Page 93 of Back in the Saddle

With his posture, still no warm fuzzies.

“Okay, Jess, there’s some shit going down in a few of the homeless camps.”

Oh God.

Oh no.

“What kind of shit?”

“People going missing,” Cap said.

Oh God!

Oh no!

“I…” I didn’t even know what to ask.

“And they’re not going into shelters or other facilities. They’re just…disappearing,” Cap went on.

Raye shoved a mug of coffee at me. I took it and looked up at her.

“Trafficking again?” I asked.

She shook her head. “We don’t know.”

Cap kept at it. “As you know, the people in those camps aren’t big on sharing with outsiders.”

I nodded.

“Even so, they have a manner of taking care of their own.”

I nodded again.

“And if there was an issue, they’d share it.” There was a meaningful pause. “With one of their own.”

I had a feeling I knew where this was going.

“Jeff,” I whispered.

“No. A guy that goes by the street name Mountain,” Cap told me.

I was confused. “Who?”

“We’ve heard about this guy a lot,” Knox put in at this juncture. “People who don’t get scared of shit, they get petrified of this guy.”

“Is he like, big as a mountain or something?” I asked.

“We don’t know that either. None of our team has ever seen him. The stories about him make him out to be larger than life,” Knox said. “What we do know is that he doesn’t hesitate to take care of business, even if he has to get dirty doing it.”

“What kind of business?” I pushed.

“The kind of business where, he gets wind someone is trolling homeless camps and snatching humans for whatever reason, he rallies his crew, they patrol the camps and deal with these fuckers if they run across them,” Knox shared.

Oh, Jeff.

What are you doing?

“Your brother,” Cap brought my attention to him, “we believe, is a member of his crew.”

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