Page 16 of Bones

I threw on my clothes, brushed my teeth, and headed to the conference room to meet up with Big. We were meeting with Cotton and the others to discuss the intel we’d gathered, but there was just one problem.

The intel was useless.

All of it.

“We’re wasting our time. We’ve been through all this.” Big tossed one of the files across the table as he huffed, “If there was something to find, we would’ve already found it.”

“I thought you guys found something with the cameras.”

“It was another dead end.” Big motioned his hand over the stack of intel we’d collected over the past few weeks and groaned, “It’s all just a bunch of dead ends.”

“He’s right.” Big and I spent days going from one camera to the next, but each and every one of them ended up being a waste of our fucking time. They were either no longer in service or belonged to someone in the area. I lowered my head in shame as I pushed my chair away from the table. “We’ve been over and over this shit, and there’s nothing to be found.”

“I think it’s time we changed our perspective on things.” Maverick stood and started pacing back and forth as he said, “Instead of focusing on what we don’t know, let’s focus on what we do.”

“Not sure I’m following,” Big answered.

“What do we know about these guys?”

“We don’t know shit,” Q grumbled.

“That’s not true.” Maverick stopped pacing as he said, “We know they hacked into our server, and not just anybody could do that shit.”

“Yeah, and even after we shut them down, they were still able to keep eyes on us.” Big leaned back in his chair as he added, “They had to be watching Q and Rooster. There’s no other way they could’ve gotten to them so easily.”

“Hey... Ho. There wasn’t anything easy about it,” Rooster argued. “We made them work for that shit.”

“Oh really?” Maverick cocked his brow as he teased, “’Cause from what I saw, it looked like they ran you off that fucking road like a couple of girls on a blind date.”

“Whatever, brother. Last time you got rammed was in your bedroom, and I doubt you took it any better than we did.”

“Focus, boys. Focus,” Cotton fussed.

Rooster and Maverick exchanged a couple of disgruntled looks, but both knew better than to say anything. The room fell silent until Stitch finally mentioned, “They had access to one of the portside warehouses.”

Big ran his hand over his beard as he added, “And they had to have eyes on it, too. Probably on both the entryway and the actual warehouse. It’s the only way they knew we were coming.”

“But how are they pulling it off?” I ran my hand over my face with frustration. “I mean, I get having security cameras on site, but on the road? It doesn’t make sense.”

“Unless they’re cops,” Two Bit grumbled under his breath.

“I doubt Harris or Daniels have anything to do with this.” Cotton shook his head as he grumbled, “Hell, those two can barely tie their fucking shoes.”

“Well, they can tail with the best of ‘em,” Clutch complained. “Harris followed me for almost an hour. From work to the gas station, and then on to the house. It was weird.”

“Now that you mention it, he followed me around for a while last week,” Rooster confessed.

“Daniels tailed me for a while the other night. He was parked outside the construction site and followed me home. Did the same last night.” Guardrail turned to Cotton as he said, “It’s doubtful that they have anything to do with this, but you gotta admit, the timing is awfully suspicious.”

“Yeah, it might be time for us to have a conversation with our men in blue.”

“I think you might be right.” Cotton turned to Stitch as he said, “You and Wrath go have a chat with Daniels and see if you can get anything out of him.”

“You got it.”

I wasn’t surprised that Cotton wanted them to start with Daniels. He and Cotton had history that dated back long before my time. His son had run into some trouble, and Cotton called in a favor and made it disappear. Since then, the two had been allies of sorts. If there was something to tell, I had no doubt that Daniels would tell it.

Stitch and Wrath stood and walked out of the room, and Two Bit was the first to ask, “And what about us? Anything you need us to do?”

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