Page 43 of Beckett (Warrior Security #2)

He pulled out his phone, fingers already flying.

“I’ve got a direct line to Portland PD’s major crimes unit.

They’ll want everything we have.” He pressed the phone to his ear, pacing toward the corner.

“Mike? Lachlan Calloway. I need you to pull everything on a Reggie Garrison, DOB…” He rattled off information from Travis’s files.

“The arrogant prick is still using those credit cards like he’s on vacation,” Hunter said, studying the receipts with tactical awareness. “No attempt at concealment. No cash-only transactions except the motels.”

“That’s his weakness.” Aiden’s voice held the quiet certainty of someone who’d hunted men before. “Patterns become habits. Habits become vulnerabilities. A man that cocky doesn’t change his routines.”

“And the moment he swipes that card again,” Lachlan said, turning back with his phone still pressed to his ear, “every badge in a twenty-mile radius will converge on his location. I’m issuing the APB now—statewide alert, all channels.”

Travis’s typing reached machine-gun intensity. “I’m embedding tracking algorithms into every system I can access—credit monitoring, ATM networks, traffic cameras with facial recognition, even toll road transponders. The second he surfaces anywhere in the digital world, we’ll know.”

“Portland PD’s mobilizing,” Lachlan announced, lowering his phone momentarily.

“They’re sending his full jacket—known associates, previous addresses, vehicle registration, employment history.

Turns out they’ve been wanting Garrison on some old cybercrime charges anyway.

The Jeremy Garrison shooting was…difficult for the department.

They’d very much like to close this chapter. ”

The room transformed into a war room, everyone shifting into operational mode. But I sat frozen, staring at Reggie Garrison’s flat eyes on the tablet screen, trying to reconcile this stranger’s face with fourteen months of terror.

This unremarkable man had dismantled my life because my brother had led a team that made a tragic mistake. Todd had died never knowing someone out there unjustly blamed him for a death, never knowing his little sister would pay the price for his absence. I was glad Todd hadn’t known.

“Hey.” Beckett’s voice cut through the white noise in my head. “You still with us?”

I nodded, though I felt disconnected from my body, floating somewhere near the ceiling, watching this all happen to someone else.

“This is all good news,” he said, low enough that only I could hear. “We know who he is now. We know what drives him. We know his patterns. We can stop him.”

Hunter stood, his presence immediately commanding the room without a word.

The kind of natural authority that came from leading men through hell and bringing them home.

“Security protocol changes immediately. Two-man teams, overlapping coverage zones. This bastard got close enough to weaponize a vehicle against you—that’s the last time he gets within a hundred yards. ”

“I’ll coordinate with my deputies,” Lachlan added, back in full sheriff mode. “Increased patrols past Pawsitive Connections and around town. We’ll make Garnet Bend feel very small for Mr. Garrison.”

“We’ll get him,” Coop said with deadly certainty. “Men like Garrison always think they’re the smartest guy in the room. That arrogance is a vulnerability we’ll exploit.”

“All we need is one transaction,” Travis said through the speakers, a predator’s satisfaction in his tone. “One credit card swipe. One ATM withdrawal. One gas station purchase. The instant his card talks to a point-of-sale system, we’ll have real-time coordinates.”

“And when we do—” Hunter’s scarred hands flexed with promise and threat “—we’ll be ready.”

Lachlan’s phone buzzed. He answered immediately, listening with the intense focus of someone receiving critical intel.

“Understood. Send everything to my office, copy to Travis Hale at this number.” He hung up, turning to face us with renewed energy.

“Portland PD just confirmed vehicle details. Dark blue Honda Civic, 2015 model. License plate beginning with WRX-7. They’re adding it to the national database now—every automatic plate reader in the country will flag it. ”

“That’s the car.” The words emerged as barely a whisper. “Dark sedan. I never had more details than that.”

“What about associates?” Beckett asked. “Prison connections who might shelter Reggie?”

“Portland PD is running that down now,” Lachlan said. “But from what they’re telling me, Garrison was a loner even inside. His obsession with revenge apparently made him unreliable for prison politics.”

The weight that had been slowly crushing me for over a year began to lift incrementally. We knew his name. We knew his face. We knew his vehicle, his credit cards, his patterns. The ghost that had haunted me for so long finally had a form, and that form had weaknesses.

“It’s not a matter of if we catch him,” Lachlan said, meeting my eyes directly, his voice carrying the weight of absolute conviction. “It’s a matter of when. Hours, if we’re lucky. Days, at most. Especially if he maintains his current arrogance, and everything in his pattern suggests he will.”

For the first time in fourteen months, I let myself imagine what freedom might feel like.

Walking without mapping escape routes. Sleeping through the night without jolting awake at every sound.

Answering a phone without my heart rate spiking.

Seeing a dark blue car and not immediately planning how to run.

The constant, crushing weight of terror that had become my normal existence—the exhaustion of perpetual vigilance, the isolation of never staying anywhere long enough to matter—all of it might finally end.

This nightmare might really be over.