Page 181 of The Case of the Missing Love Stone

A woman cries out. The sound carries across the hidden channel and breaks off sharply.

Wes grips my waist.

Roman closes around my other side.

The release site is no longer an abandoned place on an old map. Someone is using it.

Chapter 43

Wes Osprey

The woman screams again. This time, the sound ends beneath the hard slap of a hand. My alpha surges toward it.

Roman catches the back of my vest before I move. “Water team,” he says. “Thirty seconds.”

Thirty seconds is too long.

Scarlet stands between us, with one hand locked around mine and the other pressed to Roman’s arm. Her breathing comes too fast. The harsh lights beyond the trees turn the swamp white in broken flashes, catching on dark water and wet cypress trunks.

The generator vibrates through the soles of my boots. Sweet chemical residue hangs low over the channel, enough that my alpha wants Scarlet nowhere near it.

“We take her back,” I say.

“No.” Scarlet’s answer is adamant.

Another muffled cry carries across the water.

She looks toward it. “That woman may be dosed.”

“She may be bait.”

“Both can be true.” Roman moves closer to Scarlet’s back. “The boat team is coming from the east. If we wait for them, we hit the site from both sides.”

A flashlight blinks twice across the hidden channel. Then once. Tom’s signal.

The second team is in position.

Scarlet points toward a narrow line of roots beneath the water. “The ridge continues there. The channel only looks deep because the bank collapsed.”

“How sure are you?” I ask.

“My grandmother’s survey marks a crossing before the site.”

That isn’t an answer I like, but it’s the only one we have.

Tom signals forward.

We enter the water. Cold mud closes over my boots. The bottom drops, then rises beneath a submerged root shelf exactly where Scarlet said it would. I keep one hand around her waist while Roman steadies her from behind.

The generator covers our movement. Twenty feet ahead, floodlights surround a circular patch of raised ground between two channels. The old vow site.

White thread runs between cypress trunks in a rough perimeter. Marigolds and swamp lilies cover the mud in deliberate rings. Portable fans push mist from a metal basin toward the center. The sweet smell thickens.

At the center of the clearing, Myrtle kneels beside a young omega tied to a wooden chair. Maribel.

Her head hangs forward. Her hair is damp with sweat, and a treated sweetheart charm rests against her chest.

Sullivan Mercer stands behind her with a pistol.