Cody rolled into frame on his tricycle, and my stomach dropped straight through the floor. It made no sense, but my feet stopped working, my brain screamed at me to move, to grab him. Anything to put my body between my son and the lens holding him in the crosshairs. Even though it was just a video of him, that protective instinct refused to lessen.
He was grinning, that wide, unguarded, full-face grin he wore when he thought no one important was watching. He pedaled hard down the slight grade of the driveway, hair flying. He’d been wearing his dinosaur shirt, the green one with the faded T-rex on the chest that he’d refused to let me wash because he was convinced washing it would make the dinosaur disappear. He wasn’t wrong. The shirt was so old it almost fell apart every time he wore it.
The camera angle gave us a clear view of Cody…all the way down to the pattern on the shirt and close enough for me to spot a dirtstain on Cody’s forearm from where he’d tripped on his way out of the house that morning.
Whoever built the camera rig used powerful equipment. We hadn’t known they were anywhere around.
“Pause it.” My voice grated up the back of my throat. I couldn’t breathe. They were watching us. They’d been watching Cody. Go. I had to go. I had to leave. Take Cody and run as far and as fast as we could. Until what?
Diesel tapped a button and the video froze with Cody mid-pedal, mid-grin, the frame tight enough for me to count the cracks in the vinyl on his T-rex shirt.
“How long?” My jaw locked so hard my teeth ached. My vision blurred but I’d be damned if I let my frustration and fear lead to tears.
“This feed goes back three weeks.” Hawk didn’t look at me when he said it. He studied the frame, his eyes narrowed and attention riveted on what he might learn.
I appreciated that. It was the only reason I stayed in the room.
“The camera that pulled this was in a fixed position. Whoever set it up knew your patterns. They expected to find you and Cody outside and right there.” Hawk pointed at the screen.
“They knew your schedule.” Diesel met my gaze, his cold and hard. Not directed at me but at the problem none of them knew how to fix.
Hawk clicked forward to the next feed. “They knew everything.”
I made myself watch every single second. Nausea built, and I pressed the back of my hand against my mouth until it passed.Seven clips across four days. Me and Cody. Cody running out of the house.
Colt pulling in at the gate and coming around the tailgate with his shoulders set and moving toward Cody like a compass pointing north.
Diesel marked the time in his notebook and kept watching. A thick, heavy blanket of silence permeated the room and raised the hair on the back of my neck.
Hawk made three phone calls in the next hour. He didn’t put them on speaker, and I didn’t ask him to. I didn’t need to hear to understand he was pulling every string, calling in every favor, to fix this.
I took his chair when he paced the far side of the room. He paused every now and then to lean over me, his stomach almost touching my shoulder. All I’d have to do was turn my head and his arm would be right there, close enough to touch, to lean on. Close enough to comfort me if I let him.
This was not Wade’s doing. Wade was blunt-force stupid with a mean streak and no patience. He’d throw a Molotov and be done with it. He didn’t have the discipline for strategy that took weeks. He didn’t have the money for commercial grade cameras or the contacts to do any of this.
Wade was a tool, and someone told him where to work. And whoever held that tool was disciplined enough to spend time watching before they moved. They were not running on anger or desperation the way Wade did…the waywehad been. The Molotov might’ve come from Wade, but it was a message that scared me worse than Wade ever did because I knew how to dealwith mean and stupid. I’d never dealt with this kind of controlled terrorizing.
Colt came in at nine, holding a fresh cup of coffee that he set next to my hand. “How’d Cody feel about school this morning?”
“He was excited.” I picked up the cup and took a sip. We’d gone back and forth about this for a while. Cody needed normalcy. I couldn’t keep him out of school indefinitely, even with Hawk insisting he could talk to the principal and make him understand the situation.
Colt stood behind me, looking down at the computer screen. His hand came down on my shoulder, and he squeezed. Just once, but it was enough to convey everything we never said. We were in this together. All the way to the end.
Hawk ended his call and sat across from me, lacing his hands together on top of the desk. “We need to talk about the ledger.”
The coffee soured in my stomach. “There’s nothing to talk about. I told you what happened.”
“You told us part of the story. You’re holding something back, and I need to know what.” Hawk didn’t move.
Diesel stared at me and Cody, his unblinking gaze tight and his lips drawn into a frown.
I’d tried to deflect from this very situation, but maybe Hawk was right. “It wasn’t just Wade’s leverage. But it is true that I burned it.” I let that sit long enough that Colt shifted his weight. Diesel still didn’t blink. I took a breath and held it. “But I took pictures.”
Hawk’s expression shifted a fraction, just enough that I couldn’t tell if it was concern or relief that made his eyes turn molten.
Now that I’d started, the rest poured out. “I had an old phone, a prepaid one that wasn’t good for much. I took pictures of what looked most important. I mean, Hellhound business written in code had to be some important shit. So I took precautions. I still have the phone. Stopped using it years ago. I don’t know if it even turns on.”
“Where is it?” Hawk stayed still, too still.
