Sam’s. She assumed we had one on McNaught too. I didn’t say yes or no.”
“You think she’s going to charge us with anything?”
“I doubt it.” Charlie chuckled. “Well, maybe you. For some reason, she seems to be maddest at you.”
“I know.” His chances of leveraging this case into a deputy position were not looking promising. “Although she did admit that if I’d come to her about McNaught without hard proof, she wouldn’t have believed me. So that’s something.”
“Not much to weigh against a dead cop, though, even if it was suicide.”
“Fuck. I did not expect that.”
“It was not our finest hour. Although we probably saved Sam’s life.”
“I hope he takes the rest of them down with him.” He’d expected to be proud of his detective work, but all he felt was sour and tired. He turned to look at the dark countryside. At least he could go home and get into bed with Brian and— FearPainBrightflashBrian!
He gasped and grabbed for the dashboard. As fast as it had hit him, the image was gone, leaving his heart pounding and mouth dry, panic grabbing him by the throat.
Charlie pulled onto the shoulder, braking with a spray of gravel. “What?”
“I don’t know!” His whole body vibrated from that moment of terror. Brian! What the fuck?
“You sounded like someone punched you.”
“I think Brian’s in trouble.”
“Think? How?”
Nick gritted his teeth. “How does anything happen with those fucking Kerrs? Because I felt it!” It was crazy, but he was certain disaster was crashing down on Brian.
“You’re sure?”
It’s nuts. It’s my imagination. But he couldn’t shake a bone-deep certainty that Brian was in trouble— afraid, hurt, in danger— somewhere out there. “Yes!”
“Good enough for me.” Charlie pulled back onto the pavement, picking up speed. “Where? Can you tell?”
He closed his eyes, trying to remember what Brian had said about Finding and traces. There was nothing but dark in there, a bit sparkly when he pressed over his eyes. No colors, no directions. No Brian. Where are you? What happened! He smacked the side of his useless head. “No clue!”
“He was going home, right?”
“Yeah. Maybe twenty minutes ahead of us?”
“So we go to your place. If he’s not there, we keep looking.”
“Right.” He opened his eyes and braced himself. “Step on it.” Damn it to hell! Brian! Don’t you dare be— “Faster.”
“You ready to get a ticket on top of all tonight’s shit?” Charlie was taking the speedometer up over seventy as he said it.
“Fuck if I care!” Hell, he’d get out and push. “They’ll be short of traffic patrols tonight.”
“True.” The numbers rolled into the eighties.
Nick clutched the dashboard in both hands, staring ahead as if that might bring the weird awareness back. All he sensed was the lingering panic that made it hard to breathe. “Fuck. Where is he?” Could Damon tell? Just this once I don’t fucking care if Damon gets to him first. As long as he’s safe.
Charlie slowed for a turn, then picked up speed again. “The sheriff kept my weapon.”
“Mine too.” If something or someone had gone after Brian, he’d rip them apart with his bare hands.
“Got a lug wrench in the trunk.”
“Good to know.” He clenched his teeth until his jaw ached.
They rounded a corner faster than he’d have dared. Charlie’s driving was confident and steady. Good man. Jesus, he was so glad to have Charlie on his side.
The road dipped and rose between the thin woods and winter-bare fields and small, sleeping houses, revealed by the flash of their headlights and gone back into the dark as they passed. Brian’s in trouble out there somewhere. How the hell will I find him?
Charlie’s “Shit!” snapped his attention back to the road ahead.
A car stood canted on the shoulder, headlights beaming the wrong way at them, leaning half into the ditch. A dark, indistinct figure crouched on the gravel beside it.
Did he crash? That could be the Taurus. Nick had his door open before Charlie came to a full stop, staggering out and hitting the gravel at a run. “Brian? Brian!” Please, no. Not again, not like Charlie—
The crouched figure shifted and raised its head, and relief hit him like a club. Brian. Not dead, not smashed to bits. “Shit, are you okay? Are you hurt?”
He skidded to a stop in front of Brian, with Charlie close behind. Past the blinding beam of the headlights, he could see that Brian was sitting on the leg of another man dressed all in black with a ski mask on. What the fuck?