Charging out onto the porch, down the steps, and crossing the yard, I reached the gate and saw hoodie guy three houses away, disappearing down a driveway. Under normal circumstances, I would have followed, even at that distance, because I ran every day and was faster than I looked. The problem was, me being in hot pursuit would leave Benji alone in the house, and I couldn’t have him unprotected, not without knowing how many people were gunning for him. Literally gunning for him with high-powered rifles.
Walking back toward the house, I saw Benji standing in the doorway looking at me expectantly, which, of course, drove my failure home.
“Did I tell you to get up?” I roared at him.
“I was terrified that you were shot as soon as you ran out the front door!” he bellowed back, which stopped me where I was at the base of the steps. His yell was unexpected. “What if I was inside cowering while you were out here bleeding to death? Did you think about that at all?”
The flush on his cheeks and neck, his furrowed brows, balled-up fists, and his body held ramrod straight all told me how furious he was with me. And seeing it, him livid with me, pulled the plug on all my bluster. Groaning, knowing he was right, I climbed the steps to him and wrapped him in my arms. The force of it pushed the air from his body. I wasn’t, on the whole, a gentle guy.
“You scared me to death,” he rasped, pressing his face to my chest.
“Shit,” I grumbled, tightening my grip for a moment before letting him go and turning him around toward the door as the rain and thunder began again in earnest.
Inside, he sat down on the couch while I took off my wet socks—I’d run outside in my stocking feet—hung them up in the bathroom, then went through my duffel and found another pair. Once that was done, I took a seat beside Benji and called Dix. He answered on the second ring.
“You realize,” he said after I explained the situation, “that finding a footprint in the yard or a fingerprint on a fence in this deluge is hardly possible.”
“There might be fingerprints on the side of the house,” I argued.
“Or not,” he countered. “I can get some people out there tomorrow, but we’re buried in this meth thing today.”
“I know. I’m just frustrated, and the fact that I have to call you and not someone here in town is crazy,” I vented. “As I was running after the guy, all I could think was what if I was a regular person with a stalker, or fighting with someone down the street, or a million other things that get taken care of by local law enforcement.”
“Yeah, it’s not a great system when something like this happens, but you have to figure the normal here is that nothing happens in Rune.”
“Or it does, and the locals take care of it themselves.”
“Which is also possible. And somewhat terrifying.”
“What time should I expect someone from forensics tomorrow?” I asked, feeling uneasy.
“We’ll stop over there tonight before we head out,” he assured me. “It’s the least we can do for the man who alerted us to a string of meth houses.”
I scoffed. “Yeah. Do you have suspects yet?”
He chuckled. “We do. We picked up three of them, and it looks like they’re the entire brain trust. They’re taking members of my team to every site where they cooked—or attempted to cook—to make sure each location is rendered safe, either by going on a bulldoze it to the ground list or a renovation one.”
“Got it.”
“And by the way, I was going to call you with this, but they did say the only reason they were following Mr. Grace was to see where he and the Scooby Gang were going next. They had no plans to hurt them, just wanted to stay ahead of them showing up at their cook sites.”
Funny that he called them the Scooby Gang as well. “So you’re saying they were only watching Benji and the girls.”
“That’s correct.”
“And you believe them?”
“They rolled on each other so fast I can’t imagine anybody’s holding anything back.”
It was not great news. I’d still been hoping the meth guys had been the ones to take a shot at Benji, and that maybe even one of them had been outside the house checking on him, but that was no longer a viable suspicion.
I thanked Dix and hung up and noticed then that Benji was, for the second time that afternoon, curled up in my lap fast asleep. I was going to move him, get him situated on the other end of the couch, but he was warm and content, and so was I.
Wrapping my arms around him, I squeezed him tight, which brought a decadent moan up from his chest before he snuggled in closer and was snoring in seconds.