Quinn slammed on the brakes in the middle of the road. The car behind him hit their horn and veered off the side of the road. They stopped and Quinn hung a U-turn. He was going in the wrong direction. He'd been going away from Nate all summer. Even before the mutilation murders had started. Even before Drew had come back in to mess up his Happy Ever After. He'd been the one going the wrong way.
"Where are we going?" Natalie shouted over the wind whipping past his ears.
"The arcade!" he shouted back. Because … "There is something about the arcade."
"What arcade? I don't know anything … " She stopped shouting as if she felt it too. The strange ghosting feeling up the back of his neck. The feeling he'd had that day so long ago. That something wasn't right. Something was very, very wrong. "Can this bucket drive any faster?"
Quinn pressed the accelerator to the floor.
Chapter Eighteen
Nathan punched a code into the security gate. There were no guards in the booth. Drew couldn't remember if there had been anyone in there on his previous visits.
Lonnie hadn't used the main gates. He'd driven in through the employee entrance. He'd slid a key card into a reader and the gates opened and closed behind them. Today, Nathan had driven them in through the front office and visitor entrance. Drew had driven right in the first day when he'd met with Natalie without a security clearance.
"There's only a skeleton crew on weekends," Nathan said, the sound of his voice startling Drew in the tense silence. "We don't use guards now with technology being what it is. There are security personnel inside. Mostly for emergency purposes. The crews handle the big orders that come up. With overtime pay for the weekend."
"Good to know you've kept your hand in, if the day job doesn't work out for you," Drew said. He tried not to think about the accusations against the man. Maybe … but no, Nathan didn't strike him as the jealous kind. Until today.
"Who do you think does the final vetting of most every employee to come through these gates?" Nathan smirked. Well, almost smirked. Nathan didn't smirk, but that was damned close to a smirk.
"Isn't that abuse of your position with the Sheriff's Department?" Drew leveled a disbelieving stare at his … at Nathan.
"Only if I do it under the table. The Sheriff knows I liaison with the security offices of Truman Steel and some of the other industries in the county. I don't get paid. And I don't use official databases. Mostly I confirm what is already known about a potential employee. You seem surprised. Not something your Special Agent in Charge had in that dossier of his, was it?"
That was an accusation if Drew had ever heard one. "I didn't compile that dossier, if that's what you're implying. The only conclusions I've ever made about you or your family are locked away in a file drawer in the Nashville Bureau. I'm not that important in the fucking FBI. They have no idea as to my involvement with you."
Nathan stopped the truck at an inner gate and punched in another code. He didn't park. He seemed to be driving aimlessly around the plant.
"Lonnie's truck would be in this lot. His office is in that building. If he'd come back for something, he'd be here," Nathan said a minute later.
"Oh," Drew replied at the change in subject. He'd actually forgotten why they were here. "Did you vet Lonnie?"
"Before my time. Dad hired him straight out of high school while I was still in the service, long before I came home to stay. He's been here since he was sixteen or so, working summers. When he graduated, it was my father who convinced him to go to college. I guess he was coming to terms with me not coming back. And Natalie was still in middle school. He needed to groom someone to follow in his footsteps. Lonnie was a smart kid. I met him not long after I came back. He was working for Dad and going to school and suspicious as fuck of me."
"But he's just a foreman." Drew was trying to imagine the man he'd met as some prodigy from the wrong streets but couldn't.
"His choice. He would be in Natalie's office now if he'd chosen that path. He has the degrees and the experience. Hell, he's more experienced than Nat, if you want the truth. But he wanted to be on the crews. And honestly, he's probably the best foreman we've ever had. No matter where he came from, or the color of his skin."
Drew mulled that over while Nathan finally pulled into a parking space. Guess they were going in after all. He climbed out when Nathan did and followed him through the checkpoint he'd used as a new hire just a couple of days ago.