“Oh shit,” Ian groaned.
I snapped my head up, and there, being helped down the stairs, was Drake Ford. I knew it was him without asking; he was smiling even though his left eye was swollen shut because Cabot Jenner had his arm around him, leading him. So even though blood stained the collar of his T-shirt, various cuts and contusions littered his face, and he was holding his side as if in pain, he was in heaven. He beamed at the smaller boy, who was slender, graceful, and simply radiant. They were night and day, and I understood the attraction right then and there.
Drake was all tight muscles on a swimmer’s frame. He was handsome, but there was nothing extraordinary about the brown hair and brown eyes unless you counted the way he was gazing with great longing at Cabot Jenner. Dressed in jeans and a flannel shirt and the bloody T-shirt, he could have been any boy in any small town. His boyfriend was another story.
Cabot was all boneless sensual movement, with light blond hair and big green eyes framed in long, thick gold lashes. His skin was flawless; he had delicate, sharp features with a short upturned nose and small bow lips. If I was eighteen, he would have been all I wanted too.
“Come here,” I said, gesturing to them.
They moved as quickly as they could, reached me, and waited. I put my hands on Drake, checking him over. “Who hit you?”
He didn’t answer.
“My father and his men,” Cabot whispered for him, and when his eyes flicked to mine, I saw the tears in them.
“I need you to go upstairs and pack a bag,” I directed. “Everything you want to take that you can’t live without. No electronics go with us, so reset your phone, laptop, and anything else. You’re walking out of your life right this second.”
“What?” Jenner gasped from where he knelt in the dirt.
“Wait, now,” Holley said, moving up beside me, grabbing Jenner by the bicep and hauling him to his feet. “You have no call to removing Cabot from his father’s—”
“He was with Mr. Ford the night he encountered Christopher Fisher. Until Mr. Jenner is questioned, I have no way of determining what precisely was said or inferred to him by Mr. Ford. I cannot, in good conscience, leave Cabot Jenner here since he, too, is a potential secondhand witness,” I explained logically. “Also, if I were to leave the younger Mr. Jenner here, and if the men looking for Mr. Ford were to show up and appropriate him, he could be used to coerce Mr. Ford.”
“You—” Jenner began.
“Therefore,” Ian continued my train of thought, “we have no choice but to include him in the provision for Mr. Ford.”
“What?” Jenner yelled.
“We’re taking your son,” Ian translated, his focus on Cabot as he took hold of Drake’s bicep, easing him free of his boyfriend’s grip. “Go get your shit, kid. One bag only. Do it now.”
He ran.
“Wow.” Drake smiled at me with his split lip, his closed left eye, and blood-filled right. “I’ve never seen him move that fast.”
“I suspect he wants to go with you,” Ian surmised.
“I will get my son back,” Jenner promised sternly.
Stepping around in front of him, I met his gaze. “This will be the last time you see your son, sir, unless the threat against him and Mr. Ford is eliminated. I don’t think you fully grasp what you’ve done here, but removing a federal witness is a very serious crime.”
Both Jenner and Holley stared at me in confusion.
“Have you not heard of the Malloy crime family?” Ian asked.
I got an e-mail alert and stepped back so Ian could talk while I checked my phone. The message was from Kage, and he explained he would expect status in another two hours when we would report either spending the night in Bowman or leaving with Ford. After I texted him, he sent one back, agreeing with my decision to remove Cabot as well. He would have the federal protection order changed. I tried to send him back a quick thank you, but my text didn’t send. I tried e-mailing as well, but suddenly I had no connection.
“Hey,” I said to Ian. “You have Internet on your phone?”
Pulling it out, he looked at it a second. “No, I got nothing.”
“Chief?” I asked.
“Yes?”
“You have any bars on your phone?”
Holley checked, and when he lifted his head, he was scowling. “I don’t even have emergency service. My phone’s dead.”
Jenner’s phone, when we pulled it from his pocket, was in the same condition.
“Marshal!”
We all turned toward the house where one of Jenner’s men was coming down the stairs, moving fast. When he reached us, it was like his boss wasn’t there: all his focus on Ian.
“There’s no electricity in the house or anywhere on the property. All we have is the backup generator.”