“Definitely not, since I’m driving Paisley out of town tomorrow. I’ll wake you up in three hours.”
Sage hurried to get Paisley and herself to sleep. Tomorrow would be a busy day.
40—The Captor
Canyon parked the MCU behind the station. He and Timber headed into the duty room. Trevor was inside, heading for the door they just walked in. He ignored them, grabbed a piece of paper off a desk and wrote something down, then he looked up at the ceiling and said, “Gross.”
“What’s gross?” Timber said.
“Hold on, I’m talking to Troy.”
Timber opened every drawer in every desk in the duty room while they were waiting. He found a bag of cheese nibs and ripped it open, pouring half in his mouth. He found another and threw it to Canyon. Canyon grabbed it out of the air but did not open it. He was watching Trevor.
Trevor seemed done with his convo. “Rex is dead,” he told them.
“Nice,” Timber said.
“Graeme ate his head.”
“Are we talking chomp or chew?” Timber said.
“Ate it whole I think.”
“That’s nasty,” Timber said, tossing a cheese nib in in his mouth.
Canyon dropped his nibs on the duty desk. He wasn’t hungry anymore.
“I’m heading up to the Harlem Reservoir,” Trevor said. “You two are on mop up. Report to Mac.”
Trevor left. Canyon and Timber headed for the gear and supply rooms. They washed up, changed uniforms, got new batteries and fresh equipment, yawning through it all. The policeradio droned on and on, but it was all old business—all cleanup of the day’s messes. Dressed and ready, they went to find Mac.
Canyon called Mac inruhi. Me’n Timber are available for assignment.
Come to the receiving desk, we’ve got a high-profile prisoner coming in from Boone County.
They found Mac standing outside, watching the strangely empty parking lot, his arms crossed over his chest. Sirens wailed in the distance from all directions.
“They caught afoxen,” Mac said, his voice hard.
A prisoner transport van pulled in and parked in front of them. Four uniformed males got out, allwolven. Timber knew them all and greeted each by name. They opened the sliding door, and the prisoner was revealed.
He was a big guy with reddish hair and beard, hands and feet shackled to a bar on the floor of the van. His face was dirty; his jeans and T-shirt were torn and filthy. He scented like afoxen,and like dirt, sweat, and the Pravus. He was staring out the windshield, a small, serene smile on his face, completely ignoring thewolven. A black eyepatch covered his left eye.
An officer handed over the arrest report. Mac took it and handed it straight to Canyon, while Timber shot the shit with the rest of the officers from Boone County.
Canyon skimmed through the lengthy report, reading between the lines. It said that a farmer had reported unauthorized vehicles in a field. One officer responded and found a single truck. He approached it, but then a hidden male shouted to him to stay away, it was explosive. The officer retreated and called for backup, and the truck exploded in the middle of the field while backup was on the way. All that was left in the field was a hole in the ground. The explosion sent the pieces of the truck flying, but no one had been hurt. After a manhunt, they had found this male sitting on the back of one ofthe police cars. He cooperated with the arrest but wouldn’t give his name. He hadn’t spoken a word. He had no wallet or I.D. on him, and his fingerprints weren’t in the system.
“He’s marked,” one of the officers told Mac quietly, handing him a clipboard for a signature.
Mac signed for the prisoner. “Bring him inside,” he said.
Canyon watched the big male as the officers unlocked the shackles from the floor and ordered him out of the van. That smile never left his face, and he did not speak, but he did as he was told.
Once he was standing outside, he stared up at the building, his face serene, the heavy shackles hanging off his wrists and ankles.
Mac walked in front of him a few times, then got right up in his face, chest to chest.
“Are we going to have a problem with you?”
