“We don’t have a new facility and compound without the Lost boys, Daniel. They are your primary objective,” she said.
She was so matter-of-fact, having just given him the green light to kill Sheriff Cobb if necessary. Daniel let the cold air soothe his skin. He should probably be put off by her callousness, but he didn’t feel anything about killing her current lover. Oh, he had feelings, but they were all for the woman inside the cabin.
All the good and all the bad feelings that bombarded him were hers. Only after finally fetching his soul mate had that powerful barrage finally calmed.
Perhaps Anya could make his peace permanent. In fact, she would. No matter what he had to do to her.
CHAPTER
38
Heath’s chest felt like he’d been kicked by an elephant, his shoulder burned, and the stitches itched at several places on his body. Nothing compared to the headache behind his eyes, however.
“You have quite the setup in such a short amount of time,” Detective Malloy muttered, glancing at the computers in the bungalow’s otherwise empty living room. He shook snow off his trench coat. “I’m running to the office to see what the task force has drummed up. If I get information, I’ll make sure you have it.” He opened the front door, where the storm threw snow around like a popcorn popper. “If you get any sort of lead, you call.” The door shut quietly behind him.
Heath sat at a computer, his fingers feeling numb as he booted it up. “We need anything we can find,” he said.
Denver grunted, already setting up the rest of the computers. “I called the family who initially hired us on the Copper Killer case. A U.S. Marshal had passed on our contact information to them. The killer, one of Dr. Madison’s soldiers, set us up to be involved from the beginning.”
A door opened to show a dingy kitchen, and Ryker strode inside with Zara on his heels. “We got all the computer stuff we could but now can’t get into either the real offices or the decoy ones. The cops are going through them both,” Ryker said grimly. “Anything?”
“No,” Heath said, his gut churning. The killer had Anya. His arms felt paralyzed. “Denver?”
“I’m accessing our main server,” Denver said tersely. “Don’t need the files from the office. Got them here.” He swept his hand across the screen, and all the files came into view on Heath’s screen. “Checking satellites and local cameras now.”
“Thanks.” Heath still had Denver’s burner phone in his hand. “First send the surveillance video of Smithers and his buddy to Shane, would you? If Smithers is one of Dr. Madison’s soldiers, then Shane might know him. Any insight will be helpful.” He waited until Denver nodded. “I’ll be right back.” He stood and moved toward the kitchen.
“Copy that,” Ryker said, taking his seat.
Zara hovered at Ryker’s shoulder. “I don’t have anything to do. Give me something to do.” Her face held no color, and she worried her bottom lip with her teeth.
Ryker pulled a chair out. “Sit here and go through the map of the town, making notes of banks and anywhere else there might be a camera. We’ll try to trace her that way.”
Zara sat, her face pinched. “We’ll find her, Heath.”
Heath limped through the kitchen and into the garage, where a rusty old heap was parked. He and his brothers couldn’t get access to their vehicles, damn it. He pressed a button on his phone, and within a second Shane’s face came into view. “I’m alone,” Heath said.
Shane visibly took a deep breath. “Me too. Everybody knows about this, even Josie, but I don’t like talking about it.”
Heath leaned against the door and tried to keep from falling on his ass. “Thanks for trusting me.”
“We’re brothers.” Shane’s eyes darkened to a gray storm cloud. “Part of our training growing up was in how to seduce women and what to do with them after that.” He cleared his throat. “They had whores—a lot of them—meet with us a couple of times a week.”
“Jesus.” The boys home had been horrible, but at least Heath and his brothers hadn’t gone through that. “I’m sorry, Shane.”
“Don’t worry about it.” Shane’s jaw hardened. “One of the women was named Cinnamon, and I figured she used that name because she had red hair. Real red hair.” He blanched. “She was rough and really liked her job—and she often sighed the word ‘Mine’ during the, ah, the training.”
Bile rose in Heath’s throat. “That is so fucked up.”
Shane forced a smile. “No shit. But it’s a weird coincidence.”
Heath nodded. “That at least explains why, I guess. The killer hated redheads and then met a sweet one, Anya, and he fixated. Denver is sending you a video of the killer. He masqueraded as a U.S. Marshal who was looking for us. He was caught on video.”
Shane started moving, and the screen blurred. “Is Denver sending it right now?”
“Should be there,” Heath said.
Shane clomped down some stairs. “Hey, Mattie? Did you just get a video from Denver?” Shane held out the phone, and Matt, the oldest Gray brother, came into view.
