Page 149 of The Case of the Missing Love Stone

“Club prospect?” Tom asks.

“Possible. Won’t know until the index confirms membership.”

A sharp pulse of distress presses through my bond with Roman.

I turn toward the open bay. Scarlet’s scent reaches me across the yard, despite the distance and closed vehicle. It thickens, sweetening under the rising sun. Roman opens the SUV door only far enough to call my name.

I cross the yard before Tom finishes speaking.

Scarlet is curled against Roman’s side, breathing through her mouth while one hand presses low against her stomach. Sweat dampens the hair at her temples.

I climb into the back seat and close the door behind me. The vehicle fills with her heat.

Her hand reaches for me. “Alpha.”

“I’m here, little omega.” I pull her across my lap. Roman supports her legs while I press my palm against the cramp. Her body folds toward the pressure.

“Did you find it?” she asks.

“Some.”

“The Love Stone?”

“No.”

She closes her eyes, breathing cedar from my throat. “Then it isn’t over.”

“No, sweetheart. Not yet.”

Roman pushes the cooling cloth against the back of her neck. “The bay is a transfer point.”

Scarlet opens her eyes. “The route.”

I take out my phone and show her the exterior photograph of the storage row. Behind bay seven, an old service lane slips through the fence and bends toward dense cypress.

She tries to focus despite the heat. “That isn’t the drainage road on the county map.”

“What is it?” I ask.

She enlarges the photograph with trembling fingers. “The old access line from my grandmother’s overlay runs south of here. This lane could meet it beyond the fence.”

Tom approaches the SUV but stops several feet away and signals to his phone. A ping comes a second later.

“They found a second document.”

He sent it electronically instead of approaching the door. My instincts barely register the courtesy.

An image appears on my screen. A typed delivery schedule lists dates, locations, and coded package descriptions. At the bottom, a narrow line has been drawn from bay seven toward the old cypress access.

Someone wrote one instruction beside it. Do not follow past transfer.

Scarlet studies it. “Rusk was never supposed to know where the route ended.”

Heat pulses through the SUV, slick, its perfume rising. She buries her face against my neck, and her teeth graze my skin as her body searches for relief. I hold her closer. Roman’s fingers lace through hers.

Technicians continue searching the bay while deputies spread toward the rear fence. A shout rises from behind the storage row. One of the officers has found fresh motorcycle tracks.

The tracks cut through the weeds toward the old cypress access, following a route Scarlet’s grandmother mapped.