Blade (The Alpha Elite #11)

Chapter Forty-Nine

Blade

I fucking found her.

Not by the name I’d been given, but her vehicle.

A Jeep.

The same damn Jeep that’d been parked right under my nose at the lot next to AES HQ, and I’d missed it. Which meant I was fucking slipping, and she was either homeless or using the place to fuck. It was a toss-up which scenario was pissing me off more. But that shit I’d address later.

First, I needed to lay eyes on her.

After watching that initial 7-11 footage again, I took a gamble on the partial image of a green Jeep SUV. Then I hacked the store’s security feeds going back two weeks and scanned.

I got lucky.

Two hits from this weekend.

Both times, she parked within view of the exterior security cam, and I was able to run down the exact make and model of the vehicle. Turned out, only four hundred and change were manufactured, less than seventy were still on the road, and only one was registered in Miami.

Juniper Lakes. Bogus address. No corresponding driver’s license.

Using November’s software, I typed in the plate and ran a search of traffic cams in the greater Miami area.

The woman popped up all over the damn place. Mornings were a cluster. Evenings she fell off the grid. But every weekday, she was like fucking clockwork.

A coffee joint in Little Havana.

Where she stayed till closing Monday through Friday.

Glancing at my watch, I quickly ran a background on the place. A few minutes later, I had the basics. Family owned, three employees, all related, none of their IDs matched the brunette. No security cameras, no alarm system.

Assuming she didn’t work there, I grabbed a baseball cap, an extra burner, and drove to the place.

My plan was to show up early and recon. A single run-through of the layout, check the exits, and scout a surveillance location outside with a good vantage point. I’d wait her out till closing and approach in the parking lot.

Then she would know who the fuck I was.

I’d give her the burner—if she fucking took it—and aim for intel. Who she was. Her status. How the hell our wires got crossed. Why she’d kept texting that Reena chick. Who’d bought her cell. I’d interrogate the fuck out of her.

But I wasn’t delusional. With this woman and her mouth, anything was possible. Including her lying about everything or telling me to go fuck myself.

With the latter scenario occupying my headspace, I parked the Range Rover, got out, and walked into the coffee joint.

Then my plan fucking derailed.

Music blasting, windows down, a twenty-five-year-old green Jeep Cherokee pulled into the lot and skidded into a parking spot.

I double-timed it.

Bypassing the counter, aiming for a table in the back, I took out my cell and pretended to fuck with it as I pulled up the camera.

Shit was about to get real.