“A scent detection dog that we picked up today. She’s doubling as a guard dog for Sophia. But she may have enough training to help us if we could get something of James’s from Ryder.”
“How are you going to get in touch with Ryder without Hugh knowing and alerting everyone?” Chief points out the flaw in my plan.
“What about Ripp?”
“What about me?” The door opens, and the man himself walks in, uninvited.
I spin in my chair to face him. He’s supposed to be with Sophia. If he’s here, then she’s alone at my house.
“Before you yell at me, your brother and Aubrey are with her. I had to come talk to you because I got a phone call. The one I’ve been waiting for.”
Standing, I push the chair to Ripp. “From which one? Hugh or Ryder?”
“Hugh. He’s unhappy that you aren’t dead and that I’ve been here for as long as I have. Ryder also called me, but only to warn me that Hugh is starting to lose trust in me. Questioning where my loyalty lies. As you know, in my world, that’s almost a death sentence. So I only have two options.”
He pauses a little too long, so Kane urges him to continue. “I either kill you and go back to Montana, which is still a risk that Hugh won’t trust me, or I take Ryder up on his offer of a safehouse.”
I nearly choke at his options. “Well, I sure as shit don’t like option one.”
“Neither do I. Sophia is like a sister to me. You treat her right, the way she deserves. I can’t kill you without hurting her.”
I swallow hard, realizing he cares less about killing me than keeping Sophia happy. I don’t think I’ve ever been as grateful I fell in love with her as I am right now.
“So. I think I need to call Damon and take the safehouse. Then you need to keep your head on a swivel. Because if James is here, Hugh knows about it. And that means he’s not far away.”
“We already got him on camera in Massachusetts, but he must have gone back to Montana, because we haven’t caught him anywhere else nearby yet. Does Hugh have a private jet?” Kane asks, pulling out a notebook.
“Of course he does. But you’ll never find it on any FBO flight logs. He flies totally dark and has men with pilot’s licenses. They take off from the ranch.”
I watch as Kane types faster than I ever could on his laptop, and suddenly, a map of Sophia’s father’s ranch appears on the screen with an orange box highlighting an area. “Is this the runway?”
“Sure is.” Ripp leans forward, scrutinizing the screen, pointing to a small building. “Right here is the hangar, but it’s disguised as a silo. It’s just a small plane, nothing crazy. Pretty low key.”
“Okay, so you go to the safehouse, and we’ll get to work. Can you get Ryder or Damon to send out a piece of anything that belongs to James? Athena is a scent detection dog. I’m thinking we could do some work with her using James’ scent.”
He pulls out three iPhones from his pocket. Sending a text from each one. After just a few seconds, one finally rings.
“Yup… Safehouse… Yeah, he’s here… No, she’s home. He got her a guard dog. Which leads me… Yes. A guard dog. Mallinois. Tried to take my fucking dick off after I went out for a smoke and came back… Asshole. That actually leads me to a favor… Yes, it’s for Soph… This dog is a scent detection dog. Can you get something of James’s over here to Wyatt?... Okay. I’ll let him know.”
He turns to face Chief. “Ryder doesn’t trust anything to do with Wyatt. We have a PO Box the town over, so he’ll send it there. Once it makes it there, I’ll send a message to Kane. Since no one else knows he’s involved, he won’t be on Hugh’s radar.”
“Okay boys, sounds like a solid plan. Wyatt, you think the dog is ready for search already?” Chief asks.
“I’ll call Carol on my way home. I didn’t get a chance to talk to her too much because we left right away to come here. But I’ll get that figured out. Maybe she’d be willing to come down to show me some of the training for Athena to work on scent detection. But she passed everything except bite work.”
“Coulda fooled me,” Ripp mutters under his breath as he fidgets with a flap on the denim of his jeans.
I’ll have to give her a cookie later. I’m still not sold on Ripp.
“You three get to work on that. Kane, could you be available to make this a priority?”
“I’ll tell Granger that I’m unavailable.” He turns to me. “Is there room at the inn? I could set up and not have to make the trip back and forth.”
“Would it make more sense if you took Ripp’s spot in the cabin?” Ripp and Kane look between each other.
“Probably. I’ll be leaving in the next couple hours. Ryder just texted me a location and time.” Ripp looks at his phone.
“That’ll be easy. I’ll run back and get all my stuff and be here in time for dinner. Will Violet do room service out here still?” Kane laughs.
