Jasper quickly announces, “We need to get after this fucker before he stumbles on the home depot.”
The rest of us stop dead in our tracks. When he uses the term home depot, Jasper doesn’t mean the home improvement store. That’s the nickname for the place our club has been burying our bodies for the last thirty years. I hesitate to think how many we killed, maybe dozens. All were well justified, in self-defense or fuckers that just wouldn’t stop coming for us. We don’t kill lightly and rarely is it premeditated. Killing occasionally just comes with the territory of runnin’ an MC. But Jasper’s right, we can’t take a chance on him or anyone else accidentally stumbling onto our dumping ground.
Slate speaks up, “We need to make one clean sweep over the entire property. If we’re lucky, we’ll catch him with very little effort. If not, we appoint our most trusted brothers to guard the home depot and then spread out for a more thorough search. If he’s here, we need to find him. If we see anything, we call Morgan. Doing it our damn selves keeps cops off our land and out of our business.”
Rock nods once, approving Slate’s plan. Jinx cracks his knuckles like he has been waiting for something interesting to pop off.
***
It takes Jasper close to an hour to assign all the brothers our search areas. My old man unfolds a map, intent upon marking off the areas as they’re searched. True to his word, Morgan let us have a shirt that belongs to Brennan. With that in hand, we gear up and head out to get the dogs. Husk unlocks the kennels. He’s the kennel master, who got his club name from the fact that he has huskies. Only eight of us have dogs out of the thirty or so brothers that live at the clubhouse.
When we approach, the dogs bounce and bark from behind the fence. They can either smell our adrenaline from twenty feet away and know they’re getting a rare opportunity to track, or they scent Husk and are just so goddamn excited to see him they can’t stand it.
My dog, Forge, might not have the best nose in the pack, but she makes up for it with pure tenacity. Right now, she’s vibrating with excitement and comes running to me the minute Husk opens the gate.
Mica’s mutt, Sable, stays lower, like he’s tracking before we even give him anything to track. Our two dogs have different mindsets, which make for good balance.
We’re all split into groups now. After Husk opens the bag with the fugitive’s shirt in it and lets every dog smell it, each group wanders off to search their areas. Mica and I move towards the tree line behind the clubhouse, the dogs pulling hard enough to jerk us forward.
Mica falls in step beside me. “You look like you’re thinking hard about something?”
“Yeah,” I say, tugging Forge back to heel. “Not all of us have a genius IQ. That means we have to put more effort into it.”
Mica is by far my most intelligent brother. He flashes me an easy grin at my self-effacing compliment. He doesn’t like to brag but he knows solving complicated problems comes easy to him.
He asks, “Are you looking forward to chasing some rich fucker through the woods?”
I toss him a lopsided grin. “Yeah, it’s been ages since we’ve hunted down a goddamn human. God knows, I love the chaos of tracking someone through the woods, never knowing if we’re gonna catch him before he gets the jump on us, if he set traps for those who might come looking for him, or if he’s blissfully unaware that we’re even hunting him.”
“I like to think he’s blissfully unaware,” Mica responds.
“Well, if we’re lucky, he’ll be smart like you. And it’ll be more of a challenge.”
He doesn’t deny it. “Do you think he did something to his missing girlfriend?”
“I don’t give a shit about that. It’s for the police to unwind. I just want this asshole off our property and out of our business.”
The dogs pull us towards the woods, straining against their leashes. I don’t know if it’s because they actually smell something, or they’re just angling to play in the river. I enjoy the sights of nature and the scent of pine and damp earth. The dogs seem convinced they’re gonna find something worth sinking their teeth into.
Forge catches a scent before we’re even twenty yards in. She freezes for a second and then begins rooting around on the ground like crazy. Sable comes to see what she found and picks it up a second later and they start pulling us deeper into the woods.Mica gives me a small, satisfied nod. We both have faith in our dogs’ ability to track a scent.
Chapter 3
Emily
Alow hiss cuts through the silence. Frisky has suddenly decided that he’s had enough of this interloper. My head snaps towards the couch in time to see him dart out from underneath the far end. He looks small but furious and terrified.
“Frisky,” I whisper, reaching a hand towards him.
The man’s gaze shifts. His eyes land on the cat with unsettling interest.
Before I can move, or even process what’s going on, he lunges. His arm sweeps down and grabs Frisky off the floor. Frisky fights for all he’s worth, claws slashing for anything and everything he can reach.
I jump to my feet and scream, “Leave him alone! He’s just scared.”
The man reaches out with his free hand and shoves me back down onto the sofa. “Sit down. I like to deal with one problem at a time.”
Meanwhile, Frisky writhes in his grip. My kitty is panicking, trying desperately to get away. It breaks my heart to see.
