Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 73947 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 370(@200wpm)___ 296(@250wpm)___ 246(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73947 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 370(@200wpm)___ 296(@250wpm)___ 246(@300wpm)
I keep moving and find a well-trodden spot just below the crest, behind a rock shelf and three pines. Our cabin is visible through a narrow window between the trees.
From here, I can see our porch, our windows, the driveway, and the stretch where Wren walks when she needs air. The world goes quiet and something old and black moves in me, as I lower myself behind the same rock shelf and look at our home through a stranger’s eyes.
The position isn’t perfect, but it’s good. A careless observer would choose higher ground with a cleaner view, potentially exposing himself. Whoever chose this spot knew enough to trade visibility for concealment. You can’t see everything from here, but you can count vehicles, track lights, and see who leaves and when.
Someone can watch Wren from here.
My hand closes around the rifle sling across my chest hard enough for the webbing to bite into my palm.
I take a deep breath, then make myself take another, because anger is only useful when it’s under control.
I study the ground, where a flattened patch of grass and pine needles tells me someone has spent hours here, not minutes. I spot a torn corner of a protein bar wrapper under some rocks and bag it with tweezers from my field kit. Near the base of a pine, I find a small strip of black electrical tape that’s been wound in on itself. The adhesive side has picked up dirt, pine dust, and maybe skin cells if we’re lucky. I bag that, too.
I take photographs from every angle, but in my head, I’m picturing a man’s throat under my hands.
I think of Wren asleep in our cabin. I think about the way she looked at us after she heard what we wanted, and how she stood in the middle of our living room with the firelight touching her hair, as she dared us to be as brave as she is.
I think of her mouth against mine. Her hands on my shoulders, the soft, stunned sound she made when we were first inside her.
She’s ours, and whoever’s been watching her through these trees made a mistake he doesn’t understand yet.
When I finish documenting the site, I shift from evidence to defense.
After a trip down to our garage for supplies, I use a thin, dark cord to rig an alert on the surveillance route low enough to catch a boot. The cord attaches to a cluster of empty brass casings and washers I tuck inside a dead hollowed limb. It’s primitive, but effective, and if disturbed, it’ll rattle hard enough for the sound to carry in quiet air.
I place another alert farther downhill, tied to a dry branch suspended against a rock face. When tripped, the branch will drop.
I angle the third across a likely approach to our cabin, outside Wren’s usual walking path. I don’t like rigging anything this close to home, and I like needing it even less.
My brothers are awake when I get in. After making sure Wren’s still asleep, we gather in the kitchen, where I lay out my evidence on the counter and tell them about everything I found.
Every bit of warmth drains from their faces as I explain how Turner’s operation is bigger than we thought, and when I get to the part about someone doing surveillance on our cabin, their expressions harden to granite.
“I set out noise alerts,” I say. “Just for warning. Nothing that’ll hurt anyone.”
“We vary patterns starting now,” Rhett says. “No predictable movement and no regular times outside or away.”
“And when Wren wants air?” Boone asks.
“One of us goes with her,” Rhett says.
“She’ll argue.”
“She can argue while one of us goes with her.”
That sounds exactly like Wren. I picture her with her chin tipped up, her green eyes flashing gold as she tells three former Rangers she doesn’t need a babysitter. But there’s no stopping us from rearranging our lives to become the walls between her and anything that wants to touch her.
God help the man who mistakes her softness for weakness, and God help him more if he tries to get past the three of us.
CHAPTER 24
WREN
Despite best intentions, federal agencies often don’t run at the speed you might want them to.
When I finally hear back from my supervisor with an update, I’m alone in the cabin, but I’m not really alone. The men are nearby, like they always are, and that’s been a strange adjustment. I’m used to being capable on my own, and now I can’t even sit at a dining room table without being conscious of three men’s orbits around me.
After confirming I’m somewhere private, my supervisor tells me I’ll be hearing from a DEA field agent shortly. It turns out the agency’s been running an investigation into Harlan Turner for months, but it stalled due to lack of reliable intelligence.