Chapter
16
Annabelle
The Big Bull Bar was already half-full of customers sitting at the bar or tables—drinking beer and watching ESPN—impatiently waiting for the Longhorn’s game that was due to come on later in the day. Ignoring the crowd, I made my way up to the bar where an empty stool sat in front of Travis Henderson, the bar’s manager, and our primary suspect. He glanced up at me when I sat down, asking me what I’d like to drink without an ounce of recognition of having to push me out from the back of his bar a couple of weeks ago, which was good. If he had recognized me, it would have made me nervous.
An exit sign at the end of the hall flashed for a brief second as the metal door beneath it swung open. Two men, wearing faded blue coveralls and baseball caps, emerged from the sunlight, each pushing a hand truck loaded with a keg a piece. The guy in the front did a chin lift to Travis, who quickly placed my drink in front of me before walking off down the hallway. Travis must have finally learned to lock up after himself after I’d stumbled into his back storage area a few weeks ago because I watched him grab his keys from the front pocket of his jeans. His walk was unsteady, yet quick, as he made his way towards the delivery men with fingers shaking so badly they fumbled a little as he shoved the key into the lock.
Looks like I’m not the only one who’s nervous.
Travis then used something to keep the door held open and moved out of the way to let the two delivery men through the door and into the back. I slowly began to sip my Coke while I kept my eyes on the TV situated in the corner closest to the hallway. I watched the pattern of the two delivery men bringing their kegs into the bar through the hallway exit, disappearing into the back, before turning around to go outside for another load. Ten trips. Twenty kegs total. That’s a lot of beer for this small town bar. Shit, it would be lucky if the bar patrons could finish three in two days, let alone ten for a regular weekend. It wasn’t even a holiday, but it was game day. Football games in the south rivaled church. You simply didn’t miss a day – or game for that matter.
Looking around, I wondered where the hell Travis went. It’d been forty-five minutes and my ice had already melted. A few cheers erupted around me as the game finally began and the Longhorns took the field. Perfect timing.
I weaved my way past the cheering fans, whose eyes were glued to the cheerleaders on the screen, to the long hallway off the side of the bar, and towards the illuminated exit sign. I passed Boyd and slyly slid my palm across his shoulders as I walked behind him. Something seemed off as I kept putting one foot in front of the other.
My mind seemed to lose focus and kept rewinding to the other day, watching Bobby and Seth interact with each other. Like it was going to be the last time I would ever get to see or be a part of something that wonderful again. Pushing the thought to the back of my mind, I forced myself to focus on the job at hand.
I blinked at the sun’s blinding light as the door swung open again and one of the delivery men in coveralls came through. Keeping my head down, I brushed past him, and quickly pushed open the door to the ‘Lil Cowgirls Room’, stepping into the dimly lit bathroom. Keeping the door cracked open about an inch so I could get a peek into the storage room diagonally across the hall. The same room we found the weapons in from our previous visit to this bar. The delivery guy scanned up and down the hall, looking around suspiciously, as if he were doing something wrong and not wanting to get caught, before he finally disappeared around the room’s corner and out of sight.
I was going to have to get closer.
Standing there for a few minutes, I waited to make sure no one was coming before easing the bathroom door open. After double checking up and down the hall to see that no one was watching, I crossed over to the door that led into the back. Keeping my body hugged up against the wall, I started slowly moving down towards the room where we had found the guns stored in before. It didn’t take long before I could hear them.
Their voices were muffled by the sounds of the game and the men screaming at the wide receiver, who had apparently fumbled the ball, but it was still easy to distinguish them from the rest, mainly because of the heavy, Spanish accents filtering through the crack in the door. From what I could see, the kegs were surprisingly empty upon arrival, instead of full. The lids looked different, too. Like they were screwed on and didn’t have the normal spout for a tap. This wasn’t your normal beer keg delivery after all.
I held my breath when I saw Travis open the crate on the far side of the room and begin to dismantle the weapons. The men in the room had positioned themselves to set up a little assembly line, with Travis at the crate separating the guns, then handing them down the line, ending with the familiar faced guy, who was arranging them into the now lidless keg. Where the hell had I seen that man before? It took me about a minute as I stood there watching them dismantle guns and pack them away in the kegs before I remembered. He’d been one of the civilians standing outside the homes in the neighborhood from the Alamo Heights bust by the DEA. Oh shit. He’d been under our noses almost the whole time and we’d missed him.
Ten kegs down and ten to go.
Pain exploded in the back of my head as I felt the blunt end of something connect with my skull. It’d been fifteen years since I’d last felt that kind of pain in a shitty, rundown trailer in Georgia. Before the blackness closed in on me from all sides, I saw the evil, sneering smile of the second suspect we’d watched here at the bar weeks ago with Travis. Where the hell had he been this whole time? I hadn’t even realized he was here. How stupid of me. I vaguely heard him ordering the others to strip me down.
My last thought before I lost consciousness was, Dag-gum, I’m in serious trouble.
~~~
Bobby
“Two men. Bluish coveralls and baseball caps. Jesus, they could be the start of their very own bar joke. ‘Two men walk into a bar—’” Declan snickered into the comm.
“Can it and finish the damn ID,” Jaxon snapped.
“Make that three men,” Chase spoke quickly in my ear. “He always forgets the driver.”
Declan kept going as if he hadn’t heard them. “Does anyone else have a bad feeling about this? I mean twenty kegs for this hole in the wall? It only had the two taps that I saw the other night and they weren’t even the good kind. Shitty beer is a travesty.”
My mind was racing and wouldn’t slow down. My ability to control it was gone the second Belle had walked into the bar. My instincts were telling me something wasn’t right. The hairs at the back of my neck were on end and my insides felt like they were tied up in about a million knots. When we were together in Georgia and I was in the presence of that asshole of a father Belle had, I used to get the same feeling. That kind of internal alarm that screamed danger was in the room. Right now, it was back with a vengeance, making me sick to my stomach.
Forty-five minutes passed before we saw anymore movement. By then, it felt like my head was going to explode with anticipation. I watched silently from the trees as the delivery guys started to bring presumably empty containers back out of the bar. They marched their hand trucks up the small ramp and into the truck. The sounds of them strapping them in echoed off the metal walls of the vehicle. They disappeared back into the building and once again we waited to see what they would do next.
My angle of sight wasn’t the best if I had to take a shot for any reason because of how the truck was parked, but it was good enough for surveillance purposes. The door opened again and two men came out. The taller delivery guy was holding the smaller one’s waist and helping him into the truck. Accident on the job by the looks of it. All twenty kegs were strapped in and ready to go. The three men quickly jumped into the truck and left the parking lot with a small dust cloud following them. It was all very anti-climactic after working myself into such a snit.
Only a few minutes had passed before I heard Jaxon over the comm. link, “Boyd’s checked the bar twice. No sign of Belle anywhere.” I felt the blood drain out of my face and my heart started to pound away in my chest. Then Jaxon barked, “Shit. He found her clothes.”
Fuck protocol. I saw nothing except red as I jumped up from my secure position and ran towards the bar searching for Boyd. He should have had her back! A partner always had your back. Where the fuck had he been? I felt two sets of arms drag me backwards before I even made it to the door.
“Belle’s missing, Bobby! Beating the shit out of Boyd isn’t going to find her,” Chase hissed into my ear. “Calm down, brother. Get it together. I’ve already activated the tracking devices.”
I glared at the door as Boyd stepped through with Jaxon and Riley. The three were locked in a heated argument as to why Boyd couldn’t go to Mexico with them, if that’s where they were headed to get Belle. There was a reason the ATF had contracted the help of the Ex Ops Team. This was one of the many scenarios for why our group was needed. Boyd had no jurisdiction, nor the means or training to slip in under the radar like we did. Belle’s partner wasn’t liking being shut out like this, but then, he didn’t have to like it and none of us had time to sit around to hold his fucking hand until he felt better about the reality of the situation.
“Back to the hotel. Pack and gear up. We lift off as soon as we can figure out where they’re going,” the Commander growled out. He gave jerky nods to my detainers as they forcibly turned me and shoved me towards the truck.
I exploded. “FUCK! I knew something wasn’t right, Dec. How the fuck am I going to explain this to my son? Tell me what the hell I’m going to say to Seth!”
Planting his hands on his hips he growled back, “You don’t. Tell him, you and Belle are going to be out of town for a few days for work and have the Sheriff keep an eye on him. Don’t make the kid worry until he absolutely has to. Keep him out of it.”
Without second guessing myself, I pulled the comm. link out of my ear and placed the phone there. Hearing only one ring before the Sheriff’s voice answered sharply, “What do you want?”
I took a deep breath to calm my out of control heartbeat and chaotic thoughts.
“I need a favor…”