“And?” Adam prods. “Because I know there’s more.”
“Oh hell yeah there’s more,” Asher confirms. “I was in bed and felt like I was being watched. I lifted my head and there was a cowboy standing at the end of my bed. No lie. I swear to God.”
“Hell to the no on that,” I say, downing a sip of Dr. Pepper. “I like enemies that can die and then I make them dead.”
Adam eyes Asher in the rearview. “What did you do?”
“The only thing I could do,” Asher replies. “I went back to sleep.”
If only I could go the fuck back to sleep and this Max thing had never happened. “Anything I need to know about?” I ask, glancing at Asher who now, as always it seems, has his MacBook opened.
“If you're asking if I’ve connected Max or anything of this to you, no. Neither has Blake. There’s no chatter on the web, not even the dark web, about you.”
“And Max?” I ask.
“No,” he says.
“In other words, no chatter about me means nothing.” My mind goes back to yet another moment with Max.
I shift in my damn seat, cramped as hell, and at this point, we’re high as fuck. We have to be close to Max’s place. “How much further?”
“Five miles,” Asher says. “And between here and there we need a place to hide the rental that isn’t off the side of a cliff.”
“Not to be a Negative Nelly,” I say, “but I’m back to hell to the no on that. We’re driving up to the door.”
“And hell to the no on that shit,” Asher snaps. “He won’t return your calls. He’s dirty or dead. We’re not going to walk up to the door.”
“He likes booby traps,” I say. “And he’s good at them. Unless you want a fishhook in your eye, captain, we go in straight and to the door.”
Adam gives me a side-eye, grimaces, and keeps driving.
Ten minutes later, we turn down a narrow road, drop-offs on either side of us. “If you come at him from this road, you want him dead,” I murmur.
“Let’s not get dead with him,” Adam says, and that’s all he has to say. When he halts the car, we all prepare, locking and loading, ready for action. Sixty seconds later, I’m feeling all warm and fuzzy about this reunion with Max with a gun in each hand, as we keep on rolling, straight to yet another hillbilly delight cabin. We park right in front. A perfect location to see an immediate problem.
The cabin door is open.
“That doesn’t look good,” Adam murmurs.
“Now who’s a Negative Nelly?” I reply. “Maybe he has cameras and he saw us coming, and wanted to invite us in.” I open my door, stand up, and I remain bullet-free as I expect. An enemy wouldn’t be this obvious. Either Max is inviting us in or he’s dead.
Adam and Asher are on my heels as I head up the steps and ease inside the cabin, to find furniture overturned, a window broken, and no signs of life. I hold a hand up to the others to stay in their positions and call out, “Max!”
Silence greets me, complete silence. I pull my weapons, one in each hand, and ease into the living area, forced to step over the top of a puddle of what looks like coffee, with a broken cup in the center. Somehow Max got surprised, which took effort by the bad guy. Max doesn’t get surprised. Someone wanted him dead in a bad way and had the skill to catch him. Or come close.
The kitchen is part of the living room and I walk down a small hall to a bathroom, which is tiny and without human occupancy. Next stop is a bedroom which is a box, easy to search with a scan, but for good measure, I check under the bed and in the closet. When all is clear, I shove one Glock in my boot and the other in my waistband before I rejoin Adam and Asher in the main room. “He’s not here,” I announce. “I’m going to search the bedroom.”
I disappear back into the hallway and then the bedroom, where I lift the mattress, check under the sheets, furniture, and inside drawers. There’s nothing here, and I mean nothing. No clothes. No papers. Nothing. There’s also no dust, which means someone, Max, I assume, was living here long enough to clean up.
My next stop is the bathroom, and a quick search delivers nothing. Back in the living room, Asher and Adam are just finishing up. “Nothing,” Adam says.
“Same here,” Asher agrees, both of them now staring at me. “Except the lack of dust. This place hasn’t been empty. Anything in the back?”
“Not even a pair of socks,” I say, “and believe me, his ugly-ass feet need socks.”