“I don’t know, man.” Theo followed him into the kitchen. “He was watching some shit on YouTube last week and now we’ve got coffee made from fucking mushrooms instead of Bonefrog or Black Rifle. You’re gonna have a riot in the bunkhouse soon, if you don’t rein his stupid ass in.”
Jeez, if Theo was losing his mind, then it was time for him to step in. Rowan pulled out his phone and tapped in a message.
Rowan: Put BRCC on in the bunkhouse and keep the mushroom shit for yourself.
Edge: But it’s healthier, boss.
Rowan: Not everyone is on a health kick on the same day as you, asshole. Put on real fucking coffee, or your ass is fired.
Edge: My contract says you can’t fire me without an HR meeting.
Rowan: I fucking am HR and fucking with coffee is a fireable offense around here, period.
He glared at the phone as he watched the dots that indicated Edge was responding, but when it stopped, he breathed a sigh of relief, knowing the asshole was most likely consulting with his buddy, Dawsyn “Valley” Vale. With any bit of luck, the former Force Recon Marine was reminding him, there weren’t many places hiring veterans with more than a small dose of PTSDthese days, and he should dial his indignation down a notch or two. “If there’s no real coffee in the bunkhouse when you get back down there, let me know. I might enjoy kicking someone’s ass by the time we’re done here.”
“As long as it’s not my ass you’re kicking, I’m good.” Theo drained one mug of coffee and refilled it, then moved to sit at the table. “What’s going on?”
Before he could answer, Rowan heard the gravel pinging under the truck’s tires outside. “Gael is bringin’ intel, so one sec, and we’ll tell you.”
Theo shrugged and focused on his coffee.
“Don’t get comfortable,” Rowan warned, “we’ll do this in Gael’s office.” His own was down at the barn, and at least here in Gael’s domain, they had access to some of Joel’s secure databases.
“My office.” Gael strode in the door, closing it behind him, and headed down the hall with a paper folder in his hand.
“Told ya.” Rowen resisted the unexpected urge to snatch the folder to see what it contained, and instead grabbed the pot of coffee and mugs for himself and his brother, and with Theo in tow, followed after Gael. “What does it say?” He nodded to the intel.
“I haven’t looked yet.” Gael shrugged out of his coat and sat behind his desk. He flipped open the file, scanned it, and handed it to Theo. “We need to find her.” He jabbed his index finger on the photo of Enya Moore. “She’s a barrel racer who went missing in El Paso three days ago. Some outfit down in Texas told her father that they found a ping from her phone near Nogales, but the phone went dead before her old man could persuade anyone to check it out.”
Theo didn’t interrupt, and when Gael finished, he reached for the laptop on the desk. “May I?”
“Go ahead.” Gael turned it toward him.
Within seconds, Theo got to work, and a few keystrokes later, an image popped onto the screen of a bright arena photo of Enya Moore astride her horse, mid-run, sand spraying behind her.
“That her?”
Rowan nodded. “Yeah. That’s her.”
“Awesome.” Theo settled back into his chair with the computer on his lap and got to work. He scanned her ID photo with his phone, added the social media images from the account he’d found, and pulled up some databases Rowan was sure he didn’t want to know the origin of.
Knowing that crap will get me in shit.
I’ve got enough shit around here without looking for more.
“Local chatter says two livestock transports went missing same night. One turned up empty south of Hermosillo. The other’s still dark. Odds are if she was taken, she’s probably on that route.” Theo glanced at them over the rim of the laptop. “You want me to dig deeper?”
“Yeah.” He hesitated for a split second. If they dug deeper, would he be able to just pass the intel onto Moore, and have him escalate it up through the correct channels? No, he probably wouldn’t. He didn’t like liars, not even when it was him lying to himself. He gave himself a moment by sipping from his mug before he finally said, “At least see if there are any known traffickers or similar known to be active in that area.” Most people might not jump to human trafficking when a womanwent missing. But most people hadn’t spent half their adult life working Black Ops jobs in every shit hole known to man across the globe, either. So he figured if someone had a problem with his logic, then they could take it up with the US Government, who’d caused the majority of his paranoia.
“You got it.” Theo agreed. “This may take a while, though. So, if you have shit to do, go do it and I’ll message all y’all when I’m done.”
“Sure thing.” There were plenty of things they could be doing instead of sitting around watching Theo do his thing. He jerked his chin toward the door, “Move your ass, Gael. We need to decide which of these yearlings we are sending to the sale down in Florida. Might as well do it now, before we decide we’re hightailing it down south of the border.”
Gael exhaled through his nose, half a laugh, but also half a warning as he almost stepped on his heels all the way back to the kitchen. “Thought we were out of the game and sticking to horses and cows from now on unless Uncle Sam called us to do the shit they don’t want anyone knowing about.”
Rowan grabbed his hat from the hook inside the door and placed it on his head. “So did I. But something about this job… It’s pulling me in.”
“Bro, if there’s a horse involved, you’re gonna get drawn in,” Gael reminded him. “The fact her horse was born here means you aren’t gonna let it go, are you?”
