“Looks like option B will have to wait. Either get out of the SUV or put on your belt.” He set the vehicle intoDRIVE. “Seat belt now.”
Her hands clenched. If she left, she’d be giving up the undercover op to catch the killer. She had to catch Loretta’s killer. Nothing else mattered. She snapped her belt into place and crossed her arms with a small huff. “Where are we going?”
He pinned her with a look. “Exactly where you told the killer. Snowville, Washington.”
She blinked. “That’s like a thirty-five-hour drive.”
“Twenty-eight hours with me driving. I suggest you take a nap.”
A nap? Yeah, right. Snowville it was, then. “I don’t get it. Why not tell the cops about the guy who just attacked us?” Unease whispered through her.
He sighed. “You opened up an opportunity with the killer, and we don’t have time to mess around. We have to get into place and now. Plus, the guy who attacked us is long gone, and since he wore a mask, I have nothing to give the cops. Why wait?”
It all sounded so plausible, and yet . . . “Are you wanted by the police?” she asked, her voice lowering and her breath catching.
He paused. “No.”
She studied him, realizing how little she truly knew him. Was he telling the truth?
CHAPTER
11
Sheriff Elton Cobb finished rifling through the nearly empty desk drawers as wind beat against the building that had once housed his prey’s detective agency. Why had they tried to settle down in Cisco, Wyoming?
He’d known the men as boys, and he understood them. He’d bet anything this office had belonged to Heath, however briefly. The desk was glass and a dark wood, as were the file cabinets. Ryker’s probable office was chrome and glass, while Denver’s was solid cherrywood.
Or he was dead wrong. Either way, the offices were fairly empty. Only furniture remained. Same with the apartments upstairs.
So the rabbits had finally tried to settle down. Dumb-asses. He’d never stop hunting them. There was no peace or comfort for them, and when he caught them, there’d be no life.
His phone dinged and he quickly read an update text.
Operative found Heath in hotel outside DC hours ago. Fight ensued. No capture.
Fuck. Cobb fought the urge to throw his phone across the room. No capture? To have Heath so close, almost in his grasp, made him want to hurt somebody. Bad.
He cleared his vision and looked around the stupid office. Why had the little shits decided to put down roots in Wyoming? Was it the woman? Apparently Ryker had fallen for some paralegal from the small town. A woman who was now on the run with him as well as the other so-called brothers. While Cobb didn’t truly understand the science that had gone into creating those boys, he knew without a doubt they weren’t really brothers. He’d had a brother who’d run the orphanage kind enough to take them in. He’d loved his brother . . . and they’d killed him. Heath, Ryker, and Denver had murdered Cobb’s sole family member.
They’d pay, and they’d pay with their lives.
His phone dinged again, and he pressed it to his ear. “Cobb here.”
“Hi, darling.” Isobel Madison, the only woman he’d ever loved, purred through the phone. “Tell me you’ve found something.”
At her words, something caught his eye in the bottom of the nearest drawer. He tugged out a penciled drawing of himself with a donkey coming out of his ass and the captionFUCK YOU, ASSHOLEabove it. Rage swept through him, and he turned over the paper to see a two-headed serpent, both faces Isobel’s. The caption readSYLVIA DANIELS OR ISOBEL MADISON? “I’ve found a little something.”
“What?”
“There’s a picture where they used both your names.”
She chuckled. “I only have one name. Sylvia Daniels was a uniform I wore when studying them as children. They know who I am now. Did you find anything else?”
He’d never understood why she’d used a fake name anyway. “No. They cleaned the offices and apartments out, leaving just the furniture. They paid in cash for everything,” he added before she could start questioning him.
She sighed. “Well, I did create them to be brilliant, so we shouldn’t be surprised.”
Brilliant, his ass. Sure, they had been genetically created in test tubes by Isobel, but intelligence couldn’t just be created. “If you say so,” he muttered.
