Page 13 of Unraveling Connections

I nod as I dial.

“Are you okay?” is the first thing Trick demands through the phone, worry lacing his tone.

“Yeah, we are both good. We have had some unexpected developments here, which we can fill you in properly when we are together; for now, can you send Pete to the house? We need him to have a look at some of the security footage; we're fairly certain it has been tampered with, but of course, we have no idea how.”

“Yeah, of course.” Trick replies and quickly relays the message to Pete.

“Wait!” I say, far more urgently than I intend to; I then add somewhat sheepishly, “Can you get him to bring coffee for me and Jensen, please? We’re going to need it.”

“I love you, Angel,” Jensen mutters, still fighting with the door, which makes me frown.

“Yeah, of course.” Trick replies. “He’s on his way now. We are just waiting for the doctor to discharge Luc, but they had a team come in last night who were pretty messed up, so it could take a bit longer than usual. The doctor seemed pretty confident that he would get Luc discharged today. I don’t particularly want him going back to the house. I think we have risked it enough for one day, so we will meet you back at the safe house in the next town?”

Chapter Five

Ever

“Sounds good,” I reply, “is everyone okay over there?”

“Yeah, we were all worrying about you and Jensen since we hadn’t heard anything for so long, but Luc’s fine.” Trick replies.

“Good, we will get this done as quickly as we can, and then we will head to the safe house so we can debrief you properly. It’s a head-scratcher, that’s for sure.”

Trick hums, “Well, now I am definitely intrigued. Stay safe, and let me know if you need backup.”

“Will do,” I reply, “love you.”

“Love you, too, Sweetheart.”

I’m smiling as I hang up the phone until my gaze lands on Jensen sitting on the floor and glaring at the doors.

“Did you fall over?” I ask because, honestly, it is the only explanation I can come up with.

Jensen snorts, “No. Not this time. I know the third person didn’t come through this way.”

I raise my eyebrow, “Oh? And how do you know that?”

“Because it locks,” he replies, tugging at the handle again for emphasis.

“Well shit,” I reply, and then ask, “are you sure it’s not just wedged shut or something? It did slam pretty hard.”

Jensen is shaking his head before I have even stopped asking my question.

“I thought that might be the case, but I was really fucking pulling it, and then I had a closer look, and you can see the mechanism that locks into place.”

“Shit,” I repeat.

“Yeah, pretty much.” He replies as he looks around at the trees surrounding us. “I guess we follow the car track and see where they lead? It should at least take us to somewhere that I can recognize, and then I can get us back to the house.”

I sigh heavily, “I haven’t had nearly enough coffee to go on a hike of indeterminate length.”

Jensen chuckles at my grumbling and grabs my hand, threading our fingers together, as we head in the same direction as the tire tracks. Thankfully, it rained recently, so the tire tracks have stuck around, which means we have something to follow back to the road.

I really hope that the road is not far away.

I need coffee; I need my vase of coffee.

Shit, I need to warn Pete that we might not be at the house when he shows up. The last thing I want to do is to make the guys think we have gone missing and trigger panic. Especially since they will still be on high alert from how long it took us to clear the house in the first place. I send him a quick text andimmediately get a response that he wants us to show him the tunnel when he gets here because it sounds like something from a movie, and he wants to see it for himself.

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