Deadly Silence (Blood Brothers #1)(27)

“Not yet, but Denver is working on it.” Heath drew in air. “Why don’t you just ask her?”

Ryker nodded. “I’m planning on it, but considering she’s been keeping secrets, I’d rather know the truth before asking.”

Heath snorted. “That is not how trust works, brother.”

Yeah. Good point. Ryker reached into his back pocket. “The guy who hacked our system came into the office earlier and wants to hire us for a job.”

Heath shoved off the wall. “Really?”

Denver pushed open the door to the stairwell and stepped inside, his gaze going from one to the other. “We’re meeting here?”

“Yeah. I was just telling Heath that I met the person who hacked into our system. We need to scout the security cameras and see where he went next.” Ryker slowly unfolded the paper Greg had given him.

Denver sighed. “An external source wiped the security cameras. The hacker is good.”

That f*ckin’ kid seriously knew his electronics. “The hacker is about twelve years old, named Greg.”

Denver’s eyebrows drew down. “Twelve?”

“You could’ve done it as a teenager,” Heath said slowly.

Denver nodded. “Yeah, but we’re not normal.”

“Amen to that,” Ryker said. “I’m thinkin’ maybe this kid isn’t normal, either.” He handed over the picture of Sylvia Daniels.

Denver took it silently and handed it to Heath.

“Greg wants to hire us to find her. Says her name is Dr. Isobel Madison and that she’s part of some covert governmental agency,” Ryker said.

Heath shook his head, his eyes firing. “No way.”

Ryker kept a wince off his face. The woman had shown up at the boys home periodically through the years to test their scholastic and physical abilities. For a while, she’d claimed she was leading a governmental study about kids raised as orphans, but once Ryker had learned to discern a lie, he knew that was untrue. Why she’d studied them, he still didn’t know. “It’s not a coincidence this kid wants to find her.”

Heath’s chest lifted with a huge breath, and he blew it out through his nose. “I thought we were done with that witch.”

“Me too,” Denver said, staring down at the picture.

Heath growled. “Is the kid messing with us? I mean, he did hack our files. Maybe this is just another ‘Fuck you.’”

Ryker replayed the entire meeting in his head, his heart hurting for Greg. “I don’t think so. He’s almost desperate to find her, to the point where I could smell it on him.”

“Wait a minute. If he’s good enough to hack us, then why doesn’t he just find her himself?” Heath asked slowly, his hand shaking a little.

“Says he can’t.” Ryker rubbed his chin. “Says he read our files and saw how we find people nobody else can.” With skills they shouldn’t have, really. “Greg said he couldn’t find her but thinks that we can.”

“He knows about us?” Denver asked, his head going back.

That was good. That Denver was still speaking in complete sentences when talking about the past was a good sign.

Ryker shook his head. “There’s no way for Greg to know much about us, but he suspects we’re able to do something most folks can’t. He can’t understand the rest of it.” Unless the kid had his own special gifts. “It’s not a coincidence that Sylvia—or rather, Isobel Madison—studied and taught us…and this special kid, the best hacker we’ve ever found, is looking for her.”

“We cannot open that f*cking can of worms,” Heath snapped, his eyes wild. “Everything will unravel, and we just got to safety. Of a sorts.”

“I know,” Ryker said. “But what choice do we have? If we don’t help the kid, he’s going to turn us in to Sheriff Cobb.”

Heath scrubbed both hands down his face. “Damn it, I know. Even if the little shit wasn’t blackmailing us, we have to figure out what’s going on. I’ve always wondered about Sylvia, and it appears there’s more to her than we thought. Maybe—”

“Don’t say it,” Denver grumbled.

Heath cut him a hard look. “Maybe she has the answers about us. I mean, why we’re different. Why we have high IQs and super hearing. Why we can read a lie on most people. The weird stuff.”

“Maybe she knows about our families, the people we’ve been searching for,” Ryker added. It wasn’t a coincidence they’d created a detective agency to find the lost. “This kid may lead us to the answers we’ve been hunting for since escaping the home.”

Denver slowly shook his head, his eyes stark. “We have lives, and things are good. Digging up the past will lead to pain and death. You know that.” His voice broke, and heat swelled from him.

“What I know is that the past has always been coming for us. Now maybe we have a chance to get there first,” Ryker said quietly. He pulled out another drawing to hand over. “After Greg left, I quickly sketched his face.” The kid wasn’t the only one who could draw.

Heath studied the picture, his shoulders straightening. “Strong bones, sad eyes.”

“Yeah, and no doubt dangerous. Definitely dangerous,” Ryker added. He couldn’t let Heath try to save another kid in case everything went south.