Page 38 of Distress Signal

Damn, later than I’d intended.

I’d thrown my leg over Raider and settled into the saddle when my phone vibrated against my ass. Shifting, I withdrew it from my pocket and found Lane’s name on the readout.

“Yo.”

“You home?” he asked.

“Headed that way,” I said, collecting Raider’s reins in one hand and digging my heels into his sides, turning us around to head back to my house.

We had a barn with plenty of stalls for boarding him, but when I’d built my own home years ago, I also constructed a smaller barn with stalls for four more horses. I liked having Raider nearby, making it easier to get up and go should the need arise.

Sure, I had a truck, but in my opinion, there was no better way to navigate my family’s land than on horseback.

At the edge of my property was my guest house, about a hundred yards from mine. It rarely got much use, mostly from Owen when he and his wife, Delia, came to visit—though they hadn’t been to town since their son, Jace, was born last November.

Lately, Aria had been staying there more and more often, though. Some nights, I’d come home after a long day and find the lights on inside. I’d invite her over for dinner as a way of keeping an eye on her. While I knew she loved our mother and all six of us boys, I couldn’t imagine how difficult it was for her to be not only the baby of the family, but also the only girl. Instead of growing up with a dad, she’d gotten six alpha-male, overprotective father figures in the form of her big brothers. But she wasn’t a little girl anymore, and I got the sense that Aria had been looking for a way out for a long time.

If staying in my guest house gave her a little taste of the freedom she so desperately craved, I was happy to be the one to provide that to her.

I gave Raider his head as we trotted toward home.

“I need a favor,” Lane said, reminding me I was on the phone with him.

Warily, I asked, “What kind of favor?”

“You, West, Trey, the Swallow.”

“Shit, Sheriff. You askin’ me to get drunk?” I teased. I’d been in this position a few times before, and I knew it seriously irked my brother to have to ask for help. There was nothing I loved more than knocking him further off balance.

Lane huffed in annoyance, knowing he’d have to give me more information than that. “I need you to ask around about Lainey Lindsey.”

“You got a lead?” I asked, breathless with…hope? I couldn’t entirely name it. All I knew was when Raider crested the hill, the downside leading to a little hollow where my house, barn, and small paddock were located, I felt weightless.

Maybe Lainey’s story wouldn’t end here in Dusk Valley after all.

“Kind of?” he said, though it sounded more like a question. “Before she left, Reagan let me know Lainey had a rental car,and she handed over all of Lainey’s personal effects she found in her hotel room, and?—”

“Did you do a sweep?”

I could practically see Lane’s eyes roll through the phone. “Did I do my job? Yes, Finn, we did a fucking sweep. Sent all the results up to the crime lab in Boise, and we’re still waiting on results. Not likely anything will pop since it’s not like those housekeepers exactly sterilize those rooms, but we have to exhaust every option.”

“So what’s this ‘kind of’ lead, then?”

“We haven’t managed to locate Lainey’s phone, and it’s looking like her ID and credit cards being on that dead girl were a fluke. Likely a theft kind of situation. But her laptop was in her motel room, and I also sent that up to Boise?—”

“Let me guess, Addie?”

Addison “Addie” Caldwell was an FBI agent who worked out of the Boise field office. Over the years, she and Lane had developed a close working relationship—though our entire family often wondered if it went beyond that.

But then there was that inexplicable thing between him and Sutton Rausch that always made us question if there was more tothatrelationship than met the eyes.

Whatever.

Not my monkey, not my circus.

“Yes,” he said grudgingly.

“And?” I prompted.