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When they were out of sight, Jack nudged my shoulder. “Let’s see what they put on that train.”
“I’m with you.”
He led us between the cars—the shadows longer between the stationary trains, the light from the lamps not penetrating this deep into the yard—moving on nearly silent feet.
Jack approached one of the cars and made a move to shove the door open, but I grabbed his arm. “It’s the next one.”
All I could see were his eyes, and he looked skeptical. “You sure?”
“Positive.”
“Okay.”
Surprised he didn’t try to argue with me, I moved to the next car and pulled the handle on the door. It didn’t budge.
“Helps if you disengage the bolt lock.” Jack slid the bolt out, and I pushed the door back slowly. It was heavy, and the sound of metal on metal echoed around us.
Once I had the door open enough to slide inside, I swung myself up into the car. A beam of light cut through the dark interior, and I turned to see Jack holding a mini Maglite. Five shipping crates sat in the middle of the car. Other containers filled the rest of the car, but I knew these were the ones we wanted. The markings matched what I’d seen when the forklift had gone by.
Pulling my knife out of the sheath at my hip, I ran it along the edge of one of the crates and pried it open. Jack did the same on the other side, and we moved around the perimeter until we had the whole lid loosened. Jack held his flashlight in his mouth and pulled the lid free. I half expected to see the painting, even though I knew the shipping crate wasn’t the right size to hold it, but that wasn’t what was inside.
“Shit.” Jack’s quiet expletive echoed through the freight car.
“This isn’t art.”
He looked down at the military-grade munitions case. “Definitely not.”
“Should we open the others?”
Jack shook his head. “They’re all the same size. I think it’s safe to assume they’re all the same thing.”
“What now?”
“Let’s get out of here and get back to the town house. We can call Reuben and let him know Mazal isn’t moving art, at least not today.”
“What do we do about the weapons?”
“It’s not part of our mission, so we leave it alone. We don’t know where they are heading, and following them will take us too far off course. We have to just let this ride.”
“I fucking hate that.”
“I know.”
“I spent a good part of my military career stopping this kind of thing. It doesn’t sit right with me that he’s running guns.”
“Yeah, but neither of us have any jurisdiction here. We weren’t sent in to shut down an illegal weapons sale, and this isn’t our problem.”
“Fine.” I hated that there was nothing we could do, but Jack was right. I helped him put the lid back on the crate, and we emerged from the train car back into the quiet night. The metal-on-metal squeal as we slid the door shut sounded too loud, and I worried we’d drawn attention, but when seconds passed and there was no sound of running footfalls in the yard, I breathed a sigh of relief.
Which was my first mistake.
CHAPTER
FOURTEEN
JACK
The hairon the back of my neck stood up a second before the first wolf shifter emerged from the shadows.
