Now it was time for them to play detectives. Tobias could smell the blood as well, but the odd thing was the scent wasn't anyone that he could identify. It was like it was someone new and it just smelled like blood. Tobias crouched down and dipped his pinky finger in it and licked it. Yup, it was blood. He just didn't know who it belonged to. Maybe if there was a trail they could follow, it would lead them to the owner of the blood. Both of them looked around the coffee place. Maybe they missed something and they probably would. Tobias wondered if Erick Grace had come in and cleared the scene and if there had been bodies, they were long gone now.
"Sorry we gotta do this and not planning on how to break into The Graves Estate and rescue Ella." Raven said as he looked over at Tobias and gave him a sympathetic look. He couldn't turn his back on his people and not look for them if they were in trouble.
Even though they were inside the coffee place, both of them could hear the rumbling outside. A bunch of vehicles had passed them and they didn't sound like small vehicles; they sounded like a few SUVs as they passed by. The vibration on the ground started to shake the building. Now this could just be some weird coincidence, but right now neither of them believed in coincidences.
"Are you two cops?" A male asked them. He looked to be about fifteen years old and his face was covered with pimples. The kid was wearing the Coffee Bucks uniform. It was a silver color and the apron he had on around his neck was green, and he had a name tag on. It was a cartoon cup of hot steaming coffee and the name next to the coffee cup was Aaron.
"The girl said there was an explosion and she said she thought a bomb went off." Raven said as he looked at Aaron. Now, to be fair, he hasn't really interacted with a teenager in some time. Now he considered Kara a teenager. He noticed something about Aaron. It looked like he had anxiety; the kid was looking around like he was trying to stay out of the view of security cameras that were not there.
"Now we had two of our regulars come in. A man and a woman. The man was white and the woman looked Chinese or something. I'm not good with details like that. After they got their coffee, there was a vibration and the whole building shook. I was just coming in for my shift when I saw it. The windows exploded and blew off the door. It knocked these two down and then I saw two big dudes cart these two off somewhere. Police came a little while later and told us not to talk to anyone." Aaron said. He was shaking and looking around frantically.
Tobias and Raven exchanged a sharp, knowing glance—the kind of look that spoke volumes without a single word. Marcus and Ms. Cheng taken, an explosion, a potential cover-up: this was serious, and they both knew it.
Tobias leaned in next to Raven so Aaron couldn't hear him. "Now that kind of explains the blood. If it's Marcus and Ms. Cheng's blood, why wouldn't we be able to smell their scent?" Tobias asked Raven.
"Maybe whoever grabbed them found a way to mask their scent. Could be something in the coffee or their blood mixed together and we couldn't identify their scent." Raven answered Tobias.
Before they left, Raven gave Aaron the number for The Murder Line just in case he remembered anything more. It felt like they were on a crime drama for a moment or two, and both of them headed back over to Tobias's truck. Tobias was the first one to get to the truck, so he leaned up against it and dug a smoke out and took a smoke break. He looked over at Raven, who was a few steps behind him.
"What ya thinking? Moira's goons?" Tobias asked when Raven was within earshot of him.
"That'd be my guess." Raven said, and he crossed his arms over his chest and shook his head. The Graves are really pulling out all the stops right now. Maybe the members of The Murder were going to be used as bait to lure out Tobias, and there was another thought Raven had. Ella was going to be used as bait, and that's the only reason they took her yesterday. That wasn't something that he was sure of.
Raven's phone started going off. It rang for a few seconds and then stopped. It did this a few times before Raven reached for the phone and checked it. He noticed a bunch of unknown numbers, and he chalked that up to some spammers trying to talk to him. He then noticed a few new text messages from The Murder Line. Only members of his group had this number and application.
Something in his gut told him that this wasn't good, and he opened up the message to read it.
The message read:
We have Marcus and Ms. Cheng. If you ever want to see them again, send Tobias to The Old Winchester Garage on Route 22. We will be waiting there for him. HE MUST COME ALONE!
Tobias had a concerned look on his face as he watched Raven's body language shift. It looked like he had gotten bad news, like his mother or brother had died or something. He kept his eyes on Raven and he watched Raven shake his head.
"Guessing Moira's goons have Marcus and Ms. Cheng, and they are saying for you to go to The Old Winchester Garage by yourself on Route 22." Raven said as he finally lifted his head from his phone and looked back at Tobias.
"This feels like a trap." Tobias said as he kept eye contact with Raven. Deep in his gut, he knew he couldn't leave those two behind. The Murder was a family and you went after missing family members. A few ideas popped into his head. Rescue the murder members and then maybe beat the snot out of Moira's goons so he could get some frustration out of his system.
"How far is Route 22 from here?" Tobias asked Raven.
"20-minute drive." Raven said, and he paused. He almost knew what Tobias was going to say and do because if he was put into the same situation, he would probably do the same thing. They were a lot alike and they were brothers in some aspect. They met as children at Corveth Harbor Elementary and just clicked. He felt like Tobias had always been the more reckless of the two, though.
"Go back to the clubhouse." Tobias said as he climbed into the truck and started it up. It roared to life, and then Tobias turned up the music as loud as he could. The speakers in his truck were doing overtime right now. He pulled out into the main road as fast as he could and then flew off into the distance, and Raven was left there in shock. He shook his head. He wasn't really that surprised at all.
Raven found his way back to the cannery, and he had a lot on his mind. Tobias walking into a trap wasn't something he had on his bingo card today. The door was still open and he simply walked in. He noticed that Kara had fallen asleep and Silas was sitting at the bar and drinking something. Raven walked over to Silas and sat down.
"No Tobias?" Silas asked Raven with a concerned tone in his voice as he brought the cup of coffee up to his lips and drank some of it.
"Nope." Raven said as he shook his head and sat on the stool next to Silas for a minute. He knew that he would need something stronger than this black coffee. Shit had gone down and he was unsure about how to process what he was thinking and feeling right now.
"What happened?" Silas asked.
"Fucking Moira's goons had happened!" Raven yelled as he got up off the stool and went behind the bar. He was looking for something. A drink and something he could use as an equalizer. He opened up a safe under the bar. Inside the safe was a few small handguns and a few knives. He stashed all this stuff here just in case something happened or someone was feeling froggy and wanted to start shit inside the cannery.
Inside the safe was a mint copy of Stephen King's The Gunslinger. It was his and Tobias's favorite Stephen King book from when they were young, and whenever the world was too much for Raven, he often opened it up and read a few lines. Moira felt like The Man in Black and The Graves Estate was the tower they were all searching for. A shot of whisky might calm him down, but him on alcohol right now might not be a good idea.
"So what are we going to do?" Silas asked as he looked over at Raven, and he watched Raven stuff two pistols into the waistband of his jeans. Right then and there, he knew things were not going to be alright. It looked like some of Tobias's brashness was rubbing off on Raven, and he knew that he couldn't leave the cannery. His daughter was here and they needed someone to watch the place.
"WE aren't going to do anything. I need to back up Toby, but there is something to that too. They told Toby to come alone. If I know my buddy, it's not going to be a problem for him, but I don't want his death on my hands if it goes sideways." Raven said as he looked at Silas, and he then looked towards the chair that Kara was sleeping on. He couldn't really leave these people alone to fight The Enforcers if they showed up. Now something inside of him told him that everyone was going to be fine, but he just couldn't risk it. He was going to go after Toby regardless.
The twenty-minute drive isn't what was killing Tobias; it's the fact that the murder had gotten pulled into this fight with him, and that was something that he didn't want to happen. Route 22 was nothing but pine trees, roads with broken asphalt, and dirt side roads. All of the houses in the area were run down or half-demolished. Most of the yards had overgrown grass that buried full-sized cars and trucks. The Old Winchester Garage. He could see it.
The garage was still in the distance, but he could see it.
"You'd better not have laid a fucking finger on those people." Tobias grunted out. The music was loud, and the bass in the song was making a gigantic booming sound inside the cab of his truck, and if you pulled up next to him, you'd be able to feel the vibrations of the music. His eyes were focused on the road; this was more focused than he had ever been in his whole entire life.
The only protection he had was a gun in the glove box that he had taken out and stuck into his waistband. There was a heavy weight in his chest as he finally pulled into the driveway of The Old Winchester Garage. It was a giant metal building with busted-out windows, and he didn't see any vehicles in the parking lot out front. The lettering on the building was faded, and he pulled in and sat right in front of the garage bay door as it slowly began to raise up and open.