Total pages in book: 145
Estimated words: 133975 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 670(@200wpm)___ 536(@250wpm)___ 447(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 133975 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 670(@200wpm)___ 536(@250wpm)___ 447(@300wpm)
“Got everything you need? You know you’ll have to do without the fire. They’ll smell it and come straight here.” He took his time putting it out, making sure very little smoke escaped when he did.
She looked around. “Best place I’ve lived in a while.”
“You never took me to your apartment. All the nights we had dinner, you always went back to the salon. Now that I think about it, I just assumed you had a little place over the salon.”
“I had a bed in the back room of the salon. I travel light. I keep a bag ready. I’m not a collector. It takes minutes to disappear. My equipment is packed up and put in storage by a friend until it’s safe to get it out.”
He knew the concept. He was always prepared to make a run for it. Every member of the club was ready. Those with wives and children were ready as well. Czar believed in always being prepared for any possibility. That rule had saved their lives many times over the years. Their backup plans had backup plans.
Keys left her reluctantly, but he didn’t look back. He needed to get things done quickly. That meant setting as many traps as possible around the small cave. If he wasn’t successful in his hunt, he wanted to ensure Lyric lived. He hiked several of the trails and left a few tracks here and there to buy time. That was what it was going to be all about. Buying enough time for his club to show up.
Once he was certain Lyric was as safe as he could make her, he hiked back to where the truck was a burned-out wreck. That would be the starting point, the place where those coming after them would first establish a presence. They would want to see for themselves what happened to their men. Keys knew Merrit and even Chester and Hank had spoken with someone from that location.
The Headed for Hell club used these mountains and the system of caves for their gun and drug running, and Code was certain they were involved in human trafficking. The club had been entrenched in the territory for years. That meant they knew the mountains and were familiar with all the back roads and trails. It would be far better to locate them, see how many, and then follow the pairs sent out to hunt for signs on the various trails. That would save him valuable time.
Keys had a built-in map in his mind. He always had. He wasn’t a man to get lost. Once he’d made a journey or he’d looked at a location, he could find his way back easily. Even in the forest, he had no trouble making his way back to the site where the Headed for Hell club members had taken them to torture and make their video to prove they had done their job.
Keys and Destroyer had established they were out of work for the moment, taking time to ride free between construction jobs. Both had impeccable paperwork: Keys was supposedly his last name, and Destroyer had been designated Riker. They portrayed themselves as hardened, used to the road, lethal if crossed and not intimidated by any of the club members. They would have made perfect recruits, but the club had passed on them.
Back home in Caspar, at their bar, a couple of Headed for Hell brothers had come in to party when they’d been in the neighborhood. Keys was playing in the band. Fortunately, Seychelle, Savage’s old lady, had come in to audition and the idiot thought he might put his hands on her. Savage had shut it down with one look, and the two had left. Keys had dodged that bullet. Neither remembered him, and he’d been careful to stay away from them.
That didn’t mean they hadn’t met the members of the Headed for Hell club on multiple occasions in this town. They’d frequented the bars and were downtown quite a bit. Keys knew them by sight, but not one of the eight men who now stepped out of the two four-wheel-drive SUVs were men he had met. They weren’t wearing colors; instead, they looked very much like a few of the militia groups he’d run across from time to time. Men who kept to themselves and raised their families mostly off the grid. Often, they were ex-military. Most just wanted to be left alone. They definitely weren’t members of the Headed for Hell club.
So, what the hell was going on? No one came up the mountain without the Headed for Hell club’s permission. Locals warned hikers to stay away, told them honestly that people disappeared in the mountains. Was this how hikers disappeared? Were these men living in the mountains with their families? Had they formed an alliance with the Headed for Hell club? It was entirely possible.