“I can’t imagine they’d have us drive that way unless they did.”Since they’d gotten nowhere in their search for Allison Bogart—despite a cell tower ping near Dripping Springs—Atticus was more than happy to follow a hot lead.Flashing her picture door-to-door was not as much fun as it sounded, even if it was the quickest way to find someone when you didn’t know where to look.
The rest of the drive was done mostly in silence, except for the radio, which was tuned to a country station.Not exactly what Atticus would’ve selected if he’d been alone, but when he found the channel, he got the feeling Archer liked it, so he went with it.
“Jesus,” Archer said when they pulled into the parking lot of the barbecue place.“Can you smell that?”
“I smell it,” he confirmed.
The air was fragranced with mesquite wood and meat.Lots and lots of smoked meat.
“I swear that’s what heaven’s gonna smell like.”
Atticus laughed.“If you say so.”
“I do.”
They got out and made their way inside, finding Brantley and Reese at a wooden picnic table, plates of food half eaten in front of them.
When they walked up, Brantley raised a hand, signaling someone.“I didn’t know what y’all wanted, so I got a little of everything.Take a seat.”
Atticus waited for Archer to get his long legs under the table, then did the same, mindful that Tesha was down there.
“Did y’all find somethin’?”he asked, accepting the glass of water with lemon that the server brought him.“Thanks.”
“We spent part of the mornin’ shakin’ a tail,” Brantley said, wiping his mouth with a napkin.
“Oh, yeah?”Archer directed his full attention to the man.“That sounds promising.”
“One of the shop owners sent us on a wild goose chase,” Brantley explained.“We took a twenty-mile detour, but got some interesting information along the way.”
“Wethinkwe got some information,” Reese corrected.
“Trust me.That’s a stash house.”
“You think you know where Kylie is?”Atticus asked, feeling hope swell inside him.The idea of finding this woman who was clearly important to so many people was what fueled him right now.He wanted to find her—alive and well—and assist in bringing her back to her family.At the same time, he wanted to do serious bodily harm to the bastard who had taken her.
Brantley shook his head.“I didn’t say that.But it’s worth a look.”
“What about the tail?”Archer inquired.“You shake him?”
“Them,” Brantley corrected.“They played leapfrog with us for a while.There were three that I spotted.Someone must’ve tipped ’em off because they picked us up right after we turned onto Flat Creek Road.Followed for a while, then swapped.We came to the end of that road, and they swapped again.We pulled off for gas to shake ’em.Haven’t seen ’em since.”
“What arewehere for?”Atticus hoped Brantley would say they would be going in to search the house with them.
Brantley looked at Reese.“How do you wanna play this out?”
Atticus waited while Reese chewed, swallowed, then downed some of his iced tea.His gaze slid from one person to the next.
“I’ll take Archer with me,” Reese said.“In our truck.You and Atticus take his truck.We’ll go in first, see if we can catch the tail again, lead them out while you two go in from the opposite direction.”
Atticus stared at Reese, wondering if he could’ve come up with a plan like that.He was thinking they’d all go in, check it out.Reese’s plan was much more … coordinated and took into account that someone could still be watching them.
“We might have to walk in,” Brantley said.
Atticus wasn’t opposed to a hike.“How far?”
“I don’t know.A mile, maybe.”
Well, at least the Navy SEAL didn’t say fifteen miles.Or klicks, as he’d heard Brantley say before.Hell, Atticus wasn’t great at math, and trying to convert kilometers to miles, or vice versa, would take up a good part of his day.
