“Oh, God,” I said as my arm went up over my nose.
The pieces dropped into place like lightning. Like the smell was the last thing my senses needed to register why Ranger didn’t register any women in the building.
I reached for my flashlight and pulled it off my hip.
“Please be wrong,” I muttered to myself as I slowly migrated toward where the smell emanated from. “Please be wrong. Please be wrong. Please be wrong.”
“Goddamn it, Brutus!” Cap called out in the distance.
I barely heard the commotion. All I could do was dread what I already knew was coming. When I reached a trembling hand out for the door that I found ajar, I didn’t even have to open it to know what I’d find.
The fly that slipped through the crack of the door told me everything just as I eased it open.
“Oh my God,” I heaved out.
There she laid with her clouded eyes wide and filled with fear. They were clouded over. Beautiful blue eyes that would never see the light of day again. Her body, laying on top of another one.
Another woman.
With wide, accusing, clouded over brown eyes.
That’s why no women registered as heat signatures.
They got rid of their merchandise.
My hand found the medical bag at my hip on pure instinct. The one I packed at the clinic, the one I loaded so carefully because I wanted to be ready for anything. I had gloves in there. I had evidence bags. I had the kind of documentation supplies that a man with three doctorates knew to grab when he waswalking into a situation that the DOJ was going to need to understand from the inside out. I had never been more grateful for a stop in Redd Valley in my life.
“Ghooooooost!” I bellowed. “Ranger! I need a fucking camera over here! The best you’ve fucking got!”
This was definitely some shit our contact at the DOJ needed to fucking see.
28
LIZZIE
I stood at the window, vigilant, with a shotgun in my hand. Every once in a while, I reached down and made sure that I carried extra ammunition and some throwing knives. They weren’t my throwing knives, but I’d be able to wield them just the same.
Just in case, you know?
With King and the guys gone, there was nothing but a skeleton crew manning the safehouse. I knew something big was happening. Maybe this was it. Maybe this was the night that the guys would execute whatever plan it was that they had in mind.
I hoped so.
I missed Doc with a passion that I couldn’t convey in our letters any longer.
“Anything?” Anna asked from the hallway.
I peered over my shoulder from the front window and simply shook my head.
I’d never seen Anna chew on her nails before. But I watched the way she worried over her brother every time he left. I watched the way she was filled with relief every time he came back. She nodded at me before she turned on a swivel, her hand moving back up to her mouth. She disappeared down the hallway, taking a sharp left before her pacing started up again.
I wanted to hug her so badly.
She didn’t seem like a hugger, though.
Amanda and Ariel were off doing whatever it was the two of them did in order to distract themselves. I wasn’t sure half of the time. Jasmine lost herself in a book, curled up in one of the chairs with a blanket thrown over her legs. I noticed that she didn’t turn the page much, though.
I wondered if she was even reading.
