Page 18 of Fighting for Tawny

“So, you believe this is about moving and selling drugs?” Finnigan asked.

“It’s always about drugs.” Jiena turned toward Moira. “Are you ready?”

She nodded. “Yes.”

“All right, then.” Jiena turned toward Macklin and Henley, and they stepped forward. “Here are your escorts to CIFW.”

“Let me—” Finnigan stopped short at Commander Mattox’s warning look. “Never mind.”

Finnigan grabbed Moira and wrapped his arms around her, even though they hadn’t shared a hug in a while. “Don’t poke the bear, Moira. Just teach the fire classes and let us handle the rest.”

Moira squeezed him in return. “I promise I won’t do anything stupid, Marcus.”

Finnigan gripped her shoulders, reassured by her response. “Do me a favor? Will you slip a letter to Tawny from me?”

“Of course.”

Macklin, Henley, and Moira followed Finnigan to the locker room. He retrieved the letter he’d been saving in hopes of somehow getting it to Tawny himself and kissed it before handing it to Moira. He didn’t care what the others thought of his sentimentality.

“If you get the opportunity, tell Tawny I love her, I miss her, and I pray for her safety every day.”

“I will, Marcus.”

Finnigan slammed his locker shut and hurried back to the command center. On the screen, he saw a flow chart with lines drawn between Stoltz, Cohen, and Jones. Pieces of information were in text boxes, and he studied them as he listened to Jiena speak.

“We’re not sure why the fire program at CIFW has failed under Warden Stoltz. But I can tell you that the DOC isn’t happy about the dismantling of its best rehabilitative program, which is why Stoltz is anxious to get it back on track.”

“He’s concerned about his job?” Finnigan guessed.

“Maybe. But here’s our working theory. The women are being used as drug mules.” She held their attention. “And we believe it’s happening when they’re at the fire camp. We’re putting a stop to this evil, and we’re bringing Tawny home.”

Her voice rang with conviction.

Thirty miles north of Chino, Carey Whitcomb parked in a dirt lot outside a dive bar whose name had been long forgotten. Signs no longer touted its existence. Only a few locals and motorcycle clubs drank and conducted business there. A perfect location for him to meet with the others.

Sweat trickled down his face and back and stained his armpits. He glanced with distaste at the dark blotches on the front of his shirt. Cursing his nervousness, he climbed from his Tacoma.

How the hell had this happened? How could an inmate as dumb as Bette Simpson escape and disappear without a trace?

Whitcomb tucked his personal handgun inside the waistband of his jeans. No one cared if armed patrons entered the bar as long as they paid their tab and didn’t shoot anyone. Whitcomb stepped inside the cool, smoky interior. A college football game was playing on a forty-two-inch TV above the lacquered pinewood bar. Three regulars were perched in their usual spots on the chipped barstools. Their vacant eyes watched the football game without focusing on it. Half-empty beer mugs sat before them as they puffed contentedly on their cigarettes. No bikers were in the bar, but it was still early in the evening. By nine p.m., the place would be crawling with them. Whitcomb appreciated the current level of quiet, just the usual clink of dishes or bottles or an occasional muffled voice.

He nodded at the bartender with the greasy, straggly ponytail. The man’s dark eyes tracked Whitcomb’s progress to the back of the bar, where the others waited for him at a table for four. Here, they were out of anyone’s direct line of sight but could monitor who came and went.

Whitcomb slid into the empty seat.

“It’s about time,” Mickey Stoltz snapped. “What did you find out?”

“There’s no trace of her,” Whitcomb replied, careful not to mention Bette’s name. “She’s vanished. Completely off the grid.”

“That’s fucking impossible.” Mickey glanced at the hard-set, concerned faces of Harry Cohen and Perry Jones.

“Is it?” Cohen picked at his dirty fingernails—a habit that disgusted Whitcomb. His bland voice held a challenge.

“To pull it off, to execute the plan so flawlessly, took resources she doesn’t have,” Whitcomb argued.

“Has she had any unusual visitors?” Cohen looked up from his fingernails and pinned Stoltz with an icy stare meant to intimidate him.

“No, no one. Her parents are deceased, and she lost contact with her sister long before she was sent to CIFW.”

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