Page 66 of Blood Revealed

While we wait, I try her phone. It goes right to voicemail. I send a text. It’s marked undelivered. Her phone has to be off or destroyed.

Then on the screen, we see her. The moment she walks into the ladies’ room, the door shutting behind her, and then right before my eyes, a big motherfucker wearing a fitted silver suit, with tan skin and black or brown hair—he looks like one of the cartel men we dealt with a while back—looks left and right before slipping into the women’s restroom behind her. Maybe twenty seconds later, Hannah walks out with the man close on her heels. He’s got something in his hand. We zoom in. It’s not clear what he’s holding, but the more we zoom in, the blurrier the picture becomes. Though we all know it’s a gun.

He bends down to whisper something in Hannah’s ear and they walk. She doesn’t put up a fight, which means whatever he said to her I know it must’ve been bad. I’ll bet any amount of money he threatened the people she loves because that’s the only way my Hannah wouldn’t have gone out kicking and screaming.

Seeing this, I know I have to get my shit together. That’s when I reach inside to find it. Determination. Fuck panic.

Next, the security officer switches to the outdoor cameras and rewinds the feed back to when we watched Hannah and the man walk out the doors of the emergency. He leads her to a big Cadillac Escalade, black with tinted windows, forcing her into the back. He climbs into the front passenger seat, slamming the door.

As the SUV pulls away, the tail end flashes on the screen. “Can we get the license plate?” I ask, squinting to get a better look.

Tommy points to the screen. “There,” he says. “We got a partial.” Then he calls it into dispatch at the Thornbriar PD. Every officer in the county will have eyes out for that vehicle, which is great, but I hate waiting. I feel like an asshole just sitting around doing nothing when that man has my woman. But our hands are tied right now.

Before we leave, I shoot Chaos a text letting him know Tommy and I have a partial lead and for him to put the brothers on call. I’ll text when I know more. There are times when having my brothers at my back to make a statement is beneficial to the situation. Then there are times like today when going in with rumbling tailpipes will do nothing more than alert the enemy that we’re closing in. Men act crazy out of desperation. If Escalante gets desperate, I don’t want my woman in the crosshairs.

Just from the description of the vehicle and the partial, we find out that it’s a rental car through Enterprise Rentals. The closest one is a county over in Bell County. Tommy puts a call into the Bell County Sheriff’s Department before we take off, heading to his cruiser. They’re putting eyes out for the Escalade, too.

This is when it’s good to have a cop for a friend. We make the drive faster than I would’ve been able to on my own. Lights blazing but with no siren, we fly down the highway.

A cop and a biker walk into a rental agency. It sounds like the beginning to one of Boss’s cheesy jokes. But hey, they won him Elise, so maybe the man’s onto something. There’s a woman behind the desk. She looks up when the bell rings and I notice right away she stands a little straighter, plumps her chest out, rests her body weight on one hip, and lowers her lashes in a move that I’m sure works on a lot of men, just not me or Tommy. She doesn’t even notice the rings we’re both wearing.

“What can I help you boys with today?” the woman asks, biting on her bottom lip. “We’ve got a lot of nice cars to choose from.” She glances between me and Tommy, almost as if she’s waiting for her opening by seeing which one of us answers first. At this point, I don’t even think she cares, so long as her night ends with one of us moving inside her. Sorry, babe. Not my type. Hannah’s the only woman I’ve been with for the last seven years and I don’t plan on breaking that streak anytime soon.

“I need information on a black Cadillac Escalade we believe to be rented from this location,” Tommy says. He slides over his badge and credentials, and as she reaches for them, she glides her finger over his hand. Tommy’s the target.

“Yes, right away,” she says, breathily, but she begins typing. The woman knows her job. Her fingers move with lightning quickness across the keyboard. She doesn’t even wait for us to give her the partial license plate.

“What all do you need?” she asks.

“Who was it rented to? We believe he might be in trouble,” Tommy replies. She gives us the name and address ofa Dennis Uribe. That’s too easy.

“Can I help you with anything else?” She glides her finger over Tommy’s hand a second time when giving him back his credentials.

“No, ma’am. You’ve been helpful.” As Tommy picks up his wallet, he makes sure to use his left hand, flashing his wedding ring, and the woman’s pretty face falls. She looks to me, hopeful, but I have to shut her down too by telling her that by helping with this investigation, she’s helping me find my wife.

On the way out to the cruiser, I phone Hero. “Brother. Need anything you can find on Dennis Uribe. Bell County.” Then I read him off the address. “Name came up. It all seems too easy.”

“Firing up my laptop now,” he answers.

“You back at the compound?”

“Took Brin home. I was in the kitchen, now I’m in the office. I’ll call as soon as I get anything.”

“Thanks, brother.”

An hour out of our way, an hour we don’t have to waste, wasted. Why? Because Dennis Uribe’s address isn’t a home. It’s a dilapidated barn in the middle of nowhere. And it’s abandoned.Fuck. I knew this was too easy. He used a fake I.D. to rent the car. I pound the dashboard out of frustration then grip my head. It’s that or break something. God knows if Dennis Uribe even exists. Our only lead is a goddamn dead end.

Tommy puts a call into BCSD to see if they’ve had any luck locating the truck. That’s when my phone rings.

Hero.

“What you got?” I ask.

“Here’s the thing, not much out there on Dennis Uribe. But I found mention of the movements in the area of a guy named Moreno on a few dark web chats.”

“And how does that help?”

“After more digging, I found out Moreno is Dennis Uribe Moreno.”

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