Maccon did as I asked, and his jaw dropped to the floorboard instantly. “How many years has your buddy been looking for his sister?”
“Seven,” I replied. “A little over seven years ago, Jett Cowen and I were Rangers together, and he got the call that his seventeen-year-old sister, Katherine, was missing. He fought to get discharged and has spent every day since looking for her. We lost touch soon after he got out, and I haven’t thought about him in years. If memory serves, she was last seen at some concert with a few of her friends. The cops assumed she was abducted on her way home and then murdered, but they never found her body, just her purse in some dumpster. It was soaked in sweat and blood, but Jett never could let sleeping dogs lie even when everything pointed to the fact that she had been killed. That stubborn asshole was right all this time. Apparently, she’s alive, and we are going to save her.”
Chapter 2
Reese
Two packs of cigarettes, three states, and eight hours later, we were pulling up to the tiny house I hadn’t seen since I was barely eighteen years old.
Throwing the Chevy into park, I grabbed Jett’s letter to read one more time. At that point, I had the damn thing almost memorized. As Maccon snored in the passenger’s seat, I racked my brain, trying to see if Jett was clever enough to leave a hidden clue or some shit in his words, but nothing was jumping out.
Hooah—that was the only thing that was off. Jett always hated all the Army chants and sayings, constantly complaining that they were stupid and only used when people didn’t know what else to say.
Shaking Maccon awake, I grumbled, “We’re fucking here, dude.”
He stretched and rubbed his tired eyes. “Now what?”
“I figure out the code to the back door and see what the hell Jett has stashed in this fucking place,” I replied, killing the engine and hopping out of my truck.
I looked down at my phone: three missed calls from Hawk.
Fuck.
“He keep calling you too?” Maccon scowled at me as we made our way around the side of the old frame house.
“Allie must have told him we took off,” I groaned.
It wasn’t that I didn’t want anyone to know what we were doing; I just didn’t want to bring a crap ton of guys in on this mission if there was nothing to actually do. For all I knew, Jett had just lost his damn mind and we were on a wild goose chase. I was just hopeful that wasn’t the case.
“He is her father-in-law. My old man is probably just trying to see what the hell is going on.” Hawk was our president, and I was his VP. Keeping Hawk in the dark was something I didn’t take lightly, and he would see that in the end.
My boots stomped up the back steps to the metal door with peeling white paint and a state-of-the-art code lock. Of course it was digits—why couldn’t it have been letters? I could have guessed all kinds of words and acronyms, but a fucking code?Damn it all to hell.
“Rangers lead the way,” I mumbled, trying to rack my brain. Jett wouldn’t have written those words to me if they weren’t a clue.
“What about 1775?” Maccon asked.
I glanced over at him. “What?”
He pointed to the lock. “The year the Army was founded. Couldn’t that be the code?”
I ran my hand over my bearded face. “That’s too easy. Also, how the fuck did you know that?”
Maccon shrugged. “I liked history the best in school, and besides, your buddy did say it was going to be easy enough for you to figure out. Why not go with something obvious?”
Then it clicked. Maccon was onto something—he was just thinking of the wrong year. Slowly, holding my breath, I punched in one-nine-four-five.
The tumblers turned then clicked, and the door creaked open.
“What was it?” Maccon asked, following me into the dark, musty house Jett had been shacked up in. The stale stench of rotting food and poor upkeep overtook me instantly.
“The year the 75thRanger Regiment was formed, 1945,” I responded.
We made our way to the kitchen, the soles of our boots sticking to the worn linoleum floor.
“This place is a shithole,” Maccon grumbled as he followed me through a narrow door and down the steps to the basement.
“You got that right, for fucking sure. Jett got it when his mom died when he was in high school. I don’t think it’s been kept up with since she passed.” The dank air was stale and smelled like a rat had died in the wall. “Fucking hell,” I bellyached, holding my hand over my nose and mouth.