Chapter 39
Ace
"She's got a fucking tracker on her car," I snap.
"I know," Wren says, still on the line, his voice coming through the speakers in the SUV. "That's another thing William had done. I'm trying to access the information."
"No, I mean, I put one on her car after leaving her in the hotel after I—"
"Do tell," Jericho says, and I can tell the man is just wanting to take the edge off the situation, but now isn't the fucking time.
"Enough," Hemlock snaps at the man before darting his eyes in my direction. "You have that information."
"Max has that information," Wren says. "Which means now I have it. I'm sending the information to you," Wren says, and as if he's a magician the map on the SUV console activates and the female navigation directs us to make a U-turn in point three miles. We've been driving in the wrong direction that we need to go for over an hour, putting us two hours away from where we need to be.
"Damn," Jericho says.
"Impressive, huh?" Wren says.
"You like Daddy's big cock?"
"I will turn you into a pillow," Wren snaps at the obscene bird. "The location looks to have been purchased under a shell company, but as good as the younger Preston has been at hiding who he really is, he didn't take too much care into hiding this very well."
"How long has he had it," Hemlock says as he slows down so he can follow the directions on the navigation.
"Kincaid said to go to the old hospital out on the highway. He's sending the chopper there."
Wren, having heard Jericho, redirects the navigation for us.
"Is this what it's like working for Cerberus now?" I ask. "Back in the day, we were sometimes stuck in a holding pattern for days, sometimes even weeks before we got new intel and could make a move."
"Welcome to a new age," Wren says, pulling a smile from everyone in the SUV. "Only there's a problem."
"Jesus," I mutter. "What the fuck now?"
Can't one goddamned thing line up right for us?
"The cabin isn't going to be accessible with a helicopter. I'm looking at the maps. He needsa hundred feet by a hundred feet to land, and the closest place I can see for that is a field about eight miles away."
"Can we have units there?"
Silence fills the line other than Wren's fingers working over the keyboard.
"I can SWAT them out there," Wren says, but he doesn't sound very happy about it.
"They'll be pissed," I mutter, knowing that SWATTING is when you call in a fake situation to get a large showing of police in a location where help isn't needed.
"That badge of yours will make them shut the fuck up," Wren adds.
"You don't talk, baby girl. Just open that throat for me."
"A fucking pillow," Wren warns again, but the bird cackles in the background as if the threat is never taken seriously. "Actually, there's an FBI office in Columbia. We can get them over there, but the local police would be faster. "
"I'll handle the local police."
I turn to see Jericho holding his phone up, Kincaid's name on the screen.
"Sounds good," Wren says, unfazed that someone else is stepping in to handle an aspect of that.
"I need you to keep a level fucking head, Ace," Kincaid says. I've heard those exact words so many times, but it's been decades since he's had to direct them at me.
"You got it, Prez," I say, an echo of the times I've said it in the past.
I watch the smile spread slowly across Hemlock's face as he turns his eyes to me for the briefest of seconds. There's a camaraderie there.
We're on the same team.
This isn't one good guy and another good guy.
This is Cerberus.
This is home.
He dips his head as if he's willing to see this through to the end no matter the outcome. He'd risk all for me, and I’d do the same for him. There would be no regrets in that decision on either one of our parts. It doesn't matter the muddy water under the bridge that chipped away at the both of us. There are no hard feelings, no bad blood.
"Jesus fuck," Wren mutters.
"I swear to god, Nelson. If you don't stop with that shit," I growl.
"Authorities just found Christopher Preston's roommate dead. They're saying suicide by hanging right now, but I bet if they dig further, they find something else."
I shake my head. How many people has this boy killed?
"The dad died of a heart attack," Wren says as if he can read my mind. "But I don't see how. Everything points to asphyxiation."
"He suffocated his own father?" Jericho snaps .
"The kid was like fourteen when his dad died," I say, recalling the facts from the family profile I was given when I first started looking for Sadie.
"He probably used drugs. Abrin or aconite. Hell, succinylcholine would be perfect, but he'd have to have access to someone in medicine for those things," Wren says, truly a man of vast knowledge about all things.
"Hockley's son is a doctor," Jericho says.
"You're implying that Christopher Preston has had a connection with the Full Deck Killer for more than five years?" I say, unsure that tracks. "I bet there are a lot of connections he could've made in that prep school of his."
"True," Jericho says.
"You know who he does have a connection to, well, sort of a connection?" Wren asks. "Nathan Adair."
"What?" Jericho growls, and I swear the man is seconds away from climbing over the seat to get to the fucking stereo system.
"The cabin he attempted to hide under a shell company was purchased from former Senator Robert Dyer."
"What the fuck did you just say?" Kincaid growls from Jericho's phone, still on the line to hear this conversation.
"Dyer purchased the cabin nine years ago from a shell company that we've been able to link back to Nathan Adair," Wren explains.
"I've known Robert Dyer for decades," Kincaid mutters, but his tone doesn't indicate that he doubts what Wren is telling us at all.
"Is it possible that Dyer has no clue about who Adair really is?" Hemlock asks as he continues to drive to the location Wren has directed us to in order to get on the helicopter.
"No," Jericho says. "Adair only worked with people who proved that they were just as twisted and criminal as he was. He has blackmail sources on every business associate. If there's any link between Dyer and Adair, it's because Dyer is dirty."
"Cora trusts him," I say, feeling betrayed by proxy.
"Why would he call us in?" Kincaid wonders out loud. "Is it all a setup?"
"Could be," Jericho says. "Nathan hates nothing more than being fooled or deceived. I can only imagine how pissed he was when he found out I helped Brielle escape."
"He knew Cerberus was sitting on that house," Hemlock says.
Hemlock did not work that case because we were already in the process of positioning him to go to East Tennessee where we knew there was a chance he could run into one of Adair's cronies or even Adair himself depending on how close we could get to the man. We couldn't risk blowing his cover before he even got started.
"William Preston is getting a call from an untraceable burner phone," Wren says. "Listen."
"William Preston," the man says when the call connects.
"Will."
"Chris? Why are you calling me from—"
"I went home like you told me to," Chris says.
"I didn't—What's going on?"
"Someone broke into the house and killed Faye. I got there just in time and was able to get Cora out."
I get cold chills from just how scared the man sounds. I'd believe him if I didn't know better.
"Chris, what are you talking about? If this is another prank—"
"I'm sending you the address of where we are."
"Let me talk to Cora," William says.
"We're safe," Chris snaps. "But I need you to come. We don't know what to do."
The line goes dead.
"That fucker is crazy," Jericho mutters .
"The address he just texted to William's phone confirms where they are," Wren adds.
"We're pulling up to the chopper," Hemlock says."Thanks for your help, Wren."
"No problem," he says.
"Why hire a fucking hitman if he was so capable of committing murder himself?" Jericho wonders out loud as we pile out of the SUV and rush toward the chopper.
The machine is too loud to express an answer, but as I climb onboard and buckle myself inside, I realize I don't have one. There may be some fucked-up reasoning in his mind as to why that was necessary, and if I know anything about sociopaths, they consider many avenues before executing a plan usually.
His being elsewhere when it happened had to have played a part in that decision. It could be as simple as the logistics didn't work for him or he needed Sadie dead but his true problems rested with the two people who have stuck close to him, not the sister that took off and rarely showed her face. Maybe it didn't matter how Sadie died, just that she did.
As the helicopter lifts from the ground, keeping at a hard angle to the left as it arrows us in the direction we need to go, I can't help but think we might be too late. Cora doesn't know how to handle herself in these situations. She hasn't been trained. She has to be feeling betrayed.
Is she already gone? Chris refused to let William speak with her, and there could be a reason for that. What if she could no longer speak?
"No," Jericho snaps. "You get that shit out of your head. You don't take that path until you have to."
I nod my head in understanding, but there's no way to stop the train. If she dies today, I die today, and now I fully understand why Noah prayed for death after watching the three people he loved most in the world get taken away from him right before his eyes .
There's no coming back from that.
There's no life after such a loss. My best friend would've died that day even if Alejandro Cortez left him with air in his lungs.
The sacrifice makes complete sense now, and as we fly in her direction, not knowing what we'll find, I know there's a very real chance that today could be my last because love always ends in tragedy, and I without a doubt love Cora Preston.