He saw his brothers and weaved his way over to them, feeling a kernel of annoyance as he saw Jake sitting with them. Jake was Haven’s sheriff, and a good guy. He was a fair and decent boss. But they weren’t friends. Jake didn’t really have friends except for Saxon. So what was he doing with Duncan’s brothers?
Jake stood when Duncan arrived at the booth, moving aside.
“Duncan,” he said with a nod. A man of few words was Jake. He turned to Eli and Kellan. “Good to see you both. I’ll be in touch. Excuse me, I’m on duty soon.”
Duncan sat, staring over at both of his brothers. “Want to tell me what you were talking to my boss about?”
Eli flicked his gaze over to their older brother. Kellan glanced down at his beer before meeting Duncan’s gaze. “Jake’s helping us gather some information.”
“And here I thought you came to see me,” he said with slight sarcasm. His brothers rarely returned home to Haven. Usually when Duncan wanted to see them, he had to visit them. Their youngest brother had just gone off to college. If there was one good thing that came out of the money he’d made, it was that his younger brothers got the best education he could buy.
Eli sighed. “You know why we don’t like coming back here.”
Yeah, he got it. Bad memories. He didn’t know if he’d be here himself if it weren’t for Laken. He’d come home to wait for her. It had been a gamble.
“The old man’s been gone for years and without him, it’s actually a pretty good place to live.”
“Well, we could be staying for a bit, so maybe we’ll eventually see it the way you do,” Kellan told him.
Duncan stared at him thoughtfully. “Why? Just what were you talking to Jake about?”
Eli sighed. He and Kellan were only eighteen months apart and they looked enough alike to be twins. At times, they even acted like it. Right now, though, Duncan did not appreciate the silent conversation they were having without him.
“I’m a big boy. Just spit it out.”
Kellan stared at him seriously. Duncan could probably count with one hand the number of times Kellan had smiled since their mother died seventeen years ago. He’d taken on too much when she passed away, trying to hold them all together while their father drank himself to death.
Unfortunately, it had taken the bastard twelve years to do so.
“We’re here on a case,” Kellan told him quietly. “We’re investigating an attack on a sub. She had a fight with her Dom, a friend of Travis’s.”
“Travis has friends?” Duncan said with mock-surprise. Travis Black owned a private security firm, employing mainly ex-military and FBI agents. He wasn’t known for his easy-going, friendly personality.
Eli grinned. “Surprising, isn’t it?”
Kellan snorted. “Anyway, Duke Ryan and his sub were playing in a club in Houston when she took offense because he was helping another Dom with his sub. She left the club without telling him. When he went looking for her ten minutes later, she was gone. He thought she had gone back to her apartment. But she wasn’t there, nor was she at his place. And she wouldn’t answer her phone.”
Kellan took a sip of his juice. Like Duncan, Kellan didn’t drink. Not after seeing the way alcohol had affected their father.
“But she could have been taken for a number of reasons. Hell, she could have just run off. Are you sure she’s not with a friend, hiding out?”
Eli shook his head, looking sad. “Two days ago we got a call. Her body had been found. She had been tortured for days before she was killed.”
“Tortured?”
“Whipped, beaten, raped and there were numerous knife wounds. This guy is sick,” Kellan said grimly.
“So why are you here?”
Eli and Kellan shared another of those looks.
“When we looked into this further, we found something disturbing,” Eli began, seeming to weigh each word. “We don’t think this is the first time this guy has done this. There has been another case in Texas two months ago. A sub was taken when they leave clubs, then tortured and murdered.”
Two cases didn’t really form a pattern.
“We think this goes further back than that,” Kellan added. “We weren’t able to find any other cases in Texas, but once we started branching out we found ten similar cases spread out over five years in New York, Chicago and Philadelphia. At first it was once a year, then every six months. If it’s the same guy, he’s escalating.”
“So why are you here? Do you think he’s going to come to Haven?” Worry surged through Duncan and he vowed to get Laken back under his watchful care immediately.