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A lightning strike.
A flood.
Locusts.
Anything.
“I’m gettin’ on. Maybe that’ll help.”
Rook ignored the sound of fabric sliding over skin. He ignored the rock and roll of the lumpy mattress when a knee dug into it as she began to mount up.
But there was one thing he couldn’t ignore...
The smell wafting up from under her dress might be the miracle he needed.
Maybe there was a God.
Who just ensured his dick might never get hard again.
Chapter Nine
Jet slipped around the corner of the cabin after the three women carried Rook inside.
The stupid ass was tied up and being carried like a rolled carpet.
That was not what she had expected to find when she had followed the path that led from where she found his Honda. Of course left in a new location than the last time she caught Rook coming down the mountain.
He thought he was being sneaky, parking it elsewhere. But her headlights had caught on the car’s rear reflectors through the dead brush he’d covered it with, giving it away.
Tonight she had worked the rare three-to-eleven shift instead of her normal midnight, and her gut had told her to take a slow ride down Copperhead Road on her way home. Not as a police officer on official business, but as a “concerned citizen.”
Her instinct was dead on.
Especially since she hadn’t caught him out there in the last few days. Because she still did a drive-by every night she worked. She was not letting what could be happening up at the Shirley compound go. Not yet.
Max might be pissed if he found out, but if she discovered something worth investigating, he’d have to see it differently.
Or, at least, she hoped so.
She couldn’t imagine he’d turn a blind eye to any egregious offenses the Guardians of Freedom were up to, especially something like trafficking women, which was her suspicion when she had spotted that van the other week.
If she had proof, then Max or no Max, she was getting the feds involved. She could not sit idly by and allow women to be bought and sold under the PD’s nose.
That was everything she told herself as she followed the worn, dark path up the mountain.
When she came across the remainder of what suspiciously looked like a trap—cut paracord hanging from a tree—her heart began to beat even harder than it had been already.
Had Rook come this way?
She heard faint rustling and footsteps ahead, so she quickened her pace, doing her best not to trip over any hidden roots or rocks, her hand automatically reaching for the gun on her hip.
Nothing.
Of course her gun wasn’t there. She was in civvies. She paused only long enough to pull her personal weapon, a compact .38, from her ankle holster, then hurried up the trail. She had to rely on the bright moon and her night vision to find her way. A flashlight would help, but, if she had one, it would also make her an easy target.
The Shirley Clan hated cops. It would be bad enough if they found her trespassing, but if they discovered she was law enforcement?
They wouldn’t even think twice to make sure she took her last breath.
Maybe Rook hadn’t even come this direction. Maybe he was somewhere else and she was only following some Shirleys moving through the woods in the dead of night.
Since she’d already come this far, she might as well take a peek around. Take a good look at where this particular path led.
Maybe it would be a goldmine for her. The info she needed.
Or maybe it would be nothing and only a waste of time. Time she had plenty of since her life only consisted of work and occasionally her family.
Other than that, she had no freaking life.
Whoever was moving ahead of her, was shuffling their feet and moving slowly.
The grunts and groans of women finally hit her ears.
What the hell was that? What were they doing?
She didn’t want to come upon them accidentally, so she took her time and picked her footsteps carefully because if she fell, they would hear it. Then they’d most likely come and investigate the noise.
She slowed her breathing and kept an eye out. Occasionally she’d catch some movement in the shadows way ahead. A flash of something. Light-colored fabric. Maybe a dress.
More shuffling and the murmur of women bitching. More than one, for sure.
She hesitated, ducking behind a tree to let them get farther ahead. Once they hit a clearing, Jet could stick to cover and see why they were tromping through the woods this late at night.
Thirty seconds later, she began to move again. Until she saw it. A very small clearing, if it could even be called that. Some of the high, dead weeds around a tiny cabin were trampled enough to make her think the cabin wasn’t abandoned.
But she didn’t give a shit about the weeds or the lack of property maintenance.
