Page 82 of Shifter for Brains

Hodge’s escape would never truly be an escape with Merritt still out there. He’d follow Hodge to the ends of the earth. All Hodge could do was draw him away from his home base, isolate him, and then confront the man on his own terms. With the rest of the department busy, if Merritt and his team ran into trouble, they’d be on their own…

He was leading Merritt right into a trap.

"Frost." We had to do something. What could we do? “Frost, let’s—"

"There’s nothing you can do for him, Chase. You already have a problem to solve. Solve it."

My perspective here? Compromised as hell. Lucas was in trouble. Merritt was in trouble. Given total discretion I’d probably send in a whole army after Lucas. That sounded pretty damn good.

"I can’t, okay? I can’t take the lead here, not with Lucas involved. I can’t think clearly,” I volunteered because he needed somebody with sound judgement. “Lucas is involved."

"Then he’s counting on you,” Frost said. “Don’t go alone and don’t let him down."

"…Yes, sir."

The line went dead.

Well… shit.

"Chase help me out here. Any of this ring any bells for you?" Masterson asked.

"Uh, pull up locations—”

"I am, but we still have to be able to do something with all this. Where should I focus?”

Good question.

Where the Brokers kept the people and artifacts they stole was their most closely guarded secret. They never conducted any business at that location, which meant they occasionally needed other properties for temporary storage, auctions, and other business.

This left a loose end and we concluded they were likely paying off more than one realtor, so Temple and I were currently busy cataloging realtors and properties that matched their needs. We were only about halfway done.

"Chase? What—"

"Give me a second to think."

“But—"

“I’ll let you know in a second. Let me…” figure this out. Think! I had to.

There wouldn’t be much time. They’d need to take Lucas and put him somewhere quickly.

God, Lucas Milton had the most worried eyes I’d ever seen. Full of turmoil and fear. The true extent of everything weighing on him never slipped past his lips but the eyes weren’t able to hide, they told the truth. When we met I smelled distress and saw a guy in turmoil, so I asked if he was okay. Then I saw those eyes. Some part of me has been on a quest to soothe them ever since.

I’d pushed him away and he was in danger anyway. I was all he had and I was gonna fail him. He was alone out there. I was alone here no idea, no hope, no back up, no clue…

I had to find Lucas. I needed a break, any clue, a better brain to solve this.

This was stupid. And cruel. The world was stupid and cruel but not this stupid and cruel. To show me everything I never knew I wanted, to give me a taste and then rip it away.

Hold on a second…

Rowan kept flipping through images, finding different addresses. Stuff that, he was right, meant next to nothing on its own. It was all possibilities, all stuff we had to arrange into viable leads but I had no other idea than to hope for a miracle, to hope I saw something that meant something and…

That might just be a miracle.

"Go back to that last location.”

“The place just sold, so nothing is there.”