Page 96 of Chasing Honor

“Carson—”

“Is fine. Your aunts are upstairs with her now. Go.”

Lorenz was waiting for me next to the police cruiser by the time I made my way outside.

We were half-way to the park, my dad and uncles following behind, when Lorenz spoke. “We’ll find her.”

I gritted my teeth to prevent myself from lashing out. He couldn’t know that for sure. We had nothing. A hunch based on a cryptic message from Honor. I still didn’t understand why she would have pointed us to the park, if she had at all. And was the congressman so stupid he’d believe she hid the flash drives at the park like some kind of buried treasure?

Not a goddamn thing made sense.

“The swings where I first saw her are on the north side of the park. Pull into the south entrance.”

I checked the mirror and saw my dad was still following us. Lorenz pulled into a parking spot concealed by a row of thick evergreens.

My dad and my uncles had exited my dad’s SUV and were already on high alert, scanning the area around us.

“Jasper, Clark, and Levi you take the west side of the park. It will be harder to conceal your movements because there aren’t a lot of trees. We’ll take the east side,” I told the group. I watched as each man lifted their T-shirt, exposing the guns sheathed at their hips. They each tucked the material behind their Kydex holsters, giving them easy access to their weapons.

Fuck. This was not the middle east nor was it a war zone. None of my uncles would give zero fucks about shooting Frank dead in a park full of people. Not that there looked to be many people there in the middle of the day if the empty parking lot was anything to go by.

“If deadly force—”

“This is your op, son. You make the calls but don’t think I won’t place a bullet between his eyes if the opportunity presents itself. The motherfucker put his hands on my wife, your woman, and scared my granddaughter. And they. . .” he stabbed his finger in my uncles’ direction. “Feel the exact same way. He fucked with our family, and no one fucks with our women.”

“I know, Dad. I don’t need the reminder, He took my woman out of her home and he had the balls to touch my mother.” I ground my teeth. “But I don’t need you in lockup until we sort out whether it was justifiable homicide, while mom is freaking the fuck out. I have the badge here, not you. Your carry permit won’t do shit to protect you. So, I’m telling you, if it comes to it, I have the fucking honor of putting him down. The four of you are backup only.”

“Chip off the old block,” my Uncle Clark chuckled. “Copy that, Officer Lenox.”

“Just like the good old days. Glad to see the Lenox retribution gene was passed down,” Jasper added.

Not wanting to waste any more time on mindless banter, I flipped the two of them the middle finger and broke from the huddle, heading for the thick tree line on the east side of the park. The extra foliage was necessary for me and Lorenz. We were both in uniform, Frank would spot us from a mile away. Branches snapped under my feet as I made my way through the thick brush at a fast clip. With more than two hundred yards until the woods opened at the play area, I wasn’t worried about Frank hearing us. If they were even here.

The sweltering humidity had my T-shirt under my uniform top and vest soaked and my hands clammy. Or was it my anger bubbling over? I slowed my pace and balled my right hand into a fist, lifting it to stop my dad and Lorenz from progressing.

“Did you hear that?” I whispered.

All three of us stood in silence, straining to hear.

“There it is again,” I told them.

“Copy,” my dad mouthed.

A few moments later the voice was louder and easier to understand.

“You better not be lying to me, bitch.”

It was Frank. Holy fuck, she had brought him to the park. My dad pointed to the right and broke off, silently disappearing behind the shrubbery. Lorenz nodded to the left and he, too, disappeared. I continued as silently as I could, hoping we could surround Frank before he spotted one of us.

“I’m not. It’s under a magnolia,” Honor yelled. Good, she sounded more pissed than scared.

“That’s what you said about the last two fucking trees. This is your last chance. If it's not here we’re going back to the house and I’ll shoot that asshole cop’s mother in his living room. Then we’ll come back here and see if it helped jog your memory.”

The anger I’d felt had transformed into something indescribable. As I slowed my breathing the fear and rage mingled together into clarity. Frank Harris was a dead man walking. I took one more cleansing breath and fortified my decision. There would be no demands for him to surrender. I would not give him the option to drop his weapon. All I needed was the gun to still be in his cold, dead hand when the CSI officers arrived. I didn’t need him to point it in my direction. There would be no fear of imminent danger. He was simply going to die by my hand, and there would be no remorse.

“You’ll never get away with this. Ethan and his dad won’t stop until they hunt you down,” Honor said, her voice getting closer.

“I’m not worried about some baby killer, ex-military low life and his trashy son. It will be their word against mine. And, let’s face it, it’s all about who you know. I have more capital than either of those two.”