Say Goodbye (Romantic Suspense #25) - Karen Rose Page 0,103

it’s a bust.”

Croft tapped her finger against her chin as she considered it. “It is a long shot. I think it’s more likely that he’d stay with a gang member around here. Let’s check with the local PD and see if they can tell us where Chicos members hang out. If we come up dry, we’ll drive out to Benicia. And if we come up dry there, we can cross it off as where he isn’t. Sound good?”

Tom put the SUV into gear. “Sounds good to me.”

GRANITE BAY, CALIFORNIA

THURSDAY, MAY 25, 2:00 P.M.

DJ woke abruptly, panicking for the second it took him to remember where he was.

Nelson Smythe. The man was dead in his own freezer and this was his spare room.

DJ lay there for another minute while his racing pulse slowed. Then for another few minutes while he appreciated the softness of the bed. He’d thought that the bed in his Yuba City house was comfortable, especially compared to the hard pallet on the harder cave floor.

This bed, though . . . It was like a goddamn cloud. Nothing hurt, he realized. His back wasn’t sore and his arm wasn’t throbbing. He tested his shoulder joint gingerly. It was still stiff. Still sore. But the overwhelming pain was gone.

He didn’t care what Pastor said. He was getting himself a mattress like this when he returned to Eden. He didn’t care if it was vanity or any of the shit Pastor spewed.

DJ found his phone and tapped the screen, only to have his pulse start racing again. “No way.” There was no way that it was two o’clock in the fucking afternoon. He’d only meant to rest for an hour. He’d set an alarm on his phone, for God’s sake. Hadn’t he?

He opened the clock app and blew out a frustrated breath. He’d set the alarm for eleven p.m., not a.m. Goddammit. Then he spied the light pink camera on the window and remembered why he’d come here to begin with.

“Shit.” He lurched from the bed, making his arm throb again. “Fuck.” He’d set his alarm for one hour. One hour. He’d wanted to check the camera feed, to make sure it was recording properly. If it wasn’t, he’d only have lost an hour.

Now he’d lost four.

Snarling under his breath, he connected the camera to his laptop. It downloaded, thankfully, so it had recorded something. He reset the camera on the windowsill and returned to the soft bed to review the footage.

Nothing happened for the longest time, and then a UPS truck passed by. A few minutes later the same UPS truck came from the opposite direction. DJ paused the video and zoomed in on the driver. Nobody he knew. Certainly not Mercy.

Unless she was hiding in the back of the truck. It’s what I would do.

He noted the license plate and restarted the video. After ten minutes he grew impatient and began fast-forwarding. At about sixty minutes, a pickup truck passed by the camera’s lens.

DJ paused the video. The truck looked familiar. It was a black Ford F-150 and he’d owned one similar to it—just a lot older. His had belonged to his father and was a few years old when he’d inherited it, seventeen years ago. Waylon had bought a similar one new in ’89, days before he and Pastor had headed up to the first Eden site. DJ had helped his father work on it.

When the truck had worn out, Waylon had wanted a new one, but Pastor had insisted he buy the same make and model—and not new. He’d been insistent that as much around the compound stay the same as was possible.

It was Pastor’s way of trapping time in a bubble. If the congregation got dulled to the passage of time, they would grow more compliant.

The concept had made sense to DJ. He’d planned to replace his truck and was going to get another used black Ford F-150.

Except his truck had been stolen by that bastard Amos Terrill. The man had stowed away in the back and, when DJ was occupied, had driven away in it.

DJ’s temper boiled. He hadn’t been aiming at Amos that day a month ago. He’d meant to shoot Mercy Callahan, but Amos had come running from the woods to throw himself on top of her. The bullet had gotten Amos in the neck and DJ had spent the last month satisfied that the man had bled out.

DJ paused the video. This F-150 was brand spanking new. The chrome still shone