Dylan (Bowen Boys, #3)(12)
“Then I’ll sic Monica on your ass. We both know that she is pretty good with a gun.” Yes, he did know that. They had been working together to learn to shoot with Caitlynne, and not only had Monica been good at it, she’d done much better than he had.
He told her he’d help her and went into the house. He had more people there than he’d had since he bought the place. But the great part of it was, he was getting help on the house projects. He had already taken up the carpet in the dining room, and he’d been on his way out to get the flooring when he realized that the stuff from the school was there. He found Marc in the kitchen with the small chip.
“Somebody busted it,” he said to Caitlynne. “I can read the serial number on it, but what do you want me to look under? I’m sure that whoever put it in her—if that’s what they did—doesn’t want anyone to know.”
“I’m sure of that, too. So can’t we just go in and see who manufactured this thing and not activate it?” She sounded condescending, even to him. Dylan laughed. “You have a better idea? Last I knew these things were being used to track animals. For all we know it could be from her long lost dog.”
“She doesn’t have a dog.” She looked at him. “I’d be able to smell it on her, and so would anyone else in this house. She doesn’t own a cat, either. Not yet, at any rate. And I think you should ask a vet, not look it up.”
“Why?” Marc looked at the chip, and when no one answered him, he looked at Dylan. “Why ask a vet? I mean, I get that they would know, but how would they know why it was planted in Jack somewhere? And while we’re talking about Jack, why would someone name her that? She’s so not a Jack.”
“I’ll make that my first question to her right after we find out why she was shot to f*ck and ended up on my deck.” He tried to pull his temper in. “Sorry, but I don’t like you thinking about her in that way. Hell, in any way. It makes my panther pissy.”
Marc nodded. “I guess I can understand. I mean, having a mate can make you all sorts of possessive. Hey, look what just came up.”
He’d found a site that specialized in using the tracking codes to find animals. All that was needed was the twelve-digit code, and it would bring up a map that would help track them, sort of like a GPS in reverse.
“I can try and fake a bunch of numbers and see if anything comes of it. Or, I can simply switch a few of hers around and see what I get.” Marc looked at them both. “Or, you can see if anyone you know has a code on their pet, and we can use that.”
“I could tell them I’m thinking of getting little George a pet and want to see how this works.” Caitlynne went to the phone. “Now, who to call. I don’t know anyone with animals.”
“Surely someone in your office has a pet. Anyone. Hell, ask Marshall, he might have…no, he doesn’t, either.” Dylan snapped his fingers. “Dennis. I can call this kid in my class. He brought his dog in for show-and-tell, and was telling the class about this thing. Let me call. I’ll just say I’m getting one for your baby.”
Ten minutes later they had a code, and the map showed not only where the dog named Tinkers Damn was, but included a map of how to get there and a phone number to call if the dog had been found.
“The number is the same kind of system that’s on this one. Seven numbers and five letters, and they are in basically the same format. So now we’re pretty sure that this was used to track something.” Dylan looked at Caitlynne as Marc asked the hard question. “Do we use it or wait?”
“Use it, but not here. We’ll use the one in my office because it’s a scrambled line. That way it won’t come back to bite us in the ass if it is hers.” She looked at the stairs. “Christ, I wish she’d remember.”
“I wish my brother remembered that he was picking up flooring.” Khan stood in the doorway, sweaty and covered in dust. “You should have been back nearly an hour ago, dumbass.”
Dylan stood up and kissed his brother’s cheek as he walked by him. He had no idea why he’d done it, and nearly lost a leg running from him when Khan set off after him. By the time he was backing his truck out, he was bruised and sore and had a bloody lip, because when Khan had caught him he’d beaten him to shit and back. Smiling, he knew he’d aggravate his brother again in a heartbeat. It was just too much fun not to.
~~~
Blood was everywhere. Jack was even swimming in it, her body weighted down by it. She tried lifting her head out of it, her lungs filling with the red liquid. The harder she tried to get out of it, the more it pulled her under. When she felt it break over her face, she screamed.
“I’ve got you.” She fought against the arms that now held her. “Jack, it’s me, Dylan. I have you. Nothing is going to hurt you. I’ve got you.”
Clinging to him, she cried. She was safe. She had no idea why she’d feel that way, but she did. Holding onto him, she sobbed out what she’d seen. He continued to hold her.
When she quieted down, she felt stupid. She’d just cried like a small child, but when she tried to pull away from him, he told her to just wait.
“Your scream woke me from a dead sleep. I thought…Christ, I don’t know what I thought. Then you started saying something about not being able to breath and that someone was trying to drown you.”