as upset as she was, quieted her heart. Cari understood she was putting everyone at risk. Everyone.
Chase placed the basket of warm bread next to her plate and sat down. “You’re looking stressed. What are you thinking about?”
“That if Dirk hangs around here or decides to live in this valley? That I have to leave, Chase.” She saw him tense for a moment, his eyes narrowing upon her. “You know that and so do I. As long as Dirk is loose, even if he’s not aware I’m here yet, he will, sooner or later. And once he finds out, he’ll stop at nothing to kill anyone who gets between me and him.” She spread some sauce across the very small amount of spaghetti she placed on her plate. Glancing up, she saw his brow wrinkle. “Neither of us can afford to pretend we don’t know the truth here,” she said in a low tone. Cari didn’t feel like eating, but she forced herself.
“There’s a long way before that might happen,” he said, his voice low with feeling.
“And will any of us know that date or time?”
He placed the pasta on his plate and then the sauce over the top of it. “I believe we will. Getting FBI help means a lot more tools and vital intel at our disposal to find Dirk.”
“Find him before he finds me?”
“That’s about it. Come on, I want you to eat something, Cari . . .”
* * *
Chase grabbed the phone in his home office the moment it rang the next morning. It was ten a.m. and he was antsy inwardly, wanting to hear from Dan. Cari was still sleeping, and that was fine by him. It wasn’t unusual for a person who had extreme trauma to sleep deeply many nights in a row. It was the body’s way of healing from the shock it’d endured.
“Chase here.”
“Dan,” the sheriff said. “Can you and Cari come in this afternoon at one p.m.? Agent North, from the FBI, and I, have worked out a plan and you two need to be a part of it.”
“Yes, we can. Anything you can tell me right now, though? Cari is on edge and so am I.”
“Nothing happy,” Dan said. “The FBI has been following Hauptman’s white supremacist group for some time now. For the last month, Hauptman decided to make his camp up in the mountains, off that logging road that I tailed them to yesterday. We’re going to get a drone in here, high altitude, with the help of the FBI and military, to find out more.”
“What’s Bannock doing there? Is he a white supremacist?”
“Not officially,” Dan said, “but he’s been rubbing elbows with different gangs and groups in Southern California who are part of his drug supply network that he’s continuing to reinvigorate since he broke out of prison. That’s how he got to Hauptman. But we don’t have the reason why, unless Bannock wants to extend his empire from California and start moving eastward. He may be enlisting Hauptman to become a part of it. We just don’t know yet. We have a lot more intel to share with you this afternoon. Tell Cari that we do not feel Bannock ID’d her. She’s safe.”
“For now.”
“Yeah, that too. See you this afternoon, Chase.”
Chase hung up the phone. He was torn between waking Cari to give her the information, or letting her sleep.
“Who was on the phone?”
Cari stood in the doorway, dressed in her pale pink fluffy robe that went to her ankles. She was barefoot and her hands rested on either side of the door frame as she looked at him.
Chase gestured for her to come in and he told her everything. She sat down, hands in her lap, frowning.
“Why can’t law enforcement just go in, locate Dirk, and arrest him?’
“It’s not that easy, Cari. White supremacist groups are heavy into military weapons. They’re ready to start a war with the law or anyone else who crosses their path. We could lose a lot of people in a firefight, so it’s not the smartest way to nab him if he’s still up there with Hauptman.”
She rubbed her face. “So? We see Dan this afternoon?”
“Yes.”
Standing, she said, “I need to get focused on my beekeeping. I’ll be out at the various hive locations with Theresa this morning.”
“Good idea. I’m having Tracy buy you a radio so that no matter where you’re at on the spread, you can always get ahold of me.” He saw her face relax. How badly