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“Any word on the child?” I ignored his question.
“No, but we’ll fill you in asap.”
“Where’s Keith?” I needed to know he was okay.
“Here,” he answered, coming in behind us. “I lost them. They think we’re in town.”
“They’re smart.” I removed my heavy jacket and pulled off my sagging prosthetics and tossed the nasty fake skin into the trash. “A group of them searched the shoreline, too.” Nicole headed for the bathroom, and I hoped what happened hadn’t rocked her too badly. I knew that in her job she’d have been through some nasty stuff, but after that party, it had gone from bad to worse in a hurry. “We had a few close calls.” I nodded toward the bathroom.
John handed me a towel. “Is she okay?”
I dried my hair then toed off my wet shoes. “Yeah.” I looked around the cabin. “So, how’d tonight go? What happened?”
“Get cleaned up.” Cole tossed his burger wrapper on the table. “We’ll fill you in then.”
I bit my lower lip in frustration and pulled from my training. “Copy that.”
I headed for the bedroom to get cleaned up. I stripped, wrapped a towel around me, grabbed some soap from my bag, and went outside to use the pool shower since Nicole was in the bathroom.
The shower felt great, but I kept it short and hurried back inside to get into some dry clothes. Just as I pulled up my camo pants, the door opened.
“Sorry.” She turned away, holding the towel tightly around her.
“It’s fine.” I pulled on my ball hat then snagged my t-shirt off the bed as I moved toward her. “How are you doing?”
“Fine,” she answered too quickly, “just tired.” She lowered herself onto the mattress.
“Do you want to come hear how things went at Selena’s?”
She looked away, and I could see she needed a moment to gather herself. “Since there’s no child out there, I’ll assume they had no luck. I think I’ll skip this one. You can fill me in later.”
“Fair enough.” I understood that. “Hungry?” When she didn’t answer, I tugged on my shirt. “Come out as soon as you feel like it, then. Just remember the team needs to know what you do so we can plan our next move.” She slowly nodded, so I let her be.
“Heads up.” Mike tossed me a wrapped burger, and I caught it as I sat down next to Cole. “It’s old, but it’s food.”
I was so hungry I didn’t care what I was putting in my body tonight. I had that thing gone in three bites. Mike slid another over, and I inhaled that one too. “Nicole hungry?”
“I’ll take one to her later. She needs a second.” I nodded for Cole to start. I was anxious to know what they found, if anything.
“Before I start this,” Cole brought up the body camera footage from their evening, “you need to know that the boy,” he lowered his voice, “wasn’t there.” I knew by his look I was in for some blood. He hit play, and I watched as they approached the house and entered through the side door. I could see three bodies that looked like they’d been flung around the place at random, and another was tied to a chair. It was obvious he’d been tortured.
“We immediately checked for the child. There was no sign of him anywhere and no sign of the friend. We tracked down the landlady. She said Talya and the baby moved in with Selena about a year or so ago. She told us she often heard Selena arguing with her boyfriend after that about wanting time alone but how she couldn’t get it.
“It was obvious that the landlady didn’t like Selena’s boyfriend and was sympathetic to Talya and the baby. She said Selena was two-faced. She seemed really great when Talya was there but turned nasty about her when the boyfriend came around. I guess after Talya died,” he cleared his throat, and I knew he was trying to be sensitive, “the friend struggled with the baby. I guess he cried a lot. Then once the boyfriend moved in, she said things got really strained.”
“Jesus, the poor kid lost his mother. What’d they expect?” My stomach was in turmoil over what my poor son must have gone through. “What else did she say?”
“Not much. She said she had a strange feeling that things weren’t good and was worried about the baby. Then a few weeks ago she came by to collect the rent, and the place had been abandoned. She said they left in a hurry, since there were still dirty dishes in the sink, laundry in the washer, things like that. Tonight, about three hours before we got there, she got word from a neighbor that they heard gun shots. She arrived and found this.” He pointed to the video. “They’re Canos’ people.” Cole showed me a photo of the inside of a man’s wrist. It had been inked with a Canos honor tattoo. “From what the neighbors saw, sounds like Perez’s guys showed up and killed them.”
“Doesn’t seem like they wrecked the place.” I watched the screen replay the video.
“No, lucky for the landlady.” Mark handed me a bottle of water. “They were on a mission to find the kid. They found Canos’ guys instead.” He chuckled. “Sorry.” He looked at me.
“We’re getting closer. That’s what matters,” I said more for myself than for him.
“I heard your night ended in the water.” Mark leaned his arms on his thighs. “Did you get anything from the party?”
“I think Nicole did, but we haven’t had a chance to talk. I lucked out and recognized a guy I knew from before. I lipread him saying Chili’s name and had to get close to find out what they were saying. The gist is I guess he was kicking up too much dust and they were on to him. I managed to let him know he needed to abort and get out.”