“None of your fucking business.”
“Whoa. Hate to break up a good bitch sesh, but Gannon’s guy Gravy just left,” Wylie interrupted, making sure to step between the feuding men.
“Gravy? That’s his name?” Eli’s accent grew heavier with disgust. “Who names a person that? May as well call him bacon or taco.”
“Well…” Wylie started, his grin giving it all away.
“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me,” Eli said. “I don’t even want to know which one is actually a name. I thought bikers were badasses with names like Slash or Reaper.”
Wylie tilted his head and bobbed it back and forth. “Well…”
“Oh, for Christ's sake, move on with it, O’Reilly.” Eli moved past the men as Wylie continued.
“Gannon’s guys are working this thing for us. They’ve been digging, and they don’t have anything on what went down, but they do have a lead. A guy with a van. A black van.”
“Okay?” Dace questioned. “What’s with the guy in the black van?”
“Sort of cliché, really. He came through town, stayed in the hotel out by the freeway, stopped at the bar, stood out. Creepy looking fella. When they got Gannon’s call yesterday, they headed out to the property and passed him on the road. Place was clean, and nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Got back to town and no black van anywhere. He was gone.”
“Wait. That means they had him out here yesterday?” Dace asked.
“As far as they know, he’d been in town the day before that, left yesterday.”
“It’s like they knew we were coming.” Dace looked at Eli. “Interesting.”
Eli tossed up his hands. “At least you’re back to me being the mole and not Ivy. I haven’t called anyone, texted anyone…ask Liam. I’m sure he has me flagged and my jammer already blocked now that he knows how I got so close.”
“Why leave a scene like this for weeks, then a sudden cleanup?” Dace asked.
“Good question. Something came up?” Wylie suggested. “The game changed? He wanted to present a different theory.”
“One that makes you” – Dace looked at Eli – “or Ivy look full of shit and guilty of something.”
“The old man doesn’t know I’m alive.”
Dace blew out a deep breath. “Or does he? Let’s get out of here. Gannon’s guys can keep working it from here. Let’s get back home. I have a feeling having us this far away gives him the upper hand.”
Wylie headed out. “I’ll have the plane waiting, ready in thirty?”
“Sounds good,” Dace said, right behind him.
“Dace.” Eli caught his attention and handed him a picture frame from the shelf. “The only picture they keep, and it sits on Cash’s bedside table. Thought you’d like to keep it…for when we get him back.”
Eli left Dace standing in the room alone, holding a brass-framed picture of him and Ivy during their last Christmas together. An unexpected emotion came over him. It was a hard time for their family. It was the last holiday they had with Liam’s wife, Cass, and the last Christmas he spent with Ivy.
Seeing his son’s face for the first time in a picture, standing in his room and smelling the air he breathed, was overwhelming. He felt so close to his son at that moment and to Ivy, yet the distance was great, and it ultimately left him feeling helpless. That wasn’t a common emotion for him, and he didn’t know how to reconcile it, so he decided to table it, revisit those feelings later, and get back to the mission at hand.
Dace punched the glass and dumped it on the floor so he could pull the picture out. With one last look, he stroked Ivy’s face in the picture, smiled, then tucked it away in his pocket.
Everyone had cleared out of the house when Dace left his son’s room. The team had already cleared all the rooms, and there was no need for him to continue walking through them. But the one across the hall caught his attention. There was a long floral dress hanging from the wardrobe in the corner — Ivy’s room.
He stood in the doorway and scanned the space, taking note of the simplicity. They moved around so often, they had to pack light, and that was evident in the sparsely furnished room, bare of any real décor. The whole house reflected such. He sat at the edge of her bed, held her pillow, and breathed it in, filling his senses with the scent of her. There wasn’t much in the room, but what was there was hers.
He’d been staring at a picture resting on the nightstand without even realizing it. It was their son, who was so clearly an O’Reilly. He was younger than in the first image he found. His cheeks were rounder, arms and little hands were plumper, he couldn’t have been more than three years old.
He looked in the wardrobe, then under the bed, and found a bag. It wasn’t large, just enough to toss her things in and run, he imagined. Those few things probably meant a lot to her since it was everything she had. Thinking it would be nice for her to have a few of those things, he began to pack the bag. He tossed in the few toiletries and makeup on a nearby vanity. A bottle of perfume. Then emptied the only drawer that had clothes in it.
This was all that she had – what fit into the small duffel. She’d sacrificed so much, living the way she had, and it pained him to think of her that way. Doing without. Dace grabbed the dress that hung on the wardrobe, displayed with appreciation, and likely the only nice thing she possessed, and put it in the bag for her. Before leaving, he grabbed her bedside picture and tossed it in her bag.
Dace wasn’t worried about anything from Cash’s room. It seemed to have been cleared out minus the child-like bedding and a few small toys and books. Anything in that room represented a time he didn’t want his son to remember. He’d replace anything the boy missed and give him new memories to hold. They’d get him new clothes, new toys – hell, his family would make sure of that.
It brought a smile to Dace’s face when he thought of his family meeting the son he’d yet to meet himself. That boy was already loved a thousand times over, and they’d fight fiercely to find him and bring him home. As he took the steps out the front door to meet the rest of the crew and head out, he bent down and picked up the one thing he knew his son would miss. Dace tossed his son’s favorite possession in the bag he carried…the toy motorcycle.
CHAPTER 21
It was late when the team arrived at Watermark Tower. They’d decided to wait until morning for their debriefing since there really wasn’t much to discuss. The house gave them little to go on beyond a few possible ties and more confusion and theories than they’d arrived with.
He opted to skip stopping at his own apartment and went straight to Ivy’s. He’d convinced himself it was out of pure exhaustion and not that he wanted to see her and surprise her with her things. That would mean she was innocent, and he cared about her happiness. He couldn’t – not yet. There were still too many unanswered questions and clues that led right back to her, over and over.
The benefit of the doubt was long gone since there was more evidence aiming her direction than there wasn’t. As much as it pained him, he had to agree with his brothers and proceed with caution. He was committed to clearing her name if she was indeed innocent, but if she wasn’t, what could he do but serve justice and deliver her to the authorities?