“Then Gabe will head to Portland and give the rest of us time to get back to our office to pick up our things. Also to bring the rest of the team up to speed so they can continue their current investigations, then make the drive back here.” Nolan stood. “And we’ll be at your disposal.”
Dev sighed. “You don’t know how good that sounds and how thankful I am for your help.”
“Maybe save your thanks until after you’ve worked with us for a few days.” Abby pushed to her feet. “You only got a hint of our joking. It gets much worse when you add Jude and Reece to the mix. It’s probably a good thing they stayed home to hold down the fort.”
“I for one think it’ll make things interesting and could relieve some of the tension,” Kinsley said, trying to sound positive and brighten the mood.
She got a wan smile from Dev instead. Okay, so the tension wouldn’t really go away until they arrested the person who wanted her dead. And made sure the shooter was locked behind bars before any of these fine men and women got hurt or worse yet, lost their life.
Dev ignored his brother sitting next to him and kept his eyes on Kinsley from across the dining table. She’d sounded optimistic at the end of their meeting, but was she really? She’d been quiet for the rest of the afternoon and through dinner, not really participating in the conversation. Now, hours later, her slumped posture would say she wasn’t handling things so well.
Maybe she was just going stir-crazy, being cooped up in this cabin all the time. He would be for sure, but even if he felt a whole lot better with Nolan and his team partnering on her protection detail, he didn’t feel good enough to let down his guard.
Or good enough to let her move about the property without proper supervision. He wasn’t about to let her go down by the lake. With no way to close off the area, it remained vulnerable to attack. He would allow her to join them in the conference room when they held update meetings with Nolan’s team. As a bonus, she could at least get away from the cabin for a while.
His phone rang, and seeing Ryan’s name, he put the phone on speaker for Kinsley. He set it in the middle of the table and leaned closer. “You’re on speaker, Ryan. Kinsley and Colin are here. Please say you have an update for us.”
“I do,” Ryan said. “First, Russ came through with Wacker’s current address. Not that he will admit it.”
“Russ who?” Dev laughed.
Ryan’s chuckle came over the speaker. “So I talked to Wacker. He hasn’t heard from Huff and nothing out of the ordinary has happened.”
“Did you warn him to be careful?” Dev asked.
“Yeah, and I also gave him a business card. He promised to call if Huff contacts him.”
“And you believed him?”
“As much as one can believe anyone affiliated with a criminal, yeah, I did. He was pretty laid-back when we arrived and seemed genuinely shocked when I told him Huff was out on early release.”
“So you moved on to surveilling Huff, while Gabe and Micha took on Luongo and Mooney.”
“Correct,” Ryan said. “Both of the other guys have been going about their everyday lives. Pretty boring actually, but I’ve got something on Huff.”
Kinsley bit her lip. “I hope it’s not bad news.”
“It’s not good.” Ryan stopped talking, letting a dramatic pause fall over them.
Drama wasn’t something Dev needed in his day. “Go on.”
“He left his house to take a phone call in the front yard. I heard him talking to a private investigator. Sounded like he’d hired the guy. He was yelling at him for not finding Kinsley and Caldwell.” Ryan cleared his throat. “He threatened to fire the PI if he didn’t locate them by the end of the day.”
Dev ran a hand across his face, wishing when he took it away that he wasn’t looking at a terrified Kinsley. “Then the PI is probably motivated to hunt them down. Did Huff indicate which of the two was his top priority?”
“Sorry, no.”
He didn’t like that answer. One more ambiguous thing to deal with. “If I was the PI, I would go after the person I thought was the easiest to find.”
Ryan didn’t respond right away. “Which would be who, in your mind?”
Colin leaned into the phone. “If the PI has done his research, he knows that Kinsley still had a residence in Portland and likely hasn’t fled the area on a permanent basis. If he finds out about the shooting, he can surmise that she left due to that and might not have had a chance to hide her trail, whereas Caldwell has been gone for some time and could’ve covered his tracks better.”
“I don’t know,” Ryan said. “Are you reaching that conclusion because of the information you have, that he wouldn’t be privy to?”
“Could be.” Colin looked at Dev.
Dev met his gaze. “And he could’ve already located information on one of the two and just has to follow up.”
