Page 88 of Home Town Knight

“Someone has to stay at Last Refuge. Whoever can make it will be on their way.”

“Good. But Owen, be careful, all right? We need you.” She gave me a quick hug, the first time we’d ever embraced like that. Truly as friends, not as the sheriff and his deputy. “And if anything happens to you, Genevieve will be heartbroken. Don’t do that to her.”

I wasn’t so sure about that. But I nodded. Then I jogged over to Dean’s car.

“Your place,” I said as I jumped in. “I’ll explain on the way. The others will meet us there.”

Calls were coming in rapid-fire to my work cell phone, which I’d kept on me. But I didn’t answer them. I was in agony, pacing Dean’s apartment while we waited for the Protectors to arrive.

Finally, Aiden and River walked in the door, along with a man I assumed was Cole “Lynx” Bailey, Aiden’s bounty hunter friend. Trace had stayed at Last Refuge.

Lynx gripped my hand in a firm shake. He was older than the rest of us, maybe forty, with rough-hewn features and a gruff manner matching Aiden’s.

Dean greeted them, introducing himself. “I’m Tex’s friend from the Marines. Haven’t been in Hart County long, but he’s told me about Last Refuge.”

Aiden snorted. “Tex?”

“Dean can share stories later,” I said stiffly.

River took over. “I briefed Aiden and Lynx on the drive about Stillwater and what we know so far. Anything to add?”

In text messages, I’d given River the quick and dirty version of the latest events since last night, and I assumed he’d shared that with them as well. I’d also been monitoring my department’s radio channels, keeping tabs on their response to Gen’s kidnapping, while staying out of it directly. I was relieved that Norris was stable and en route to the hospital. Otherwise, they’d made little progress on finding her.

“Gen was in my unmarked SUV, which my department can track and easily locate, but Deputy Marsh already found it abandoned not far from the original scene. The killer switched vehicles. Gen’s phone was left behind as well.”

“But no indication that Genevieve was injured?” Lynx asked.

My throat squeezed. “No. No sign of blood or any kind of struggle. He wants her alive. Why, I don’t know yet.”

Lynx’s heavy brows drew down. “How long he’ll keep her that way, we don’t know either. We can’t assume.”

I glared at the bounty hunter, though he wasn’t saying anything I hadn’t figured out myself. “Exactly why I want to move quickly. She’s already been gone for over an hour. You’re the tracker. What do you suggest?”

“Can you show me her last known location?”

River set up his laptop on Dean’s kitchen counter. He pulled up a map of Hart County, and I pinpointed the coordinates where Keira had found my abandoned vehicle. “This is the same area where Ace Tucker and Josh Ellis had been hunting,” I said. “We learned last night from Trooper Rossiter that Tucker had found a cache of Stillwater coins and money somewhere in the wilderness, probably by chance. It had to be somewhere in this area. All the other events tie back to that incident.”

River stroked his jaw thoughtfully. “Most of Stillwater’s presence is on the dark web. They’re phantoms. But thosecoins tie them to the physical world. Since yesterday, I’ve been wondering about their manufacturing, distribution. Storage. Tucker could’ve stumbled onto one of those facilities by accident. Stolen from them. Stillwater would be extremely pissed.”

“So they sent a killer after Tucker, and then later Ellis,” Aiden said. “As well as the only eyewitness, Genevieve. Sykes was the second shooter who trespassed at Last Refuge?”

I nodded. “That’s my assumption.”

“And he’s dead. Good,” Aiden grunted. “Let’s find Genevieve, get her back safe, and then we can take out the rest of these Stillwater assholes wherever they’re hiding.”

My feeling exactly.

Lynx studied the screen. “Any ideas on how to narrow down the location of Stillwater’s facility? Whatever it is, it’ll be well hidden. Designed not to draw attention, probably manned by a small but skilled crew. I have a surveillance drone I brought with me, but this is a huge area to search effectively in a short time.”

I had no ideas, and that powerlessness made me want to punch something. I dug my teeth into the inside of my cheek, tasting blood.

River tugged his fingers through his messy dark hair. “Maybe I can help. I was working on a theory this morning, Owen. Yesterday, you wanted me to look into Jud Hale, the former state senator who owns land in that target area. So far, the man is squeaky clean. But Jud Hale’s land holdings gave me another idea. I broadened my research to include the other major landowners in this area.”

He swiped his finger over his touchscreen, circling a location. “There’s a corporation that bought a chunk of this mountainside a few years back. Claimed they were interested in building a small ski resort, since Hart County only has a couple chairlifts on offer.” We all studied the screen.

“Wait,” Dean said. “A ski resortthere? That doesn’t make much sense. There’s zero north-facing terrain, for one.” He looked closer. “The elevation’s not great either.”

River grinned. “I didn’t even realize those issues. I was focused on the fact that they never did anything and let the land sit there. No engineering reports that I could find, no permits pulled. And when I dug deeper into the corporate entity itself, their cover story had no substance beneath. They’re owned by another shell company, which is owned by another. And another.”

---