Page 45 of Operation: Integrity

Chapter Twenty

As soon as they could go into town and find businesses open, Connor and Sam got into Connor’s pickup and headed to Piper’s Ridge. Sam wanted to have hope. He was supposed to be rooted in hope. Yet nothing that came to his mind brought him anything close.

“I don’t expect to learn much in town, but we have to try,” Connor said. “I called Nixon right away to let him know. He said he’d be looking, but he hadn’t heard anything strange. At least, not yet. You know he’ll call if he sees or hears anything.”

Sam stared out the window of the pickup, willing some clue to be out there. Why would she run off? Though, he knew many people going through the Wayside program had times where the healing was too hard and they wanted to escape. At that point, Brendon would pull back a little on their sessions and the wranglers would take over with just therapeutic rides until the guest was ready to move on. Too much change was scaryfor anyone, but for this particular set of people, change was terrifying.

He had to have frightened her. He’d gone too far in trying to convince her that she mattered when she was so stuck in her own mental cement. Just like cement, it would take a lot of work to break through it, and getting it off would be painful. But the freedom afterward . . . That’s the hope the men of Wayside lived on. There was a feeling of accomplishment when one of their guests laughed for the first time, for real, not just a recognition that they were supposed to laugh in that moment and fake it so they didn’t stand out. The difference between the two was amazing to see.

Trauma had a way of rewiring the brain and it was up to them to help the client get it back as close to ‘normal’ as they could. He shifted his thoughts back to Connor. “Dominic couldn’t come?”

“Wasn’t enough room in the truck and I thought the folks of Piper’s Ridge might be a little intimidated by a guy dressed in all black tactical gear. Not to mention he’s not from around here.”

Sam snorted. That was putting it mildly. Piper’s Ridge was a tiny town in the southeastern corner of Wyoming, about an hour away from Cheyenne. They were predominantly Caucasian with a couple Hispanic families that had been there for a few generations. Since the town was so small and really didn’t offer much to get people to move there, the demographics hadn’t changed since they’d started collecting them. Dominic would’ve stood out in every way possible.

“I don’t think people would’ve been mean, but they would hesitate to talk to him, which isn’t what we want today. Plus, he’s a pro at planning and tracking. If Nixoncalls me with anything that needs to happen right away, I can trust Dominic to take the reins, and he’ll do the job even better than I could.”

Sam nodded, but kept watch out the window. Since Connor was the best boss he’d had, the compliment for Dominic held a lot of weight. “I’m glad he’s here. We wouldn’t have caught that drone on the cameras without him.”

“Speaking of that, he looked through all the other footage from the last week. It made sense that if Nathan had easily driven onto the property, plus flew two drones in, he may have tried other methods first. He had.”

Sam clenched his jaw and waited for Connor to tell him what else Nathan had done.

“He must have had some tip that she was coming here because when he looked back at the old files, he found the same car driving by here daily with Colorado license plates. Two days after she arrived, a figure—we can’t even tell if they were a man or a woman—met Zeus at the fence near the gate. They saw Zeus was hesitant, but offered some type of treat. They did something with his head that looked like scratching, then let him go. It was shortly after you had Zeus stay with Kelly when he wasn’t working.”

“You think someone put a tracker on one of my dogs?” Fury built inside him. He’d given her the dog to protect her, but he hadn’t checked it for a tracking device. “That would explain how he knew everything. Not only did he track her with that watch, he had a backup in case she didn’t take the bait. He tracked the dog.”

“Yup, seems that way. Dominic already ordered a device for us that will alert us to those kinds of devices, but he already said that it doesn’t always pick them up. A manual check is still better.”

“Except when you have no idea one has been placed.” How had they missed someone coming to the fence?

“What was the video like?”

“He showed me stills he took from the video. The person is in all black and in the trees. The camera is far off enough that without zooming in, the dog just seems to be looking over the fence. I had to really squint to even see that someone was there. This Nathan is a pro, or he knows a pro.”

“We already knew that. He’s connected to Evie.” Who was the biggest lead they had, even though she hadn’t said a word to anyone about who she worked with and was awaiting trial. Since she’d pled not guilty, there was no confession. Yet.

“What if he’s connected to someone even bigger?”

“We keep hoping to get Viceroy, but it won’t happen. I thought we’d get close when Scarlet was here, then with Trace, but that just proved that Viceroy is as slippery as an eel. He’ll never be caught.” Sam hated to sound depressed, but to continually have hope when it was dashed every time was a hard pill to swallow.

“He will be caught. Maybe not this side of earth, but he’ll face judgement for what he’s done.” Connor turned into the small gas station in Piper’s Ridge.

“That’s comfort for us, but what about the people who come to us who aren’t from one of Viceroy’s groups? Or someone who doesn’t believe?” There had to be a way for those people to get justice, too

“Then we keep working harder. Ali has just finished her training. She’s been working with Eric on building up her strength so she can to go into the belly of the beast. She wants to go undercover. That has to stay between you and me. Eric hasn’t told anyone, and havinghis wife want something so dangerous is a tough pill to swallow.”

“Except he told you.” Sam surmised.

“And Brendon, because Eric’s not taking it well in private. He’s really worried that she could get hurt or killed. He doesn’t want to see what could happen to her, but he wants to support her. He’s used to keeping what he feels to himself, but this is really hard on him.”

“I can see why.” Sam got out of the truck and headed for the gas station. Veterinarian John Willis was there with his father, John Sr., and Sam waved. “Morning.”

“Sam, you’re just the man I was looking for. We were about to head out to Wayside to talk to you.”

“Oh, I’m a little busy right now. Can you call me and we can set something up? All the horses and dogs are fine out at Wayside.” He couldn’t think of any other reason the two vets would want to meet with him.

“This is about Kelly.”

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