The address led them to the house. There was nothing particularly unusual about the house for the area, but Carter couldn't help but feel a sinister presence hovering over it. The two-story house had good bones, though the white paint on the wood siding was peeling. The gravel driveway ended in a mini parking lot. A beat up red ford pickup truck was parked closer to the house, and the white van they were seeking was backed up to the small barn.

"That's it," Carter growled, his hand on the door handle, ready to jump and shift. But something clicked, and the door handle twisted back and forth ineffectually.

"You're staying in the car," Dare said. "That was the deal."

"Not if Brand is in there." Carter's wolf was so close to the surface, he had to lisp past his elongated canines.

"We have no idea if Brand is in there or not. I'm going in, with Trish as my backup, and you're staying here with the rest of the team."

Carter growled and started banging his side against the door.

"That's an order." Dare's tone shifted, going deeper and layered with the command of an Alpha. Everyone knew that when Alice Williams stepped down, Dare would take her place, and there was no question he was well suited to the task.

Carter couldn't help but cower away from that power and bare his neck. Satisfied Carter wasn't going to do anything stupid, Dare hopped out and closed the door behind him. The back of the van clanged shut, and then they all waited. And waited. Carter had started biting his nails, and he was down to the quick now. He wondered how that would affect shifted claw length. Trish came walking back to the car, and Carter sat bolt upright. She came to his door and he rolled down the manual window.

"Dare wants you," she said brusquely.

"He did something to the door," Carter said. "I can't get out."

"Try again," she said. And lo and behold, this time the door opened. "Inside,"

That was descriptive. But accurate, Carter found as he circled the open back doors of the white van.

"Is this the owner?" an unfamiliar voice asked.

"That's him," Dare agreed. "Roger here hasn't seen any shaggy dogs running around, Brand. You can't think of any other direction they might have headed, can you?" Dare wrinkled his nose, and Carter realized what he was trying to do. Stall for more time, while Carter tried to see if there were any scents that Carter recognized. Carter took a big breath, as if sighing. Nothing. Though if there had been any scent of Brand lingering anywhere, Carter would have sensed it as he walked up. And it wasn't like this guy had bleached down the van to kill any evidence; it was full of tools and the ground in grime of at least a couple of years' hard use.

Carter shook his head minutely.

Dare shook Roger's hand. "Well, thanks anyway, Roger. We'll take another drive around."

"I'll keep my eye out. You got a number I can call if I see him?"

Despair had started to wiggle its way into his soul. Wasn't there some statistic that if a major crime was solved in the first twenty-four hours, its chances became almost nil?

As they drove away, Dare called the Alpha's office with their update. "No luck. Just a normal, general contractor with a van full of tools… Yep… Okay, see you soon."

"Did the other teams have any luck?"

"Riley's team found their van at a bakery, wide open and being loaded up with cakes. They took a quick look around, but it was like ours. Clearly not our target."

"And Cole's team?"

"Still waiting to hear back from them. They had quite a bit longer to drive."

Carter slumped in his seat. If this last van wasn't the one they were looking for, what was the next step? "So, what now?"

Dare turned on his blinker as he came to a stop. "We head back and wait."

Carter didn't realize he was growling until Dare shot him a look that shut him right up. He texted his mother a quick update, that they were still searching for Brand. He'd asked her not to tell Jax yet. He'd hoped he would have Brand back before it became necessary to tell him, but that was looking more unlikely by the moment.

Dare's phone rang, and Carter's attention zeroed in on him, straining his ears to hear the other end of the conversation, which normally wasn't a problem for shifter hearing. But Dare must have had the sound turned way down, because Carter couldn't catch even a mumble.

"Here, give the address to Carter. Carter, can you manage the GPS? We're changing direction."

The voice on the other end wasn't one that Carter recognized, but it was so cheerful and bright, he could only assume it was the loud looking man who'd delivered updates to the Alpha. Carter changed their route on the GPS as directed, and offered the phone back to Dare, who hung up without speaking.

"We've got a lead, folks," Dare said loud enough for the entire van to hear. "Cole's run in to something interesting, so we're going to go check it out and provide back up if necessary."