I turned back toward her just as she came fully into focus.
She wore one of my shirts from last night, and seeing her in it while panic and fear flooded her expression did something ugly to my chest.
“What do you mean another poster?”she asked quickly.
Piney scrubbed a hand over his beard.“Somebody stuck one to the front door of the clubhouse sometime during the night.”
“That close?”I asked.
“Real close.”
Too close.
The clubhouse sat back in the woods away from the main tourist areas.Nobody should’ve been able to walk up to the damn front door unnoticed.Which meant whoever did this either knew the island extremely well… Or didn’t care if we knew they were there.
Neither option sat well with me.
McKayla grabbed my arm suddenly.“What does it look like?”
Piney’s face tightened.Not good.“Her eyes are closed,” he said carefully.“Looks like she’s sleeping.”
McKayla went pale instantly.
Fuck.
I reached for her automatically, my hand settling against her lower back.
“Let us see it,” I said quietly.
She nodded once stiffly.
The three of us headed down the hallway while the clubhouse buzzed with tension around us.Radios crackled from the bar.Vin was coming through the front entrance from outside with Wannabe behind him.Pull stood near the windows checking the tree line while Post argued quietly with Lost near the surveillance monitors.
Nobody looked calm.
And Anchor?Anchor looked one inconvenience away from homicide.
The poster sat on the bar now.McKayla froze beside me the second she saw it.The picture showed Erin lying on what appeared to be a pillow or mattress, eyes closed, head slightly turned to the side, sleeping.
At least that’s what it looked like, but there was something deeply wrong about it too.
Too staged.Like somebody had positioned her carefully before taking the picture.
McKayla moved toward it slowly and I stayed right beside her.
Anchor looked up from the poster when we approached.His gaze flicked briefly between me and McKayla taking in the fact she was wearing my shirt before immediately returning to business.
McKayla picked up the poster carefully with shaking hands.“Oh my God,” she whispered.
On the back, written in thick black marker, were two words: PHASE TWO
Prime cursed quietly beside the bar.
“What the hell does that even mean?”Post asked.
“Escalation,” Anchor muttered darkly.
Nobody argued with him, because he was probably right.
