When the police call the slaughter of his mother and brother a home invasion gone bad, Mika doesn't believe it. Because he has no way to prove otherwise, he closes down, refusing to talk about what happened.<br><br>That is until Buck, a bouncer at a local bar Mika visits, convinces Mika to open up to him. When he does, Buck not only learns about the murder, but also that Mika grew up living off the grid until his father died, two years previously, at which point his family moved to the city.<br><br>They begin to bond as they try to figure out the reason behind the murders, which may revolve around the family property in the mountains. All they have to do is prove it, without being killed in the process. Only if they can will they take a chance and move their growing friendship on to something more.

Hunting a Killer

In the bathroom, the doors of the cabinet beneath the sink were wide open, and as in the kitchen, the shelf had been removed, as well as the panel at the back. The mirror had been taken down and was sitting on the floor. Someone had pried away the boards of the wall behind where it had hung, revealing dirt and nothing more.


“They didn’t take the backing off the mirror,” Buck said. “So we’re probably right, whatever they’re looking for has at least some bulk.”


“Now we have to figure out what it is,” Mika replied.


“And where it is, if it’s here. Did they dig anymore in the hole at the end of the hall?”


Mika went to check and returned, saying, “No. My bet would be that it has nothing to do with everything else. Somebody, probably teens from the collection of beer cans upstairs, decided to play miner and gave up when they realized how hard it would be to dig one.”


Chapter 22