“I’m sorry I can’t do more to help,” Walt said out on the sidewalk.

“You’re doing plenty. And I appreciate it.” Despite the whole near-miss-with-a-baseball-bat situation, she felt an affection for the man ever since he’d insisted on charging into Charlie’s when they’d seen it’d been ransacked.

After Walt went back inside after promising he’d call later, Becca turned on Nick, wondering what she’d done wrong. “Hey, why did you cut me off before?”

“Sorry. I should’ve said something earlier. At this point, Becca, you have to assume you can’t trust anyone outside our circle. Information equals advantage. We don’t want to give away either if we don’t have to.”

“Oh. Okay. That makes sense. I guess I’m not used to thinking that way.” She dug into her purse and grabbed the stapler she’d brought, then stepped to the nearest phone pole to tack up a flyer. The spring breeze made her wrestle to keep the paper flat.

“No reason you should. Normal people don’t.” Expression serious, his gaze did a constant scan over the street. The sunlight made his green eyes brighter than usual. It was such a striking contrast to his dark brown hair.

She glanced at him. “You’re not normal?”

He smirked. “Not even a little. Come on, let’s head toward the convenience store.” He pulled his cell from his pocket.

“How many times do you think a Yellow Cab has picked someone up from that Handi-Mart in the past few weeks?” she asked.

“Good question. Hopefully not many.”

Becca paused at another pole, where she struggled to get the staple in.

“Here,” Beckett said. “Gonna hurt your hand.” He took the stapler and pounded a little metal hook into each corner like he was cutting soft butter, revealing a mountain range of purple bruises across his knuckles from punching the fridge.

“Thanks. How’s your hand doing?”

He frowned, then held up his righty and flexed his fingers. “I’ll live,” he said. Even though the words were abrupt, the expression on his face softened just a little.

She slid a flyer under the windshield wipers of each of the cars they passed. Maybe these wouldn’t make any difference in the end, but it felt good to be doing something. At the intersection, Beckett walked the four corners, hanging a flyer on the poles all the way around. The man was hard as heck to engage in conversation, but his actions proved he was a good guy. She’d just remember not to take his gruffness personally.

Nick stayed close to her side, his muscles braced and his gaze doing a constant circuit. His nearness resurrected uninvited memories of their morning activities in his bed. God, he’d felt so good.

“Marz is a really cool guy,” she said, not wanting to think about how amazing Nick had made her feel. Those orgasms had been so good they deserved to have a party thrown in their honor. Complete with confetti and noisemakers. Nor did she want to think about how he’d withdrawn and screwed it all up. “Not everyone would remain so positive after losing a leg.”

Nick nodded, deep admiration sliding into his expression. “He’s the best. Although he is possibly the worst singer you will ever hear in your lifetime.”

Beckett rejoined them and laughed under his breath. “That’s the damn truth.”

“And there are times you would give anything for a roll of duct tape to get him to stop talking for five minutes. But he is loyal to a fault and cool in a crisis . . .” He glanced to her, then Beckett. “Know what he said while Shane was working on him? After the grenade went off?”

The big guy’s head whipped toward him, eyebrows cranked into a sudden frown.

“What?” she said, feeling a little nervous about being between them. If they went at it again like last night, she was going to get squashed.

“He was flat on his back and losing blood like a sieve. I’d balled this scarf I had against the wound, and my hand was red in a matter of minutes. Shane asked him how he was doing. You know, trying to keep him talking to keep him conscious. And Derek said, ‘I think my toenail clippers are going to last twice as long now.’ ”

“Oh, my God. That is horrible . . . and funny.” She chuckled. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Beckett turn away, like he was scanning behind them.

When they reached the convenience store parking lot, Beckett grabbed more flyers to hang. The ice had slipped back into his demeanor, and she couldn’t help but wonder why. Becca and Nick went inside, and she looked around the guy in line in front of her to the store clerk, a middle-aged man with a name tag that read, “Prajeet.”

“Can I help you?” he said when it was their turn.

Becca slid a flyer on the counter. “Do you recognize this man, by any chance? He’s my brother, and he went missing. His neighbor told me he would catch cabs from here sometimes.”

Prajeet lifted the paper. “Charlie. I know him. Doritos and Mountain Dew, just about every time.”

Becca’s heart flew into her throat. “Do you remember how long it’s been since you last saw him?”

“Oh.” Prajeet stared out the window in thought. “It’s been at least a week. Maybe two. He came in to use the ATM. It was late, like after midnight. And, yes, he caught a cab.”

Nick stepped in close to her, his hand on her lower back and his thumb stroking her skin through her thin shirt. “Is there any chance you remember what day that was?”

“No. I’m sorry. But I think maybe more like two weeks ago than one.”

She held out her hand. “Thank you so much, Prajeet. I’m Becca. Would you please call that number if you think of anything else? Or if you see him again? It’s really important.”

“I will be happy to do that for you,” he said, returning her shake. He grabbed a roll of clear tape from under the counter. “And I’ll put this here, too.” He taped the flyer to his counter.

Gratitude filled her chest. She wasn’t sure how she’d expected people to act, but so far she felt like they were actually getting somewhere. Or maybe that was just wishful thinking? “That’s wonderful. Thank you.”

Outside, they made their way to the sidewalk and searched for Beckett, who was about half a block down in front of a gas station. She shifted her feet and looked around, suddenly filled with nervous energy and the desire to keep moving forward.

Nick’s hand fell on her shoulder. “Hey.”

Becca met his gaze. “What?”

“Everything’s okay. Breathe,” he said, squeezing gently.

Closing her eyes, she took a deep, cleansing breath. How did he know she really needed a little reassurance? “What if we’re too late?” she said, voicing her worst fear as she looked up at him again.

He shook his head. “Stay positive until you have a solid reason to think otherwise, okay? You’ll drive yourself crazy. Today’s going to be a marathon, so you gotta pace yourself.”

“Right. You’re right. Okay.”

Cupping her face, he studied her. “How are you feeling today, anyway? I didn’t get a chance to ask earlier . . .”

Earlier . . . as in when they were having sex and then he was giving her the cold shoulder. And was she imagining it, or had there been more than a hint of guilt in his voice? “Mostly just achy. And my side hurts. But I took ibuprofen and it’s manageable. You?”

The small smile brought out his dimple. “About the same.” Man, the combination of those harshly handsome good looks and his sweet concern was a real heart-stealer. And the more time she spent with Nick Rixey, the clearer it became that he was stealing hers. It had started before the sex, but clearly their closeness this morning had amplified everything she was feeling for him. The admission made her stomach flip-flop and her heart race and her knees weak—it was just . . . overwhelming in the midst of all this other chaos.

“Learn anything?” Beckett asked when he rejoined them. Nick filled him in, and Beck nodded. “Marz might be able to find that ATM withdrawal.”

“Good point,” Nick said. He fired off a text.

She huffed. “If we could go to the cops, they could get a warrant or a subpoena or whatever it is they need and get the bank to just give them the information.”

Nick frowned. “Yeah. It sucks, but until we know more, we gotta assume someone on the inside is helping the bad guys, which means for the time being we have to consider the police unfriendlies.”

“I know. Where to now?” Hard to believe she and Charlie were caught in a situation where she couldn’t trust the police. What the hell had Charlie found?

“I did the block up that way,” Beckett said.

“All right. Let’s head back the other way, then.”

“Oh, did you put one in that bus stop shelter over there?” she asked, pointing.

Beckett held up the stapler. “This doesn’t work in plastic or metal.”

“Finally, a problem I can fix.” She rooted in her purse and found the roll of clear tape she’d brought. “Ta-da!”

Beckett arched a brow. “You got a cold beer in there, too?”

She chuckled and passed him the tape. “Don’t I wish.”

Tape in hand, Beckett jogged across the street and taped a flyer to the inside and the outside of the shelter. For the next half hour, they hit up more cars, poles, and shelters. A barber agreed to tape the flyer in the window of his shop, and a pastor let them post it on the community bulletin board inside his church.

“Hold up,” Nick said, his phone buzzing in his pocket. With a quick scan of the relatively empty street, he pulled it out and answered on speaker phone. “Marz, this is Nick. You’re on speaker.”

“Hey. I got something,” Derek said. Becca looked between the men with wide eyes. “The ATM was a dead end. I managed to dial into it, and it was pretty easy to bypass the remote authentication system and override the machine’s firmware, but that only lets me record current and future transactions, not past ones.”