Page 32 of Storm and Tempest

“I don’t need to justify to you why I’m an agent, and I always will be.” But saying that sounded hollow. Part of him had kind of assumed he would quit and go to work with Kenna if she wanted him to be by her side 24/7. Some people lived and worked together, and others worked separate jobs in different fields.

He didn’t want to quit the Bureau if she wasn’t even here.

“Maybe not.” Ramon looked at him over the roof of the car. “But no one there is going to help you. You’re on your own. While out here in the PI world, you’ve got a whole team, and all they’re trying to do right now is find her. No other cases. No other priorities. Just finding Kenna.”

“You think I should jump on board with you guys when I’m just starting to get real leads.”

“I thinkDominatusbelieves they can control you while you’re an agent. Once you walk out that door for good, they have no idea what you’ll be doing. So stick it to them and come work with us.”

It was probably the closest thing to an offer of friendship that he was going to get from Ramon. The man’s loyalty would always be to Kenna first and then Maizie. Considering Jax felt the same about the two women, this might actually work.

But did he really want to accept the offer when he could be throwing away the only chance he might have to figure out what happened to her?

“You have gravel in your hair.” Jax pulled the driver’s door open.

Ramon didn’t respond to that. He was looking at his phone. “Bruce found Elliot Adams.”

Chapter Ten

The sun had barely peeked over the horizon when Jax pulled the car into the entrance of the Altern Brothers junkyard in Wickenburg, a small town northwest of Phoenix.

Ramon shoved his door open. “This town has a municipal airport. Same one that they took off from?”

“I doubt it’s a coincidence.” Jax wasn’t going to correct Ramon that they didn’t know the men who kidnapped Kenna ever took off in a plane from the airport. After all, that might have been misdirection. But according to Amara, they had been there.

Ramon slammed his car door. “We’re going there when we’re done here, right?”

A police unit pulled in behind them, running lights and sirens for a second as the black-and-white passed Jax and Ramon and went through the gate into the junkyard. The exterior walls were corrugated metal, and the sign out front needed painting. Bruce’s car was parked next to theirs.

Jax went through the open gate, Ramon right beside him.

Two skinny Rottweilers prowled around just inside the entrance.

Jax stopped. Ramon took a couple of steps, and one of the dogs growled at him. Jax chuckled. “I don’t think he likes you.”

“He can smell an alpha.”

Jax laughed outright. “Sure, that’s what it is.”

A man in overalls ambled over to them, more hair on his chin than on the top of his head. He had a rag tucked into one pocket and his sleeves rolled back to reveal tattoos up both arms. “Help you guys?”

“They’re with me, Charlie.” Bruce came over wearing a white button-down shirt.

Charlie whistled, and the dogs laid down on the dusty earth. Ears up but following orders.

Bruce waved them to him. “This way.”

“Want to tell us what you found?” Jax strode over to him.

“And why the cops are here.” Ramon didn’t look so happy about that.

“Charlie’s brother insisted, and I didn’t have a good reason to say no.” Bruce shrugged. “They hid it pretty well.”

“Charlie and his brother?” Jax glanced at the rows of junk cars piled on each other on either side, four high in some cases. Compacted vehicles and farm equipment, odd scraps of metal. He even spotted a few washing machines dotted about—and the body of an old plane.

“Nah, Charlie and his brother are good people. Charlie was in ’Nam. His brother Petey was a cop for years. That’s why he called his buddies at the state police about the blood.”

They rounded the corner at the end of the row and spotted who he assumed was Petey, chatting with an older uniformed cop with a potbelly, while a younger officer climbed up a stack of cars. He stood on the frame of an open window belonging to a blue Taurus and looked in the window of a small red SUV.