Impulsively, I hit the speed dial for the office.
“Hey, Grim. You on your way?” My sister, Courtney, answers the phone.
“Listen, I need someone to run a plate for me. It’s important.”
“Sure. Hang on.” There’s a slight pause and then another voice gets on the phone.
“Grim, it’s Luna. Give me the plate.” Luna Gallagher is our new cyber security expert, and she can find information about almost anything, any time.
I read off the license plate.
“Give me a sec.” She hums Nirvana’s “Come As You Are” as she works. “Okay, that’s registered to a Magda Herrera. It’s a blue Toyota.”
“This is a van,” I mutter.
“Ah, yeah, looks like the plate was reported stolen about an hour ago.”
“I’m in pursuit. Is Rage there? Can you put him on?”
“Sure thing.”
A second later, my best friend and partner in crime is on the line. “Yo. What’s going on?”
“I need back-up. I’m on I-5 heading south, almost to Oceanside. Looks like we’re about to get off…” I give him the exit number, telling him we’re heading east.
“It’ll take me about fifteen to catch up to you,” he says, not bothering with questions. “Maybe less if traffic cooperates.”
“Call me when you’re on your way.”
“Will do.” Rage, whose real name is Elliott Rageis, has been my best friend since college. We were both ROTC, both Special Forces in the Marines, both got out and went private. I trust him with my life—and he trusts me with his.
I’m not the one in danger at the moment, but my gut has never steered me wrong.
And right now, it’s screaming.
The van picks up speed after turning onto Highway 79. I’m not from this area, and I haven’t traveled these particular back roads, but I’m grateful for the training my brother-in-law Daniil made us go through to learn our way around.
Dan and Courtney bought a hundred acres east of Temecula, in Sage Canyon, not too far from the San Bernardino National Forest. They want privacy and a place where they can run training exercises. They’re building a big-ass house and a state-of-the-art office building that doubles as the headquarters for Shadow Security. It’s been over-the-top and kind of exciting getting in on the ground floor of something like this.
They also offered Rage and me a piece of the action. We’d be business partners as well as family. Neither of us have given them an answer yet and that’s one of the reasons we’re meeting tomorrow.
But I can’t think about that right now.
The van is going sixty on a two-lane street without a single light or even lines on the road.
My phone rings, and Rage is on speaker.
“I have your coordinates, I’m about five minutes out, coming from the other direction.”
“Great.”
“You sure about this, bro?”
I chuckle. “Eh. Maybe. I just know the woman looked scared and when he put her back in the van, there was extreme bruising on her torso.”
“What happens if she’s a battered wife who refuses to leave him?”
“Then I can sleep tonight.”
