its hidey hole under the bathroom sink.
“Trust me, Walker. I’m on my toes. Your sister will be safe with me until you get here. I swear it.”
