Page 81 of Recovering Ivy

“An hour between traffic cams is too long for a bathroom break and a gas stop,” Leo surmised.

“What do the motels in the area look like?”

“Why? Sarah’s on the move. Even if they stopped so she could catch a fix, they’re moving,” Linc argued.

“Something’s not right. My gut is screaming at me. There are no restaurants in the area, no fast food, one gas station. If she gassed up, took a piss, and caught a fix, she’d get on at the same spot she exited, and we’d have her on the next traffic cam ten miles down the highway. But instead she got off, traveled somewhere, passed the ten-mile cam, and got on before the cam twenty miles down. What is there to do in that area for an hour or more?”

“Is it possible she doesn’t have Ivy? There’s been no visual confirmation,” Declan started. “What if…”

“She has her,” I cut him off.

“But…”

“I feel it. You didn’t see the hate in that bitch’s eyes. She despises Ivy and threatened her if we didn’t back off Forester. This is payback.”

“For what? Forester being locked up?” he continued.

“For Ivy being Ivy. For her escaping her shit childhood. Sarah Long is a bitter, jealous cunt that would love nothing more than to bring Ivy low. She’s told Ivy her whole life she was a worthless piece of shit. Sarah Long hates that Ivy proved her wrong.”

I stopped and thought about everything Sarah had said in the parking lot of the grocery store.

“Sarah sold Joey to Forester.” I began to pace. “She told Ivy she wished she would’ve given him both of the girls.” Four angry men grunted and Tex’s muttered bitch hadn’t gone unheard. “You think she could set up another pimp in such short notice and unload Ivy?” I asked the room.

No one spoke, but the way their eyes shifted away from me and their bodies locked, I didn’t need them to. I had my answer.

“Motherfucker!” I roared, and in a moment of weakness I lost control. I did something I hadn’t done since I was an unruly, undisciplined young man and put my fist through the wall.

“I have two possible motels in the area. Both shitbag pay by the hour. Neither have anything resembling a security system I can get into. Both have wifi and a sorry ass excuse of a firewall. I’m in both of their occupant databases. Nothing under Sarah Long but that doesn’t mean shit because the first motel only has five rooms booked according to their records, but seven rooms occupied. The second motel is thirty dollars a day more expensive and has twenty reservations, but thirty-five rooms occupied.” Garrett ignored my outburst and continued to do what I should’ve been doing, gathering intel. “Tex, can you think of anything else?”

“Negative,” he answered. “But I do have a helo coming your way. ETA ten minutes. I have two vehicles waiting for you at the LZ.”

“I owe you big time, brother,” I told Tex.

“No, you don’t. This is what we do.”

Tex disconnected and, not for the first time, I thought about how grateful I was to have Tex on standby. His skills were scary as fuck. Every time Garrett got to work with the legendary man, he beamed for a week and wouldn’t shut up about all the new stuff he learned. Not that Garrett was beaming at the moment. He was deep in concentration and, like always, his fingers were flying over his keyboard.

Ten minutes later, the team was fully kitted out and ready to go.

* * *

When Tex said he had a helicopter inbound, I wasn’t expecting an Eurocopter C7. It was an experimental high-speed composite helicopter with a top speed in the neighborhood of 265mph, making the 240-mile trip down to North Carolina in a little under an hour.

Once the team was loaded and our headsets secure, the pilot came over the line.

“Viper? All Clear?”

“Clear.”

The whine of the engine revved and the beast of a machine lifted off the roof of my building.

Hang on, baby, I’m coming for you.

I spent the next forty-five minutes in silence going over all the intel we’d gathered. The closer we got to North Carolina, the harder it was to breathe.

I looked to my right and Linc pinned me with his eyes. Fuck, what was I getting my men into?

“What if I’m wrong?”