Chapter 7

Ransom

S: Thank you so much for the flowers! They were completely unexpected, but greatly appreciated. Kels said she's never known you to send anyone flowers before. I'm feeling pretty special.

R: That's because you are!

S: I know you've got a busy day, and we're slammed here. So I'll let you go. Just wanted to say thank you.

R: I wanted you to know I had a great time with you last night, and no matter how busy we are, I want to make this work.

S: I do too! See you tonight! XOXO

I've pulled up to the property my family owns and shut my SUV off. I'm amazed at the number of cars that have showed up. It looks like there are members of the tri-county SWAT team, State Troopers, the rest of the MTF, our K-9 trainer, and some of the Laurel County Sherriff's Department. I park while Rambo makes noises in the back, scratching to get out.

"Not yet, bub," I say to him. "I gotta see what's going on first."

Getting out of my SUV, I walk over to where some other members of the MTF stand. Nick and I joined the MTF around the same time, so we tend to gravitate toward each other when it comes to group events. I stand next to him as Menace and Renegade confer on a paper they're holding between them.

"Ransom." I hear Renegade's strong, loud voice. "You and Rambo will be with me. Havoc mentioned he wasn't sure if people are using this empty land to grow things they shouldn't be growing or not. While everybody else dismantles the old stills, we'll see what Rambo can track."

"Sure thing, he's ready."

"Nick." Menace points to the man standing beside me. "The two of us are going to search the house. It's been vacant for years, but we don't know that there aren't people using it for whatever they want. Everybody else will take their orders from Havoc. Let's get to work."

Nick nods, but I see the fear in his eyes. It's hard not to laugh, because Mason intimidates him like no other. "Try not to tell our supervisor you have a thing for his daughter." I keep my voice low as we walk back to where Rambo is.

"Like I don't know where you were last night." He crosses his arms over his chest as I reach in to get Rambo out.

"How the fuck do you know where I was?"

"Kels and Stella are BFF's," the duh very apparent in his tone.

"So what? Stelle and I are your favorite topic of conversation now?"

He grins. "Nope, but we did have a bet on if she would come home last night or not, and I'm sorry to say I lost that bet when she walked through the door."

I grin back at him. He's not fooling me. "Which brings me to my question of why you're at their apartment after midnight? Stelle didn't leave until a little after. What were you up to?"

He shifts uncomfortably on his feet, sighing. "It's complicated."

"Uh huh." I raise my eyebrow at him as I open the door and hook Rambo's leash on him. As I'm about to give him more shit, Menace and Renegade walk over to us, effectively cutting off our conversation.

"Let's go." Mason hitches his chin to Nick as the two of them take off through the field and up to the house.

I watch them for a little while, looking at the old farmhouse my mom was raised in, that I've been to once in my life. This is a part of my heritage that's been kept from me, but if it's painful for people to talk about, especially my parents, I'll deal with not knowing.

"C'mon." Renegade motions in front of us. "Let's see if he can find anything."

I click my tongue to get his attention. "Find dope!" I tell him. Like he always does, his ears perk up and off we go.

* * *

"Does he stop?" Renegade pants as he runs alongside me and Rambo.

"When he's on a track? Not usually." I wipe the sweat from my brow. "I can slow him down, but he'll hardly stop. I do a lot of cardio." I laugh as he breathes heavily.

Right then Rambo stops, scratching and barking at me, whining loudly. "What did you find us?" I pull up on his leash while Renegade kneels.

"Looks like weed, and lots of it."

Rambo sniffs around some more, and then he pulls on me. "He's got something. You can stay here if you need to."

"You calling me old?"

The last thing I want to do is offend Stella's dad, especially when I'm nervous as fuck about being around him after last night. "No," I yell over my shoulder.

He's slow to catch up with us as Rambo takes me down what looks like a cut path through the woods. We run for what feels like half a mile and then we bust through a clearing, where there's nothing and Rambo stops. "Fuck," I grunt, panting after the run we've just been on.

"You got anything?" Renegade yells from where he is quite a way behind us.

"They must have gotten into a vehicle, he just stopped."

Investigating the area, I notice there's a spot worn in the grass. Carefully picking my way across the clearing, I bend down, seeing that it's been worn down to dirt. It's wet, with a small puddle of water, an outlying sliver of the same water running to the side.

"Somebody was idling here," I tell Renegade as he catches up. "This is the condensation from an air conditioner."

"The question is," he pauses to wipe his mouth against his long-sleeve shirt. We're all hot, sweaty, and after this Rambo needs a rest. "What were they here for? The weed? The still we're dismantling? Or was there something in the house?"

"I don't know," I answer truthfully. "We'll probably never know after we've come out here and made all this racket. With the show of force we have here today, they'll probably never come here again."

He looks around the clearing. "One thing I do know? I do not want to be out in the open like this. Let's head back, see what everyone else has found."

I agree, nodding as we begin backtracking, stopping to take pictures of what we've found and making notations of where it is on the map. Tomorrow our drug unit will come out and burn all of this.

When we finally crest the hill, seeing the rest of our unit and the other officers who've come to help us, I breathe easier, but the sun is going down in the sky. More than anything I want to get out of here before it gets dark.

But dark means good things tonight. It means I'm that much closer to seeing Stella, and I can't fucking wait.