Page 66 of Don't Let Go

“You’re fine…” Locke said. “We came to…”

“Save me?” I grinned. “Good job. I’m all safe now.”

At least, I was until we got back to Sugar Bear.

Chapter

Twenty-Three

PATCH

“Don’t freak out, Sugar Bear. Running silent for a bit.”

Then he shut off his comm.

He. Shut. Off. His. Comm.

No explanations, no brainstorming, just that message followed by dead silence as he clicked off. A part of my brain registered the conversation Remy was having with the man from the diner. The man really wanted Remy to leave. He was all but begging him to go, because if he was caught talking to an outsider it could go badly.

Another part of my brain tracked Locke’s interaction with the vet. The man was almost too genial, too easy going, and too—”good ole boy”— was the only description I could come up with. But like Mark Reynolds in his little apartment over the barber shop, Dr. Townsend was not enthusiastic about having any conversation with Locke.

“So, you can handle cattle and horses, but not ferrets?” Locke was asking in a voice filled with genuine curiosity. “We’ve got dogs and cats too, but the ferrets—I worry about them.”

When he’d started the questioning, the vet had tried to answer him directly and get him out of his place. But the more hetried to brush off Locke, the more questions Locke came up with. The minute he brought up a chinchilla though, I had to shake my head.

“Look, you don’t understand,” Mark Reynolds was saying to Remy. “This whole town is bad news. Just get your guys, get in your car, and get out of here.”

“You don’t know us, but you seem to know why we shouldn’t be here.” The measured tenor of his voice encouraged confidence. Or maybe it was just that I liked the sound of it.

Locke had already dropped a couple of well-placed cameras, allowing me a better look inside the veterinarian’s hospital. It was pretty straightforward from what I could see. I split my attention between that screen, the main street still visible on the other cameras, the glimpse I had inside of Reynolds’ place via the street camera so I could keep an eye on Remy and his target, while I scanned the others to find McQuade.

He’d said don’t freak out and then justvanished. It was irritating me. The town didn’t seem to have a lot of surveillance installed. At least not wheretheydidn’t want to be looking, which suggested the cameras were placed in areas the people who ran this town thought they were needed.

Food for thought.

It could mean there was nothing to see, and at the same time, too much to see. Every answer yielded more questions.

So many more questions. A dull headache flared behind one eye. I rubbed a hand against my forehead, trying to massage my temples without dislodging my headset or losing track of which camera angle I studied.

McQuade was out there and he was running alone, without me to watch his back. While it was hardly the first time, I didn’t care for the lack of notice. At least when he went quiet before, I had a clock to count down or I could track him.

This…

“Mr.—” The vet interrupted Locke’s soliloquy on the relationship between mental health and pygmy goats. I needed to ask him about that later. He seemed to know a great deal about the creatures.

“Eregion,” Locke said smoothly. “Linden Eregion, but you can just call me Linden.”

I almost choked. That was straight out ofLord of the Rings,here was hoping the doctor hadn’t heard of it.

“Mr. Eregion,” the man’s easy drawl seemed less easy andfarmore strained. “I have clients with patients I need to see. As you can tell, my office staff has the day off, so I really need to send you on your way, and get back to work.”

“Well, why didn’t you say so? Don’t have to get testy.” I couldhearthe smirk reflected in his words. “Just trying to be friendly.”

The doctor didn’t quite manage to mask his glare, but I took advantage of his direct look to screenshot his face, then put it to work on a secondary search. Something about him was bugging me, beginning with his absolute lack of digital footprint.

It just wasn’t normal.

“I don’t know you,” Reynolds was saying, the man’s guarded voice betrayed a distinctly Eastern seaboard accent. Mid-Atlantic? “I don’t want to know you.”

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