“You just worry about your part, Mateo,” Franco said. “I’ll handle Chase.”
“Good luck with that,” Axel muttered.
* * *
They had canceled appointments,closed the offices early, and hidden Jade’s car in their three-car, windowless garage. Axel set his laptop on the glass coffee table directly in front of Franco and pulled up a view of the downtown office. Mateo walked closer and stood behind the sofa to watch as a pickup truck pulled into the employee parking lot. Franco continued to sip his bourbon as Axel zoomed in on the Triple C Ranch logo on the door.
“Did you hide somewhere like I told you?” Franco asked, feeling uneasy. “So that he couldn’t follow you here, Axel?”
“As soon as I could, I parked my car behind a drug store. But I never saw him pass by,” Axel replied in a shaky voice. “He—he probably knows a couple of routes.”
“You think?” Franco snapped, wondering what else Chase knew or would figure out.
“So that’s Chase?” Mateo asked as a man exited the truck and slammed the door.
“Yes,” Axel said and started to grab his laptop. “Like I said, I’m done.”
“I don’t think so.” Franco took a scalpel out of the pocket of his silk robe and held it to Axel’s hand until he let go of the laptop. “Stop running scared, Axel. Chase doesn’t have any idea how to find you since you were too afraid to give him your card.”
“What about us, Franco?” Mateo asked, hand going to his goatee.
“Jade doesn’t even know where we live,” Franco began, “so how would he?”
“Chase will find out,” Axel said, backing away from them. “When he does, count on him kicking down your door.”
“Shut up!” Franco snapped and looked at Mateo. “She has to be ready within twenty-four hours so Chase can’t involve the cops.”
“Forty-eight hours would be better,” Mateo said, repeatedly stroking his goatee.
“I don’t expect we have time on our side now, do we?” Franco sneered.
“Well, I didn’t expect her to return with…” Mateo looked back at the laptop screen to the muscular man wearing a cowboy hat and sliding a gun into the back of his belt. “Him.”
* * *
When Chase swungonto the horseshoe-shaped driveway of his ranch, Cash was leaning against one pillar of the portico and Bob against another one. Coop sat on a wooden bench on the porch.
“I didn’t find her, and she’s still not answering her phone,” Chase said after rolling down the pickup window. “A guy named put a tracker on my Corvette.”
Chase motioned to Coop to get in the cab. Cash and Bob hopped in the bed of the truck. After the Memorial Day holiday, Cash always helped brand cattle since his guests liked to try their hand at roping them. They rarely succeeded but enjoyed the challenge. When Cash had shown up with his dude ranchers, he’d asked Bob where Chase was, and Bob had told him, just as Coop had walked up. Cash had called Chase as he was on his way back to the ranch. Jeff, who worked alongside Cash, saw their guests back home for dinner. Leaving Mean Pete, Martyman, and Red in charge of the branding pen, Cash had waited with Bob and Coop for Chase to return.
Chase drove straight to the five-car garage, and they all piled out of the pickup. He pressed the remote that opened the garage door to his Corvette and grabbed a flashlight off a workbench. He used it to look underneath the driver’s side of the car as Cash did the same with the light of his cell phone on the passenger’s side.
“See anything?” Coop asked.
“Not yet,” Cash replied.
“Got it,” Chase said and stood up. “Under the back bumper.” He opened the waterproof case and glared at the GPS device. The driver’s side of his car had paralleled the bedroom of Jade’s neighbors. No wonder they’d heard Axel rummaging around his car.
“Call the cops,” Bob said as the four of them frowned at the tracker in Chase’s hand.
“I did more than that,” Chase told them. “I drove two streets over to the Colorado Springs Police Department on lower Nevada Avenue and filed a report.”
“Good,” Coop said as Cash and Bob nodded.
“But they don’t get actively involved for twenty-four to seventy-two hours when the missing person is an adult between eighteen and sixty-five and of sound mind and body.”
“Let’s go find her ourselves,” Cash said.
