Total pages in book: 66
Estimated words: 65225 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 326(@200wpm)___ 261(@250wpm)___ 217(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 65225 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 326(@200wpm)___ 261(@250wpm)___ 217(@300wpm)
Giselle was the ex-wife.
As they shared the electric company fifty-fifty, since it was recommended that they learn to work together amicably instead of splitting the company entirely, that meant that they shared the company in all ways.
On Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, Jeremiah worked. On Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, Giselle. Sundays, they were usually both off unless something happened. But their schedule meant that they didn’t have to see each other unless they wanted to. And it was rare they wanted to.
Their divorce hadn’t been a good one.
Then again, neither had their marriage.
“Sounds like a bad time,” I admitted.
Jeremiah shot me a look that could peel paint. “That oven made the majority of our bakery items. Yes, it’s a bad fucking time.”
I snorted. “Feel free to get something at the house if you get hungry. I know you’ve been up a while.”
Jeremiah was understandably an early riser thanks to the bakery he owned. He got up at three and worked until nine or ten in the morning depending on what they were making that day.
And since it was going on ten in the morning, he’d been up a while.
“Thanks,” Jeremiah said as he patted his saddlebags. “But I have lunch in here, as well as a Dr. Pepper. I’m fine.”
I gave him a back slap and said, “See you.”
As I headed to the office, the feeling of utter wrongness continued to take root.
That was about the time that I started pulling up the tracking apps that I’d installed on not only her phone, but Salem’s. As well as the tracker I installed on her truck.
I wasn’t sure that I could explain the feeling.
Honestly, it’d been something that I experienced since I was a kid—this feeling that something bad was going to happen before it happened.
I’d experienced it several times that I could recall.
The first time being when my father had died.
The second, when Trouper had been convicted of attempted murder and sent to jail.
The last being when I’d found out my mother passed away.
Usually, the feeling was followed by something terrible.
And I wouldn’t allow Banger to be the person involved with that bad feeling.
Over the next several hours, nothing seemed off.
Jeremiah and Shine switched posts.
Banger and Salem started the run. And by noon, they were outside the state.
Only that feeling didn’t subside.
If anything, it got worse.
By one, I couldn’t do it any longer.
“I’m gone,” I said as I shoved my phone into my pocket. “Did you find anything else on Sareen?”
Donnelly frowned, looked at me with a scowl, and was about to say something about me interrupting him when suddenly, his face went ashen.
I knew that this was it.
He was about to tell me why I was getting a weird feeling.
“What is it?” I asked, stepping farther into his office.
He swallowed hard before saying, “The tracker. It’s on a loop. It was supposed to be in Mississippi by now but…”
But it wasn’t.
The moment I looked at the tracker, I saw what he saw.
The tracker had backtracked on Interstate 20. There was a glitch, and it went from where it was supposed to be, back to the house, only to bounce right back to Interstate 20.
“Son of a bitch,” I growled. “How?”
I already had my phone out and dialing.
Banger’s phone went straight to voice mail.
I repeated this process with first Salem’s phone, then Banger’s again.
“Find the truck,” I said. “It can’t be at the house.”
I had a feeling Sareen had found the tracker and dumped it at the house before doing whatever she’d done to make it appear as if it was moving in the correct direction.
“Already got a BOLO—be on the lookout—for it,” Donnelly said. “Just pinged it to every county within a fifty-mile radius of the path she was supposed to take, as well as around here.”
I growled in frustration as I tried her phone again.
And again.
And again.
• • •
Two Hours Later
“I have a ping on the truck,” Hank said without pleasantries. “I have a location of a county road off the interstate. Literally about ten minutes from where you’re at right now.”
I got on my bike and rode in that direction, arriving at the big black truck with a lump filling my stomach.
I took in the scene.
There were two sets of tracks. One, Banger’s truck, and the second a truck of some kind that had mud tires on it based on the tire pattern.
“Struggle,” Donnelly said just as another set of pipes pulled up.
I looked to find Shine there, looking worried.
“What the fuck happened?” he asked.
“She turned around after she hit the state line,” I guessed, unable to tell him for sure. “The tracker I placed on the truck was taken off at my place. But for the last three hours, it shows to be heading in the direction of Mississippi. The only reason we even noticed it right now was because Donnelly happened to have been looking at the map at just the perfect time.”