Page 4 of Legends Luke

Luke scowled. “I don’t get it. If you don’t have leads on who they are, how do you know it’s all the same group?”

“We didn’t, at first. But all the local departments share intel, especially when there’s such an uptick in crime. I mean they’re all being committed in small towns, and they all started around the same time. Something about it wasn’t adding up until they robbed a jewelry store in Waverly. The witness descriptions of the group fit descriptions of suspects in other cases. We put our heads together, pieced the intel together, and realized a group of suspects working together made more sense than individual suspects going on their own crime waves.”

Luke considered Tater’s reasoning, and from what the police chief shared so far, the theory had merit. “How many suspects are we talking about?”

Tater shrugged. “As best as we can tell, something like seven. Male and female. Different builds. Different heights. No visible scars or tattoos that anyone’s noticed. They all have purple eyes.”

Luke frowned. “Purple eyes? All of them? Damn, that’s smart. Their eyes are the only distinguishable feature with the masks on, and they’re disguising them behind color contact lenses.”

“And trying to track them using the contacts is not easy either.With them available online, it’s next to impossible to track orders. Especially when you don’t know where the targets originate from. Purple contacts are more common than you think.”

“Still, you’ve got to be getting desperate if you’re asking civilians to keep an eye out for suspicious people.”

Tater pierced him with a hard stare. “We both know you and your brothers are not ordinary civilians. And hell, yeah, I’m getting desperate. Every town around us has been hit more than once. So far, we’ve managed to escape their attention, but Fire Creek is next, Luke. I feel it.”

“You can’t possibly know that. I’m guessing if you could predict this crew’s targets, you’d be closer to catching them.”

Tater crossed his arms over his chest. “The email I got before you came in? It was from the chief in Valley. They found a couple in their thirties, beaten and left for dead on the side of the road in a remote area between Valley and Fire Creek. There was no vehicle, no ID, or anything to give us an idea of who the couple was or how they got there. Their prints aren’t in the system, and so far, no missing persons reports fit their description. It fits the crew’s MO, even if it’s the first time we can add murder to their resumes. Considering where this crime happened and how this crew works, it makes sense they would hit Fire Creek next. And they’re escalating, Luke. So yeah, I’m not leaving anything to chance.”

Luke’s mind had already shifted to possible scenarios based on the chief’s intel. It wasn’t a lot to go on, but he had suspicions he wanted to check out on his own before he shared them. He could seewhat had Tater frustrated and worried. He trusted the man enough to believe his theory had merit. He wouldn’t promise that he and his brothers would be much help, but it went against his grain not to offer assistance of some kind.

“Look, I’ll tell my brothers to be aware. If we see anything or have suspicions about anyone, we’ll let you know. If we can help, you know where we are. We can keep it between us, but we can be an asset if you think you need us.”

Tater nodded. “Thanks, Luke. You and your brothers…well, I may not agree with how you operate, but you do good work. English taught you well.”

Luke wanted to ask what Tater was basing his assessment on, but he decided it was better if he didn’t know. He shook the chief’s hand and hurried out the door. On the walk back to the garage, he shifted through the intel in his mind, separating the information and the subsequent questions into neat categories. When he made it back to the garage, he momentarily forgot about the motorcycle he’d planned to work on next. He shouted to Chum that he’d be in the office a while, knowing his mechanic would know he didn’t mean the main office where customers would go to settle their bill. It was his private office where he kept his secure laptop.

Once the laptop booted up, Luke became lost in his research, chasing down leads in the way he did best. He barely noticed the hours passing or Chum closing up the shop for the day without bothering him with a farewell.

Chapter Three

Melody turned the page of her paperback, anxiousness building in the pit of her stomach. The main character was on alert, investigating a strange noise in another part of her home. The scene was set on a stormy night which had knocked the power out and washed away the dirt road leading to the house. With a flashlight in one hand and a baseball bat in the other, the main character crept toward the back, pausing when the floor creaked under the weight of her foot. The heroine held her breath and waited. Thunder clapped, and lightning streaked across the sky when…

Melody jerked as her cell phone rang, shattering her concentration. The squeal tore from her throat as her book went flying to the other end of the bed. Her heart pounded. She sank against the stack of pillows propped against the headboard and closed her eyes to calm down. The ringing continued, but she didn’t answer until she knew she wouldn’t sound panicked.

“You have amazing timing.” Sarcasm dripped from her tone, but the nuance was lost on her sister.

“Have you checked the app? You have another match that I think is a winner.”

Melody rolled her eyes. “I don’t know. I told you I was done with the dating app.”

“Then why haven’t you deleted your profile?” Lyric Douglas fired back.

Melody didn’t have a good answer to her question. She had thought the app would be a good idea when her sister insisted on it. Not long after she moved to Fire Creek, she’d had a particularly busy week and was feeling homesick. When she’d confessed her loneliness to her sister, Lyric had taken matters into her own hands and signed her sister up for a dating app. Since she set up Melody’s username and password for the app, she could log in periodically to monitor the matches.

At first, using the app seemed like a stroke of genius. She could meet new people, enjoy nights exploring local hot spots, and possibly find someone she could hang out with regularly. After three blind dates, she learned how wrong she was.

The first guy had been nice enough but hadn’t talked about anything but his ex-girlfriend. By the end of their meal, he confessed he wanted his ex back, and he thanked Melody for helping him figure out his feelings. She’d wished him well and went back to the drawing board.

The second date had been a no-show. Wondering if he took one look at her and ditched her before she saw him, she’d almost deleted the app and declared no more blind dates. But somehow, she allowed Lyric to convince her to keep trying.

The third date had been the best by far, even if it didn’t result ina romantic match for her. The guy was nice, funny, handsome…and gay. He hadn’t come out of the closet to his family or his co-workers, so he was looking for someone to accompany him to family get-togethers and work functions as his fake date. She considered making a deal with him to provide her with companionship as a trade-off, but by the end of the date, they’d decided against fake dating and parted as friends. She’d had coffee with him a couple of times since then.

Melody sighed. “I haven’t had a lot of time to think about dating or anything else. Otherwise, I would have deleted it already.”

“Melon, I’m telling you, this guy has potential. Look at his profile. Send him a couple of chats and see what you think. What could it hurt?”

Melody cringed. The hated moniker was Lyric’s creation after she declared she wouldn’t be the only one with a nickname she despised. Lyric was first called Songbird by their mother, who said Lyric was always singing or cooing, even as a baby, and the rest of the family followed suit. Over the years, Melody had shortened her sister’s nickname to Bird, and though Lyric hated it, she couldn’t escape it, so she retaliated by giving her sister a less-than-ideal pet name.

---