Page 8 of Twisted Revelations

5

Dax

As I drove up to the Spangler Motel, my gaze lingered on the sign that hung lopsided in the parking lot, lit with slanted red letters. The metal pole it once stood on had been struck by something, and the owners hadn’t bothered to fix it.

I was forced to click off the car’s ventilation as the foul odor of road kill crept in and thickened the air inside the cab. The place was a fleapit, and my skin had already started to itch.

After parking my black BMW 750i, I studied my surroundings, and then crept to door 110. My car stuck out like a sore thumb, but the situation sounded dire. A missing woman who’d possibly been taken by one of the worst cartels in the country needed me. It sounded like trouble—my kind of trouble.

Before my knuckles struck the dusty red door, D sprang it open and stepped back to allow me in. How the hell had he beaten me here, when he was in New Orleans, and I was in Dallas? Once he closed us into the musty room, we gave each other a brotherly hug, at which point my eyes landed on the woman sitting at the desk.

“Hello,” I turned to introduce myself. My hand reached out, but my eyes were glued on the most beautiful set of eyes I’d seen on a woman in a long time. “I’m Dax.”

She took my hand. “Beverly.” I didn’t miss the hopeless gloom that sat in her gaze. She fought to project strength although her eyes were glistening with tears by the time I let her hand go.

She was certainly easy on the eyes, and I didn’t miss that D’s eyes were on constant watch. He stepped around me and took a seat at the foot of the lumpy bed before revealing the details we had so far. He already had two laptops sitting behind her on the desk, so at some point, he was going to attempt to track down her friend with the digital magic only he could create.

She soon followed his lead, filling me in on what had taken place with her and her friend, Laura. Aaron had briefly mentioned talking to the women before he’d been killed by DG6 in one of the worst missions I’d ever participated in.

As a group, we’d soldiered through the trenches of hell in foreign countries but had never suffered a loss so devastating. I hadn’t fully come to terms with the fact we’d lost Aaron. Knowing the group that had taken his life continued to taunt us with their presence was all the motivation I needed to fight.

Although I had been labeled a playboy who indulged in many casual relationships, I took offense to men that picked on women. It wasn’t that I didn’t believe women couldn’t fight their own battles, but groups like DG6 were bullies, bruiting forces that picked on defenseless targets.

“There’s no need for a lot of clues to know that this is DG6,” I posed, eyeing D. “They probably took Laura because they are going to torture her for information on Megan.”

D attempted to stop my words with rapid eye movements in Beverly’s direction, but I caught them too late. My insensitive words had her frozen in terror. I wasn’t used to tempering my words. I’d not worked with many people I didn’t already know well or couldn’t speak frankly in front of.

“My apologies, Beverly,” I offered with my hand above my heart. “But if we don’t find Laura within the next forty-eight hours….” I didn’t need to complete the sentence. She nodded her understanding with her lips pinched in determination.

Beverly and D switched places as I continued to question her, attempting to squeeze any information from her I could. She was in a mild state of shock and unable to recall anything substantial except a quick snapshot of the vehicle she’d spotted in the center’s parking lot. The fact that she’d been mindful enough to reach out to Aaron, even though he’d used an alias, was smart.

“I’ve got something. Sometimes, this shit is too easy,” D stated as his fingers worked the keyboard.

“CCTV gave me enough snapshots to piece together a plate of the vehicle spotted in the center’s lot.” He glanced back, directing his statement at us before turning back and pointing at the screen.

He made the task sound easy, but he’d probably found a way to sharpen the license plate after it had been bounced off a glass and reflected off a puddle of water. Upon further inspection, I noticed it was much more difficult than that. He’d taken hundreds of snapshots of the back of the car, captured from an unknown number of angles until he’d pieced together a license plate number like one would a jigsaw puzzle.

“Dark Gray Audi A8,” he continued. “The plate popped up at several locations, but it was last spotted before disappearing on Industrial Parkway. The place is a warehouse estate with only two roads that lead back to the city. Based on footage from the last four hours, the vehicle hasn’t left the area.”

The expression of hope on Beverly’s face softened the lines of her distress. “You think we can save her before they hurt her?” Her question tiptoed around what was truly on her mind. The way her knee bounced, she feared her friend was already dead.

D placed a hand atop hers. “We’ll find her,” he reassured.

Truth was, we didn’t know where she was in a sea of warehouses or if they’d already killed her or not. Either way, we’d hunt them down.

I retrieved my phone from my suit jacket before dialing and lifting it to my ear. I needed to put a few plans in place to make things a little easier on ourselves. With some distance between us, I stood near the bathroom to carry on my conversation. Once I was done, I returned to the group.

“My assistant will book us an upgrade. We are going to need more space and someplace more secure,” I stated.

I gave the room a once over, fighting to keep a frown off my face. The massive dip in the center of the second bed made it appear that someone we couldn’t see was sitting in the space. The cheap golden frame of the picture above the bed Beverly sat on was falling apart. My brow hitched. Was that a cinder block holding the bed up?

Gum, spilled food, dirt, and unknown stains littered the green checkered carpet they hadn’t upgraded since the seventies. A black and green mold stain in the shape of a man’s face sat in the ceiling near the wall unit.

It wasn’t that I believed I was too good for the room. I’d had to live in worse places. However, if we were going to do our job and do it as effectively as we were able to, we needed a space with a lot more to offer. My phone vibrated, calling my attention.

“Our suite is ready. D, I’ll text you the address.”

“Good.” He knew me well enough to know I was not going to stay here unless it was necessary. “I’ve found out where that Audi stopped.”

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