Ride Wild(41)

Two pictures, side by side. One of them Slider recognized from Cora's phone.

"What's the other picture?" Slider asked.

"Traffic camera about two blocks away from the grocery store. Gives us a  nice side view of the vehicle," Dare said. "No good image of the  passengers, though."

Slider leaned in. His brother was right. The sun glare on the window  obscured the interior. "Is that a Datsun? Late eighties, maybe."

"Yup," Dare said, reading a note on his desk. "A 1985 Datsun 720 4x4 Truck King Cab with a white bed cap."

"I think Datsun might've been practicing some wishful thinking when they  used the word king," Phoenix said, staring at the old truck's image on  the screen.

"All right, Dare, what else you got?" Caine folded his arms, a scowl on his face.

Dare nodded. "It's an older vehicle. Unique enough to stand out on  traffic cameras if you know what to look for. According to Marz, that  makes it useful if you have software which can analyze and compare  footage from different cameras and aggregate all the times it hits on a  particular image. Which their new company now has."

"Tell me it picked up this truck," Mav said.

"Hell, yeah, it did," Dare said. One by one, he scrolled through the  images that Marz snagged off the camera footage. Most of them were from  nighttime.

"A bunch of those are from the same intersection. Over off of the Golden  Mile," Caine said, referring to the big commercial strip that projected  out from the center of town. Slider had noticed that, too, and  something about it was bugging him.

"Driver always seems to have a baseball hat on. I can't make out his face for shit on any of them," Phoenix said.

"No need to guess who it is." Dare slapped a sheet of paper down in front of them. "When I've got the car's registration."

It listed one Curtis Davis as the owner of a 1985 Datsun pickup.

"Fuck me," Slider said, as Maverick raked his hands through his hair and exclaimed, "Holy shit."

"Car we're looking at is blue," Caine said, leaning in to eyeball the document. "This says the color is rust."

"That's because he covered the color," Slider said pointing at the screen. "The blue on that truck is primer paint."

"So Davis is somehow involved with the 301 Crew, dogfighting, or maybe both," Caine said, his expression thoughtful-and lethal.

"Hot damn." Phoenix said, giving a fist pump. "Let's get Sheriff Martin  up here and share the good news that we can get rid of his asshole  colleague once and for all."                       
       
           



       

Jesus, how Slider wanted to do that, too, but he shook his head. "We're  not there yet. This is all circumstantial, which means we need more.  Sure as shit explains why Davis was in my fucking house, though. That  shit happens again and we're going to have a problem." Because it meant  that Cora was on Davis's radar, and if Davis was as potentially dirty as  this made him look, that was exactly the wrong place for Cora to be.

Sonofabitch.

"Slider's right," Dare said.

Maverick groaned. "Then what's our next play? Because this is the  closest we've ever gotten to nailing Davis. And I want him. I want him  bad. For being Slater's bitch, for his part in the dumping, and for  arresting Jagger."

"We go to the fight," Caine said. "We go and we place him there. And if not there, we bide our time until we nail him."

"Agreed," Dare said. "And we hope that Marz brings us more good news,  because he's working on the other research we wanted and he's still  running this vehicle image through that program."

"In the meantime," Slider said. "I'm worried about Cora now." Fuck, and  about the boys too. Because they were also there at the store that day.

Caine nodded. "The only saving grace is that she couldn't identify the  men. That's probably what Davis was there to learn. Hell, if it was him  she saw, he stood right in front of her and she didn't know."

God, the thought churned ice in Slider's gut. "And she told him that,  too. Maybe that makes her safe, but I'm not hanging my fucking helmet on  maybe."

"I don't blame you," Dare said. "Let's come up with a security detail  for your house. Something at a distance so it doesn't worry the kids."

"I'll get it in place tonight or first thing tomorrow," Maverick said.

Dare stood up. "And, Slider, anything else you need, don't hesitate to  ask. We'll have your whole family's back as long as it takes."

Slider appreciated the hell out of the sentiment, but it didn't make him  feel any better. What he needed was Cora and his boys in his sight and  in his arms. So he knew for sure that they were safe.



Cora's first sign that something was off was when Slider announced he  was taking a week's vacation from work. He shared the news at the dinner  table on Sunday night. All his reasons were good-he wanted to do some  work around the house, help Phoenix out more at the track, and pitch in  with making sure Bosco got settled.

But that didn't explain why Slider kept looking out the windows.  Checking that he'd locked the doors. And pacing around the house like a  caged animal.

Cora didn't want to ask in front of the boys, so she waited until they  were in their beds and she and Slider were tangled up lying side by side  in hers.

"Ready to tell me what's going on yet?" Cora asked, her room illuminated  only by the small lamp on her nightstand. She'd added a few personal  touches over the past few weeks-a jewelry box, a framed print of the  ocean at sunrise, a little bowl of sea glass.

Slider scrubbed at his face, and then he turned toward her. "That truck  you saw, there's a pretty good chance it belongs to Curt Davis."

It took a few seconds for the news to sink in, and then Cora's jaw  dropped open. "How do you know?" Slider explained the information that  Marz had sent to Dare, and Cora wasn't sure her jaw could drop any  wider. Reaching over, she unplugged her phone from the charging cord and  opened the pictures, and then she zoomed in on every one. "God, it  could be Davis. I can't tell."

"None of the shots of the truck we managed to grab caught a good image  of the driver either," Slider said. "But think, Cora. Davis was standing  in front of you. How did their builds compare? Their height?"

Cora ran through her memories. "I can't say for certain, but I can say  that there was nothing about the shorter man I saw with the dog that  would make me think he wasn't the sheriff who stood in your living room  yesterday."

"Our."

"What?"

"Our living room, sweetheart." He tossed the phone away and cupped her  face in his hand. "I want you to think of this as your home, too."

Oh, this man. "No one has ever made me feel as special as you do, Slider."

He kissed her then, deep and sweet, but flirting with heat. "I'm going  to make it my job to ensure you feel that way every day of your life."

Butterflies stirred in her belly as she retrieved a condom from her  nightstand and handed it to him. "Then make love to me," she whispered.                       
       
           



       

They came together slowly, softly, taking their time to explore and  linger. Slider's weight pressed her into the mattress as he moved  between her thighs, rolling those hips the way he did, filling her so  full that all she could do was moan. He worshipped her breasts and she  dug her fingers into his ass. They had no reason to rush and nothing to  hide from, not anymore.

And that had Cora thinking . . . thinking about how she'd said the way  to move on from the past was to make new memories to replace the old,  good memories to replace the bad. Cora wanted to try following her own  advice, because she didn't want to be afraid of anything, and she  refused to let the past have any hold over her. Not anymore.

She pushed at Slider's chest. "I want you to take me . . ." The way he  did. But the words got stuck in her throat as the adrenaline kicked up  in her veins. "Flat on my stomach. You on top. All your weight on me."

His eyes were a sudden pale storm. "Cora-"

"You won't be hurting me. I know you won't. But I need proof."

"Proof of what, sweetheart?" he asked, his voice strained with emotion.

"Proof that he's not still there." The words made no sense, not really,  but she couldn't think of a better way to explain it. "Please?"

He eased off her, and she couldn't help but notice how his body had  filled out these past weeks. He was still muscular and lean, but the  sharpest edges of him were softer now. And it made him appear bigger,  broader, even sexier. But what she most noticed was the dark expression  on his face.