Sophie Oak - Siren Unleashed

“Well, he also seems to think he knows where your women are. Says someone named Marie Warner told him she talked to a young girl who was in a cage on someone named Logan’s phone.”

Logan gasped, his breath heaving. “My mom. She tracks my phone. Holy shit. I always wondered if she did that. Thank god. Where? How? Georgia. Damn it. That girl treated me like a dumb dog. She pretended to toss my phone and then kept it. Fuck. Tell me she’s alive.”

“According to this Nate fellow, there were two women talking and your momma was damn mad that you were allowed in a strip club. It seems she takes exception to them. And Nate said if I didn’t want a woman with a shotgun on the doorsteps of Wispers in about twelve hours, I should handle it myself.” The sheriff frowned. “Which is what I should do, but hell. I’m not equipped for this. Barnes? Can you come out with me? The feds won’t be here for another hour or so. Those women might be dead by then. I might be lazy, but what I’ve seen here today just ain’t right.”

Barnes stopped, Fleetwood at his side. Abby was back at the house watching the kids and Kitten, who couldn’t stop crying and vowed to be used as bait for Tate if she had to. “Where the hell is he keeping them? That apartment over the club is tiny. And I checked the place out myself when the girls first went missing.”

Sam shrugged, looking frustrated. “I managed to sneak into the back at one point. The dressing rooms are tiny. I mean those girls are shoved in together and the office is basically a closet. Besides the office, there’s a janitorial closet and a men’s bathroom with exactly one stall. I just don’t see where they would keep her unless they shut down for the day or the strippers are all in on it. I guess they could be in that apartment.”

The sheriff shook his head. “No. I sent the deputy I’m not going to fire out there an hour ago. It’s open, and Cooder didn’t have a problem letting him look around. There was nothing out of the ordinary.”

Chase let the sheriff’s words drift off as his mind hit on a few things. He pictured the club. The big sign in front was completely out of place. Huge bright neon letters that would light up the night sat atop the crap-ass prefab building. The owners hadn’t spent a dime on making the place nice, but that sign had to have cost a bundle. The letters were at least seven feet tall. Easy enough for a man to hide behind.

But no one would leave them on the roof. And the deputy would have been behind the letters so he would have seen them. It didn’t make sense.

And neither, he realized, did the building.

He estimated. Four thousand square feet. Nothing less. Maybe a tiny bit more. The main portion of the club was roughly half. Two thousand. If the other rooms were tiny, where did all that space go?

“What’s behind the bar?” Chase asked. He could see it plainly now. He’d been too busy trying to find out names and dates that he hadn’t paid attention to the place itself.

Sam frowned. “Uhm, the bar is against the back wall.”

A little thrill lit Chase. It was that instinct that told him something was wrong, but he was on the right track. “No. That bar is at least ten feet inside the club. And there’s no back room there. That’s in the kitchen which is on the other side of the club.” He’d noted the double doors Twilene had come in and out of.

Such a little thing. The walls were painted a navy blue, offsetting the obvious problems in the building—like the room which had no doors. The room no one used and everyone ignored. “I know where they are. And I have a plan to get them out alive. Sheriff, we need to use your radio. We’re going to use a little subterfuge, a little brain power, and a whole lotta bullets.”

“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” the sheriff asked.

Chase slammed out of the sheriff’s car and looked around the parking lot. Everything looked fine. Just a regular day with regular men who liked to watch the day shift at a strip club. Nothing out of the ordinary about that.

Looks could be deceiving.

Chase looked like he was alone with the sheriff and Logan Green. Yeah, that was a little deception.

In the distance, he saw the glint of a rifle scope. Benjamin. It was a signal that he was there, but Chase didn’t really need it. Ben would always be there.

He’d strategically placed Ben, Barnes, and Fleetwood around the club at a distance. Each man had a rifle and knew how to use it. Any way Tate Evans tried to slip away, someone would be waiting for him. He was in that club. There was no doubt about it. He wouldn’t let his prize go. He’d waited too long.

“Why did you have me talk to my deputy over the radio like that?” The sheriff followed him, his booted feet kicking up dirt. He walked slow. He thought slow.

Logan didn’t however. Not when it came to police work. “They’re monitoring the police radio. Anything we said would have gotten back to them.”

So they would know that the sheriff thought Chase was an idiot and his brother and the Barnes-Fleetwood men were headed to the hospital to wait on the feds to question the Nelson girl.

As far as they would know, it was just the three of them and they didn’t have a warrant. Just two crazy men and a worn-out sheriff who thought he’d been put on wild-goose chase.

It would be the perfect time for Tate to move the women because he would think he knew where everyone was. Even as he thought the words, the deputy—the one who was trying to rejustify his job—was playing the game nicely.

“Sheriff, this is Mike. Are you sure you can’t get down here? Barnes is giving the staff hell, and I just got word that the feds will be at least another hour.”

Perfect. Give them a timetable. Once the feds got here, it would be far harder to move the women. Chase wanted to give them a reason to move and move now.

He gave the sheriff an encouraging nod. “I’ll be there as soon as I can. I have to deal with this. These two won’t believe the women aren’t here until they see for themselves. You handle it until I get there. Ron is on his way to the station to meet the feds and take them out to the hospital. Are those girls talking yet?”

The sheriff was doing a damn fine job. It was the only thing he’d done right for days.

“Not yet.”

“All right, let me know when that changes.” The sheriff let the radio squawk off and shoved it into his back pocket. “I hope you’re right about this. Otherwise, we could all be dead.”

Chase had to take that chance. He pushed through the double doors and almost ran into the bouncer, a rat-faced man who looked like he used too much of the product they pushed, and Chase wasn’t thinking about the women. The man grimaced, his teeth plainly rotting.

Meth head. He wasn’t the usual bouncer. Over the course of coming to the club, the bouncers he’d seen had been burly, big guys. Where the hell were they today?

“I want to know where Natalie Buchanan is.” Chase didn’t have to fake his role. He was the pissed-off future husband. He pushed past the meth head and into the club.

Bill “Cooder” Jones was in fine form. He walked out from behind the bar, his brows raised. “What the hell is going on? Sheriff? Is there a problem?”

Chase stared at the wall. He was right. He had to be. There was zero reason for the wall in front of him to be there.

“You’re damn right we have a problem. I want to know where my woman is. I know she’s here.” Logan got in the man’s face, giving Chase precious moments to think.

Natalie was behind that wall. He walked up to it, placed a hand right there. She couldn’t see him. Couldn’t hear him, but he knew she was there.