“That would be it.” A muscle flexed in his jaw.
“Tell me you stored the ammo separately.” Tell me you at least remembered that much from serving your three years.
Xander blanched. Awesome.
“Let’s find him before he kills someone.” I turned on my heel and headed back to the Jeep. Oddly enough, I was more comfortable with guns than I was with mushy reunions.
I dropped my coat, climbed up the Jeep, and popped the lock on the cargo carrier I’d anchored to the roof for the cross-country trip. Selling off just about everything I owned had seemed the logical choice at the time, but I’d held on to a few things for reasons I didn’t have time to examine.
“What are we going to do?” Xander asked, peering up at me.
“What do you mean?” I found what I was looking for and closed the carrier. Then I jumped to the ground, landing in front of Xander, whose eyes were bigger than my headlights.
Two more trucks and the APD pulled up the drive and parked.
“I mean…” Xander eyed the newcomers as they talked to Gideon and then lowered his voice as he turned back to me. “What are we going to do? He has the shotgun and doesn’t know who I am about seventy-five percent of the time.”
A comforting weight settled on my chest as I dressed for the occasion before zipping my jacket and tying my boots. “I figured we’d go find Dad.”
I rustled through my glove box, quickly grabbing my headlamp and a flashlight, then stuffed them in my pockets, pausing only long enough to tuck in the little white onyx bishop next to my driver’s manual so the chess piece didn’t get lost. We probably had another hour of good light, but if I was wrong, it was going to take more than that to cover the hundred acres Dad owned, and that was if he’d stayed on the property.
“Don’t you think we should let Gideon and the PD handle this now?” Xander asked quietly.
I looked back to where Gideon stood with the other four officers who made up the Alba Police Department. They all had sidearms strapped on. I was on the receiving end of more than a couple of glares. Not that I could blame them. At least three of those guys had put cuffs on me at one time or another.
“You mean, am I going to let the men with the guns find our dad, who has his own gun?” I didn’t wait for Xander’s response, turning toward the northern section of the property.
“Wait!” Xander gripped my elbow, and I tensed, reminding myself at least a dozen times not to beat the crap out of him for touching me without warning.
“Let go of me.”
My tone must have gotten through to him, because he dropped his hand.
“There are rules, Cam. Regulations. They know how to handle this kind of thing. The last thing we need is you flying off the handle.”
Ah, there it was, the butter knife–soft condescension Xander used when he thought the twenty-five months he had on me age-wise gave him the right to issue orders. He’d never make a quick, clean cut to get his way. He’d simply saw with that lightly serrated edge until you were too raw from the friction to object.
I preferred the more direct butcher’s-knife approach.
“You and your rules. You’re telling me that if he points that shotgun at them, they won’t pull the trigger?”
Xander scoffed. “Come on, it’s the guys.”
“You willing to bet Dad’s life on that twenty-five-year-old bully who doesn’t bother to answer his radio and has flicked open the holster on his weapon at least four times since they started talking? I’m not. I know where he is, and I’m getting there before they do.”
Xander’s head snapped toward the little meeting Gideon was holding, and I started off after a faint set of tracks I knew would disappear as soon as we hit the mountain grass. They were more than enough to tell where he was headed. I muttered a curse at the altitude. It would take me only a few days to adjust, but I didn’t exactly have a few days.
“Where are you going?” Gideon called out.
“To find our dad!” Xander responded, radiating confidence.
I rolled my eyes at his public facade but kept going.
He caught up quickly, falling into step next to me as we stuck to the areas where the snow had already melted. Our strides were equal. They always had been. We were equal in height, but I had a good forty pounds of muscle on him.
“I hope you know what you’re doing,” he said as the tracks disappeared.
“Yep.” My gaze raked the terrain, looking for any sign that Dad had come this way.
“Seriously, you think you know where he is?”
“How long has he had that bottle of fabric softener?” I asked as the granite crunched beneath my feet. At least it wasn’t snowing.
“Years.” Xander shrugged.
“Right. At least a decade. Paula Bradley brought it over when he was sick that year, remember? Tried to help out with laundry.”
“How the hell do you remember that?”
“I’m cursed with an excellent memory.” I turned toward the part of the property where Sullivan was buried. “Trust me, there’s shit I would love to forget. Do you remember why he wouldn’t use it?” We crested one slope and started back down toward the tree line, keeping the peak on our right as we trekked through a snow-covered section.
“I barely remember Mrs. Bradley bringing it over.”
“He wouldn’t let her use it, but he refused to throw it away,” I tried to remind him.
Xander threw me a clueless look.
“It’s lavender scented,” I said, answering my own question.
Xander sucked in a breath. “Mom.”
“Mom,” I confirmed as we reached the tree line and started to hike through the pines. In the shade, the temperature dropped to an uncomfortable level.
“But she’s buried at the other end of the property with—”
“That’s not where he goes when he misses her. Not that he’d ever admit that he misses her.” Admitting that would be tantamount to broadcasting a weakness, and Arthur Daniels was anything but weak.
“The ravine.”
“Yep.”
We pushed through the finger of forest that covered this strip of the property and came out into a clearing I knew all too well.
I cursed under my breath as it came into view.
“Oh no,” Xander whispered.
Oh no didn’t quite cover this. My heart paused mid-beat, then slammed, pumping adrenaline through my system.
Dad stood about thirty yards to our left, in the middle of the clearing, shotgun raised at the one person I’d hoped to never see again.