Page 90 of Smith

“Mission success,” Asher announced, shoving a laptop at Zane.

Zane took the machine from the boy and smiled.

“Now for the extraction,” Asher proudly declared and ran out of the room.

With the laptop in hand, Zane looked back at me.

No words were necessary; his smug smile said it all.

Well, shit.

“Lincoln!” I heard angrily bellowed from the main office. “Come get your semen demons!”

“I better go help with the extraction,” Zane muttered.

Ivy waited until her husband left before she scooted her chair back and twisted to face me.

“It’s worth it,” she softly said. “I promise, it’s worth whatever the hard part’s going to be. When you get to the other side, it’s totally worth it.”

I hoped she was right.

It had to be now.

The timing was shit. I wasn’t sure the smart thing to do was to get into what I was sure was going to be a knockdown, drag-out with a man who was going to be part of the apprehension team. But it wasn’t like he would be facing down terrorists. Billy Rice was just a creepy asshole.

Easy day.

The tension isSmith’s truck was so thick it’d take a Karambit to cut through the weirdness.

Thankfully, we had Billy Rice to talk about or the thirty-minute drive to my house would’ve been more uncomfortable than it already was.

“Do you think Easton’s right? Billy’s using the storage units behind his house?” I asked.

I was sitting cockeyed in the seat so I could look at Smith. Obviously, he was looking straight ahead at the road so I couldn’t see his eyes but I could see his jaw flex.

“I don’t think someone goes from being a teenager with the tendencies he’s exhibited to no longer having them. For someone like Billy it’s a compulsion, something he likely can’t control for long. Easton and Jonas didn’t find anything in his house, so yeah, I think he has a storage unit. Men like him don’t stop feeding their sickness, they learn to be careful. The question is, how sick is he?”

Eek.

That was the final question that remained to be seen. Or maybe that was the second-to-last question still lingering.

“Kira said the gun that was found in the attic was reported stolen.”

“Yeah. Three months before Billy went to live with the Calvins. Before his father kicked him and his mother off the farm. Man who lives in the adjacent farm, reported two guns stolen. A shotgun and the nine mil in your attic. Kira’s waiting to see if the police come up with any crimes committed with the stolen nine. The shotgun could still be in your house.”

Holy hell.

The dollar bills just kept flying out the window.

“More walls need to be demolished,” I mumbled.

“Sucks. But yeah.”

I didn’t miss he’d forgone the use of ‘baby’. Something not even twenty-four hours ago he would’ve tacked on to soften the blow.

“Zane told me you were going back tonight to pick up Billy for questioning.”

I counted—Smith’s jaw clenched and released three times before he answered.

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