“Find her,” he croaked out.
“We’re working on it,” Bear swore as the door to his room burst open.
Carlos strode inside. He was dirty, likely from trying to dig through debris along with the others. Two of his deputies had been inside that bar, so this was as personal for him as it was for Ghost and the club.
Ghost felt whatever blood was in his face drain away as he saw Carlos’ face. Bear and Tessa froze too. Unfortunately, Ghost had seen that expression on Carlos’ face before—and it hadn’t been good news.
“Who?” he demanded into the plastic mask. Had Ranger been inside the bar after all? What if Becks had been? What if she’d gone to Cameron’s apartment and Ranger brought her with him to the bar, and they’d both been inside when the blast went off? He couldn’t lose Becks. He just couldn’t. She was supposed to be pissing on a stick tonight, not buried alive in an explosion? He was a failure as a husband if he hadn’t even known she’d been in the bar with him that whole time.
“They just pulled Frankie’s body from the rubble,” Carlos said, his voice dripping with despair. “She didn’t make it, Ghost. I’m so sorry.”
Liam wasin the back of Cameron’s sedan with Becks in the driver’s seat. Becks had faked tripping as she was getting Liam into the car and dropped her wedding ring on the pavement. Liam went far too docilely into the car, so even though Cameron had been on the other side, there’d been no way that Becks could have run to get help. She couldn’t abandon her brother like that, not when he was in this state because of her.
They pulled away from the apartment, Cameron instructing her to go in the opposite direction of the bar. At one point, Becks moved to the side of the road so an ambulance could pass them. Was Ghost in there? Becks couldn’t stand not knowing. The bar was down the block from the apartment complex, yet the explosion had been big enough that it had shaken them. What did that mean for the people who had been inside it?
Who was alive? Who was dead?
“Where are you taking us?” Becks asked Cameron, her eyes continuously flicking into the rearview mirror. She was sitting in the back seat with Liam while Becks drove. She hatedbeing separated from her brother, whose big body was draped backwards like the ceiling of the car had the answers to the universe written on it. She kept checking on him in the rearview to ensure he was still breathing. How long was whatever had been in that syringe going to last?
“Head to the farmers market off Carlton. Trust me, you’ll know it when you see it.”
Becks wasn’tthatfamiliar with Mount Grove and the surrounding area yet. She supposed she should have been paying more attention, but it was so easy to just settle back and relax as Ghost drove them around. She figured she had more time… But she did recall the farmers market because the club had stopped there on the way back from a run two weeks ago. A lot of local farmers, including Amish families, sold products there. Becks just had to retrace their route backwards.
This time of night, though, Becks doubted it would be open. So why was Cameron having her drive there? She’d mentioned brothers who had a beef with the bar. Did they live out here? Maybe Cameron was having her take them to their home.
Becks made one wrong turn, which pissed Cameron off enough that she shoved her gun into Liam’s side and threatened to pull the trigger. Fearful, Becks quickly corrected her course. It really hadn’t been intentional, no matter what Cameron thought, but the guilt and terror had been very real.
The sun hadn’t set, the days growing longer as summer approached. A single car idled outside the closed metal hinge gate. Becks’ eyes narrowed, thinking the blue Camaro looked familiar.
“Pull over,” Cameron instructed.
Becks complied, confusion and warning bells ringing in her head. The Camaro’s car door opened, and her jaw dropped.No, no, no…
Ritchie opened the passenger door and slid in the back of her car, squishing Liam between him and Cameron. “Hello, wife. Long time, no marriage.”
CHAPTER 16
She took off her fucking ring. Against doctor’s orders, and with Tessa glaring daggers into his back, Ghost checked himself out of the hospital. The adrenaline from the explosion had left his system, and holy fuck was he feeling it. But that didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but finding Becks, Ranger, and Cameron.
All three were MIA.
Keys tracked Ranger’s tags to Cameron’s apartment. There, Bulldog and Artemis found Ranger’s tags, his phone, and his bike, along with Becks’ car with her purse and phone inside and her wedding ring by an empty parking spot. No sign of Cameron or her car. Keys was working on tracking her phone.
Ghost was in no condition to drive. His cut had been removed along with his other clothes. Under threat of him walking out of the ER buck-ass naked, someone had gone to get him a spare set of scrubs. One of the club SUVs was brought to the hospital to pick him up and take him to Cameron’s apartment building. There were only two in town, and this was the one closest to the bar.
Because Main Street was the only road through town, Carlos and Captain Hunter from the Fire Department had to openone lane of traffic. Bystanders stood around behind the police barricades. The fire engine and truck were also used to block people from entering the area.
Last body count was four dead—Frankie, Monica, Dru Dendinger, and Deputy Scott Pan. Grumpy was still in surgery, but the doctors were optimistic of his survival. The current injured were the six bankers that had been in the back of the bar, Danny, Dru’s husband Jett, Gracie, Specs, and Ghost. But it was going to be a long night of ensuring no one else had been inside the building.
Bulldog and Artemis weren’t the only ones at the apartment building by the time Bear pulled in with Ghost. Keys, Lucky, and Bones were also present. Ghost’s ribs protested something fierce as he worked himself out of the passenger seat, but he gritted through the pain. He needed to find his wife!
If the fact that she hadn’t come to the hospital to see him wasn’t a clear enough indication that something was wrong, her ring in the parking lot was.
Bones looked paler than usual. He was in his late twenties, and had been in the club for roughly five years. Like Ranger, Bulldog, and Angel, Bones was Army, but he’d never been deployed. He’d been medically discharged after a parachute accident during training had broken both his legs. The extent of his injuries was so traumatic that he was still in therapy years later, and pain still plagued him daily, ranging from light twinges to excruciating debilitation.
But the expression on the brother’s face seemed sad, not pained.
“What’s wrong with him?” Ghost asked, more callous than normal.
