The numbers were for how many occupied a cabin he’d discovered. O for occupied living quarters, X for unoccupied shed or lean-to. L for buildings that housed livestock, like the pigs, goats or chickens the Shirleys raised. M for locations where the Shirleys cooked Meth. S for the moonshine stills.
A for their armory stashes. At least the ones he could find. He suspected they also had some sort of root cellars and bunkers, some kind of underground storage. But he hadn’t been able to find any but two.
One was full of canned goods. The other a stash of old rifles and some old moldy boxes of ammo.
Cage now knew more about the clan’s compound than he wanted to. All he really wanted to know was Dyna’s location.
Where his baby girl was being kept.
And who was keeping her.
But they had a new plan they were carrying out. The only way they would abandon their plan was if someone found Dyna before Cage’s small group did.
He hoped that happened but knew it wouldn’t be that easy.
No, if they were using Dyna as bait for an ambush, they’d want to draw Cage’s brothers as deep and as high into their compound as possible. Somewhere where the Shirleys would have the upper hand and the MC members wouldn’t find it easy to escape.
While Shade, Rook and Cage took the lane going directly north, the others took the other two narrow lanes.
This was after the three of them had cleared the main house.
While it had been empty, handmade toys were scattered on the floors and dirty dishes covered the tables and counters. Like someone had told the occupants to drop everything and leave.
He thought the Shirleys had planned the whole abduction, but maybe they had jumped on a good opportunity, instead. Which was Jemma going to town to get her hair done. Because who would plan that kind of kidnapping in the light of day in the middle of a municipal parking lot?
No one with any kind of sense.
No matter what, what they did had worked. Planned or not.
The three moved quickly along the lane but stayed just off the path, using the edge of the woods as cover from being seen or shot at. It would be stupid for them to march up the dirt lane like they owned the place.
Though, that was exactly what Cage wanted to do.
Gotta be fuckin’ smart. Your baby’s life depends on it.
They checked a few small wood sheds along the way. Most were falling apart. All of them full of junk but empty of anything breathing.
Junk vehicles also littered the woods here and there. Some just rusty shells slowly becoming one with the earth beneath them. They checked every single one of those, too. Just in case they’d hidden Dyna in one.
“There’s a smaller cabin on the right ahead. Then just beyond that, a short lane to the left with another cabin,” Shade whispered to him and Rook.
Both he and his brother nodded.
“How many buildings are up here?” Rook asked Shade.
“Don’t know. Didn’t count ‘em all. Not sure I found them all, either. Was hopin’ to get a better handle on what’s up here before somethin’ like this happened.”
Before somethin’ like this happened.
Whether Judge was simply wanting to be prepared, just in case, or expecting something to happen, Cage wasn’t sure. But the man had thought ahead to put Shade on it.
Shade had delivered, too. The intel they had was much better than going in completely blind.
“If they’re using Dyna as bait to lure us in, wouldn’t they want us to know where she is?” Rook threw out there.
“You’d think,” Cage answered.
“They ain’t gonna put her somewhere too obvious,” Shade said. “They’d probably want us to have to break up into smaller groups to pick us off easier.”
“Which is what we fuckin’ did,” Cage’s brother muttered.
“But we figured out it’s an ambush before steppin’ right into it. So, maybe they weren’t expectin’ us to be smarter than them,” Shade concluded.
“Ain’t a hard thing to be.” That was for fucking sure.
“Just gotta be cautious,” Shade reminded them. “They’re expectin’ us. But now we’re on notice and they don’t know that. That’s to our advantage.”
“What branch did you serve in?” Rook asked Shade.
“None,” came the quiet answer. And then they were done talking.
Not because they needed to be quiet, but because shots began to ring out, echoing through the woods.
All three ducked, hunkering down, making their bodies the smallest target they could.
They had no idea who was shooting, who was being shot at or even what direction the shooting was coming from.
But Cage’s heart leapt into his throat. He didn’t want his daughter in the middle of a firefight. It was too fucking risky.
They remained eating dirt as they waited for the cracks of gunfire to stop. They also waited to see if trees exploded over their heads from stray or intended bullets.