Gray’s full name, photos of him, and a description of him were already readily available.
In other words, staying up here in the woods was suddenly appealing for more than one reason. Just this morning, Niko vowed not to go into town until this shit had blown over.
If only they could make the phone stop ringing too… Gray had lost track of family members and friends from high school who had called to ask about the case. Those who hadn’t been around lately had just the news to go on. They’d known he’d been abducted; they’d known he’d come home safe, and now this…
Thank God for Mr. Quinn. James had driven Willow up here shortly after Gray and Niko had come back home, and he’d offered to stick around. It wasn’t necessary, but his daily visits were appreciated, nonetheless.
He’d also helped Gray secure their alibi. AKA, the fishing trip. They’d gotten their story straight, and Gray knew what to say when Mom and Isla called to ask if he knew anything about this new “Vegas case.”
Mom wasn’t stupid, though. Neither was Isla, but she had two babies to look after. Mom, however, would need some extra work. It was why Gray was heading over to her right now.
“Are you sure you wanna do this?” Niko asked. “What if someone sees you?”
“Mom felt inspired by Darius this summer to get a shotgun. No one will lurk in her driveway for long.” Gray wrapped a trout and a large salmon in newspaper, then put both in a plastic bag. “I’ll be back in a couple hours.”
It would be nice to see Gage too, who was up from Seattle visiting Mom and Aiden.
He left Niko to his newfound hobby of playing solitaire while he made…uh, it was called…ukha or something? It was a Russian fish soup. Tasted amazing but smelled like death until all the flavors had come together.
Out on the porch, Gray found Willow in the same spot she’d occupied most of her waking hours since she’d gotten here. She sat at the table, bundled up with a thick blanket around her, beanie on her head, and laptop in front of her.
It wasn’t until today she’d started speaking again after being nonverbal for two days.
“Anything new, hon?” Gray asked.
Willow nodded. “He changed his mind again.”
Oh, fucking great. The number of times Darius had changed his mind about when he wanted to set off the explosion was staggering at this point. He kept going back and forth. Logically, he knew he’d be out of the woods if he was hours away from Vegas when the compound blew up. So Plan A had been to make it at least to Idaho before the explosion. But then Darius was Darius. An old-school bastard who didn’t trust technology. And if the charges detonated but something went wrong and the whole place wasn’t destroyed, he wanted to be close enough that he could drive back and execute another explosion.
“So this means…”
“It means that you might wanna see this,” Willow said. “In ten, nine, eight…”
Gray hurried to her side of the table and eyed the laptop, which provided a bird’s-eye view of the brothel. It was sunny in Nevada. He remembered the heat fondly.
“Five, four, three…”
Two, one.
The drones didn’t have audio—at least not on—so Gray didn’t hear anything. But he watched as a massive chunk of the desert shook violently, kicking up so much dust that the whole area became blurry. Then, a big ball of fire erupted from the compound, and the brothel didn’t stand a chance. It collapsed and was engulfed in flames. AJ’s car exploded next. It caused Gray’s breathing to hitch. The fire climbed higher and higher, and Willow had to maneuver her drone farther away. Black smoke billowed out, something that would get picked up by someone very soon. It would be impossible to miss.
“Holy shit,” Gray exclaimed. As Willow’s drone moved away and simultaneously dropped altitude, they could see that the ground had caved in. Completely.
“Keep burning, keep burning, keep burning,” Willow whispered.
It hit Gray that the sand could easily smother the fire. “Where’s Darius?”
“In the bathroom at Aunt Erin’s.”
Clever. If—or when—the Feds came around to ask questions, there’d be proof of Darius being nowhere near the desert.
“Say bye-bye to all that evidence,” Willow mumbled.
Gray blew out a breath. “Is there any way—”
“Not a chance.” Willow shook her head. “It’s gone.”
Thank fuck.
It was still burning a lot too. The compound caving in and all that sand coming down hadn’t put out the flames one bit. That was good. A big relief.
“None of this would’ve happened without you,” Gray murmured. “You know that, right? You saved our asses.”
She nodded pensively and sat back. “Yeah. I’m pretty great. We all are. And my work is done. Man, am I gonna cry tonight. I can’t even describe what this mission has done to my brain. Just sorting through all the files I sent to the Feds made me panicky. I might punch Darius too.”