They'd gone through basic training together, served in the same unit during Desert Storm, and come home to Arizona to try and build something resembling a normal life. Boone had become a cop. Creed had become a biker. Different paths to the same destination, trying to keep order in a world that didn't much care for it. They met at the diner on Main Street, the same booth they'd been meeting at for 20 years.
Boone looked tired. The kind of tired that came from too many years seeing too much bad and not enough good to balance it out. "Creed," Boone said, sliding into the booth. "I know why you're here, and the answer is I'm doing everything I can. " "Didn't say you weren't," Creed replied. "But you and I both know everything I can doesn't always mean everything that needs to be done. " Boone sighed.
"The kid's been missing 48 hours. No ransom demand, no witnesses, no evidence. It's like he just vanished. Kids don't just vanish. Someone took him, or he ran.
And Harper says he wouldn't run. " "Harper's his mother. Of course she thinks he wouldn't run. " Boone leaned back, rubbing his eyes. "Look, I've got two deputies and a budget that won't cover coffee, let alone a real investigation. I'm doing what I can with what I have. " Creed studied his old friend. There was something Boone wasn't saying, something hovering behind his eyes like a shadow.
"What aren't you telling me? " Creed asked. Boone was quiet for a long moment. The diner buzzed around them, the clink of silverware, the hiss of the grill, the murmur of small-town conversations that had been happening in this exact spot for 50 years. "Off the record? " Boone said finally. "We don't have records, Boone.
We just have conversations. " Boone leaned forward, dropping his voice. "Three weeks ago, we had a body turn up. Homeless guy out in the desert near the old copper mine. Beaten to death. " Creed felt his pulse quicken. "You think it's connected to Declan? " "I don't know.
The guy was a transient. No ID, no one claimed the body. We buried him in the county cemetery with a marker that says John Doe and a date. Case closed. " "Except it's not closed, is it? " Boone shook his head. "There were details that didn't sit right.
The way he was killed, it wasn't random. It was personal, angry. And there were tracks at the scene. Multiple people. I put in a request to investigate further, but I got shut down. " "By who? " "By someone higher up than me.
Got a call from the district attorney's office. Very polite, very clear. 'Focus on crimes that matter to the community, Sheriff Keller. Not every dead vagrant needs a full investigation.'" Creed's jaw tightened. "Someone's protecting whoever did it.
That's what I think. But thinking it and proving it are two different things. " Boone leaned back again, his face etched with frustration. "You know who owns most of this town, Creed? You know who's got the money to make calls like that? " "The Brennans. " "I didn't say that. " "You didn't have to. " They sat in silence for a moment. Outside, the sun was beginning its slow descent toward the horizon, painting the sky in shades of orange and red.
Beautiful and terrible, like most things in the desert. "If you're thinking about going after the Brennans," Boone said quietly, "don't. Thaddeus Brennan Sr. Owns the judge, half the city council, and probably the governor's ear. You go after him, you won't just lose, you'll disappear. " Creed stood up, dropping a 20 on the table.
"I'm not going after anybody, Boone. I'm just going to ask some questions. " "That's what I'm afraid of. " The sun had set by the time Creed got back to the garage. The building was dark except for the single light he'd left on in the office, a yellow glow that made the place look even more run-down than it was. He walked through the bay, past the Harley he'd been working on earlier, and into the office. The picture of Alpha Six stared at him from the wall, those six young faces frozen in a moment of time that felt like a different universe.
Creed sat down at the desk and opened the notebook again, started writing. Declan Morrison, missing 48 hours. Homeless man, murdered 3 weeks ago. Connection? He stared at the words, trying to make them form a pattern.
In Ranger training, they'd taught him that chaos was just order waiting to be discovered. Every problem had a solution. Every mission had a path to completion. But sometimes the path led through darkness you couldn't see the end of. A sound at the front of the garage made him look up.
The bay door was still open, and standing in the entrance, backlit by the streetlights, was the figure of an old woman. Ragged clothes, bent posture, a beggar by all appearances, but Creed's hand moved to his belt anyway, touching the empty space where a weapon would be if he'd been carrying one. The woman shuffled forward, moving with the careful gait of someone whose bones hurt with every step. She didn't speak, just moved into the light, and Creed got his first good look at her. She was small, thin to the point of frailty, with skin weathered by sun and wind until it looked like old leather.
Her hair was gray, streaked with white, hanging in matted strands from under a baseball cap that had probably been red once, but had faded to a color that had no name. But her eyes her eyes were wrong for someone who looked like she did. They were sharp, alert, the eyes of someone who missed nothing. We're closed, Creed said, keeping his voice neutral. The woman didn't respond.
She moved closer, her gaze sweeping the garage like she was cataloging every detail. When she got to the office, she stopped. And her eyes locked onto the picture of Alpha Six. She stared at it for a long time, too long. Can I help you with something?
Creed asked, standing up now, positioning himself between her and the desk. Old habits, never let a stranger get too close to your position. The woman looked at him, reached into the pocket of her coat, and Creed's muscles tensed, ready to move, and pulled out a small piece of paper. She set it on the desk and turned to leave. Wait, Creed said, but she was already shuffling back toward the door, moving with that same painful gait, disappearing into the night like a ghost that had delivered its message.
Creed looked down at the paper. It was old, yellowed with age, torn at one edge. And drawn on it in faded pencil was a rough map. A building, rectangular with specific markers that indicated doors, windows, structural details. At the bottom, two words written in block letters, basement, midnight.
Creed's blood ran cold. He knew that building. Everyone in Millbrook knew it. It was the old Brennan Copper Company Processing Plant, shut down 15 years ago when the mine played out. Now it sat on the edge of town like a monument to better days that were never coming back.
He turned the paper over. On the back, drawn in the same faded pencil, was another symbol. Small, easy to miss if you weren't looking for it, but Creed had been looking for it in one form or another for 34 years. It was the unit insignia for Alpha Six. A design so specific, so classified, that it had never appeared on any official documentation.
Only the six members of that unit had ever seen it. Five of whom were dead. Creed's hands were shaking again. He grabbed his leather jacket from the back of the chair, checked the Colt 1911 in his waistband, loaded, one in the chamber, safety on, and walked out to his Harley. The engine roared to life, echoing through the empty lot.
Creed sat there for a moment, his mind racing. This could be a trap. Probably was a trap. Someone who knew about Alpha Six using it to lure him out. To finish what Vic Maloney had started in that alley.
But if there was even a chance, even the smallest possibility, that the old woman knew something about Declan, about the murder, about any of this, Creed twisted the throttle and rode into the night. The Brennan Copper Processing Plant looked like something out of a nightmare. Rusted metal, broken windows, graffiti sprayed across walls that had once been painted company colors. The desert had been trying to reclaim it for 15 years, and the desert was patient. Creed killed the engine two blocks away and walked the rest of the distance on foot.